I’ve had a lot of therapists, so I’ve had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I’ve faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

I used to think a drug addict was someone who lived on the far edges of society. Wild-eyed, shaven-headed and living in a filthy squat.That was until I became one…

Gately can’t even imagine what it would be like to be a sober and drug-free biker. It’s like what would be the point. He imagines these people polishing the hell out of their leather and...

Black and white thinking limits understanding and feedback, two necessary ingredients for successful resolution in creative conflict and successful understanding.

It was His gentle voice who calledand sent His angel pain to guide me, through the long ‘n dusty corridors, and empty hallways of my soul.

Alcoholism or addiction is a disease because it fits the definition of disease. It is progressive and chronic, and left untreated, it will kill.

I’ve been married but I’m not anymore. And I still believe in love.

Bear in mind you have a life to live. There is an incredible loss. There is a profound grief. And there is, in the end, after a long time and more work than you ever...

Life is a funny thing. We claim it to be our own; but the truth is, it’s not. It belongs to something much bigger. We, like everything else, are transient. This life is temporary and...

Recovering is a process of coming to experience a sense of self. More precisely, it is a process of learning to sense one’s self, to attune to one’s subjective physical, psychic, and social self- experience....

When you are aligned with the truth of who you truly are, then you experience bliss.

Be grateful. These feelings, no matter how painful, are part ofliving. Today, we are alive—not anesthetized, not sedated, not passedout. Take control of your feelings and through action you can change.Today, as every day of...

It is important to learn about being multiple, and what works for their healing, from your client. To work with the alters, rather than trying to get the ANP to control the rest of the...

Theirs was the eternal youth of an alternating self, a youth with the constant although unfulfilled promise of growing up

When we leave this life, we only get to take two things: the love we received and the lessons we learned.

Putting labels on others creates a black hole of disregard where judgment thrives and schisms deepen.

I moonlight as the greatest actor. I smile. I choose the comedy mask every time. I tell those who worry that I am fine, that I always will be. There is nothing to gain from...

Turn off your phone, and your computer and your mind. Find your heart center and send it compassion. See the holiness in everyone you meet. Honor it.Know your worth. Know your worth. Know your worth.Accept...

This is our purpose: to make as meaningful as possible this life that has been bestowed upon us . . . to live in such a way that we may be proud of ourselves, to...

Oftentimes, especially during my recovery, I didn’t need to think about everything I was doing wrong; instead, I needed to focus more on what I was doing right—and then do more of the right stuff....

A small step toward recovery is giant progress.

There is no external solution to the problem of insecurity.

it’s not how far you fall, but how high you bounce that counts.

If I had to offer up a one sentence definition of addiction, I’d call it a form of mourning for the irrecoverable glories of the first time…addiction can show us what is deeply suspect about...

Like Sylvia Plath, Natalie Jeanne Champagne invites you so close to the pain and agony of her life of mental illness and addiction, which leaves you gasping from shock and laughing moments later: this is...

Youth, I didn’t want that illness. Luckily I recovered just in time for middle age. Now I can focus on more important things, like love, a relationship, and my upcoming existential crisis.

turn our lives and our wills” over requires something very difficult for a spiritually wounded person to accomplish – Trust. Yet, to accomplish this step, trust of the spirit must be present.

This wonderful gray of acceptance resides between the extremes of black and white thinking; looking for serenity, explore the gray. Part of that acceptance is understanding that life is hard and involves life and death....

Must have a lot of male customers to let her dress like that. Nice view.

Although healing brings a better life, it also threatens to permanently alter life as you’ve known it. Your relationships, your position in the world, even your sense of identity may change. Coping patterns that have...

Cut.Take gazillion and one.This time with a little less weepy-weepy, please. A little less improvisation. A little less lip. A little more faith. A little more higher power. A little more prayer, a little less...

As Lynn began getting psychologically better, she took me to a variety of sites. She taught me how to read trail markers. In the end, Lynn’s stories could not be denied. She was not only...

Are you super strong? Can you be hurt?””Of course I can,” replied Dimitri. “I’m strong, but all sorts of things can still hurt me.”And then being Rose Hathaway, I said something I really shouldn’t have...

you will perhaps missthe part of you that is gonebut do not fear:all is for the best in the worldand soon you will not realize it is gone:you have either forgotten it entirely orit has...

I lost myself in the burden of trying to be your savior.

It is a beautiful and scary thing to sit open-handed and let all your plans float away like dust.

I found the prospect daunting, but somehow comforting, too, because the counselors insisted it could be done, and, after all, many of them were recovering alcoholics themselves.

Why do prostitutes when they get straight always try and get so prim? It’s like long-repressed librarian-ambitions come flooding out.

Children have empty erasable white boards upon which big people write indelibly imprinted messages into their tender subconscious minds.

If one wants to be loved and return it full score dagger of silence closes the door.

To change one’s field of influence is to change the course of one’s life.

The traumatized person is often relieved simply to learn the true name of her condition. By ascertaining her diagnosis, she begins the process of mastery. No longer imprisoned in the wordlessness of the trauma, she...

First Embody the Emptiness of SilenceNext Embody the Fullness of Honesty & LoveThus Be HeavenSage Hope (Omid Mankoo) SH…

It was not my strength that wanted nursing, it was my imagination that wanted soothing.

I almost wish I had cancer. Then I’d either beat it or die from it. But my disease, even if successfully treated, will never go away. And it might not kill me. But it will...

I am evolving from being an animal,’ he said. ‘But it is going very, very slowly. Sometime I try to cry and laugh like other people, just to see if it feels like anything. Yet...

It appears that DDNOS is the intentional goal of these abusers, but DID sometimes results from a failure of programming. In DDNOS, the ANP is always present, even when another part is in control of...

It all made sense — terrible sense. The panic she had experienced in the warehouse district because of not knowing what had happened had been superseded at the newsstand by the even greater panic of...

Only then can I fly.Only then can I be free -when Ilet go of me.

When you wear a mask, you are not real.