Recover Integrity: Blog

Do You Need to Dumb it Down in Treatment?    One of the things that's common in some therapeutic communities, when it comes to recovery is telling people to dump it down. And I understand what they mean, but I don't like it. Because I like to think. If you learn to reason well, which is not about coming to the conclusion that I had before I started reasoning, that you’re actually trying to figure out the truth...

Addiction hijacks- let's call it semi-rational thought, as a way to justify ego desires.    The simplest way to put this is to tell a story.    I remember working with a client, and he was about a week sober, had gotten out of detox from opioids. He was a week sober and he was still in some obsession to use heroin. And he very earnestly approached me as a counselor at the time. That's probably 10 years ago.   He...

  The Spiritual Element of Recovery  In many programs, that you would go to, to engage in recovery from addiction, there's a spiritual element to that program. So we have a spiritual program or something like this. And the most common spiritual traditions that they drawn are these Eastern traditions, Buddhism, the yoga, the mindfulness, meditation, these kinds of things. And honestly, I don't think one can put into words the benefits of those practices.     Spiritual Psychology There's another...

One of the things I don't talk about as much--but it's so important--is the physical aspects of treating addiction.    Now this doesn’t necessarily pertain to people who are already “fitness freaks”. There's a whole group of people that come into treatment and their primary coping tool is the gym and eating well. For those people, they're not gonna get the same kind of relief from the gym beyond what they've already got. They've already dealt with...