“I’m celebrating my birthday”, Amaya, my six year old grand niece informed every waiter at every restaurant she visited during the month of November. At home, she’d announced her intention to celebrate “all month long”. In her short life and experience of celebrating only five birthdays, she was on to the magic of self-acknowledgement. Taking care of herself!

Addicts of all types typically experience an increasing tolerance to the mood-altering effects of their substance/behavior of choice. In simplest terms, this occurs because the brain adjusts to excessive dopamine levels (created by the repeated use of an addictive substance or behavior) by producing less dopamine and/or reducing the number of dopamine receptors in the

Please don’t pelt me with “haycorns”. I have revisited the stories of Winnie the Pooh with a new point of view. I have been looking at the early stories from the books “Winnie the Pooh” and “ Now We Are Six” by A.A. Milne with a fresh (recovery oriented) eye. We all struggle with what

Triggers for sexual addiction are the thoughts and feelings that set the cycle of sex addiction in motion. There are two main types of sex addiction triggers – internal and external – and both can be incredibly powerful. Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotions, feelings, and experiences such as boredom, shame, depression, anger, anxiety, guilt, fear,

Are you like everyone else, needing to de-stress? Do you struggle with negative self-talk, or the need to be perfect, or maybe you’re looking for a new way to fill time and space in your life—preferably a creative one? For some time, therapists, some say even Carl Jung, have been prescribing coloring as one of

Sometimes people wonder if pleasurable behaviors can be addictive. Well, they can. In fact, they’re every bit as addictive as alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine, opiates, etc. And there is a great deal of research that proves this fact. For starters, and most notably, numerous studies tell us that addictive substances and addictive behaviors trigger the same

Sex addiction is not the easiest thing to recognize, especially if you’re neck deep in it. Even outside observers (friends, family, therapists, etc.) sometimes struggle to identify the problem, primarily because sex addicts tend to be highly secretive about what they are doing. If you are worried about your (or someone else’s) sexual behaviors, and

Generally speaking there are six primary signs and symptoms of sexual addiction, delineated below. These signs and symptoms eventually occur in nearly all sex addicts, regardless of age, gender, race, social status, or any other external factor. Obsession: Sex addicts are preoccupied with sex to the point of obsession. They think about it, fantasize about

The eternal quest to find the perfect life partner – that “someone” we connect with on every level – is something we all crave. If we just find that right person, our whole lives will transform into magic. Having someone to spend our days and nights with, share the highs and lows with and make

Unfortunately, there is a lot of inaccurate information floating around about sex addiction. Because of this, some people will use the label “sex addiction” to define any type of sexual behavior (in others or in themselves) that does not meet their personal, cultural, or religious view of what sex should look like. He goes to