A New Look at 10 Addiction Relapse Triggers
You are new to recovery and innocently pushing your cart down the aisle at the local Fresh Market. Let’s say it’s a gloomy Sunday afternoon. You round the corner, and there in front of you is the alcohol aisle. Aisles more like it, all shapes and sizes of beer and wine stacked and displayed artfully. […]
What is a Hangover? Why Aren’t Hangovers a Deterrent to Drinking?
Ahh, the morning after. Those who have overindulged the night before rise like zombies holding coffee cups to their foreheads. They dig in messy purses and junk drawers for painkillers and stomach settlers, piecing the previous evening’s events together like tattered scraps of paper. No one with a hangover wants to see the sunrise or […]
Sobriety Makes You Pretty – It’s Better than Botox!
Updated 1/2/25 I work for Sanford Behavioral Health in Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan, which gives me a bird’ s-eye view of our patients in recovery. Everyone knows that addictive substance use can wreak havoc on our physical health. However, I’d like to address what it does to our physical appearance as well. Since I don’t see […]
101 Sober Things to Do to Beat the Winter Blues
Updated 02/09/2026 Are you feeling the winter blues? There are many wonderful things about living in Greater Grand Rapids, Michigan, but there is a but: the winters are long. Variations on the color white blanket many of the things we like to do. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is a real issue when the days are short and […]
How a Winter in Michigan Can Help You
We have had a gloomy start to the year in Michigan. The sun shined for five minutes in the first eight days of January 2023. Since then, it has been all grey skies and puddles threatening to turn to black ice. So why, you ask, is this woman writing an article about the health […]
Dry January – What are the Lessons We Learn?
During the holidays, I was extolling (as one does when loved ones gather) about the relative ease of my recovery from an acute alcohol use disorder. I am nine years sober, and at this stage of the game, not drinking has become as much of an affectation as my omnipresent wine glass used to be. […]
You’re Stressed? Women Feel the Holiday Hassles More than Men
My mother used to do this predictable thing whenever I would indicate frailty, especially during the holidays. If I said, “I’m tired,” she said, “You’re tired. I slept three hours last night worrying about how I would seat everyone at dinner tonight.” I could not top her ever-escalating descriptions of exhaustion, aches and pains, and […]
A Toast to Brain Health – 10 Strategies to Embrace the Holiday Season
If you or a loved one are experiencing your first sober holiday season, I’ll bet I can predict the questions you are noodling. I can also assure you (nine years after my first dry yuletide) that most of your concerns are unfounded. I quit drinking in July, so I had time to get used […]
These 10 Excuses are the Enemy to Your Recovery. Do Any Apply to You?
It’s the holidays—the time for pageants at church and school, office parties, and family responsibilities. As a person in recovery, I can remember this time of year while in active addiction. On top of the crushing TO DO list of everyday holiday tasks, there was the exhausting schedule of drinking, planning to drink, and […]
10 Tips for a Sober Holiday
My family has a legend we talk about from my non-sober holidays past. It’s about the time “Mom,” with a bottle of chardonnay coursing through her system, put hot stuffing into a Pyrex bowl. And while the rest of the Thanksgiving meal was sliced, mashed, and dolloped into serving dishes, I attempted to keep […]
