Hiking and Addiction Recovery – Nature’s Dynamic Duo
September boasts both Michigan Trails Week and National Recovery Month. I could not let the month end without comment, because the combination of hiking and addiction recovery is brimming with mental health benefits! More than that, Michigan outdoors has been a lifesaver in my own recovery story. My glowing accounts of dune scaling and […]
What is Recovery Awareness?
September is Recovery Awareness Month, and at Sanford Behavioral Health, recovery is a word we hear all the time. One of the tenets of our mission is to support and educate those who are in recovery, their families and communities, but what does recovery awareness mean? The dictionary defines recovery as a return to a […]
Do Alcohol Delivery Apps Feed Isolation & Addiction?
For someone in recovery from an alcohol use disorder, there are a few simple tenets. Be careful of the people, places, and things that might cause emotional triggers. Take things one day at a time. And the one that has become a sticky wicket in the past three years: do not isolate. Isolation and alcohol […]
Can Exercise and Healthy Eating Go Too Far?
Today on the podcast we talk to Sanford Behavioral Health’s Gail Hall, LMSW, DCSW, CEDS-S about orthorexia and other eating disorders. Gail, who has been treating eating disorders for over 30 years, says exercise and healthy eating can present a problem when the individual becomes obsessed with eating clean. Also, the compulsion to exercise […]
Who Needs Botox? 4 Reasons Sober is Beautiful Inside and Out
I work for Sanford Behavioral Health in Grand Rapids. Michigan, and my job gives me a bird’s eye overview of our patients in recovery. I don’t see them every day, which means I am privy to the cumulative effect recovery can have on a person’s overall look. And what a difference even a week […]
Michigan Excursions – Nature Therapy in the Great Outdoors
I work for Sanford Behavioral Health, and as the marketing director, I notice the organization’s communal language. Words have power and we are in the business of stigma busting, so we are mindful about our words when it comes to addiction, eating disorders, and mental health conditions. A few years ago, when we launched […]
6 Ways a Michigan Summer Improves Mental Health and Recovery
Michigan summer… It’s Memorial Day weekend and it finally feels like Michigan summertime has begun. After what we’ve gone through the past couple of years, summer has a special meaning; it feels hopeful and restorative. Green is the color or life, nature, renewal and energy. The color green is also associated with fertility, growth […]
BEST Vacations in Recovery – Sober Summer Travel
Every year at this time I think of those who are new to recovery. Summer vacation, a time to relax and enjoy life can be stressful to the newly sober traveler. In my drinking days vacation began with the first glass of wine on the plane. It often ended with bruised shins, battered relationships, […]
Mental Health Awareness Month – 7 Ways to Do Your Part
As the Marketing Director for Sanford Behavioral Health, I am responsible for social media outreach. Likewise, I am responsible for answering questions or responding to engagement on our various social media profiles. It shocks me when I post something about a new initiative we are launching, and along with the likes and shares I […]
Soul Hunger, Eating Disorders and a Historic ED Treatment Center
Residential Eating Disorders Multidisciplinary Team On the Anatomy of Addiction Podcast, I had the opportunity to interview two members of the residential eating disorder team. Dr. Anna Flores and Erin Carrigan, MA, LLPC, LPCC, are both transplants to Michigan. They moved here to help build the residential eating disorder treatment center at Sanford. Sanford […]
