Navigating Recovery During the Holiday Season

Holidays add extra challenges to addiction recovery; difficult situations, emotions, and memories can all arise during the holiday season. To help keep your recovery first this holiday season and bring in the new year at your best, go into the holidays prepared. Being prepared involves making a plan for how you will handle difficult situations, whether that involves avoiding the situation all together, practicing refusal skills, or adapting your plans to better suit your needs. Additionally, reviewing coping skills, values, and goals can all help strengthen recovery as the holiday season approaches.

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Kiersten Wenthold, SAC-IT, Intern

Shame... The Recovery Roadblock

Shame refers to the underlying belief that we are not good enough, not worthy, or lacking in some way. In order to avoid the negative feeling of shame, people often turn to substances or other unhealthy coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, many people in recovery struggle to overcome feelings of shame and it serves as a roadblock to successful recovery efforts. When we learn to let go of shame, we open ourselves up to the possibility of acceptance, confidence, and feelings of worthiness.  

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Ali Devine, SAC-IT, Intern

Letting Go

Letting go does not mean forgetting, forgiving, or even accepting. Letting go means to let a situation be as it is, because the power to change the situation is out of one's control. Letting go can be practiced through mediation or through simple exercises each day. While letting go it not easy, the benefits of practicing the concept are vast. To hold onto anger, resentment, pain, and suffering are like holding onto a hot coal; thus, letting go is a practice of freeing yourself from unnecessary suffering to live more freely in the present moment.

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Kiersten Wenthold, Intern

Using Support as a Protective Factor in Recovery

Individuals in recovery may experience a significant amount of stress as they begin to make healthy lifestyle changes. Fortunately, emotional support can serve as a protective factor when dealing with new and challenging stressors. Through supportive friends and family, individuals can learn healthy ways to cope with distressing situations and improve their self-esteem! While many people do not feel they have an adequate support system, there are many ways to nurture the supportive relationships in your life and expand your network to include more positive relationships. 

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Ali Devine, Intern

Gratitude and Its Benefits

It is argued that the key to being happy is being grateful. To be grateful means that one has found a deep appreciation, especially in the common and seemingly irrelevant facets of life. Therefore, being a grateful person takes practice, which involves paying attention to all the parts of one's life and recognizing the added value. Starting with small, daily routines to practice gratitude can lead to a long-term habit of finding the beauty and positivity in life, and, ultimately, lead to a happier state of being. 

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Kiersten Wenthold, Intern