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Addiction Support

Forming healthy relationships in early recovery from alcoholism is tricky. If you go the route of inpatient treatment or Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), you'll soon learn the phrase "people, places, and things." Much of that boils down to avoiding people from your active addiction to help you stay sober. So, how does someone new to recovery approach forming healthy relationships and avoid ones that may lead back to alcoholism and addiction?
Foreboding joy is a concept I discovered recently. In her latest book, "Atlas of the Heart," Brene Brown describes 87 emotions that humans experience. While I could recognize and identify times when I felt most of the feelings she listed, foreboding joy was difficult to understand. Why do I run away and catastrophize when things are going well?
Depression and alcohol have always been interconnected throughout my life. I always felt that I avoided dealing with my mental health issues because it would end the illusion that I was a heavy drinker but not an alcoholic. In addition to questioning whether I was an alcoholic, another subject arose -- Is drinking every day causing my depression, or is my depression the driving force behind it all?
Have you ever wondered about repeat offenders? It is not uncommon to hear about folks who get in legal trouble for using drugs or alcohol, and instead of remaining sober, they go back out and use again. It is difficult to understand how someone can keep engaging in the same behavior after losing everything. Repeat offenders are often called selfish and ungrateful. But what if the opposite is true? What if repeat offenders need compassion just like everyone else? 
I'm coping with grief in sobriety. Years before I got sober, I sat in church basements and listened to folks talk about the pink cloud. They claimed that by removing alcohol and other substances from their lives, they suddenly viewed the world through rose-colored glasses. The pink cloud of sobriety is supposed to feel euphoric and sparkly. But for me, the opposite was true. If anything, sobriety has been a grief journey accompanied by a rollercoaster of intense emotions.
Social media addiction is real. The definition of addiction is a complex psycho-physiological process manifested in any behavior in which a person finds pleasure and relief and therefore craves but suffers consequences without being able to give it up. Typically, addiction is associated with drugs, gambling, or shopping. But recently, after years of scrolling Instagram before getting out of bed, I couldn't help but wonder how many other people do the same thing. How many of us meet the criteria for social media addiction?
For most people practicing an alcohol-free lifestyle, there will eventually be an alcohol-centered party or event worth attending. Concerts, weddings, and holiday gatherings can be tricky, but not impossible, to navigate as a sober person. One thing that has helped me stay alcohol-free on a boozy night out is to redefine success.
Writing has always been a healthy outlet for me to process and express my feelings. I have been writing since I was a young girl, and it has helped me through some of the darkest periods in my life. Throughout my time writing for HealthyPlace, I have had some incredible personal breakthroughs and have been able to connect with many others who battle similar demons. However, my path has taken me in a different direction, and I am saying a final goodbye to my readers within the "Debunking Addiction" blog.
While drinking has been a part of the majority of my life, so have anxiety and depression. I went from sneaking alcohol on the weekends to week-long binge drinking benders. It was a cycle that progressively got worse, and the more I drank, the worse I felt. I would have pity parties and drown in my sorrows and regrets without realizing how damaging this cycle had become. Eventually, the crippling anxiety and symptoms of depression felt so unbearable that I was desperate to try something new. When I decided to start working on healing myself through journaling, therapy, meditation, reading self-help books, etc., I began feeling so grateful for my path and my life. I want to share this to help others in addiction recovery shift their perspective from self-hatred and sadness to gratitude and abundance. 
Although I am not a fan of claiming labels as an identity, I have noticed the more I use the term "anxiety," the more people seem to relate to me. But I have had to separate the concept of being anxious versus feeling anxious. I used to say, "I have anxiety," making it a part of who I am. Since starting my journey to enlightenment, I have learned that anxiety is not something that I am. It is something that I feel.