Category: Addiction

Why do people cut?

People cut to:

  • Help them feel something when they are numb inside
  • Be able to physically see the pain they feel inside
  • To punish themselves
  • Push their pain away
  • Feel a sense of control, joy, or excitement
  • Communicate their emotional pain to others
  • Distract themselves from emotionally painful issues

To those who can’t fathom it, cutting is a mysterious practice. Why would anyone do that to themselves?

People cut to cope with any number of situations–grief, rape, thoughts of suicide, an eating disorder, depression, sexual abuse, relationship disruption, and more. Cutting is a way to turn intangible pain into tangible … Read more...

My son relapsed after ten years

by Cathy

When we think of drug addiction we often think of people who have thrown their lives away; they may be homeless, hopeless, made poor decisions have no support system, or they may be like my son. He was an altar boy, a boy scout, played sports, won academic awards, and has an extended family who loves him and continues to want the best for him.

It could be, and is for many, a dual diagnosis; mental illness and addiction or a legitimate introduction to opioids after a diagnosis of a chronic illness or an accident. Many times the … Read more...

How do I help my loved one with an addiction?

how to help your loved one with addiction
Thank you to my friend Connie for posting this visual on Facebook and inspiring this article.

So many parents reach out to me and want to know what to do about their child with addiction. I also hear from others about their parent, spouse, sibling, friend, or significant other. For the most part, I hear from distraught parents so I’ll use those pronouns but know this is applicable to anyone dealing with a loved one who is addicted.

People are always disappointed when I tell them the answer is to get help for themselves. That can’t be the answer right? … Read more...

Emotionally Naked with Kari Schwear: Gray Area Drinking

If you or someone you know is drinking a lot and you wonder if it’s too much. It doesn’t appear they are physically addicted but could they be emotionally addicted? Not sure? You can always take the 7-day D.E.C.I.D.E.

Here are the gray area drinking points she covers:

1. What is gray area drinking?
2. What are the stressors that drive the behavior?
3. What are the limiting beliefs?
4. Questioning the Drink
5. Thoughts and Emotions
6. How to think Through the Drink
7. What happens when you want to address your own gray area drinking but your … Read more...

Yeah but…

Transcript of Video: How often have you used that phrase. I would but…..[insert excuse here].

This COVID environment is tiring. There are so many rules to follow and generally finding resources for anything is taking twice as much time and effort. Some of us are supposed to work full time in a house that doesn’t have a dedicated workspace and at the same time be teaching our kids while they learn online.

Still, others have relapsed and have to go through the whole process of finding support all over again due to the isolation brought on my COVID. Or you … Read more...

Is the pain of holding it in greater than the fear of telling?

You get to a place where you don’t give a rat’s @$$ what anyone thinks anymore. Not that you have no fear at all. You do. Just enough to make telling your story that much more authentic.

There is never a time where there is no fear at all. There is never a time when it doesn’t feel uncomfortable. But at some point, you have to do it for yourself and for others. Because when you tell your story, others are inspired to tell theirs. The relief is heavenly.

You might wonder why you worried for so long. Feared the … Read more...

Parents of Addicted Children

by Donna Marks

There’s a 12-Step program for just about everything. Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACA) has been around for a long time. It was a spin-off of Al-Anon (significant others of alcoholics), which evolved from Alcoholics Anonymous. ACA is a 12-step program that offers help to adult children who have been emotionally traumatized by a dysfunctional family.

According to Claudia Black, a dysfunctional family operates under specific rules: “Don’t think, don’t trust, don’t feel, and don’t talk about it.” The secrets and silence are generally related to shame-based behaviors, usually addiction-related. 

I’d like to see a 12-Step program for … Read more...

Numb me

Wish I could go back to the way it was
before I ever had a taste of the stuff
life wasted from drugs
powder replaced faith and got traded from love
hearts now decaying to dust
scratchin’ my face as I escape the hate with a buzz

–Numb me, by Charles Aubrey Rogers

If this is not a testament to never doing drugs, I don’t know what is. Once it sucked my child into depravity, shame moved in and took up residence.

I’ve been combing through Charles’ music and this is just a snippet of a song. He … Read more...

Should you kick your addicted child out of the house?

Fill in the blank here. Addicted spouse, sibling, friend.

Living with someone who is addicted is hard and you have had enough. The lying, manipulating is bad enough. Your loved one swears they are not using but you know the signs. They are not going to rehab as they said.

Why won’t they get help? Why are they lying? Why are they torturing you like this?

You think they are selfish and unkind but what you are seeing is the disease. Your loved one is buried under all that behavior. They have not surrendered to the fact they have a … Read more...

Unresolved grief can trigger later addiction

I met grief when the police officer uttered, “I have some sad news to share, your son Charles has been found dead this morning.” “Met” is probably too gentle a term. It was more like grief and I had a head-on collision. The news that my son Charles killed himself was a painful twist of the knife. At that moment I was assaulted by so many feelings at once.

Losses can be traumatic especially when it’s an early or unexpected death.

No one is born with directions on how to grieve and after it happens you crave a road map. … Read more...