One of the toughest challenges of battling any addiction is the feeling of isolation you experience in struggling to identify, understand and address the root cause of your behavior. For years, I struggled with alcohol, binging, purging and cutting as a means of dealing with my underlying feelings of despair, grief and distaste for myself. I justified my addictions by developing rituals to drown out the anxiety, fear and pain that enveloped my soul. My first such ritual was food, which I … [Read more...]
Choosing Gratitude
Gratitude is a powerful emotion that affirms the positive aspects of our lives as well as the people, community and world around us. However, consciously instilling in yourself a habit of being grateful for life’s circumstances can be hard at first. Like any habit, it takes practice. One way to start is by following the sage advice I received in the first alcohol support group I attended, which was to “Fake it till you make it.” At that point in my life, I wasn’t feeling particularly … [Read more...]
