There seems to be a common misconception that when we stop drinking and using, out of nowhere we will become these perfect people. Alcoholics and addicts (non-alky’s too) have an inner need for perfection. From time to time in recovery, I hear this thought-process: “I was only bad when I was out there drinking and…
Merry Christmas Friends! Many times the way forward is to look back, to read and study the wisdom of prophetic leaders whose brilliance opens us to the limitless possibilities and potentialties that reside within and between us. On Christmas day nearly a half-century ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stood before his congregation at Ebenezer…
It’s challenging to learn new talking and listening boundaries in recovery. In fact, it’s evolutionary. Our efforts to learn how to talk and listen to the people we want to be intimate is generally interrupted by internal signals within that get transmitted to us from our past. Many of us read these signals as we…
Do you sometimes have trouble seeing how your behavior impacts others? Do you rage at your partner and after you calm down apologize and brush it off by saying, “That was my alcoholic/addict behavior?” Do you have trouble communicating your fears, disappointments and desires to your partner? Do you obsess about your ex-partner’s and your…
There is almost no bigger challenge in recovery than being married or in a committed relationship. I say this having worked in the field of mental health and addiction recovery for many years. During that time I have come across hundreds of recovering addicts and non-alcoholics who have struggled to maintain a loving relationship. From…