This is mental health awareness month. Which means, in my experience, that it is still, to some extent at least, alcohol awareness month. Many people who suffer with undiagnosed depression or anxiety reach for alcohol or drugs to calm their nerves or relieve them of emotional pain. In other words,...

How does environment and behavior actually become biology? Our mind's response to stress sends out body signals as to whether or not to rev up or ease up. We were probably not designed for the kinds of constant stressors that are part of most modern lives. Daily traffic, beeping, tapping,...

Life includes pain. About this we have no choice, it comes with the territory. What we do have choice around is how much we suffer. Life is full of ups and downs, but feeling wounded occasionally doesn't necessarily indicate that we're doing anything wrong. Sometimes wrongs can be addressed, sometimes...

Denial is a word that people in recovery use often. It generally refers to an addict who is denying their own increasing use and abuse of alcohol and/or drugs and its affect on their life. Or, it refers to someone around the addict who is denying the progression and impact...

Is happiness a choice, or a fleeting experience that occurs only when all our stars are all perfectly aligned? Can we lose happiness as easily as we find it, or are there attitudes we can adopt that will counter feelings of pessimism and help us to build a stronger, more...

Sugar plums aren't the only things that dance through our heads during the holiday season. For those among us whose holidays have been shaken up by loss or family rupture, addiction or illness, the holidays can remind us not only of what we have, but of what feels missing. There...

If we grow up with toxic stress in childhood, does it change us? Does growing up with parental addiction, abuse or neglect affect out physical, mental and emotional health? Are we making it up? Researchers tells an interesting story.

According the website for the Center on the...

Since the time of the Greeks, theater has been used as a way to inspire, educate and even heal audiences. So why not film? In a dark theater filled with like-minded people, couldn't healing happen in much the same way as it did in ancient amphitheaters? This September 28-October 4,...

Old pain that gets imported into new relationships is the hallmark of the ACoA trauma syndrome. The past we thought we'd neatly left behind once we got tall enough, old enough or smart enough intrudes onto our present and we are returned, in the blink of an eye, to childhood...

Troubled families can make their children feel powerless and bad about themselves. Growing up with one or more parents who abuse alcohol or drugs certainly makes one a card-carrying member of this not-so-exclusive club, as does growing up with mental illness, parental abuse or neglect. I have much info on...

I am adult child of an alcoholic, an ACoA. Until 1980, I had no idea that this was a category or that I was not alone in this strange feeling that I lugged along a past that was somehow burdening my present. I was perfectly functional, happily married, had kids...

I am a mother of a daughter....when I was raising my daughter and my son, it was in that period when we were breaking glass ceilings and challenging and stretching the conventional roles of women.We were sometimes gracefully and sometimes madly... trying to form a new image of what it...

Mariah Haberman, recently crowned "Miss Wisconsin" is using her platform as a pageant winner to talk about what it is like to grow up in an alcoholic family. And she is speaking out about the "protective relationships" that helped her to build resilience and strength so that she could thrive...

Few events deliver more than they promise, but yesterday's "Sober St. Patrick's Day" was a rich and vibrant celebration of Irish flair, creativity and extraordinary spirit, that did. Talent was literally everywhere and those who shared it did so with a kind of depth and dignity that made dance, song...

"The immigrant's heart marches to the beat of two quite different drums, one from the old homeland and the other from the new," says former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese. "The immigrant has to bridge these two worlds, living comfortably in the new and bringing the best...

Whitney Houston was found underwater and unconscious. In a previous interview with Dianne Sawyer, Whitney Houston exhibits many signs of denial that are typical of addicts.

She says: "I don't like to see myself as addicted, I like to think I had a bad habit which can be broken...

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TianDaytonTraumaSurvey

ACOAs: Click above to find out which negative and positive qualities you may have developed growing up with some form of addiction in the home. (2-3 Min)

The kind of emotional and psychological trauma that occurs within the context of relationships can become a template that we carry...

Optimist's, according to research tend to be healthier, are more active, eat more fruits and vegetables and spend more time actively with others. So who wouldn't want to be one? The question is, can optimism be learned, and if so, wouldn't that be a great New Year's resolution?

Martin...

I have learned that each new day is just another day on my spiritual journey
Even a holiday
I know how to look around at any moment and allow the sheer aliveness of it to move me and remind me of the beauty and privilege of being alive.

Take a walk, you'll be glad you did!
You have a natural and very effective antidepressant right inside your body!
The soothing body chemicals that nature embedded into our DNA, to help us to regulate our moods, don't get a chance to work their daily magic if we...