My friend’s daughter broke her wrist. I looked at her picture and immediately felt her pain and joined the chorus of others – “Ouch and poor baby!” But then I looked closely at the cast. Scrawled in red were the words: I HEAL FAST. What a concept. Broadcast “I heal quickly” to the world, to your

Brad, a 30-year-old investment banker, was recently fired from his high-paying job for repeatedly using his bank-owned digital devices to look at porn and to find “dates” on hookup apps. He had been verbally warned about this behavior by his boss on two occasions, and then he’d received a written reprimand from the HR department,

One of the very worst things associated with alcoholism is lack of self-esteem. While this seems to be more prevalent for women, it affects people of both sexes.  So often we hear people say that they always felt that they were less than. It is that feeling of not being good enough that led Caroline

“I’m celebrating my birthday”, Amaya, my six year old grand niece informed every waiter at every restaurant she visited during the month of November. At home, she’d announced her intention to celebrate “all month long”. In her short life and experience of celebrating only five birthdays, she was on to the magic of self-acknowledgement. Taking care of herself!

Addicts of all types typically experience an increasing tolerance to the mood-altering effects of their substance/behavior of choice. In simplest terms, this occurs because the brain adjusts to excessive dopamine levels (created by the repeated use of an addictive substance or behavior) by producing less dopamine and/or reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the

  Please don’t pelt me with “haycorns”. I have revisited the stories of Winnie the Pooh with a new point of view. I have been looking at the early stories from the books “Winnie the Pooh” and “ Now We Are Six” by A.A. Milne with a fresh (recovery oriented) eye. We all struggle with

Triggers for sexual addiction are the thoughts and feelings that set the cycle of sex addiction in motion. There are two main types of sex addiction triggers – internal and external – and both can be incredibly powerful. Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotions, feelings, and experiences such as boredom, shame, depression, anger, anxiety, guilt, fear,

My reading of Caroline Knapp’s chapter on sex was split in two parts. There is a lot to cover when it comes to the fusion of alcohol and sex. In the second half of the chapter, Caroline focuses on three relationships that involve alcohol and sex: one between her and her live-in boyfriend; one between

Are you like everyone else, needing to de-stress? Do you struggle with negative self-talk, or the need to be perfect, or maybe you’re looking for a new way to fill time and space in your life—preferably a creative one? For some time, therapists, some say even Carl Jung, have been prescribing coloring as one of

In this week’s chapter of Drinking: A Love Story, Catherine Knapp tackles the subject that everyone deals with and few want to discuss –  the connection between alcohol and sex.  Specifically, she discusses how drinking allows people the ability to let down their shields, to be more approaching and approachable. She talks about anonymous sexual