So often we hear people saying “But why don’t they trust me? I’ve been clean for a few months now, I’ve done 3 months of rehab, surely, they should trust me already.” Firstly, I think we need to look at what a relationship looks like […]
Early Recovery Demands
There are a few “suggestions” for people in early recovery. I say suggestions in the same way that it’s a suggestion to pull the cord on a parachute when you jump out of a plane. The first thing to realise is that recovery has to […]
Surviving the Silly Season
As we fast approach the holiday season and Christmas time, many people in recovery start to feel the anxiety. They have a lot of spare time, they have to attend family reunions where alcohol is usually involved, and financial pressure rears its head. These are […]
Recovery isn’t just about stopping the using
Many people come into treatment and think this is recovery, if I could just stop using/drinking/acting out my life would be fine, it would go back to “normal”. Here’s the thing, what’s normal? Is normal that life you had before you started using/drinking? Is normal […]
Outgrowing Early Recovery
I’m taken back into those first few months of early recovery, some fond memories, some hard battles. Some lost and some won, one thing was certain from the start, recovery needed to be more than just not using. I wanted a new life, I’ve so […]
Recovery Actions have Expiry Dates
Many people come through our treatment centre and believe that the work they put in here is enough and that the work they put in here is going to carry them for the rest of their lives. This is a dangerous myth and one that […]
Do and Dont’s for Early Recovery
In Early Recovery this is probably the single most important piece of advice for someone who continues to struggle with drug or alcohol addiction. The reason such a person is struggling is because they are dealing with a problem all by themselves, and they are […]
Relapse and what to look out for
Relapse is more than just using alcohol or drugs. It is the progressive process of becoming so dysfunctional in recovery that self-medication with alcohol or drugs seems like a reasonable choice. The relapse process is a lot like knocking over a line of dominoes. The […]
Maintaining Recovery in early recovery
If you want to maintain recovery and keep running strong, you need to take the same approach a mechanic would take when tuning up a car. But what should you do in order to maintain your recovery successfully? How can you react to the little […]
Complacency/Self Sabotage
Complacency sounds like this, "now that everything is better I can stop doing the things that made my life better in the first place". Like a person that suffers from depression, once they start taking anti-depressants they start feeling better. The depression lifts and they […]
