I sat in my car with tear filled eyes, gazing up at the dilapidated old building I lived in wondering, how did I get here? How did I go from enjoying a successful career, living and working in a swanky highrise in downtown Dallas to a shaking shell of the person I once was?

    Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics [or addicts], and to practice these principles in all our affairs.   The first thing to do when you approach step twelve is to recognize the first portion of step’s language, “having had

  Photography by Kenny P Huge egos- blinded by greed leading us nowhere Tweeting, texting, mocking normal conversations     Pure White doves flying around carrying olive branches Shot down- silencing peace stifling truth     Confusion breeding pain & panic guns blasting away- Its children- Fear & Ignorance     Compassion communicating Commonsense listening

Am I enabling or helping and what is the difference? This is a question I have been asked by clients many times. It is also a question I have asked myself. We can all think of fact patterns that we would consider enabling. However, sometimes the answer is not so clear. Sometimes the answer is,

The impact of addiction on a spouse or long-term committed partner is not the same for all addictions. For survivors of chronic infidelity or sex addiction, there are five major ways that sex addiction is different than other addictions, creating unique challenges to the betrayed partner and the repair of the couple’s relationship. 1. Sexual

Is four pm a kind of witching hour? Is there some sort of Ayurvedic twist of the clock, a Basal Metabolic shift, a change in the internal tides at that time? It seems my daily resolutions fall apart about then. I set intentions each day. Some are affirmations of long-term Sankalpa, others are directions I

This is a song I wrote on ukulele. Sofa Safari is a deceptively sweet song I wrote to an ex-boyfriend. The mood acts as a counterweight to a much earlier (and rawer) beat poem entitled “You, selfish You”, which was (you might guess) rich in resentment. This only goes to show what a great healer

Dr. Barbour was 40 years old with a high school education when she got sober. Without a plan in mind, she began taking classes part-time at a community college while holding various jobs. After earning a We’re going to be breaking new ground on this week’s SEX TALK. For the first time, the focus will

One byproduct of entering recovery is the multitude of gifts that sobriety can offer us.  Some of the perks are more obvious than others, such as improved health, relationships, overall satisfaction and contentment.  Although life steadily improves after active addiction, there is the stark reality of the state of the life you have just awoken

In my previous post, Partner of an Addict? Getting Your Unmet Needs Met, I discussed the fact that partners of addicts are often unhappy not only because of the addictive behavior itself, but because they are not getting their needs met. In Part I, I outlined the two steps needed to remedy this shortcoming: identifying