Blog | Encouraging Recovery

How to keep a handle on what my “reality” looks like and shaping that without losing hold of the objective reality that is clearly around me.

It was wildly frustrating. I couldn't see how life without drinking could possibly be satisfying. Of course, my drinking life was about as far from satisfying as you can get!

Blink, Smale Park, 2022, Cincinnati, OH. Dee. What is it we’re looking for when we over-indulge? There’s some feeling that we’re soo close to feeling just right. The perfect moment. The perfect experience. The ecstasy, full sensation and enjoyment and pleasure. One more beer. Just another puff. One more pill. One more cheese puff … I know. Seeking pleasure, chasing nirvana ... It's baked into us. I'm thinking about holidays or summer vacation as a child. All that anticipat

What is THE number one thing that causes addiction? Is it a disease, rooted deep in our genes or in our environment and experiences?

I keep thinking about balance and how important that is as an over-arching sort of principle. So what does that mean? I think of yin and yang, and I think of seasonal cycles, and I think of our emotions and our activities, and I feel like that balance is a fundamental force in our lives, not achieving the balance, so much, as the act of balancing. There are outside forces, and it’s up to us to adjust for overall balance. Yin and yang, Pixabay. When I think of balance, I imme