When you first start addiction treatment, you may hear a great deal about different treatment options, including recreation therapy. People will tell you about the advantages and benefits of this treatment, but you still have one question: what is recreation therapy? Recreation therapy is a type of experiential therapy for drug and alcohol addiction recovery.…
Is marijuana a gateway drug? This question is one people have been asking for decades. While there is some truth to this assertion, the issue is much larger than just smoking marijuana. Furthermore, it can apply to almost any substance, including alcohol, illicit drugs, and prescription medication. Using any substance that alters brain function can potentially…
Most Americans are no strangers to the Opioid Epidemic, in fact – as we noted previously – President Trump declared it a public health emergency in 2017. Large numbers of deaths caused by opioid overdose characterize what we refer to as an opioid epidemic. While misuse of opioids in the United States dates back to the Civil…
If you follow media coverage of addiction at all, you may have noticed a change in language over the past several years. Terms like “junkie,” “clean,” “drug abuser,” and others have gradually fallen out of use. You may still see “addict” from time to time, but even the use of that word is discouraged in…
Anxiety, depression, and addiction have all become increasingly common in recent decades. Mental health and addiction are closely linked as well. Mental illness can lead to addiction and vice versa. For people recovering from addiction, stress and anxiety are common relapse triggers. Staying mentally healthy requires a holistic approach that involves positive social connection, healthy…
It’s normal to be disappointed if you relapse, especially if you’ve been sober for a while. You may feel like you’ve wasted all your hard work and disappointed the people who care about you. You may feel an impulse to punish yourself, either by beating yourself up emotionally, or engaging in some other self-destructive behavior.…
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of staying positive in addiction recovery. A positive, optimistic attitude promotes happiness and persistence, while a negative, pessimistic attitude promotes depression and resignation. There will always be challenges in recovery and a positive attitude will help you stick with it even when you feel like you’re struggling. Pessimism and…
For most people, the early days of recovery are an exciting time. In treatment, you often confront old issues, make new friends, and find hope for perhaps the first time in years. After treatment, you have to adjust to the challenges of living on your own again and applying what you learned to real life.…
Self-care is extremely important in recovery. It includes the activities you specifically do to maintain your recovery and the things you do just to stay healthy and happy. In reality, there’s no separation between things you do for yourself and things you do for recovery. This might include going to therapy, exercising, eating, getting enough…
Narcan is the brand name of the drug naloxone, which is a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist, meaning it binds more strongly than opioid drugs to mu receptors but does not activate them. As a result, naloxone shoves opioid molecules off of mu receptors and prevents them from reattaching,…
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