A commitment to exercise can help you change your body for the better. But physical exercise also has benefits for your brain and overall wellness that many people are not aware of. Whether hitting the gym or taking a walk around your neighborhood, you are doing activities that support your mental health, recovery from addiction,…
Benzodiazepines (aka “benzos”) are among the most widely prescribed and the most widely misused medications in the United States. Routinely prescribed to treat conditions such as anxiety and insomnia, pharmaceutical drugs like Xanax, Niravam, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan and other drugs and their generic forms are increasingly popular. Addiction to and rehabilitation from benzos are…
When a patient enters a facility for drug treatment, one might hazard a guess that his or her main problem is a substance use disorder. At New Hampshire drug rehab, we know that is not always the case. In fact, according to Process R.N., Nicole White, patients often admit to treatment misdiagnosed with the wrong…
I was listening to a podcast and the host, Nadia Bolz Weber, said, “I’m tempted to write an anti-self-help book called, ‘You Are Not Enough’. It’s okay…there is enough. But, oh my gosh, it doesn’t have to all be you. It doesn’t have to come from you – just to sort of let everyone relax”.…
It’s rare for me to run a therapeutic group in PHP or IOP in which I don’t hear someone mention the word “boredom” in the context of their early recovery living in a New Hampshire sober living or sober house. It might surprise you to know that boredom can precipitate a relapse. Why is boredom…
A little known fact about me is that I actually have two roles at the Process Recovery Center, a New Hampshire drug rehab; one is creative and one is clinical. When I’m not writing or otherwise creating, I facilitate our women’s gender-specific programming. One of the things I’ve learned during my time as a women’s…
Gaslighting is a term that has been trending since 2018. According to Dictionary.com, gaslighting is a verb, meaning to “manipulate (someone) by psychological means into questioning their own sanity”. While “gaslighting” is an easy word to throw around, it has grave implications. Gaslighting is an “extremely effective form of emotional abuse that causes a victim…
It occurred to me the other day – as I, like so many others, worked from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic – how ironic it is that we dedicated two blogs to the subject of soul sickness. Our explanation of soul sickness is derived from two perspectives: 1.) the mania of becoming disconnected from…
COVID-19 has the potential to worsen a crisis that has been around for years: the addiction epidemic. Johann Hari coined the phrase, “the opposite of addiction is connection,” but with state and federal agencies urging citizens to practice social distancing, how will people in recovery weather the storm? Despite the challenges ahead, COVID-19 doesn’t have…
When I met with Process managing partner, Justin Etling, to explore the topic of soul sickness, he readily attributed the term to Executive Director, Nicole White, who uses it to describe the “mania” of becoming disconnected from self. Although Justin refused to take credit, he was more than willing to share his interpretation of soul…