Wild horses

The resilience of nature is a continuous source of inspiration for me. When I hear that endangered wild horses have found refuge in Chernobyl, one of the worst man-made disasters in human history, I think of the elasticity present in each one of us. Starting over...

Toting the pink bubble

Staying sober in rehab vs. in recovery presents different challenges. For me, it’s relatively straightforward to remain sober in rehab because there’s a safety net and daily reminders. The difficult part is keeping sober in recovery. Applying the toolkit provided in...

Tangible Rewards

Drug addiction is as dark as the inside of a wolf. This chronic relapsing disorder is characterized by maladaptive learning about drugs and predictive cues that leads to compulsive drug seeking. The crucial goal of addiction treatment is to correct maladaptive...

Found Memories

Occupying your time in rehab can be as challenging as bagging fleas. It’s an important concept to get used to, though, because in recovery I find a great deal of time on my hands. Sometimes it feels like a blessing and curse. While time heals many wounds, thoughts and...

Everything looks frightening under the microscope

Some days I feel like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. Nervous and unsure where to go next. This happens when I start missing the forest for the trees. There’s a saying in pathology: “everything looks scary under high magnification.” Meaning I could...

To daydream again

Recovery requires courageous remodeling of the pleasure-reward pathway. This mesolimbic system, in neuroscience terms, is a pathway of neurons that we rely on every day. It’s what drives the mouse to forage, the frog to call out for a mate into the night, and...