Anything, but Ordinary

You don’t want to put yourself in a situation that will challenge your sobriety. It’s easy to be reckless when you can use substances as a reason or an excuse, but once you find that road to recovery, you want to keep moving forward. The first 90 days in sobriety are the most important, but it’s also the most dangerous. You already know how much effort it takes to become sober if you’re already recovering from an alcohol use disorder. You’ll want to take every precaution to

There are many reasons why someone may want to relapse. They think that they can’t get back on track, so they rely on past indulgences to help them cope with their current situation. Someone could be in recovery for decades only to have something happen that causes them to take a step back and start to use again. No matter how far you are in your recovery, there’s always a chance of a relapse. Some of the triggers that could cause a relapse are boredom, stress, money problems

When it comes to a family member struggling with addiction, there are things to consider when it comes to supporting them. You want them to be able to come to you, but you also don’t want to scare them off by being judgemental. They need to know that you are willing to help them, be there for them. I know it’s hard to love someone who is struggling. There are going to be times where you wonder if there are things you could have done differently or take the blame that they wen

When I was a kid, my brother and I were besties. I couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything or go anywhere without him. I couldn’t be away from him. In the early days of elementary school, if I didn’t see him on the playground at recess and lunch, I would get anxious and I would start to panic. I would start to tear up and race around the school yard until I saw him. I needed to see him to prove that he didn’t leave me alone. The first instance of separation anxiety was when I was ki

When it comes to socializing, it’s a challenge with someone with autism. We try to make friends, we want to make friends, but we don’t know how to approach people. We don’t know when it’s a good time to go up to someone and talk to them. When we do get the chance, we don’t know what to say or how to say it. We don’t know if the person we’re talking to is listening just to be nice or if they feel like they have to listen because they know its rude to walk away. We feel like no

When it comes to addiction, you have to think about if addiction runs in your family. A lot of the time, you know someone that has struggled with some sort of addiction. Some people will stay away from drugs and alcohol because it’s something they know. They knew someone close to them that relied on drugs and alcohol so they did whatever they could to not go down that same path. In other cases, addiction is all someone knows. Existing research showed that annually, 11.8 mill

The beginning of a new year is always exciting, but it can also be a time where people look back on the past year and wonder where the time went and wonder if there’s a way to slow it down. As we get older and look over the past, we tell ourselves if we can make the new year our best year yet. No two years are the same. We go in with an open mind, but as the days and months go on, life throws us a curveball, something we don’t expect. People take the new year as a challenge t

The holidays are stressful for everyone. There are a lot of things that need to be done like prepping for family that are coming from out of town and a lot of things to see like the Christmas lights that people have put up, but if you throw mental health into the mix, it’s not going to be fun for everyone involved. There’s always a vision where you have to be the perfect host, you have to provide everyone with the perfect meal, give the perfect gifts, but as time goes on, the

I saw the breakup scene on twitter so I knew going into the episode wasn't going to be easy. I try not to be on social media when its 911 day since I know there are going to be spoilers and I held on for as long as I could. Watching the scene broke my heart and the episode was something I've replayed in my head. I wanted to analyze where it all went wrong. This is my theory on what really happened between Buck and Tommy. I understand where Tommy was coming from in regards to

Schizophrenia remains one of the most misunderstood and stigmatized illnesses today. Having a mental health condition isn’t easy. You will do whether you can to relieve the symptoms. You will do what it takes to not hear the voices in your head. Going through something like schizophrenia can be traumatic. You want to find something that will make the voices stop. Living with schizophrenia can feel lonely. People who have the condition may feel like they have a severed connec