Addiction Recovery

As a psychotherapist, I see clients who find ways to deny or numb the pain of underlying anxiety , stress and depression. They attribute these reactions as some of the reasons to fall into drug addiction. The top areas I’ve found that contribute to drug addiction problems are negative childhood memories, stormy personal relationships, job related anxieties and coping with loss of a loved one.

One’s childhood experiences shapes the rest of your life. Challenging situations involving a tense family dynamic, financial difficulties or traumatic experiences can create a deep imprint. If someone didn’t have the ability to see a counselor, have a good support network of friends or be able to find avenues of relief through exercise a lot of the feelings have remained inside. Working through memories of a difficult childhood are important to resolve the past and not be it’s prisoner. Yoga, aerobic exercise and building a good support system are helpful tools to create healthier patterns.

Having a stormy relationship (or series of them) can lead one into distressing feelings of jealousy, insecurity and hopelessness. One may be in an unhealthy relationship due to one’s past. We place a lot of hope on having another person be the “hero” or savior and to rescue us from inner conflicts. It is important to have people to ask about the relationship that you feel themselves aren’t in destructive relationships. Often we are afraid to question whether the romantic relationship is good for us or not as we don’t want to face aloneness. Learning to live with one’s inner feelings and knowing we don’t have to buy into them helps find them less frightening.

Job related stress is quite common whether it is tension with co-workers, workind under a difficult boss or worries about downsizing. Often a work environment can have a lot of competition, deadlines and Read the rest of this entry »

He came creeping into our lives, slowly, stealthily, insidiously, with no advance warning. No triumphal heraldry alerting us to his imminent arrival. No fanfare. No clues. Okay, well maybe there were some subtle clues but we were too busy with our perfect little lives to pay much notice to them.

He counted on that! He thrives on secrecy and subterfuge. He knew that if he alerted us to his presence we would call on all our resources and strengths to defeat him, to slay him, to banish him from our lives and yes, from the very earth where he lives and thrives, and grows more menacing and powerful with each passing day.

He counts on society’s lackadaisical attitude toward him, believing that he cannot sneak into their homes. He depends on us ignoring his presence or believing that he lives on the other side of the tracks, surely not in our ideal communities.

He knew we would divest ourselves of every penny we had to expose him, to cripple him and kill him, that we would do anything within our power to stop his onslaught.

He attacks the most vulnerable of our society: our children. He preys on them, luring them into his grasp with promises of ecstasy and escape from their humdrum lives, while parents go blithely about their daily routine, unaware of the chaos, heartbreak and destruction of the family unit that awaits them.

He is the most hideous of all monsters, yet he exhibits no external evidence of his cruelty, no demonic horns on his head, no red flashing eyes, no mien any different from anyone else’s in the communities where he plies his vicious trade. He shows us nothing to forewarn us of the monumental destruction of which he is so capable of inflicting upon us, and in which he takes such absolute delight.

No, he is far too clever to expose himself, to let us see him for what he truly is until it is too late, Read the rest of this entry »

It’s quite amazing really that on average nine out of ten women actually enjoy a nice alcoholic beverage. But what most women don’t know is what limit of alcohol can be consumed while pregnant and that many doctors are saying that this behaviour can lead to birth defects. The simple fact of the matter is that the alcohol passes into the placenta and directly into the foetuse’s bloodstream which can lead to stunting its growth. This is serious so let’s just look into this a bit more.

Every drop of alcohol will pass into the baby’s blood supply and during the first three months this can be critical for the normal development of the baby’s brain and body. So the damage being caused is blatantly obvious and it’s not always the short term development that is being affected as it can also affect the long term development too. Statistics prove that babies who have to put up with alcohol in their bloodstream will go on to be alcoholics in later life.

Just what will be effected during your pregnancy? The way your baby is developing in your womb. Your baby’s health. Your own health. Drinking alcohol will cause fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Your child’s learning ability. Drinking alcohol has been known to increase the risk of a miscarriage. Malformation of your baby’s heart and other developing organs. Stillbirth. Your baby being susceptible to illness later on in adult life.

Another very important point that not many women know is that drinking is also dangerous just prior to pregnancy and is in fact the most dangerous stage at which the baby’s development can be affected. It is also important to know that cutting back on alcohol will make all the difference to your baby’s health and that once any damage has been caused, it is irreversible. Think twice before you have another drink and think about the baby inside you first.

So just t Read the rest of this entry »