What Winners Do

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In recovery there is a great saying “Easy Does It But Do It”. I always understood what this saying meant but I never really applied it to my life.

I was living under the assumption that things always have a way of working themselves out. Which is true… if you do your part.

Since we work on our ability to accept the things we cannot change we should surer than shit be working on the other part to that which is having the courage to change the things we can. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s never nice to think about but when you are an addict your top priority, and sometimes your only priority, is drugs. Finding them, affording them, doing them, feeling their effects, coming down off them…finding them again.

Once you are no longer in active addiction you’re able to take a clear look at what the important things are in your life. A clear head and a better understanding of yourself will drastically change what you consider as your top priorities in life.

My suggestion is to rebuild what your priorities are in your recovery and…keep it simple. Read the rest of this entry »

Anyone who has gone through very early recovery can tell you that at first everything seems like it will just fall into place. You have stopped your physical addiction and have been working on your mental addiction. You are walking around in your pink cloud and life is good. And then…

Well, and then you realize that things aren’t just going to get better on their own. You have not miraculously become the person you’ve always wanted to be. Are you ready to do something about that? Read the rest of this entry »

If you are familiar with addiction recovery, you know that living life one day at a time is a major part of a successful recovery.

I’m here to say that in order to be happy, healthy, and have a little peace of mind in life you need to not only live one day at a time…you need to begin being present. Learn to stay in the moment. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s so funny that when everything is going smoothly that I strain my brain for something to write about and usually come up short.

It makes perfect sense, I write to express my feelings and problems. When my feelings are copacetic and there aren’t any major problems what am I supposed to say?

I guess I could say that last year around this time I was still in very early recovery. I never dreamed that I could feel the peace of mind that I do at this very moment. Not without drugs anyway.

But here I am. Happy, healthy, easy going, responsible, goofy and for the first time since I can remember…excited about life.

That’s about it for today.

The post I recently did about learning to accept the things I cannot change got me thinking about a negative behavior that I was riddled with in active addiction…not facing problems head on.

The behavior of avoiding problematic situations is something that is very common with addicts. See, the key to successfully living in denial about all of your problems is to numb yourself into oblivion until you don’t think about them anymore. Simple right?

So what happens when you are no longer numbing away your problems with drugs or alcohol? Well, unless you want to continue living a miserable life that is completely based on denial and a disconnection from your soul you need to master the art of facing problems head on in recovery. Read the rest of this entry »

I had another one of those great Sundays. The kind of Sunday when it’s rainy out and you spend the day putting around the house doing this and that. You get to the little tasks that you’ve been too busy to get to.

You know, the kind that really recharges your batteries and make you able to tackle Monday morning.

See, it used to be that Sunday was my day for dying on the couch. I would have mixed alcohol with Oxy’s on Saturday night and my body would be recovering from being poisoned. It usually guaranteed a wasted Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

I was thinking about the part of the serenity prayer that says “grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change”.

Now, I’m not going to try and fool you into thinking that I go to NA/AA meetings all the time by talking the talk.

But, I do want to point out that there are a lot of things that I took away from my time in NA/AA that I find useful in my everyday life.

One of the things that I feel that I’ve struggled with has been the whole accepting the things I cannot change. Rationally I know the importance of this acceptance but I have struggled to take that rational thought and put it to use in my life.

That was until I heard myself telling my son “you do what you can, the very best that you can, and that is all you can do”. Boom! How simple. But could it truly be that simple to accept the things I cannot change?

Read the rest of this entry »

Just as our server problems had taken this site down for a few days, it took down The Suboxone Help Spot. I just wanted to write a quick little post and let anyone who is interested know that The Suboxone Help Spot is back up and running.

I wanted to apologize to the current members of the site. I realize that a lot of you  use the Suboxone Help Spot as your main source of support and without warning it was not available to you.

I am doing everything in my power to make sure that this same scenario never happens again. Thank you so much for your patience and understanding.

After reading a post over at TDA about Lame PSA’s Blamed For Drug Use, I got to thinking about how we tell young people about the dangers of addiction.

The answer…we don’t really do that at all. We tell them that if they use too many drugs they will lose their personality. We tell them not to drink and drive. We tell them that Oxycontin ruined our lives.

We even go so far as to tell them that if they smoke pot while babysitting the child will drown in the pool (seriously, have you seen this one?).

What we don’t do is explain the true reasons why for some people drinking and drugging becomes an addiction that can take over their entire life and sometimes lead them so far down that they never come back up.

But how do you explain the dangers and warning signs of addiction to young people? Read the rest of this entry »