So many of us are afraid that this national election will not turn out right and that we will be stuck electing a leader who both promotes hate and decries democracy. With good reason, we endlessly obsess about national polls and the latest news regarding the election. We lose a lot of sleep over this …
We feature an expert in the mental health and substance use disorder field to answer questions. This issue we talk to Dr. Rochelle Gredvig of Nystrom and Associates about dissociative disorders. What is your current role at Nystrom & Associates? What inspired you to do the work that you’re doing? I’m a clinical diagnostician and …
“Whoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.” —Francis Bacon Solitude is not the same thing as loneliness. All of us need times when we are just alone with ourselves. Perhaps we use that time to reflect on ourselves or just get away from the noise of the world. We …
“For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.” —Excerpt from “The Hill We Climb,” Inauguration poem by Amanda Gorman The world today is in on-going recovery. Why? you might ask. Think about the past eighteen months: A pandemic (which is not yet …
As a woman in long-term recovery and a regular contributor to The Phoenix Spirit, I have written about my experience finding sobriety, struggling with and addressing cross-addiction, and being a part of a 12-step program. What I have not yet shared is that I am a trauma survivor, and how addressing my trauma has been …
The Phoenix · Having Healthy Boundaries: A Necessary Way to Love To know where you begin and I end is necessary for me to respect you, for me to be respected by you, and for me to respect myself. Without respect, there is no authentic love. Every time I visit my family I come …
“One who returns to a place sees it with new eyes. Although the place may not have changed, the viewer inevitably has. For the first time things invisible before become suddenly visible. —Louis L’Amour I’ve always felt there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Sometimes I get these anxiety spells out of the blue. …
When we are immersed in recovery, our healing journey is a moment by moment experience. Over forty years ago, I was introduced to the Twelve Step program because I wanted my husband to quit drinking. It was evident his behavior was destructive. The Al-Anon program revealed that mine was crazy too. Unaware that my fears …
All my life I’ve felt there’s something terribly wrong with me–something I can’t put into words, something that makes me different from everybody else. People say, “Sheila, you are a good person” but I know they don’t really like me. Sometimes I really hate myself. I know you’ll think this is stupid. For the longest …
