• Past Articles

Tag Archives: recovery

One Comment

Recovery Month Awareness for the Families of Loved Ones Affected by Substance Use By Jackie Stein, BALM® Family Recovery Life Coach

  By , , ,

    Many of you know that I have spent the last couple of years studying to be both an addiction counselor and also a BALM® Family Recovery Life Coach. Counseling gives me the opportunity to work with others who are struggling to maintain recovery as well as learning to live life on life’s terms in early recovery. Be A Loving Mirror (BALM®) is a program that teaches families how to be their loved one’s best chance at recovery and how to avoid being their loved one’s best chance at relapse. I would like to tell you a bit more about BALM®, how I came to be a family member and how that has brought me full circle to studying to be a certified Family Recovery Life Coach. I first came to the BALM® program as the partner of a loved one struggling to get and maintain recovery.  I was… Continue reading

No comments

Working Step Eight Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S

  By ,

Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. From step four onward, the twelve steps are primarily concerned with interpersonal relations—how you interact in and with the wider world. In a nutshell, you are asked to: Look back on your life and see where you have caused problems for yourself and others. Do what you can to repair the damage you have done. Live differently in the future. Steps eight and nine are the middle portion of this procedure—doing what you can to repair the damage you have done. To start, you compile a list of the people you have harmed, not forgetting to include yourself on the list. Reviewing your step four inventory is generally helpful when compiling this list. Most of the names on your step four list should also appear on your step eight list, but a… Continue reading

8 Comments

Planting the Seeds of the Garden of Fiends – By Mark Matthews

  By

From an early age, books shaped who I was. Writers were heroes to emulate. I wanted to be Thoreau, I wanted to be Mark Twain. I wanted to be Jack Kerouac. There was something inside me that only stories could reach, a music only literature could play. A similar reaction occurred when I had my first drink. The warm confidence, the blissful contentment. A union with God. All my curses lifted, all my deficits erased. It was love at first sip. Other drugs soon followed. I said “no” to nothing, “yes” to everything. Pretty soon, I needed it to function. I started drinking alone. Getting shakes. Sweats. I went on drug binges and mixed drinking with cocaine, acid, or crystal meth every chance I could. I needed substances to feel normal, otherwise, I had perpetual flu-like symptoms and was intensely angry and bitter at the world. I didn’t care if… Continue reading

No comments

Free Webinar on How to Make Your Recovery (From Anything) Story Into a Book

  By

Plenty of people want to share their recovery stories with the world. A far smaller group of people DO share their recovery stories with the world. The difference between those two groups? The second group knows what to do. Now, during National Recovery Month, you can join the second group. On Sunday, September 10th at 5 pm PST, Anna David is going to be doing a free hour-long training where she’ll be converting people from the first group to the second. She’ll be teaching exactly what she did to write and sell six books and thousands of articles about her recovery. Then, at the end of the training, she’ll be launching her online course on the same subject. Check out the course, How to Sell a Book About Your Recovery (From Anything), but I strongly encourage you to sign up for the webinar so you can get a preview of… Continue reading

No comments

Want to Sell a Book About Your Recovery? Anna David Can Show You How

  By

As my friend Anna David says, we’re all in recovery from something and we all have stories to tell. She would know. She went from drug-addicted dog-walker to sober New York Times bestselling author of six books about her addiction and recovery. Since getting sober, she’s launched recovery websites and written about addiction and relationships recovery for The New York Times, Time, Vice, Psychology Today and The Huffington Post, among many other publications. She’s the first to admit that she accomplished this not through talent or even hard work but because she followed a system. And now, during National Recovery Month, she wants to teach her system to you. Next week, she’s having a free webinar to launch her online course, How to Sell a Book About Your Recovery (From Anything). In it, she walks people through how to figure out their book angle and then how to craft every element a book… Continue reading