Resources for Addiction Recovery during Covid-19

With the situation changing daily, fear and uncertainty can loom bigger than ever. Whether you are particularly vulnerable to the virus or feel helpless for loved ones who are; affected by the anxiety and overwhelm as you watch the news; or are under pressure to weigh your finances against taking care of your health, my thoughts are with you. Substance use can seem like a good idea at first by giving us an immediate sense of control. But, the long term costs far outweigh any short term benefits. As we come to terms with our new reality and adjust our relational worlds, lets begin having the conversations that move us towards love (and a dope soul) during covid-19.

Here are a few curated podcasts for your dope soul (say it loud and proud)!

• For those yearning for joy and hope,  Catherine Gray’s podcast on finding joy in recovery provides some perspective that being sober is not dull or businesslike. She further talks about the emotional awareness in the early days of sobriety and how to delineate between cravings and feelings…most of the A.I.R. podcasts talk about finding hope but Catherine’s journey is so raw that i wanted to highlight it here.

• For those needing a little levity. If you’re losing track of days and the experience of social distancing is as monotonous as the endless repeating day in the movie Groundhog Day, I share some practices we can use to keep the routines fun and lighthearted (this is also one of my favorite movies).

• For those needing grounding, Robert Cox’s wisdom on Mindfulness in Recovery reminds us that a mindfulness practice is essential to ground us in our feelings and curb those cravings long enough to move onto the next thing.

• For those needing strength, I take the classic movie The Wizard of Oz and discuss what it is all of us can learn from the four main characters on how to find courage, wisdom, and love.  And that Dorothy and the gang had the solutions inside themselves all along! Off to the land of Oz.

• For those needing love, I break down the ingredients one needs to cultivate self-love and self-acceptance in recovery. And recovery means making the radical decision to love yourself instead of getting stuck in the self-hatred shame spiral.  Choose love.

Move past the ideas that we need to merely survive this pandemic, we need not only to take care of our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health, but to be creative and set boundaries within our relationships and end relationships that no longer serve us.

Let us become more aware of all the ways we are connected even as we keep to ourselves. It may not be more clear than it is right now during this pandemic. If it wasn’t apparent before the pandemic, I hope we take away positive benefits-better relationships, greater sense of strength and compassion, greater self-worth, and a pinch of carpe diem (or a better appreciation of life)!