Tag Archives: recovery

Focus on the Issue

Posted on by
Reply

Do you care what political views others hold? Do you care what religious beliefs they embrace? Should everyone be just like you? Are you in charge of their preferences? Think everyone should go to college and all women should work outside of their homes, leaving all child rearing to??? Or the opposite, all mothers should stay home full time, pulling warm homemade cookies out of the oven just as Jr. walks through the door from school? Should everyone have the same dress code as you do? Should all people have a dog? A child? How far do you take these prejudices? Continue reading →

Gambling Addiction

Posted on by
Reply

We addictionists divide addiction into substance addictions (alcohol and other mind altering drugs, food, even cigarettes) and process addictions (shopping, gambling, exercise, work, and sex). In and of themselves, none of these substances or processes is “bad”. The problem is the addict and what the addict does with the substance or process. The way an addict is affected by anything potentially mind altering is always different from the way a non-addict is affected. The problem is the addict, not the “drug of choice”. Continue reading →

Willingness

Posted on by
Reply

Last year I wrote about the H and O of H.O.W., the HOW of change, of recovery from addiction or from anything else.  Honesty, Open-mindedness, and Willingness are some of the ingredients necessary to move along this pathway. If you are stuck, physically, emotionally or spiritually, take a look at these three pieces and see if you can progress by paying more attention to your HOW.

Willingness. Willingness to change, progress, recover from anything. Webster’s dictionary defines willing as: 1.inclined or favorably disposed in mind, ready, 2. prompt to act or respond, 3. done, borne, or accepted by choice or without reluctance, 4. of or relating to the will or power of choosing, volitional, voluntary. Continue reading →

Spiritual beings?

Posted on by
Reply

The question has been posed: Are we human beings having a spiritual experience or spiritual beings having a human experience? The skeptics among us will say, “neither, we are just human beings, nothing before or after this life we are in now and spirituality is bogus.” If that is you, consider changing how you think…pretend for a while. What if this life on planet earth is just a blip in our being? Maybe before we came here, we were spirits; part of, yet separate from God. Maybe we are sent, or decide, to arrive on earth for a period of time and accomplish God’s mission for us. We get here and get distracted. Activities, people, stuff, all become wedges between us and our spiritual selves…we become our bodies, our behavior, our thoughts, neglecting our spirit and growing ever separated from our God. After some time existing in this separation, we begin to hurt. Continue reading →

Gratitude

Posted on by
Reply

Sometimes that word, gratitude, just makes us gag. So what if there are starving people on the other side of the world and I just finished gorging myself on a meal that cost the equivalent of the annual wage of workers in most countries in Africa? How does that relate to me and my problems? Well… how does gratitude enter, or not enter into your life and why bother?

Okay, are you happier walking around…hmmm…maybe sitting around, counting your negatives or counting your positives? Whatever we focus on will get bigger. Feed either the good dog or the bad dog in your brain, whichever dog you want to grow…and eventually that one will eat the other dog. There is only so much room in your brain and if a large portion of it is occupied by gratitude and happiness, there is less to be invaded by negativity. Continue reading →