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In one of the readings in my 12 Step group, we read “Just for today, I will get a better perspective on my life.” At some meetings, you’ll hear some chime in “not yours.” It’s easy to look from the outside in. Looking inside, finding perspective among all the emotions and thoughts and ingrained self…
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My addiction is best described by my IOP (intensive outpatient) instructor: Maladaptive coping skills learned in our childhood In other words, my addiction stems from ways I learned to cope with life as a child. It’s my opinion that all addicts have this in common. For me, the disease of addiction can be summarized in…
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When I got clean, this phrase was so confusing! I feel things all the time. Isn’t that the same thing? I’ve learned that noticing a feeling and allowing myself to actually feel that feeling are very different. For me, feeling my feelings begins with noticing an emotion, but them I need to name that emotion,…
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A friend of mine has a million one-liners that I love. This one practically defines my life lately. How many times have you noticed your life was going well, only to sabotage it somehow? Or create mountains out of molehills? An interesting thing about our brains is how the desire for comfort and stability can…
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Kintsugi, also known as kintsukuroi, is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the cracks with lacquer mixed with gold, silver, or platinum. It is a technique that emphasizes the breaks and repairs as part of the object’s history, rather than attempting to hide them. As a philosophy, kintsugi celebrates the beauty of…
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Fourteen months into recovery and my life is still feels chaotic. I’d been ignoring many things in my addiction; it’s partly why I used. Facing life was absolutely too horrific and terrifying. I ran from life and put all my energy into taking care of my daughter best I could while the disease of addiction…





