Recovery

Toxic relationships can be as damaging and addictive as drugs and alcohol. Getting out of a toxic relationship isn’t as easy as it might seem. The first step is recognizing that a relationship is toxic. Here are 8 signs to help you determine if you need to evaluate a relationship and take some moves.

Isolation is a practice which indicates avoiding. When someone isolates too much, they might be on a path to relapse, or experiencing troubling symptoms of their mental health disorder.

Alcoholism is often called a family disease. When a loved one develops a chemical dependency on alcohol, everyone around them is effected. Often, the alcoholic is unaware of how their drinking problem affects other people. After all, as they will often argue, it is their problem and shouldn’t have an effect on anyone else. Unfortunately, it does. The family members and loved ones of an alcoholic have to watch as the person they know slowly turns into someone they don’t. Sometimes, alcoholics can become violent, abusive, and hurtful. Other times they can become withdrawn, neglectful, and absent. No matter how an alcoholic might try to hide their drinking, things still change, and that change is felt by everyone.

One of the major arguments against experimenting with drugs and alcohol at an early age is that it halts the developmental process. Studies have revealed that substances like alcohol and especially marijuana can impair cognitive functioning, thus slowing the development of the cognitive areas of the brain. Many people who enter treatment find that they pick up where they left off emotionally. Meaning, in some way, once they are clean from their substances of choice, they feel as though they are emotionally at the age of when they started using. Growing up is a part of recovery. While the brain doesn’t age anew, it does learn as well as relearn new patterns, habits, and behaviors. Thankfully, the brain is not completely irreconcilable. The brain is one of the few organs in the human body which is capable of regenerating. Regeneration Different activities cause the brain to regenerate. Meditation, for example, has been found to increase grey matter in the brain, which is basically brain tissue which becomes available for new information. Further evidence has been discovered that new nerve cells can grow in the adult mind as well. Changing thinking patterns, patterns of behavior, and habits all contribute to the growth and development of new circuitry, new cells, and fresh grey matter, proving you can literally change your mind. However, the change doesn’t happen overnight. It is essential to maintain change over time. Habits weren’t built in a day and they won’t break in a day. With time, real concrete change will occur. As a result, you will change your mind, your thoughts, and by consequence, your life. Need for Help Such changes begin with a simple thought: i need help. Admittance is a powerful habit breaker in the mind. You destroy the chains of ignorance and denial, setting forth a standard which can never be forgotten. From now on you will either confront your problems head on or choose to ignore them. Unlike before, you won't be able to ignore all the signs of having a problem. Once you built the pathway to awareness, your mind will develop a lower tolerance for being unaware. This will spread to many areas of your life improving your health in mind and body. Avalon By The Sea provides certified primary care for both mental health and substance use disorders. For a confidential assessment and more information on our programs, call 1 (888) 958-7511 today.

Living with anxiety can make you feel like you are all alone in your thoughts. There are some anxieties we all face, every day, that you can rest assured you are not alone in.

The Alcoholics Anonymous Declaration: The Alcoholics Anonymous Declaration: I am responsible. When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of AA always to be there. And for that I am responsible. You have a peculiar position to fulfill once you choose to become sober and live a life of recovery. For years, you probably struggled for people to understand you. Try as you may have, it felt impossible to find someone who wasn’t a fellow drug addict or alcoholic who knew exactly what it was you were going through. However you got into recovery, when you walked into your first group therapy session or first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, or a similar support group, a hand was reached out to you. That hand said, it's okay, we know who you are, you don't have to explain, and you are safe. The minute you become sober, you are given the spiritual job of being that hand to someone else.

“Be kind whenever possible,” the Dalai Lama famously said, “It is always possible.” Kindness in recovery is an essential practice. Few things are more cruel than addiction and alcoholism or the symptoms of unmanaged mental health disorders. Recovery takes tolerance, patience, and kindness to be effective.

Many people consider entry into recovery and make the decision to get sober or seek treatment for a mental health condition as miraculous. How is that someone who compulsively uses drugs and alcohol every day and who has become chemically dependent upon them can suddenly stop? For those addicts and alcoholics who go unconvinced for so many years, it is often a mystery as to how it is their minds, riddled with addiction and the influences of substances, can be changed. Addiction and alcoholism are, if nothing else, remarkably stubborn diseases. Some recovery fellowships have regarded alcoholism with the words, “cunning, baffling, and powerful” to describe the way the brain insidiously convinces someone to do anything but get sober. Yet, every day, people pick up the phone and call a treatment center, family, friend, or loved one. Asking for help, they change their minds to be open to the idea of sobriety. It’s more significant than just deciding they can get sober. They are going against their brain chemistry and pondering the possibility of living without ever using drugs and alcohol again. Understandably, such a feat would be considered miraculous.

Avalon By The Sea is a certified dual diagnosis treatment center, providing primary care for mental health disorders when they are a primary diagnosis as well as a co-occurring disorder. For a confidential assessment and more information on our programs, call 1 888-958-7511.

Having a smartphone, computer, or other technological device to turn to for distraction can feel like both a saving grace and a detriment when you are living with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Apps and websites give you a thousand things to do at a time and bounce between as your fleeting attention seems fit. However, part of living with ADHD means learning how to create productivity in your life. Technology can become a distraction when it gets in the way of your ability to stick to normal routines and get things done during the day. You might be struggling with technology distraction if these things happen:

Eating disorders can be life threatening and cause ongoing health complications without recovery. Recovering from an eating disorder is tedious because it involves something that every human needs to survive- food. Most of the world struggles with insecurities about food and body image. It is easy to project that onto someone who is struggling with an eating disorder. Here is a quick guide of what not to say, even when you might be thinking it:

Therapy usually comes with a negative connotation for people. Spending money on time reserved for talking about your feelings or difficult things in the past sounds unappealing. However, immense healing can occur in therapy, helping someone to feel more free in their life.