No matter how you are behaving with someone using addictions, your behaviours do not cause that person to use. That is a decision that the addicted person makes. You did not cause somebody else’s addiction and you don’t have to feel guilty about that. The person using the addiction is the one making that choice—period. … [Read more...] about People Using Addictive Behaviours Are Making That Choice
Addiction
What Do Practicing Addicts REALLY Feel?
Even though practicing addicts already feel badly about themselves, it is still important for them to feel the consequences of their behaviour. This is what helps them make the decision that living life as an addict is NOT what they want. When we take these consequences away from them, we are enabling them and the addiction continues. … [Read more...] about What Do Practicing Addicts REALLY Feel?
Navigating Addiction
During the Festive Season
As the year draws to a close and the holiday season rapidly approaches, it's easy to feel like time has slipped through our fingers. Wasn't it just yesterday that we were welcoming September?
Now, everywhere we turn, we're reminded of the joy and warmth that the holiday season is supposed to bring. Advertisements paint a picture of perfect families, generous giving, and festive cheer. But the reality is often far from this idealized image.
This year, like the last, and the one before, has been … [Read more...] about Navigating Addiction
During the Festive Season
The Vicious Cycle of Low Self-Respect
Self-respect is an ‘inside job’ – we develop it by doing the next right thing for ourselves and then the next right thing after that. I can’t give you your self-respect and you can’t give me mine. But we can encourage each other to take the best care of ourselves that we can, because active addiction and self-respect cannot coexist. I know which one I choose today – how about you? … [Read more...] about The Vicious Cycle of Low Self-Respect
Overdosing on the Job? Naloxone to the Rescue! Part Two
Enabling vs. Helping My simple definition of enabling is when we do for others what they can – and indeed should – be doing for themselves. In my view, what’s happening on some of these worksites is enabling at its worst. At a deeper level, addicts know exactly what they’re doing – they know they’re crippling their own lives and continually hurting the people who love them. Show me an addict who doesn’t know that they now risk dying every time they use because of the toxic supply, and I’ll show … [Read more...] about Overdosing on the Job? Naloxone to the Rescue! Part Two
