Help for Families | Secondhand Drinking | Codependency
Recovery Resentment
Recovery resentment – the reason you still feel angry, lonely, hurt, and raw when your loved one is finally in recovery. Author Carolyn Hughes explains. The following is a guest post by Carolyn Hughes, a freelance writer with special interest in alcohol issues. Carolyn is currently writing The Hurt Healer, a novel based on her own…
Read MoreSo What is Codependency?
Codependency – so what is it? This was a very difficult concept for me to grasp. And for the longest time (like almost 4 decades as of 2003), I didn’t even try because I didn’t think it had anything to do with me. But for those of you who’ve read my latest book, 10th Anniversary…
Read MoreThe Dance of the Family Disease of Addiction
Addiction (whether to drugs or alcohol) affects everyone in the family, which is why it’s commonly referred to as a “family disease” — the family disease of addiction. It causes members of a family to develop coping methods that help them interact with one another because no one really knows , understands and/or is willing…
Read More“What Were You Thinking?” – Understanding the Teen Brain
The teen brain. How many of us have found ourselves absolutely baffled by our teen’s behavior and in frustration, lashed out yelling, “What were you thinking?” or “Why did you do that!,” after another of their “stupid stunts?” How any of us recall our own “stupid stunts” and being asked the same questions, with no better…
Read MoreCoping With Addiction in Your Family? Hang on…
Are you coping with addiction in your family? One of the more difficult things to do in families with addiction, in my opinion, is to “hang on” when things seem to be spiraling out of control. For so long, I never knew there was even a possibility of a different way — it just happened —…
Read MoreEnabler. Codependent. What Do These Terms Really Mean?
Enabler, Codependent, Enabling. What are you talking about? When I was first “assigned” these labels in 2003 while attending family therapy group sessions at the residential treatment center my loved one had entered for alcoholism, I more than flinched. I downright declared, “Are you kidding? Not me! I’m just trying to help and keep it…
Read MoreHit Bottom. Is it necessary for the addict to want to get help?
They have to hit bottom, or at least that’s the common belief when it comes to a drug addict or alcoholic seeking / getting help. Is this true? Short answer, “No” — they don’t. Now this may surprise you. It certainly surprised me as I’d always heard they (the person with the drug or alcohol addiction) needed…
Read MoreStop Blaming, Start Living
The following is a guest post by Carolyn Hughes, a freelance writer with special interest in alcohol issues. Carolyn is currently writing The Hurt Healer, a novel based on her own experiences of abuse and alcoholism, and lives in Northern Ireland with her husband and their two daughters. She celebrates 13 years sobriety and says, “My…
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