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Of Weeds and Warfare

Historically… I hate gardening.  Growing up in the midwest, my mother spent hours planning and planting beautiful gardens around our home. She solicited my brother’s help for weeding, trimming and watering. My dad helped with heavier tasks like digging new beds and shoveling soil. Thanks to the three of them and their hard work, ours …

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A for Addiction: The Scarlet Sisterhood

Addiction is a disease. End of discussion… right? As practitioners within the field of behavioral health and wholeness, we’ve all heard the message, loud and clear. Many of us subscribe to the concept without question, confident in our convictions that “addicts are sick people, not bad people.” Some of us have built our careers upon this assertion, while others espouse it personally, within …

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Gratitude: Give Me a Break

You know those times when life just gets heavy? When you’ve absorbed yourself SO deeply into something SO significant, you lose track of time and space and any responsible sense (gulp) of basic self-care? When you pause for a quick breath, only to realize that you’ve been SCRAMBLING forward, so fast and so frenetically, you …

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Life Language

In my mid-twenties, I spent two years living and working in Jerusalem, Israel. My Hebrew language skills were conversant at best—good enough to order coffee, take a taxi or ask directions. I worked in an English-speaking office, publishing an English-language magazine. But after work each day, when I walked outside those office doors, my environmental …

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No More Human Sponge

And she did.  Once upon a time, I went through a period of extreme emotional unpredictability. I’d cry uncontrollably, unexpectedly and inconveniently, all at the drop of a hat. My therapist explained that I was severely OVERSATURATED—I was overwrought from decades of “soaking up” every intense emotion I’d ever encountered. Admittedly, I’m still susceptible to …

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Back to Me, Myself and I

FROM “MY NEEDS? WHAT NEEDS?” (PART 3 OF 3)  Toward the beginning of my recovery, I encountered AA’s Seventh Tradition, the one that suggests that Twelve Step groups be “fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.” I soon learned that Tradition Seven applies to more than financial matters: it means that people who are serious about recovery …

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