Caution Disclaimer
Online counseling services are not intended to take the place of traditional face-to-face therapy, treatment, or help persons in crisis. See cautionary information.
If you are in crisis call 911, or 1-800-SUICIDE, or go to the Emergency Room of a hospital, or seeking other immediate help.
All services provided by Jan Williams, a licensed addictions counselor and member of the Licensed Clinical Professional Counselors of Maryland.
Archived Addiction Recovery Tips
An alcoholic or addict in recovery can benefit from a daily recovery program. Here are some examples of Daily Recovery Tips that you can subscribe to and receive daily for 365 days at a cost of one dollar per day.
Tuesday January 01, 2008
Happy New Year, the first of 2008's one-day-at-a-times. For a person in recovery from addiction, this new year may be a chance to re-dedicate yourself to abstinence, to attendance of meetings of AA or NA, to involvement with an AA or NA sponsor (mentor), to daily spiritual disciplines, to helping others, to being a loving person with all whom you meet each day, to name a few goals.
Wednesday January 02, 2008
Drug or alcohol addiction is a powerful disease that most people cannot overcome on their own. Many people find long term recovery through use of spiritually based programs such as such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous. If you are new to recovery, attend meetings with an open mind and rely upon the strength and wisdom of the AA and NA groups to provide you with spiritual support until you develop your own individual source of apiritual strength.
Thursday January 03, 2008
Why do members of the Twelve Step Groups identify themselves at meetings as alcoholics or addicts? First of all by saying aloud at a meeting of spiritually based programs such as such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous that "My name is-----, and I am an alcoholic or addict", you are taking personal responsibility for your disease and identifying yourself by name and disease; doing this over many meetings helps you not only internalize you are powerless over alcohol and other drugs but also, paradoxically, helps you gain power over the disease. In effect this simple declaration becomes a statement of victory over the disease of addiction, based upon the spiritual support found in ongoing attendance of Twelve Step meetings and a relationship with a personal source of spiritual strength.
Friday January 04, 2008
The threshold requirement for a successful recovery from addictive disease is a gut level acknowledgement (not just intellectual) that you can no longer use drugs or alcohol without loss of control and ensuing negative consequences that outweigh any short term high or mood change from use. Any notion that you can somehow, some day, under some circumstance use drugs or alcohol successfully must be banished from your mind. Usually the only way to arrive at this state of mind is through much pain and proof to yourself that cannot use and get way with it. Are you there, yet?
Saturday January 05, 2008
How do you find spirituality in recovery in the Twelve Step Programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous? The best way to find spirituality in AA or NA is by experiencing it through attendance of meetings of those groups with an open mind. There you will hear real people sharing about their addiction and how they got into recovery and you will feel the strength of such sharing. That experience is a spiritual one. God or other source of spiritual strength works through people. Go to meetings and feel the power of real people helping one another to recover.
Sunday January 06, 2008
Here is the suggested mind set for an addict or alcoholic in recovery, especially early recovery: If I can say at the end of any given day that I have not picked up a drink or a drug, regardless of anything else that has happened, I have had a victorious day; if I can also say that I have attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous and have sought support from a source of spiritual strength, even better.
Monday January 07, 2008
Think the first drink or drug through is sound advice for a person in recovery from addiction. Don't entertain the thought of using when it pops into your mind or you have an urge to use; just immediately say to yourself, "I don't do that anymore", and then think of all the past negatives in your life that have occurred because you chose to pick up the first drink or drug.
