“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.

  Can you imagine saying you are not culturally competent during a job interview? Probably wouldn’t go too well from that point forward. But I am not culturally competent. That was hard for me to finally understand. I wanted to be competent. I still do. It finally dawned on me that it wasn’t possible. Many

When you can’t find the words to express how you’re feeling, expressing yourself through a craft has been shown to be highly effective. Over 66% of patients in one study even reported that using art as therapy was associated with significant positive changes in mental health symptoms. While addiction treatment takes shape in many different forms, there

I don’t follow a 12-step program. I’ve been to AA meetings, several in fact, and I have received some benefit from going to them. But AA never resonated with me, for many reasons, and maybe I’ll lay those out in anther post…. But one thing has been swirling around in my mind lately… this idea

  I sat alone, the silence deafening and asked myself how did my life come to this?, I knew the drink wasn’t working anymore, It didn’t take away the pain like before. It took away my laughter, my creativity and the years, My head told me I didn’t have the strength or courage to live

  After battling his own addiction, Brian McCall, under the name “B-RAiN” brings recovery focused rap music while touring the country. Brian has been sober for nearly a decade. He tours with his group Cloud Gang and together they endeavor to break the stigma of addiction treatment and connecting those in recovery. As an Outreach

In a previous post to this site on healing an addiction-damaged relationship, I wrote about rigorous honesty (why we need it and what it looks like) and the difference between active and passive truth-telling. In that post, the focus was on repairing relationship trust with a betrayed spouse or partner. This post is on the

  Dear wild bird Flying in your cage swiftly from side to side. Going about your pleasant routine, whistling as if you weren’t tied. Dear sweet bird You need to see that the life that you live is contained. That there is so much more and you allow yourself to be restrained. Dear loving bird