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The Phone, The Friends, The Lies, The most common argument in homes dealing with addiction is not about drugs or alcohol. It’s about privacy. The phone. The WhatsApps. The friends you’re not allowed to question. The late nights that are “none of your business.” The sudden need for personal boundaries […]

Mixing is not a new problem Poly drug use is not some rare, extreme behaviour reserved for people who have “gone off the rails.” It is increasingly the default pattern, especially in social scenes where people treat substances like a playlist. A bit of alcohol to loosen up. A line […]

The Collision of Two Crises Domestic violence and addiction often exist in the same household, feeding off each other in a cycle that becomes almost impossible to untangle. Each one reinforces the other. Violence creates shame, fear, and emotional turmoil that drive people to use substances to cope. Substance use […]

Relapse is often spoken about as if it arrives out of nowhere. Families describe being blindsided. Partners say they never saw it coming. Parents talk about shock and disbelief as though a switch was suddenly flipped. This story is comforting because it removes responsibility from everyone involved. It allows people […]

The Strange Safety of Suffering Ask anyone who’s been trapped in a destructive cycle, a toxic relationship, a relapse, a self-defeating pattern, and they’ll tell you they knew it was bad. They knew they were being hurt, or hurting themselves. Yet, they stayed. Why? Because pain can feel safer than […]

When Sobriety Became Fashion There was a time when sobriety was quiet, something you lived, not something you posted. It was private, messy, and deeply personal. Now, it’s become an aesthetic. The “sober lifestyle” has been rebranded into a marketable identity, polished, photogenic, and hashtag-friendly. Sobriety has gone mainstream, and […]

When Recovery Starts to Feel Like a Job At the start of recovery, everything feels purposeful. You’re motivated, hopeful, determined to change. You read the books, attend the meetings, write the journal entries, and follow the advice. You tell yourself that healing will be worth it, that one day, you’ll […]

Sobriety promises freedom, but few people talk about the unease that follows it, the restlessness that crawls under your skin when there’s nothing left to run from. You’ve stopped drinking, stopped using, stopped numbing, yet the urge to escape is still there. You chase distractions the same way you once […]

Recovery saves your life, but it also changes your world. You stop drinking, stop using, stop numbing. You start showing up. You rebuild trust, routine, purpose. You start to heal. But what no one really prepares you for is the quiet loneliness that comes next, the distance between who you’re […]

In active addiction, feelings get muted. Substances flatten the peaks and valleys, no real highs, no crushing lows, just the dull hum of escape. But when the drugs, alcohol, or compulsive habits stop, that protective layer disappears. Suddenly, the emotions you avoided for years come roaring back, louder and sharper […]