Many of the tips and tricks learned in a good recovery program can follow you around wherever you meet conflict or dysfunction.  Right now, I’m practicing a version of loving detachment at work.  A co-worker is upset for some reason, and I’m a beneficiary of his anger.  He snapped at me last week for no [...]

There is considerable opinion within both the medical and alcoholic treatment communities that alcoholism may be genetically inherited.  I’m not sure if I believe that, but I am open enough to the possibility, I know that I want to teach my children how to avoid behaviours that might lead to or encourage alcoholism.  And whether or not [...]

I’m lucky to have a truly wonderful man in my life right now, but my happiness can be hard to take for a friend of mine who is not in quite the same place.  When she admitted her slight feelings of jealousy and frustration to another friend, he suggested that when she was ready for [...]

Several months ago I bought two tickets to a rock concert as a treat for myself.  The tickets arrived, I put them in my “important stuff” drawer and promptly forgot about them.  The other day I realized that the concert had already happened, and that I had spent $170 on two empty seats. As a single mom [...]

Loving detachment is a great skill for the supporter of an alcoholic.   We tend to gravitate toward situations where we are needed, including in our relationships.  And for good reason: we get things done, we can multi-task like no one else, and we just intuitively seem to know what to do to make the world [...]

As a parent – or anyone who loves someone they feel is not entirely capable of looking after themselves – we know that it can be difficult to make the distinction between caring, and care taking.  I recently saw a movie (based on a true story) about a genetically engineered younger sister of a child [...]

I don’t mean the small changes, I mean the big ones.  Change jobs, change cities, change relationships, change our attitudes and behaviours, change our belief systems.  It doesn’t happen often but when it does, why do we do it?  Perhaps the more telling question is, why don’t we change? Here are some possible explanations: We’re [...]