BCBGaa

10/16/2024

08/29/2024

I spent years leading groups at a recovery center. And what I came to understand that addiction is a symptom. It’s a response. Almost always to unresolved grief. Or shame. Typically both.

No one that’s addicted enjoys the “high.” Life becomes an endless cycle of stress, betraying the people they love, and chronic lying (to themselves included.) Every spare moment is about that next drink, or the next drug— and in a way that’s a relief because it’s something to focus on. Something to briefly remove them from the brutal inner critic playing like a recording in the mind. Something to briefly remove them from the destruction they’ve created around themselves.

We say that people are in active addiction. But what they’re really in is: deep grief. Grief from the abandonment of their father, from the emotional neglect of their mother, from the death of a sibling. From the punishment of poverty or the struggle of being highly sensitive in an emotionally unaware world. And almost always: from the death of their true self. A self they could never be because family or society said it was wrong, bad, or something to be ashamed of.

Addiction is the symptom.

Grief is under the surface

05/26/2024

Sunday, May 26th’s 1:11-2:11pm meeting is going to be changed to 12:11-1:11pm. Thank you for being flexible! 🪶💓

03/18/2024

12/04/2023

12/04/2023

Congratulations Les on 15,461 sober days! 🎉
A recent guest on Sober Is Cool podcast!

11/24/2023

11/24/2023