Recovery

How Do I Deal With Chronic Relapse and Not Let It Break My Spirit?

How Do I Deal With Chronic Relapse and Not Let It Break My Spirit?

One of the more common problems for recovery patients revolves around rates of success based on the percentage of patients who maintain long-term sobriety in contrast to those who may have relapsed after leaving treatment. Although we shouldn’t see it in such black-and-white terms, rehab facilities and the medical community have found few other ways…
Roommates & Creating a Sober Living Environment

Roommates & Creating a Sober Living Environment

Reintroducing structure and enacting a routine to your daily life is a large part of any successful addiction treatment program. The reasoning behind most treatment centers adamantly advocating for structure — with entails efforts as little as making the bed — has to do with the overall make-up of addictive disorders. Addiction is a many-faceted…
When Is It Ok To Be Around Friends And Family That Are Drinking Responsibly?

When Is It Ok To Be Around Friends And Family That Are Drinking Responsibly?

After leaving the relatively safe confines of a rehab facility, addiction recovery patients will eventually have to confront two realities. The first being that alcohol consumption is a socially acceptable habit that many individuals in society can imbibe responsibly, and the second being that it may be near impossible to altogether avoid the influence of…
Best Winter Activities Around Boulder

Best Winter Activities Around Boulder

Choice House facilities are located in the Boulder County, Colorado area between the city of Louisville and the Rocky Mountain National Park. The great state of Colorado is known for its wide variety of outdoor activities available to its visitors and residents no matter the season. People travel from all over the country to participate…
Non-Alcoholic Drinks And Foods To Avoid When In Recovery

Non-Alcoholic Drinks And Foods To Avoid When In Recovery

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) outlines four stages of recovery for patients with addictive behavioral disorders who also have subsequent substance misuse issues. These include: Withdrawal Early Abstinence Protracted Abstinence Adjustment/Resolution These stages are in no way an exact representation of every patient’s psychological and physical experience undergone in addiction recovery.…
gratitude

Gratitude as a Path to Sobriety

Gratitude is one of the essential pillars of the addiction recovery process. From Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to Smart Recovery, gratitude remains a universally recommended practice in the addiction treatment community and an important phase of all 12-Step programs. Being thankful may seem like a simple and unimportant piece to the addiction recovery puzzle – a…
trauma

Defining Trauma and Its Relationship to Substance Misuse

More often than not, diagnosed cases of substance misuse and addictive disorders are accompanied by co-occurring mental health disorders. According to a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAHMSA), an early 1990s study showed that 50 to 75 percent of addiction recovery patients had been diagnosed with some form of a…
aa

What Are the Alternative Pathways to Recovery Aside from AA?

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has become the de facto treatment program for addiction recovery in America. The nonprofit, volunteer organization’s peer-based meeting groups and 12-step program are universally accepted in the addiction recovery community as effective methods for achieving initial sobriety as well as maintaining long term abstinence from substance abuse.  There are no hard statistics…
social

Socializing Without Substance Misuse

Mixing socialization with the imbibing of some form of mind-altering substances is a common practice among Americans to help alleviate social anxiety and supposedly elevate the overall mood and public discourse of a social interaction. A variety of illicit drugs are also utilized for a similar purpose, but alcohol is the most popular and legal…