There is a common belief among people struggling with addiction that stopping is simply a matter of deciding to stop. It’s an idea shaped by pride, denial, fear of treatment, or the belief that only “serious addicts” need help. This belief forms the foundation of what can only be called the detox fantasy: the idea...
Category: News
When Addiction Makes You a Stranger
One of the most heartbreaking aspects of addiction is not the chaos, the lies, the financial mess, or even the physical decline, but the slow and almost unrecognisable shift in personality that takes place long before families realise what is happening. People often think addiction shows itself through behaviour, staying out late, isolating, losing interest...
The Invisible Pull of Old Identities
One of the strongest relapse cues is people, not because they encourage the behaviour, but because they represent the version of yourself that once used. Addiction is social. It lives inside friend groups, habits, jokes, rituals, shared secrets, and shared energy. When someone in recovery encounters a person from their using life, the brain reacts...
The Addicted Caregiver, When Helping Others Becomes a Way to Avoid Yourself
[full-featured-image] There’s a strange kind of addiction that doesn’t smell like alcohol, doesn’t snort like cocaine, and doesn’t leave a paper trail of bets or empty bottles. It’s the addiction to helping, the quiet, socially acceptable drug of choice for people who can’t sit with their own pain. It hides behind compassion, moral superiority, and...
Navigating the Journey to Sobriety: 10 Steps to Overcoming Alcohol Dependency
Embarking on a journey to stop drinking alcohol can be daunting, particularly when alcohol has become a central part of socializing, unwinding, or coping with stress. However, understanding when the need to quit outweighs the reasons to continue is crucial. This guide provides a comprehensive, supportive pathway toward a sober life—a journey many have successfully...
PTSD: Complex Trauma: PTSD Symptoms: Complex PTSD Symptoms
People can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when they experience, observe or hear about a terrifying event involving disaster, death, injury, violation, disorder, illness or separation. It can also evolve from developmental trauma or long exposure to stressful conditions. It can even emerge from a number of sequential, seemingly less disturbing, incidents. The exhaustive effects...
What You Need to Know about PTSD and CPTSD
People can develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when they experience, observe or hear about a terrifying event involving disaster, death, injury, violation, disorder, illness or separation. It can also evolve from developmental trauma or long exposure to stressful conditions. It can even emerge from a number of sequential, seemingly less disturbing, incidents. The exhaustive effects...
Is Healing From PTSD or CPTSD Really Possible?
People who suspect they have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or the more severe form, known as complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), often want to know whether these disorders really can be successfully healed. The irony is that most PTSD and CPTSD victims suffer from hyperarousal and what is known as the “freeze-fight-flight” syndrome. These symptoms...
Healing Emotional Trauma
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is rooted in unprocessed, irrepressible and lingering emotional responses to traumatic events or circumstances that an individual witnessed or experienced. PTSD sufferers may be aware of the circumstances that triggered their symptoms, but are usually not qualified to effectively identify, evaluate, diagnose or resolve the underlying psychological problems it fosters. In...