Addiction Blog. Insight and Advice
from Our Austin Area Addiction Recovery Experts.

WHY DO WE NEED MEDIATION? Entering into treatment and recovery is an intense time. On the one hand, there is the flood of relief to find ourselves free at last from the weight of drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, we find ourselves colliding with a host of confusing and often negative feelings and…

WILD YEARS When we are out drinking and using there is no end to the fun and laughs we get from our wild exploits. Most of us can tell the so-called “war stories” from our wild days. Even in recovery we often have laughs exchanging tales of wildness. For some of us, the wildness and…

JOURNALING It is no mystery that working the 12 steps involves a lot of writing. We have the entire fourth step which demands that we put pen to paper and physically write out all of those columns. Nightly inventories should be written out also. For many of us who have gone through as treatment programs…

FINDING YOUR WAY BACK For many years I played guitar in rock bands. Specifically, I was a punk rock guitar player. It was more than just the music. Punk rock and playing guitar in punk bands made up a huge part of my identity. And of course, punk rock being what it is, this involved…

Recovering from alcoholism or drug addiction involves far more than just stopping all substance use and abuse. Drugs and alcohol will co-opt every part of an addict’s life, including relationships with friends and family, careers, and physical and mental health and well-being. Addicts who progress through a typical 28-day detox and rehab program often find…

As we have all experienced, there are times when life hits you square between the eyes. Whether our expectations fall short​, or we experience an obstacle on a relationship, life happens. In recovery we have all learned a set of tools, through the 12 steps, to help guide us through these moments. For example, yesterday…

Individuals who suffer from depression or other psychological disorders often attempt to treat or escape from those problems with drugs and alcohol. Self-medication provides a temporary respite from potentially crushing mental problems that can interfere with simple daily tasks. When those individuals seek treatment for their drug or alcohol abuse, they can overcome their dependence…

September is soon coming to a close and with it draws near the end of National Recovery Month. Over the course of this month I have attended conferences, concerts, parties, rallies, and dances all in the effort to promote awareness of, and de-stigmatize, recovery from addiction.While experiencing all of this, I often found myself needing…

Was Robin Williams helped by rehab? You’ve heard the news by now: beloved actor Robin Williams was found dead in his California home on Sunday, from apparent intentional asphyxiation. The medical examiner ruled that the death seemed accidental, pending an investigation into a possible suicide. So Robin Williams’ death brings up the question: was he…

There are quite a few deterrents that hold people back from seeking treatment for addiction. One of the biggest is the often high monetary cost of rehab. And while that obstacle is usually not as large as it seems—there are a lot of treatment options, and not all of them cost the same—it’s important to…

So you’ve used again. After all the hard work you put into your detox, recovery, and sobriety, you’ve hit a snag and relapsed back into substance abuse. It seems like the worst thing in the world. All that work just wasted. Right?Wrong.The work you put in to get clean and sober was and never will…

What can I do if I’ve relapsed? If you’ve gotten yourself to a place of recovery, only to find yourself falling back into the use or abuse of drugs, it can be very discouraging to think about relapse. But you should know that you’re not alone. Studies show that up to 40 to 90 percent…

How can I avoid the threat of relapse when I’m recovering from drug addiction? When you’re someone who’s struggling with drug addiction, relapse can be a constant threat. After all, even if you complete a program of rehab a high-quality drug rehab center, that doesn’t mean that the temptation goes away. In fact, all the…

RELATIONSHIPS IN RECOVERY My journey in recovery has reshaped almost every area of my life, but I cannot think of anything that has been effected more than my ability to sustain and nourish meaningful relationships. In the past, I treated relationships as an avenue to fulfill my own selfish needs. I was often dishonest, manipulative,…

Release the Lone Wolf Mentality and Learn to Embrace Relationships The feeling of isolation and loneliness felt by people is not just a feeling, it is a lived reality for man. The sense of community people desire is waning in favor of going it alone, being independent and doing things solo. The ‘lone wolf mentality’…

Sometimes, all we can do is let an loved one addicted to drugs hit rock bottom.If rock bottom fails to deter them, further action becomes necessary, often in the form of a stiff, painful ultimatum.Although the popular A&E program Intervention makes this process out to be messy, painful and dramatic, an intervention is actually a…

There was a time when people joked that alcoholics saw pink elephants and ants crawling on their skin. In our more enlightened times, we now understand that alcoholism is a chronic disease and that visual and sensory hallucinations are a very real part of that disease.An alcoholic who abruptly stops his alcohol intake will endure…

For over 3 1/2 years, my wife and I were on an emotional roller coaster, from living with our son and his addictive behavior. We desperately sought answers and friends who could shed light on where we went wrong and what our son was actually dealing with, The pattern persisted of dramatic lows for him…

Microdosing is a method of drug usage that is mostly implemented with LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs. With microdosing, the user ingests smaller-than-normal amounts of the substance that they’re taking and they might take those smaller doses more regularly than they would take larger doses. One of the definitive elements of microdosing is that by…

Cooler weather typically keeps everyone indoors, away from nature and other people. Depending on the climate, some adjust knowing this is the norm and others who enjoy warmer, sunnier days tend to shy away from spending time outside and become less active. Long, dark days can be difficult to endure with some people experiencing a…

Recovery is full of paradoxes. By admitting powerlessness we become empowered, we find freedom by surrendering, and if we want to keep what we have we must give it away. Another such paradox is the “selfishness versus self-care” dilemma we are faced with upon starting our journey of recovery. In our addiction we are so…