Addiction

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  • Addiction
  • Disordered Eating
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older man bending down on stair
Shame, Alcoholism, Stigma, and Suicide
Conventional addiction treatment suggests we have to let people hit rock bottom before we can help them. But what happens if rock bottom is dying from suicide?
woman with lines drawn on face
Childhood Trauma, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, and Plastic Surgery Addiction
With painkillers like OxyContin, the overdose reversal drug naloxone, and detox/maintenance medications like Suboxone, the pharmaceutical industry is making a profit off people addicted to opioid at every stage. Opioids are highly addictive and sometimes, especially in combination with other drugs, deadly.
narcan box and spray
Long Term Effects of Overdoses on the Brain
With painkillers like OxyContin, the overdose reversal drug naloxone, and detox/maintenance medications like Suboxone, the pharmaceutical industry is making a profit off people addicted to opioid at every stage. Opioids are highly addictive and sometimes, especially in combination with other drugs, deadly.
prescription drug bottles
No, You Aren’t a Drug Addict If You Take Antidepressants
Addiction or dependence? Words have meaning — and when it comes to something as serious as addiction, getting them right matters.
Neon sign "you are what you listen to"
8 Super Relatable Songs About Addiction and Recovery 2014-2019
Drug-fueled parties, overdoses, stories of survival and despair. These songs deal with all that and more.
Person hand on their face
Finding Meaning in Tragedy: Addiction, Trauma, and Activism
Turning grief into activism is a powerful way to process and give meaning to the pain of traumas like the death of a loved one who struggled with addiction.
woman walking up stairs
Can 12-Step Programs Treat Dual Diagnoses?
Effective treatment needs to include both the substance use disorder and the co-occurring disorder in an integrated approach because the two conditions build on each other.
scrabble tiles of lifelong learning
I Don’t Always Feel Relief After a 12-Step Meeting
Why would someone continue to go to something that they don’t always like and don’t feel immediate relief from? I'm playing the long game.
header image of happiness
Letting Go of Control: How I Stopped Trying to Force Solutions
Recognizing that I am not responsible for and cannot fix other people’s feelings is powerful; it frees up so much space and time for me to do my own healing and growing.
image depicting thoughtfulness and drama
Are the 12 Steps Safe for Trauma Survivors?
When the 4th and 5th steps are done without support for the symptoms of PTSD, they have the potential to retraumatize.
top down view of desk with office items and stethoscope
What Is Evidence-Based Addiction Treatment?
There is no one-size-fits-all solution; any list of evidence-based treatments is going to include a wide variety of approaches.
a dark library bookshelf
How Does AA Work? A Review of the Evidence
AA is cloaked in misconceptions and mysticism: a society of “former drunks” who tout spirituality as a means to cure the chronic, genetic, and life-threatening disease of alcoholism.
Multi-exposed silhouette in green and purple
Addiction or Mental Illness: Which Should You Treat First?
Substance use can alter behaviors, moods, and personalities so severely for people with addiction that without specialized knowledge and experience, it’s difficult to determine underlying causes such as mental illness or trauma.
Is Dad Drinking Again?
“Are you drinking again?” I said it. It was out. The question was with me only as long as I said it. I was trying to be casually supportive.
Hands and a glass
I Just Want To Drink
Now that I’m here, I really want a drink, but Alejandro won’t let me. I’m so nervous and anxious. Lost. My thoughts are circling, and I can’t stop the spiraling repetitiveness of my obsessions. I’m afraid.
Women in a class
The Importance of Women’s Recovery Spaces
I’ve heard rumors suggesting that women’s only recovery meetings are not good because they’re just “man-bashing.” This is unequivocally false; just because something isn’t for you doesn’t mean it is against you.
Is It Possible to Stay Clean Without Getting Sober?
For the purposes of this essay, clean is defined as being off “hard drugs” and sober is being off all drugs (alcohol included). Accepting these definitions, is it possible to stay clean without getting sober?
Teaching Kids About Drugs: Alternatives to DARE
Any program predicated on the idea that people need to “just say no” causes the opposite effect. High risk groups tend to be encouraged to participate in the forbidden behavior.
Recovery Sayings One Day at a Time
Doodling, drawing, and coloring impromptu art is a go to method for me to stay centered. Maybe it'll work for you, too.
Weeding Out Anxiety
I allowed a seed of anxiety to grow and take roots in other parts of my psyche. It is kind of like when a tree brings water up through its roots to nurture itself, only in a much more fucked up and non-poetic kind of way.
Binge eating at a holiday party
This is what a few hours in the life of a compulsive overeater are like. It wasn't a constant binge, but a stretched out lifelong binge. I cannot recount how many days I experienced this over three decades of my life.
Am I depressed or just introverted? The truth about friendships.
Being depressed and an introvert can make it hard to tease apart what these social urges are attributed to. Social contact helps treat depression, but depression causes social isolation. Is it depression or just introversion?
fries and burger
Eating Obsessions and Body Negativity
I think I’m emotionally eating. I really need to not do that. I have to be really careful with addictions. I could very easily become an alcoholic I think. I need to be so careful to never do that.
Hugs
Where to Get Help for Suicide or a Mental Health Crisis
A comprehensive listing of suicide intervention and crisis support hotlines and contacts. Talk to someone via chat, text, phone, or email. Find help for yourself or someone else.
Suicidal and Not Giving Up
TW: Suicidal ideation. Raw, honest, painfully real journal journey to a dark time of suicidal thoughts. Get help at suicidepreventionlifeline.org call 1-800-273-8255
Photo by Alex Iby on Unsplash
Drinking as Self-Harm
When I can only see the world through foggy glasses, the urge to destroy myself by drinking again becomes an enticing option. Drinking can be a method of self-harm and was for me.
TV Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash
Drunk Watching Intervention
People say that reality TV is just scripted lies with a dose of reality, but Intervention showed me my own reality. My obsession with the show, Intervention, planted some warning flags in my line of vision. I had to fall over a ton of them before I realized they were there, but I finally did realize.
Neon sign: You are here
Sobriety Can Be Scary
Nothing negative is happening. I mean, no big things are occurring that I should feel threatened about. This anxiety and fear is coming from someplace else. I can’t sleep. I wake up every hour and am having vivid intense dreams and nightmares. What is wrong? It isn’t easy to deal with stresses again without my…
Gendered Language in 12-Step Programs
Resistance to changing the gendered text of AA literature places an unfair burden on the many people who want to get sober but feel ostracized by the oppressive language. It others people in a program that is specifically meant to be inclusive to all.
Waving the white flag
Learning To Be Honest
Lying so often feels like the easy way out, but I've been learning the hard way that honesty is the only way to face demons and beat them. To learn from the shit in life and to handle the pain of the world, to see the good things and not just the bad.
Why I am airing my dirty laundry
There is a lot of value in talking about survival and moving forward in life. It is important to see what the future can hold, but when you feel alone in the thick of sorrow the only thing that you want is to feel less alone.
Solo Tree Black and White
Alcoholic and Spiraling Towards Bottom
Angry at myself. I’ve been drinking every single day for like a week. I know why I’m doing it. Without something to confuse my sense, I don’t have to deal with this internal struggle.
Summer - Lignano, Italy - Travel photography
How To Practice Self-Compassion in 6 Steps
Self-compassion protects us from ourselves. Another 2017 study published in School Psychology Quarterly found that self-compassion protects adolescents from inflicting self-harm because "those high on self-compassion may be more likely to use adaptive strategies" for dealing with pain and suffering.
The Family and Medical Leave Act and Addiction Treatment
The United States does not have a great health care system to help people with substance use disorders (SUD). At every socioeconomic level, treatment is not easy to access. Stereotypes about addicts are outdated and inaccurate. Addiction and alcoholism are usually treated like moral failings or personal choice.
Wedding at the Beach
Why I Didn’t Try To Lose Weight For My Wedding
Photo Courtesy of Adrian Herrera of Victor Herrera Photographers To take care of myself in the months preceding my wedding I had to make a conscious effort to not dive into dieting. Wedding weight loss was off the list of things for me to do, or to even attempt. As soon as I begin to…
How to Stay Sober on Vacation
Summer is here and the warmth radiating into the office window conjures up dreams of poolside lounge chairs and remote sun-kissed beaches. While you mentally plan your dream getaway and add pins to your vacation planning Pinterest board, guilty and anxious thoughts about drinking can trickle in. You don’t want to throw away your sober…
Crushed can of alcohol punch
Willpower Doesn’t Keep Me Sober
Surely, self-control and moderate drinking were skills I could learn. If someone would just tell me the secret, I would be able to solve the puzzle and be cured. If I tried harder, if I was punished enough to learn discipline, if I went to enough therapy…if…if…
Drawing of eye
Opioids, Dissociation, and PTSD – The Shocking Connections
Animals that are put under constant duress seem as if they are on an opioid like heroin. Scientists also observed animals reacting like addicts in withdrawal when an opioid blocker was used to disrupt the flow of natural endogenous opioids.
Fireworks
Why I Won’t Be Making New Year’s Resolutions
Setting big goals is dangerous because, unless resolutions are understood as flexible processes, the only outcomes available are to fail or succeed. For me, that is a risky proposition. I lack the ability to moderate. New Year’s resolutions are rarely successful. Research published by Statistic Brain, a non-partisan independent research group, found that only eight percent…
Social Anxiety and Racing Thoughts
I prefer to go under the radar than let people get close and reject me once they get to know me. I am afraid to be honest.
Sur de Chile
Is Guilt Selfish? Regret, Shame, and Relapse
Since guilt is cited as a frequent relapse trigger, we need to uncover the layers of internal regret. Looking back over journals from different periods in my life, guilt has always been a major character in my evolving chapters of self-destruction. I have heard it said that alcoholics tend to think they are the piece…
Yellow cocktail with NO sign
39 Excuses for Not Drinking
Other people shouldn’t have a problem with you saying no to a drink. Unfortunately, as with many scenarios, "no" is not always accepted as a final answer. There may be people who, for reasons of their own, will pressure you to take that first drink. Not everyone wants to disclose alcoholism, so what can you say to make people leave you alone?
Blurred image of girl in glasses, yellow background.
Denial and Blackouts: A Vicious Cycle
Blackouts are drug-related amnesia. Binge drinking can lead to memory loss and make it difficult to form new memories. Someone in a blackout might turn into an incoherent version of Dory from Finding Nemo who won’t stop repeating the same phrase, but a lot of the time it is difficult to tell if someone is blacked out.
How I Learned to Love Meditation
It isn’t easy to deal with stresses again without my old crutch of booze. It can really suck. The world around me is loud, crowded, and smelly. Combine that with the obsessive thoughts that regularly run laps around my brain—it’s a recipe for a meltdown. To my surprise, sprinkling in some meditations completely changed the mix.
Drugs
Will Big Pharma Support a Non-Addictive Opioid?
With painkillers like OxyContin, the overdose reversal drug naloxone, and detox/maintenance medications like Suboxone, the pharmaceutical industry is making a profit off people addicted to opioid at every stage. Opioids are highly addictive and sometimes, especially in combination with other drugs, deadly.
Flower by Sebastian Bota
5 Happiness Tips When You Have PTSD
Living with post traumatic stress disorder and her bluesy sister, depression, has drastically changed how I handle everyday life. Anxiety and lethargy applied for permanent residence in my body, and I thought I had to fight to have their applications thrown out. Turns out I didn’t have to fight, I had to give up and stop trying to control everything.