As young children, we are frequently asked: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Instantly, our minds dart from a doctor or a lawyer, to a famous athlete, or even a rockstar. I remember feeling a jolt of excitement over the endless possibilities. Never once did I consider being a drug addict;…
There is arguably nothing more complex than the subject of family. While experts have reduced addiction in the family to a series of roles – the addict, the enabler, the scapegoat, the mascot, the lost child, and the hero – these labels, however accurate they may be, don’t even begin to scratch the surface of…
Piecing life back together after active addiction isn’t as simple as putting down drugs and alcohol. Sometimes the reconstruction process takes a few months but, for most of us, it takes years. It’s unreasonable to expect that the things we destroy over a long period of time are going to be restored overnight. It can…
It’s no mystery that an “us versus them” mentality contributes to the stigma surrounding drug and alcohol addiction. People think: “I would never do that to my family,” or “Why can’t they just stop? I would never drink like that”. Separating ourselves from people who are behaving in ways we fear or dislike is a…
If one has managed to achieve longterm sobriety and create a contented life, it can be tough to hear struggling newcomers describe recovery as “boring”. Obviously, no one wants to be perceived as boring but, if one has mastered the art of not taking things personally, the real challenge is trying to convey how much…
Chanelle Camire has the uncanny ability to make anyone she engages feel warm, welcome, and at ease. Her talent is at once natural and well-honed, and absolutely indispensable in the world of health and wellness. Since addiction ravages the mind, body, and spirit, it stands to reason that effective treatment compassionately addresses all of these…
Those of us who were born in a certain era can vividly remember the relief we felt when we walked into our childhood classroom and spotted the old cathode ray tube TV on the rolling cart. Unless the teacher had devised some cruel mechanism for testing our attention, it meant we were blessedly off the…
In our previous post, we posited that all addiction treatment aims toward harm reduction and, therefore, all addiction treatment is harm reduction. We also explained that the Process Recovery Center utilizes two forms of medication assisted harm reduction: Narcan and Vivitrol. We have already dedicated a post to Narcan education, so it seems only fair…
There is nothing more polarizing than the subject of harm reduction. The words themselves evoke such stirring emotions that a room is likely to be split in half by a discussion, especially when an individual has personally experienced success with one particular method of addiction treatment and not others. Our anecdotal experiences often lead to…
At the Process Recovery Center, we like to stay on the cutting edge in terms of education and best practice. Our staff and clients were recently fortunate enough to receive training on Narcan and opioid overdose awareness. We learned that misinformation and hysteria – the source of which is the news and social media –…