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Have you ever wondered what life or different situations would be like if fear were not involved? The emotions human beings feel range from happy, sad, anxious, and all those in between. However, one of the most complicated and interesting emotions is fear. It strikes like a lightning bolt in an open field and can change the way we function in our brain and body. Some people experience emotions in confrontational situations, while others discover the emotion when they experience progress. Fear is complicated and comes in many forms. So it is important to understand how you can overcome and eliminate fears.

What is the opposite of addiction? On first thought, it appears to be sobriety, but in actuality, the answer isn’t so black and white. The opposite of addiction is connection, and incorporating ways to bring increased feelings of connection into your life should be a focus for anyone in recovery. Connection on a basic level is what makes us feel seen and heard, but in a larger sense, it’s what makes us feel alive and excited for life.

Recovery is a lifelong journey that involves many people and services, from dedicated supports and established recovery programs to interconnected peers working towards their own sober goals. Moving through each phase of recovery is a test on its own, and emerging through these programs transformed is cause for celebration.

Being addicted can feel like a full-time job since it occupies so much of your thoughts, time, and energy. Keeping up with this lifestyle is not easy and because of the shame often felt surrounding your actions, hiding your addiction becomes a huge part of your life. Lying and hiding your addiction contributes more to the shame and creates a vicious shame cycle.

Terminology in the addiction community may sound like a new language to someone first introduced to the vocabulary unique to recovery. Two words often confused and misused are dependence and addiction. These are two fundamental terms in the addiction world, as they differentiate between someone having a physical dependence on a substance or a full-blown, life-impinging addiction.

Cravings are an unfortunate inevitability throughout the recovery process. They can be extremely intense in the early phases of recovery, such as during detox and residential care, but can persist throughout any stage of recovery. Those who have worked hard to maintain their sobriety for years can still experience cravings from time to time. Each individual needs to remain prepared to combat these intense feelings to avoid regressing to more destructive practices regardless of the length of their sobriety. Cravings can manifest in many ways. While some may stem from identifiable sources or stressors, others may be unclear in their roots and need more focus and dedication to uncover their origins.

For many, addiction is a selfish disease, and when stuck in the depths of the disease, they put their addiction above everything and everyone in their life. Selfishness is taking care of your wants and needs first, and in addiction, your wants and needs are monopolized by using your drug of choice. The selfishness seen in addiction is not to be confused with taking good care of yourself, but rather taking care to feed your addiction.

The first step to getting sober is the physical aspect of not using anymore. Taking each day at a time is a key pillar to success in the early days of recovery, but just avoiding the use of drugs or alcohol isn’t a sustainable solution to long-term sobriety. This is where what’s known as emotional sobriety comes into play, requiring a mindset and lifestyle shift to learn to regulate your emotions.

The term “depression” is often used to encompass many different conditions or behaviors. However, depression is more than just one thing and can present itself in unique ways.  Different forms of depression can have episodes that last varying lengths of time and unique symptoms. Moving past the idea of “depression” as a “one-term-fits-all” idea and understanding the nuances that characterize different types of depression can help each individual create an effective recovery plan for their unique needs. Major depression, persistent depressive disorder, seasonal affective disorder, atypical depression, and postpartum depression are all common and are just a few ways in which depression can manifest and affect a person’s life.

Adolescents today face a world with different challenges than what adults grew up experiencing. To parents of adolescents, understanding your children’s internet habits and determining how much time spent online is too much is difficult to discern when your child’s daily lives are so deeply interwoven with it. If you are concerned about your teenager’s internet habits, understanding the warning signs of internet addiction and how your child may be affected can help you encourage a more positive relationship between your adolescent and their time online and find help if necessary. What is Internet Addiction? Just because your teenager doesn’t want to put their phone down doesn’t mean they have a full-blown internet addiction. Internet use disorder, or internet addiction, doesn’t happen unless the uncontrolled use of the internet interferes with your teen’s daily life out in the real world. The use of the internet in this disorder is not limited to just one activity but covers several different activities, including excessively using social media, blogging, gaming, gambling, or pornography. When constantly going online for one or several of these activities affects a teen’s physical health or social skills, this becomes a reason for concern of addiction. Underlying Causes Discussing internet addiction in teens can not be complete without discussing one of the major underlying causes of developing this type of addiction. Mental health conditions like depression and anxiety are an underlying thread that makes teens more susceptible to developing an internet addiction. Other co-occurring disorders may be influencing factors developing this addiction, like obsessive-compulsive disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Warning Signs in Your Teen of Internet Use Disorder

When you are battling addiction, your brain will work at any angle to keep you in the cycle of using. Even if you feel shame every time you drink or use drugs and don’t feel the same high like you used to, you still feel stuck in your need to continually use. Part of what may not be allowing you to stop using can be attributed to the different types of cognitive biases happening in your brain. If you aren’t versed in what a cognitive bias is, it is our way of distorting our intake of information to match what we already believe. There are three main types of cognitive biases in play with addiction that we will explore below to understand why you think the way you do in addiction. #1: Attentional Bias to Support Behaviors Attentional bias affects your mind by clinging onto anything that supports the desired behavior, even if it’s harmful or dysfunctional. In attentional bias related to addiction, your brain directs your attention to your drug use, and you focus more on your triggers and what makes you want to use. By diverting your focus to anything encouraging you to use, you simultaneously ignore what is in front of you telling you to stop using, like concerned loved ones. #2: Optimism Bias Meets Reality In optimism bias, you grasp on to the unrealistic belief that everything will be okay in the future, and you’ll be able to get your drinking or using under control without it becoming a problem. Thinking that this time quitting will be different, even though you’ve failed to quit every time so far, is a common belief to prolong addiction. With the optimism bias, you find yourself always pushing the responsibility of quitting into the future and believing that you will recover all on your own when you decide to stop your drug use in the future. #3: Coloring Your Memories with Recall Bias With the recall bias, you recall the feelings or events as you want to believe them. In recovery, you selectively remember your times using or drinking as fun or liberating and choose not to remember all the bad times, too. When you experience the recall bias, you associate your substance use days as the good times and leave out the details of hurting others or the ugly sides of yourself that would come out when you used. Cognitive biases like attentional bias, optimism bias, and recall bias hold you back from thinking realistically about your addiction. Growing your awareness of the cognitive biases that perpetuate your addiction can help you correct your thinking and get you one step closer to sobriety. At Avalon Malibu, we specialize in tailoring individual treatment programs to give our clients safe, supported recovery treatment. With our team of professionals, we will find the right blend of holistic and clinical treatment to help you overcome your addiction obstacles and restore your mind, body, and spirit. Call us at (844) 857-5992 if you are finally ready to say “Yes!” to recovery.

Living with social anxiety causes someone to experience a great deal of discomfort in many different social settings due to feeling extremely uncomfortable in the presence of other people. For those suffering from social anxiety, the intrusive worry of being perceived negatively by others creates extreme distress while in their company. Talk therapy, mindfulness practices, or certain prescription medications are all excellent options for overcoming your social anxiety, but unfortunately, all too often, people turn to substance use or avoidance to treat the symptoms of their social anxiety. The Problem With Substance Abuse and Social Anxiety Comorbidity Using substances to dial down or mute the uncomfortable feelings caused by social situations is not a sustainable approach to treating social anxiety. One of the biggest problems posed by using substances to treat social anxiety is that continual substance use builds tolerance and requires an ever-increasing dose to achieve the same effects. Using substances to cope with social anxiety might build dependence and a cycle for substance abuse, only compounding the original problem for a person and distancing them further from any social circle. As is often the case of substance abuse, many people turn to avoidance behaviors to escape feelings of nervousness, anxiety, and fear in the presence of others. Choosing to avoid social situations that promote anxiousness only perpetuates your anxiety, gives power to irrational fears, and prevents you from ever learning that your negative beliefs are not true. Only by dealing with your fears head-on can you truly overcome social anxiety. Finding the Proper Treatment Just because you regularly experience severe social anxiety doesn’t mean that has to be the case forever. Given the correctly tailored treatment approach, you can treat your social anxiety and finally live your life free from worry, fear, and anxiety. Treatment options available include talking therapy, like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), which aims to identify irrational thought patterns and correct them by replacing them with realistic thinking. Part of CBT treatment for social anxiety may include exposure therapy, where a person gradually increases their exposure to a situation to desensitize themselves. Certain medications like antidepressants can be used in whole or in part for the treatment of social anxiety. Drugs like benzodiazepines should not be used by people with a history of substance abuse. Trying to escape your social anxiety doesn’t work and will only cause you further problems. By directly addressing your social anxiety through proven treatments like therapy or medication, plus treating any co-occurring substance abuse, you can finally experience lasting relief from nervousness, worry, and anxiety. It’s time to take the first step and end your struggle with mental health difficulties or addiction. At Avalon Malibu, our caring team of professionals will provide you with support and the right tools you need to overcome your mental health concerns or addiction. Allow us to heal your mind, body, and spirit with our unparalleled offerings of holistic and clinical treatment options. Call us today at (844) 857-5992.