What’s the difference between opiate dependency and addiction. Some say none. I say, there is a big difference! Having spent the better part of last year with chronic back and pelvic pain I have been on and off and on and off opiates. Only to be back on again. This time while I await surgery
When I first left residential treatment, I knew I couldn’t go back home if I wanted to stay sober. I had decided to do outpatient treatment, but I was still worried that wouldn’t be enough to keep me sober. Moving from residential to outpatient meant my time away from structure and therapy was about to
When I was using my idea of a healthy diet was coffee, a donut, crack, heroin, and maybe a McChicken. I know, sounds very well rounded. Forget about exercise or any sort of healthy movement, no daily walk or bike ride, in fact I think the only moving I was doing was to peek out
“Love your addiction, love yourself.” When I first read these words, they stunned me. It was a complete paradigm shift. Away from guilt and shame and pain, and towards love and forgiveness and well-being. These words were the sub-heading in one of my favorite recovery books, 30 Day Sobriety Solution, part of Day 4: The Forgiveness Solution
When I was in college my friends and I liked to party, which I always thought was normal until it wasn’t. Two weeks before my graduation I entered a drug treatment center. I think I was lucky to be able to get professional help. I also think I was lucky because I got to take
Binging – when the feeling from doing something exceeds the reason for doing something. KH I am in recovery, I don’t’ smoke, drink alcohol, rely on relationships for self worth, or use intoxicants in any form. At least not traditional intoxicants. I have become more and more aware of my inclination to binge.
“No! Are you fucking crazy? Put that down, right now! You’ll blow us both to kingdom come!” I couldn’t believe what I saw: my husband reaching up to the chandelier above our dining table, oil can in hand, getting ready to pour oil on lighted candles. I imagined the coming firestorm. How could he be
I identify myself as a person in recovery. For years I identified myself with naming my disease (ADDICTION) but I am now “Kyczy, a woman in recovery from addiction, alcoholism, and a few other “isms’ as well.” But the lead is I AM A WOMAN IN RECOVERY. I know this isn’t according to Hoyle, or
Yikes! It was the third time this week, and it was still Tuesday. “Dude, you’d better get off the booze.” It didn’t matter where Dishonest John went—it followed him everywhere. Dammit, at least his bowling team was supposed to be on his side, wasn’t it? Sheesh! He pointed at a few nearby barflies in protest.
A recent column in The Washington Post began with this line: “The face of the nation’s opioid epidemic increasingly is gray and wrinkled.”1 In the course of the rise in the opioid epidemic and its expansive media coverage, the face of the addict has been in the 18-25 year old range; even though the number
