Torn Counseling & Recovery Center

03/09/2026

Dialectical Thinking can help enormously in recovery from Addiction. This is when 2 seemingly opposite feelings/thoughts/situations or issues can both be true at the same time.
Addiction is often characterised by rigid/black and white thinking.
DBT - Dialectical Behavioural Therapy can help us see that often the magic - 'Wise Mind thinking' is in the overlap in the middle.

03/05/2026

Recovery.

03/01/2026

03/01/2026

Because you didn't want to lose him, you lost yourself in the process.
You became a girl who kept being mistreated and you formed a habit of saying "I'm used to it".

You became a girl who kept being unappreciated and you began to tell yourself "It's okay".

You became a girl who kept being undervalued and you learned how to say "I'm fine".

You became a girl who kept being put last and you naturally reacted with "It's whatever".

You became a girl who kept being taken for granted and you dealt with it by repeating
"Everything's okay".

You became a girl who kept being unhappy and you regularly told people "I'm gonna be fine".

And if you're reading this right now, then you need to understand that no guy is worth losing yourself for, no guy is worth suffering for at the expense of your happiness, and no guy is worth tormenting yourself over for the sake of making him happy.

At this point, perhaps losing him is the only way you'd be able to get yourself back because as much as you wouldn't want this to be true, he's the only thing that's in your way of finding yourself and he's the only reason you've lost yourself for so long.

02/28/2026

Pray for the safety of our troops, a swift and just resolution to the military operations in Iran, and a lasting peace to result in the Middle East

02/26/2026

Not because love isn’t there.
Not because the desire for connection disappears.
But because addiction quietly takes center stage.

Addiction — whether to substances, work, control, validation, or distraction — creates secrecy, avoidance, and emotional distance. It becomes the priority. And intimacy requires the opposite: honesty, presence, vulnerability, and safety.

You can’t fully show up for someone when something else is running the relationship behind the scenes. You can’t build deep trust where there’s unpredictability or hidden pain.

This isn’t about blame. It’s about awareness.

Healing addiction isn’t just about stopping a behavior — it’s about restoring connection. With yourself first. And then with others.

True intimacy becomes possible again when honesty replaces hiding, and healing replaces coping.

02/24/2026

02/24/2026

The word "addiction" is derived from a Latin term for "enslaved by" or "bound to." Anyone who has struggled to overcome an addiction — or has tried to help someone else to do so — understands why.

Addiction exerts a long and powerful influence on the brain that manifests in three distinct ways: craving for the object of addiction, loss of control over its use, and continuing involvement with it despite adverse consequences.

While overcoming addiction is possible, the process is often long, slow, and complicated. It took years for researchers and policymakers to arrive at this understanding.

In the 1930s, when researchers first began to investigate what caused addictive behavior, they believed that people who developed addictions were somehow morally flawed or lacking in willpower.

Overcoming addiction, they thought, involved punishment or, alternately, encouraging them to muster the will to break a habit.

The scientific consensus has changed since then. Today we recognize addiction as a chronic condition that changes both brain structure and function.

Just as cardiovascular disease damages the heart and diabetes impairs the pancreas, addiction hijacks the brain.

Recovery from addiction involves willpower, certainly, but it is not enough to "just say no" — as a famous 1980s slogan suggested.

Instead, people typically use multiple strategies — including psychotherapy, group therapy and self-care — as they try to break the grip of an addiction.

Another shift in thinking about addiction has occurred as well. For many years, experts believed that only alcohol and powerful drugs could cause addiction.

Neuroimaging technologies and more recent research, however, have shown that certain pleasurable activities, such as gambling, shopping, and s*x, can also co-opt the brain.

Although the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) describes multiple addictions, each tied to a specific substance or activity, consensus is emerging that these may represent multiple expressions of a common underlying brain process.

02/19/2026

Alcohol culture has you asking "Who am I without the drink?" like that's not the whole point.

You're afraid to quit because you don't know who you'll be.

The fun one? Gone.

The social one? Gone.

The one who can handle anything? Gone.

Without the drink, you're just... you.

And that terrifies you.

Because you built your entire identity around the version that needs alcohol to function.

The confident you shows up with a drink.

The relaxed you needs wine.

The interesting you requires a buzz.

So you keep drinking.

Not because you love it.

But because you're afraid of meeting the person underneath.

Here's what alcohol culture doesn't tell you:

That person you're avoiding?

They've been there the whole time.

Waiting.

You didn't create a personality with alcohol.

You buried one.

The drink didn't make you fun.

It made you numb enough to perform fun.

The drink didn't make you confident.

It quieted the voice telling you that you're not enough.

The drink didn't make you social.

It chemically altered your ability to care what people think.

You're not afraid of who you'll be without alcohol.

You're afraid you'll finally have to meet yourself.

And discover you're enough without performing.

02/03/2026

Couldn’t resist the trend