Recovery Source Blog

08/21/2022

Psychiatrist & Stanford professor Dr. Anna Lembke joins Rich to discuss the neuroscience of modern addiction, dopamine fasting, the opioid crisis & more. To ...

12/14/2020

Let us walk you through the basics of meditation, the benefits of regular practice, the various styles of meditation, plus free guided audio practices.

11/21/2020

11/14/2020

Health and psychosocial risks associated with COVID-19 fall disproportionately on historically marginalized populations. I recently reviewed published studies on preliminary findings related to COVID-19 among people experiencing or recovering from…

11/14/2020

Frequently Asked Questions - What is SAMHSA's National Helpline?

05/26/2017

Reservations are places in my program that I have reserved for relapse.
It may be built around the idea that I can retain a small measure of control, something like, "Okay, I accept that I can't control my using, but I can still break the law, or bend the rules to suit me can't I?"
I may think I can remain friends with the people I used with or bought drugs from.
I may think that certain parts of the program don't apply to me.
I may think there's something I just can't face clean - a serious illness, for instance, or the death of a loved one - and plan to use if it ever happens.
I may think that after I've accomplished some goal, made a certain amount of money, or been clean for a certain number of years, then I'll be able to control my using.
Reservations are usually tucked away in the back of my mind; I am not fully conscious of them. I must review them from time to time to expose them as weaknesses in my program.
It is essential that I expose any reservations I may have and cancel them, right here, right now.

05/17/2017

As addicts, we react to the word "powerless" in a variety of ways. Some of us recognize that a more accurate description of our situation simply could not exist, and admit our powerlessness with a sense of relief. Others recoil at the word, connecting it with weakness or believing it to indicate some kind of character deficiency. Powerlessness does not mean we are helpless. Understanding powerlessness - and how admitting our own powerlessness is essential to our recovery - will help us get over any negative feelings we may have about the concept.
We are powerless when the driving force in our life is beyond our control. Our addiction certainly qualifies as such an uncontrollable, driving force. We cannot moderate or control our drug use or other compulsive behaviors, even when they are causing us to lose the things that matter most to us. We cannot stop, even when to continue will surely result in irreparable physical damage. We find ourselves doing things that we would never do if it weren't for our addiction; things that make us shudder with shame when we think of them. We may even decide that we don't want to use, that we aren't going to use, and realize we are simply unable to stop when the opportunity presents itself.
We may have tried to abstain from drug use or other compulsive behaviors - perhaps with some success - for a period of time without a program, only to find that our untreated addiction eventually takes us right back to where we were before. In order to work the
First Step, we need to prove our own individual powerlessness to ourselves on a deep level.

Narcotics Anonymous Step Working Guide