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Dedication. Obsession. Addiction. When you think about these three terms, you may notice that they run in the same vein with methodical, intense behavior surrounding them. Indeed, there are some key similarities between their meanings and the behaviors they elicit. Yet, understanding how they differ is necessary because one can often be mistaken for the other. One way to better understand how dedication, addiction, and compulsion differ is by distinguishing the intentions behind the efforts of someone when they are practicing these three things.

Recovery from addiction and mental illness is already a complicated venture, and one’s mindset can play a crucial role in the success of one’s recovery program. It is essential to keep an open, optimistic mind about the future and avoid succumbing to a victimized mentality while moving through the recovery process. Not only can a victim mentality paralyze progress in recovery, but it is also an incredibly stressful state of mind that can introduce unwanted additional hurdles through the recovery process. Avoiding or overcoming this kind of mindset is crucial for continued progress and maintaining many of the life-changing decisions made in the name of recovery.

Since April is Stress Awareness Month, it’s the perfect time to declutter anything causing extra stress in your life. One of the things you may find causing you unnecessary stress is an excess of decisions to make, resulting from the hefty mental and emotional strain of being weighed down by too many choices and decisions to make. This severe overwhelm, or what is known as decision fatigue, not only causes stress but can lead to someone shutting down and incapable of making decisions altogether.

When you have been facing mental health challenges or going through addiction treatment and most days find yourself feeling good, bad, and all things in between, one of the worst questions you repeatedly hear yourself getting asked is, “How are you feeling?” There’s something that feels overwhelming being asked this question since you don’t exactly know how you feel, especially when how you feel mentally or physically seems like it changes quickly from one second to the next. Loved ones ask this question with love and good intentions, and not wanting to answer it can make you feel guilty and upset.

We all have that side of ourselves, the parts of our personalities or life experiences that we don’t want to look at or want others to see. Maybe we’re afraid of how it makes us feel or how others could perceive it. All of this explains our “shadow,” coined and studied by the influential psychiatrist Carl Jung. It was his belief and theory that the more we repress and ignore our shadow, the more power and influence it has over us. For those in addiction recovery, they have pushed away from their inner shadow for years or decades when their suppressed shadow may be what manifested as their addiction in the first place.

Even if just one individual is suffering from an addiction to drugs or alcohol, it can affect the whole family. While addiction can feel incredibly isolating, each family member or individual living with someone suffering from addiction will feel the effects in their own way. Recovery from addiction is a complicated process, but an individual doesn’t have to go through it alone. Working to heal as a family can help achieve prolonged sobriety and maintain the life-changing practices needed to continue through a sober future.

Judging when someone else has an anger problem is usually pretty obvious, but knowing when you are the one who has anger issues is another story. Especially if you are someone who struggles with flash anger who feels fine and peaceful most of the time but will fly off the handle in a second. You may think that because you are calm 99 percent of the time, you don’t have any anger issues but do those fleeting moments of rage or “flash anger” amount to something that requires some personal work? It turns out, yes, they do.

Learning something new may be difficult, but the task of unlearning deeply held false beliefs proves even more challenging for most people. Whether you realize it or not, we all hold on to beliefs about ourselves and life that we have accepted as truths from our families, society, TV, education, or experiences. Most of what we learn as we grow and mature molds and shapes us in beautiful ways, making us more intelligent and more aware of ourselves, but in the mix of all of the good we absorb are false beliefs that can be holding us back and poorly affecting our mental health. Looking critically at your actions and why you say or do things will help you identify the underlying beliefs you hold about yourself. When we carry negative beliefs about ourselves that weigh us down internally, this will manifest downstream as negative self-talk and a poor state of mental health. Retraining how we think about ourselves by unlearning these false beliefs will help bring about positive self-regard and positive changes to our mental health. Below are some common false beliefs that deep down people believe to be true, perpetuating poor mental health.

If you have experienced trauma in your life, you may find yourself having a range of strange reactions to certain events. When you have experienced trauma, it is important to remember your brain has been sensitized to certain stimuli and that you should be gentle with yourself as you unpack, process, and alchemize your trauma. The path of healing the wounds of trauma imprinted on your subconscious is not a linear journey and takes a variable amount of time for everyone. As you go about your life, you may find yourself easily triggered at times. Sometimes it is hard to recognize that feeling or acting a certain way is caused by feelings from a past trauma surfacing. By learning the signs of feeling triggered by a precipitating event, you can be on your way to pacifying yourself and de-escalating your response in sensitive situations. Not to mention, when you have a good understanding of the signs and symptoms of trauma-related triggers, you can react with compassion and empathy to create a safe space when you are experiencing anxiety from those stirred-up emotions. See below for common signs that you or someone else may be reacting to a trauma-related trigger.

We can’t outrun technology’s influence over our lives, and whether we like it or not, the way we use technology has affected our brains and bodies. Today’s younger generations are growing up with brains wired differently than kids of previous generations, and only time can show the effects this will have. With our constant use of technology, we end up with brains fatigued from constantly jumping from one thing to the next and strained from communicating so much from behind a screen.

Communication is a crucial part of recovery. Whether an individual is addressing their mental health, moving through their recovery from an addiction to drugs or alcohol, or trying to support a loved one through their struggles, communication is the cornerstone of progress. However, that doesn’t mean that everyone necessarily communicates in the same way. Even if an individual feels safe in their environment, they may not feel they have the proper tools to share their feelings, progress or struggles effectively. Learning about the various ways an individual can express themselves can improve the quality of their recovery and support and strengthen their drive to see their goals through.

What makes substance abuse so rampant within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning (LGBTQ) community? Statistically speaking, LGBTQ adults are known to be nearly twice as likely to have a substance abuse disorder than heterosexuals, so it is a huge problem to the health and well-being of members within this community. By gaining a better understanding of the challenges that affect this community, it can help to explain the phenomena of mental health and substance abuse disorders within the LGBTQ community.