Take It Online!

“The evidence around the recovery process is that people need three things to succeed: social connection, motivation, and confidence. Digital resources can help with all three,” Gardner said. “If you have a digital life, you should think about weaving recovery in, just like you want to weave recovery into all Continue Reading

Mindfulness and Recovery

From respected academics to revered specialist practitioners, Mindfulness (as a regular practice) is widely accepted as a practical and realistic stress reduction technique. In many countries medical schemes are willing to cover Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programs accepting the growing body of evidence supporting it’s efficacy. Still in early Continue Reading

Choose Life – Choose Recovery

There are certainly no shortage of depictions of addiction and alcoholism in popular culture, some of it original, much of it clichéd but they sure are there. That might make a good book, if someone hasn’t already written it, let us know if you have. This though is a blog Continue Reading

A Healthy Approach to Recovery

Our last post, Do You Want To Be Happy, Or Right? looked at the ‘We are right and you are wrong’ dualistic thinking that surrounds both addiction, treatment and recovery so we are happy to introduce you to a great article, and approach from Matthew Lovitt’s blog. A Master Nutrition Continue Reading

Do You Want To Be Happy Or Right?

I made sense of my addiction to alcohol and drug use (not specific drugs) through the so called ‘Disease Model‘ which explains the problem as an illness, most directly comparable to other relapse prone conditions such as diabetes, asthma and hyper-tension. Although the Disease Model is widely used throughout the addiction Continue Reading

Writing Drunk and Sober

Following our post on Reading For Recovery, we thought you might enjoy an old article we had filed away. Writers who drink are old hat. But what about writers who quit drinking? Tom Shone studied them for his excellent 2009 novel ‘In The Rooms…’ Article from INTELLIGENT LIFE Magazine, Summer Continue Reading

Many Paths, One Destination

In our last post we looked at defining Recovery, in this ORA “Observes” Post we would like to share an article from arch-blogger Brooke Feldman. Brooke who openly identifies as a member of the LGBTQ+ communities and a person in long-term recovery from a substance use disorder, blogs in her Continue Reading

Defining Recovery (What Are We Talking Here?)

I like knowing what things mean. That can get quite difficult when you start talking addiction and Recovery. Whilst definitions of any word or phrase vary, it is generally accepted, by most dictionaries that Recovery is: re·cov·er·y (rĭ-kŭv′ə-rē)pl. re·cov·er·ies The act, process, duration, or an instance of recovering. A return to a normal or healthy condition.The act of obtaining usable substances from unusable sources. Despite the similarity in all the dictionary definitions those involved in Continue Reading