#( this reminds me; i need to design my aa insert... )

[vegitoswife-archive]

i love how apollo is the most ordinary f/o i have. he's just A Guy. just a lawyer. the aa world has its fair share of ridiculousness, but it's nothing compared to db as an example 😂

what's funnier is that he brings out more of my unhinged energy for some reason. works a 9 to 5 and comes home to my antics

[activatingaggro]

SIPARA NZINGA | 8.3 sweeps / 18 years old

off the western coast of hamavet, the farthest continent

(6,161 words)

There's bubbles still in your flaps when the gate opens, and you can finally step out.

The first hall that Wilcox leads you down is surreal! It's not so much a building, as it is a dome: the walls are curved high above you, high enough that her horns aren't even scraping the ceiling, and they're glass all the way through. You can see the water outside, sloshing against the glass, and the fish trudging through it. (Floating? Swimming?) There's goosebumps pricking on your skin from the air down here, but when you place your hand against the glass, it's even colder.

"Come along now, miss," Wilcox says, and you startle, turn on your heel to follow.

When ID had told you that he had a proposition for you, you hadn't quite trusted him! You and him.. well, you're complicated, right now, that's the problem. He lied to you. He lied to you, and abandoned you, and he didn't care enough to fix it, not for an entire half-sweep. And what's an apology to fucking that? You'd cried over him, for fuck's sake, and you'd made Pheres deal with it, for perigees and perigees.

.. but a half-sweep isn't too long, when the two of you'll live for at least three dozen of 'em. That's what he keeps reminding you, each time you start to snarl. And how're you supposed to stay mad, when he gives you opportunities like this? Proposition, he said, but this's a fucking favour, more like. "There's a fuschia looking for geneticists, my little hellion," he'd told you, all coy over the husktop, just this side of cloying, "and she's under the Queenpin's thumb, so I could get you in. It's research, ashmote, and more technology than you've ever seen in one place. Isn't this the sort of thing you do?"

You'd been a little suspicious, but how were you supposed to say no to that? Research! Actual research, in a field where they needed you, and where you could work with people for the first time - properly, without having to hide what you know, or how you learned it. You don't know much about ID's boss, but you know plenty about his business. And what's one gray-eyed pupa's education source, when everyone here was probably illegal as fuck?

Illegal, or fuschia.

He hadn't mentioned Wilcox was so tall, though. Or that she was quite this fuschia.

"This is the main lab," she tells you now, peering back over her shoulder. You don't like looking at her, much! ID loves seadwellers, but you've always been with Pheres: there's something about the way their skin moves that makes your skin crawl. It's too dull in spots where it ought to be bright! The fat's too thick, in all the places it shouldn't be at all. And when she smiles at you, it wrinkles her cheeks, and right under her eyes, and nowhere else.

Her pink eyes.

"I think you'll like it. I enjoyed the work that, ah, monseiur Comedy sent our way. You work on helminths?"

She's really, really tall.

"I read your papers," she prompts.

"Yeah -" There's an octopus on the wall, watching you through the glass as you walk through the next hall. There's seadwellers everywhere, clustered together at the tables, and.. there's only ten or so, scattered throughout the room, but this is more than you've ever seen in one place before. You draw your arms in closer, and if you're half-cuddling your bag, fuck anyone that'd look twice. "Um. Wait, nah, girl, soz. I work with, like, ectoparasites! Annelids, mostly. My base stock was, like, nereididae, originally, but I bred 'em to be calcified, and ---"

BT: <))) I told Wilcox I don't need help > So she sent you anyway <

BT: <))) Charming > She's wasting everyone's time <

AA: loool.

AA: mb you don't need help, bb. mb you need   G U I D A N C E. >;}

BT: <))) HA >

BT: <))) Of course > Why wouldn't I need help from a hemoanon <

BT: <))) Sweeps of education > But all of that blunts in the face of .

BT: <))) What > Bootleg schoolfeeds? <

AA: bb, pls.

AA: it's stolen orn fucking bust.

BT: <))) Of course > What was I thinking? <

BT: <))) Empress fucking forbid it's not illegal <

BT: <))) Because the rest of this isn't bad enough <

BT: <))) I'm in the lab > If you fuck up my prototype <

BT: <))) I'm feeding you to it >

"And who," she drawls, peering at you over her nose, "are you?"

Rostik Taalik is a lot of things. She's the only other landdweller here, for starters, even with the fins behind her ears. She's the only person your size, with barely four inches on you. She's one of the only folks your age, and she’s got the longest eyelashes you’ve ever seen on a troll.

And all of that means she's your designated lab partner for the night, as you decided when you walked in. Unfortunately, as it turns out, she's also a huge bulge munch.

"Fuuhao," you drawl right back, spite so thick that it feels like it ought to catch on your tongue. Your eyes are gray and your horns are capped for the night, the blunted edges of the round-end chafing at your skull each time you move, but you're not a lowblood, right now, and you're not going to let some upstart indigo start acting like she's got anything above you. "We spoke online, nookmunch. Now, scoot over, I'm sitting down here."

"Wilcox said you're working on pupation. And I'm supposed to help out." The device she's been staring at is big enough that it takes up a whole corner of the room. It looks sort of like a recuperacoon, if someone made a coon out of sopor: it's ridged like one, with the gentle fall and rise of any healthy device, but the sides are slick with slime that seeps out of it with every passing second, sliding towards the vents on the ground with the careless viscosity of pudding.

When you touch it, the slime clings in strings to your palm when you tug it away.

"Brilliant," Taalik says from behind you, dry. "Should I wait while you lick it?"

"Nah, dude, hard pass on that shit." You wipe off your hand on your pants, then turn to face her.

She's got purple all the way through her eyes already, and more jewelry in her face than you'd see in a tongue. She's playing with the ring in her lip as she watches you, eyes half-lidded, and thank god she's one of those folks who can't hide shit: her ears are round, her face is finned, but she's low enough that she doesn't make your skin crawl, like the fish, and her contempt's clear.

You might be in gray, but you know that look. She's already making up her mind on what caste you are, and how she feels about that.

Well, fuck her. She wants to make decisions? So are you.

"So, like, lemme see if I've got this straight. You want to, like -" You wish you had gum to chew! But your fangs are too sharp for that shit: the last time you'd stolen a pack from Laledy and tried it, you'd half slit your tongue. So you settle for shoving your thumbs into your pants, horns down just to show her how much you don't fucking care. "Start a second pupation, yeah? Crack us open, scrape out the bits, and start it over. But slight problem there, dude. You gonna breed up new new imaginal discs? 'cause we're kinda all out."

"And if you don't have those -"

She clicks her tongue at you, then flips her braids over her shoulder. "Congratulations. You've read a book.” She curls her lip at you, all contempt, and.. you should be focusing on that, but her lipliner’s tighter than you’ve ever managed. You’re not sure if you’re impressed, or if you hate it. “But obviously not enough, because you're still behind. We can insert that shit with viral carriers, dumbass. Set it up however they want. Venomsacks, broader shoulders, a bigger rack, different chrome - it's all in the research notes. Or did Wilcox not share that?"

"I've read the book, dude." You should pop her, honestly! Establish dominance the old-fashioned way: flip the laptop, that coffee, and the table right onto her lap, and see if she's still going to sass you after that. But you don't want to start a fight in the middle of the lab on your third night here. "But never mind all of the spy shit."

(The spy shit. You can't believe you're in coon with a bunch of seadweller fucking rebels.. and this girl.)

"What about the disks for the rest of you? How the fuck are you gonna keep the bits that you want coming back properly?"

"Never mind. Did Wilcox send you to waste my time?" She looks like a land-dweller, but when she blinks at you, languid, it's like watching one of the fish. The way she does it is all fucking wrong. "Because," she says, flat, turning her attention back to her husktop, "that's shit we've already got covered. When you enter the cocoon, it'll pick up on your pre-coded disks."

"You mean the ones that melted in the second instar?" you mock, flipping your ears forward, and she looks back up.

AA: tweet tweet, mothernfuckern.

AA: do i gotta lay out, like, birndseed to get you to come out? bc if so: n/n/n, soz, am not doing it.

AA: you get shitty old brneadcrnumbs like evernyone else, and you will fucking like it.

LB: how could I refuse with that kind of an offering

LB: what’s going on?

AA: ty, ty. i knew you'd fucking love it.

AA: i'm tlking to ppl who arne kind of yrn ppl. i mean, not rnly, they'rne all fucking fish? but they'rne   Y RN   P E O P L E   kind of ppl.

AA: so i was wonderning if you can gimme any deets?

AA: and i'll give you deets back, ofc. >:}

LB: you’ll have to give deets to get deets tbh

LB: my kind of fish people doesn’t give me a lot to work with

AA: jfc, dude.

AA: 'kay, bettern way of putting it. >:}

AA: have you hearnd anything abt a nearn-tyrnian doing, like, rnesearnch? igenetics rnesearnch?

LB: hmm

LB: I think I know who you’re talking about

LB: been tapping up pre-ascension scientists for something or other right?

AA: lol, y.

LB: what do you need on her?

AA: uhhh. idk, dude, yrn the infotrnoll.

AA: how about..

AA: how likely is she gonna trny to shove me in a cocoon? >:}

AA: is that a thing that, like, ppl arne sayin'?

LB: she’s tapping you?

AA; lmfao, n.

AA: she tapped me like, a week ago.

LB:

LB: and you’re asking me this now

AA: looool.

AA: yeah, well, bettern now than nevern, rnight?

AA: she's a fish, i ain't exactly, like, supern wornrnied, herne. so chillll. i've filleted bettern folks than hern. >:}

AA: and i got info forn you in exchange, so, like, don't  F U S S.

AA: how would you feel if you could just totes change yrn face?

LB: ok well I haven’t heard of anyone getting ganked and so far everyone I know of has responded to quads

LB: but also no one has left

LB: does Hadean even know where you are

AA: 'kay, cool.

AA: that's abt all i need to know, lmao. like, i'm prnetty surne nobodies bailed, bc this is fucking wicked?

AA: but y, wanted to check. >:}

AA: and ofc he doesssssss.

AA: wtf kinda q is that?

LB: idk he seems like he’d be a little freaked out about you doing shit on a seadweller’s turf

LB: it’s a little different than taking a fish down in the ring

LB: do you have an escape plan?

AA: loool.

AA: he prnobs is, lbrn.

AA: but w/e, he trnusts me to handle my shit, and i trnust him to handle his.

LB: what will you do if things go bad?

AA: dude, i'm yrn doctorn, yrn not mine. dnw abt it, 'kay?

AA: but fwiw, i totes have a rnoute alrneady planned.

AA: and if anything goes 2spoopy4me, i will pop down a vent, get out into the shipbay, and follow the sewage outlet all the way back up top.

AA: nbddd. evernyone else herne is like, fucking six footerns, and it's a squeeze forn   M E.

LB: i might not be your doctor but this isn't medical. you did say that she was more my people

LB: and maybe delete your actual plan. are you sure things are encrypted on your end of things

AA: y, y. i'm just sayin' i know what i'm doing, losern. >:}

AA: and ofccccc.

AA: this entirne convo's deleting off my end aftern this shuts, dnw.

LB: what sort of stuff is she working on anyway?

AA: evernybody herne's into genetics. and fixing shit.

AA: like, she gave us a full hourn long goddamn lecturne on abt how grn8 it would be if we could just F I X ppl, instead of culling them.

LB: is there one big project you're working on or a bunch of smaller ones

AA: bunch of tiny ones. but they all feed into one big one.

AA: even tho idk if ppl arne rnealising that yet, lmao.

AA: wtfevernnn, waderns arne fucking dumb. >:}

LB: is everyone else there a seadweller?

LB: also do you know what the big project is yet

AA: y, me and m arne the only airnsacks.

AA: and y. loool.

AA:

AA: how would you feel if you could just totes change yrn face?

AA: it's that. >:}

LB: oh huh

LB: definitely useful

LB: literally no way the empire would like that

LB: also whose m

AA: the othern airnsack herne, brnah.

AA: so therne's yrn info. tyvm forn yrns, yrn aid has been apprneciated.

AA: we cool?

LB: yeah sure

LB: be safe

AA: loool. you too.

AA: don't get locked in any morne basements, bb.

You’ll give props where props are due. When you hit Taalik, she barely flinches. She just pauses, rubbing her jaw like she’s more shocked than anything else, and watches you.

It takes a moment to swallow the snarl trying to rip all the way out of your throat. But you manage to keep it down to nothing more than a rattle. “I’d, like, say now you apologise,” you sniff, “but obvs your lusus didn’t raise you properly, so what-the-fuck-ever.”

“And what,” she says, her fingers still resting on the pale spot on her jaw, “am I apologising for?”

If you’d had more time, you should've gone for her nose.

(But it’s a cute nose. You don’t want to break it, mostly, not until she starts talking.)

“We’ll just pay off the lowbloods,” you mock, “and get them to test it. Like - are you for real? You’re just going to pluck some poor kids off the street, and turn them into - like - fucking labrats?”

“Would you rather we didn’t pay them?” She finally lets go of her jaw, and part of you wants to bolt back when she steps in. She’s indigo. Even if she wasn’t high enough to make your skin crawl, there’s something uncanny about her, and the way she moves. The way she smiles, on the rare occasions you’ve wrestled one out of her.

(Dry, mean, at everyone else’s expense - but still a smile.)

Taalik’s the best out of everyone in this lab. She’s the only other landdweller, and when you’re surrounded by gills.. well, that’s worth more than just chrome, isn’t it? But you’ve watched when her sleeves slide up, taken in the tight coils of her arms when she’s getting annoyed enough to start snatching things.  She might be the only one you want to deal with..

But that doesn’t mean you want her in your space. She’s still indigo, and you’re pretty sure she could make a fair try at ripping you in two.

.. but that doesn’t mean you’ll flinch, either, as she steps in close. “No, I want you to be decent,” you snap, tossing your curls, and you let your shoulder clip her as you stride past. There’s a whuff of something that might be a laugh behind you, but you’re going to fucking ignore that. “C’mon. If we’re gonna start planning for test subjects, anyway, dude, we ought to do it right. Pay some olives - if we want this to work on everyone, we might as well start with the median, anyway..”

AA: pheeeeeern.

AA: wtf do you do when someone's rneally, rneally cute.

AA: but also, like, yrn prnetty surne they'rne legit 100% chaotic evil.

RS: / mmm / my assumption / personally / has always been to pile them /

RS: / but i think hadean might have some objections to that /

AA: hey!

AA: fuck off, i'm chaotic neutrnal at best, tyvm.

At the end of the second week, everything goes to fucking hell.

Pulling an all-day work session had been kind of dumb. If Hadean was here, he would've hauled you forcibly to your 'coon after the first six hours - but he isn't here, and you've got to take advantage of that. When Taalik had drifted off to sleep, you'd kept working with half a mind of impressing her.

Or, no - not impressing her. Proving her right! She's been leaning on you more and more over the last two weeks, and last night, she'd asked you if you knew how to set up a time-released enzyme package.

By the time you'd found out you didn't, it was too late to ask for help, and the only thing that mattered was fucking doing it. If the sun was up by the time you managed, who cared? You'd done it.

And now you were going to haul back coffee and waffles before she woke up, so you could hold it over her in the best kind of way.

Or, at least, that was the plan. There's voices drifting out of the cafeteria when you come up near, which's unusual enough to make you pause.

"I still think this is unneccessary," Wilcox says, and there's something strange enough about her voice that you stop mid-step. The hall's empty, but the door to the cafeteria's open, as always. And it doesn't sound like it's full. "You're not really allowed to be in here, you know?"

There ought to be the clank of forks and plates by this point. Or at least the rip of the nasty protein bars that half of the fish down here eat. Instead, when you flip your ears forward..

Under the whispers, someone's crying.

"Don't worry!" someone else says, and it's a new voice that you haven't heard before. Temasekian, part of your pan pings, helpful, but that's strange: everyone here's further north than that, and you're the last person that Wilcox hauled in. The gates, as she told the lot of you, had closed, and her party had been assembled. Every project had a team. All you had to do now was make them work. "Warrants procured, lah. Nothing illegal here!" A beat. "Hope there's nothing illegal," they - she - teases, and there's amusement soaking her words like salt. "Right, yeah?"

"I don't think you'll believe me if I say no."

"Probably not~!" There's a thump. You should turn and bolt. You should be burrowing deep into the vents now, and heading straight for the dockyard. You should be doing a lot of things, but it feels like your feet are lead.

Not quite lead. You can take a step forward, silent as a mouse, and when you do, around the doorframe, Wilcox comes into view. There's a girl standing in front of her, her hair shining as bright as bone in the dim of the room. Her horns are long enough that they're framing Wilcox's neck, for all that her head's ducked down. If she moved too suddenly, or turned her head, they could slice right into the skin, easy as butter.

Maybe that's why Wilcox has her fins pinned back, for the first time you've seen her. "There's really no need for that," Wilcox tries again, brisk, as the girl steps away. The lighting in the cafeteria is poor, as always: it's been a joke for longer than you've been here that it ought to be replaced, but half of the seadwellers were born in the depths, and they'd objected. (You don't know why you're thinking of this now. You don't know why you're still standing here.)

The lighting is poor, but when Wilcox shifts, it hits her wrists, and the cuffs shine red.

Farther out of sight, there's a shuffle of feet. Then a thud, and a shriek.

The girl pivots to look. You sink into the shadows, your pumpbiscuit racing, but her eyes slide right past you, off into a distance you can't see. "Hey!" she says, and at the same time, Wilcox surges forward, fins flaring out.

Then someone wails. You recognise her voice: Hoshio, you think, the one with the fins shaped like the summer sun. "Wrong answer," someone else says, light. Their voice's deeper than the white-haired girls. "Sorry, sweetheart! Want to try again?"

"Hdijah!" the girl snaps. "Be nice! Royalty!"

You turn on your heel, and bolt.

Taalik's awake when you slide the door open. (Slide, not slam: if everyone's in the cafeteria, well, the two of you've been overlooked. No point in drawing attention in, now.) She's half-sprawled over your desk, shoulders slouched, her braids half-out of the twist she'd pulled them into.

"What's going on?" she asks, barely looking up. She's got such a long neck! Every time you look at it, you think she ought to have gills there, but the skin's smooth as the skin of her hands.

"Imps."

"Really. Did Falric finally succeed in summoning demons? Or did you just get into the mind honey?" She drags her finger across the screen. The video scrolls forward. The girl is saying something peppily about mascara, and eyeliner, and the best way to repel an auspistice with both --

So you slap your palm down in the center of it, and Taalik jerks her head up so quickly, you think she's going to bite you. If it was anyone else, she'd have hissed at you. As is, she just stares, eyelashes fanning over her eyes, like she thinks that makes her look unimpressed. "I should break your hand for that," she says, but she doesn't so much as move. "What, Fuuhao?"

"Imperials," you say, slowly, "are in the facility, and they arrested Wilcox, and they snapped Hoshio's arm. Like, she doesn't fucking have one, anymore. So what d'you think they're gonna do to me and you?"

She considers you for a moment. Then she sighs, pushes back her chair in a scrape of metal on metal. "Well. You better go, then. Like hell they'll do anything to me." She's so brisk. "But you?" Side-long, she looks at you. "No point in hanging around."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You've got dirt in your veins, dumbass. Are we really going to argue about that?" She's bustling along, even as you're sidling back towards the bathroom. There's a vent you'd scoped out there, the first night. It's just big enough for you to fit into, if you duck your horns, and you'd spent an hour each night since then tracking it to the shipyard, and counting how many steps it takes. You hadn't had the opportunity to try it, yet, but. It can't be too hard. You know you'll fit.

It just won't be pleasant, but when you think of going back into the hallway -

You won't. Better the vents.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm leaving," you say instead, cracking the door.

She's shoving things into the bag, but she looks up. The look isn’t quite a smile! It’s more.. a curl of her lips, all dry and brittle, like that’s the only way she knows how to. "Try not to die."

That's about as friendly as you're going to get, you think.

The scramble through the vents is about as cramped as you expect. But if you keep your horns down, at least, they don't scrape, and there's enough clunks and sighs of machinery that no one thinks to look up.

AA: ico.

AA: are you here?

AA: because i kind of

AA: aw, shit.

AA: everything’s kind of fucked up right now, and i really, really could use some help.

You’re halfway across the shipbay when the door crashes open, and the girl saunters in.

(Not the girl. Nanako Bonjou, ID had told you, words rattling across the front of your screen so quickly that you’d barely had time to read them. Twelve sweeps, oliveblood with strong telekinesis, IPC --

Where’s the rest of her battery, sweetheart? Because fuck her, you’re going to have to worry about the rest of that, and at least some of them ought to be sick --)

“Où es-tu?” Nanako calls out. “Où es-tu, ma petit souris? Montre-toi! Montre-toi, où que tu sois!”

The ground is dry under foot, and you’ve had sweeps of practice. The first thing you’d done, back in the room, was strip off your boots: now you’re down to socks, and when you launch yourself across the pavement, it’s as silent as you can manage. Her ears are flat, inflexible little things! She can’t hear you, if you try hard enough.

If you can keep your pumpbiscuit from giving you away. It’s pounding like a drum, so loud that you can barely here her off in the distance. All you want to do is get to the sewage outlet, but that’s out in the open, right where she can see it. Right now, she doesn’t know you’re here.

So you dive underneath one of the ships, instead, wriggling and kicking. The metal scrapes at your skin, and you have to slow down so that it doesn’t tear. What if they spot the blood, and try to catalogue it? What if your name comes up? You’ve never paid that much attention to science. You don’t know what they could do with a piece of hair, or a scrape of skin, or blood --

Fear is hard. You’ve never been one to be afraid of anything, not really, and if you hadn’t spent so much time calming Pheres down, you’re not sure you’d recognise the way your hands are going clammy, or the tightness in your chest. But this girl could kill you.

This girl will kill you, if she can. Taalik’s an indigo. The rest of the scientists are all violets -

- and her partner had still snapped Hoshio’s arm like it was so much tinder.

What’s a neck, compared to that?

“Sounis,” Nanako sings, and you can see her boots as they step by. You don’t breathe. Your phone is on silent, but you don’t dare to check it: ID’s advice had been for you to get the fuck out, and not wait for him to do something to help you.

(”You’ve gone and buried yourself under a ton of saltwater, darling,” he’d said, distressed: “I’m going to try, but I just don’t know what you want me to do, here!”)

(Like he hadn’t been the one to tell you about this.)

(It’s not fair to cling to his coat-tails: you’re not seven anymore, and he’s not your quadrant. But part of you’s resentful all the same.)

THat’s fine, though. You’ll make it be fine. You haven’t relied on ID in a half-sweep: you don’t need him now, not when it’s just you and a single girl in the bay. You’ll fight her yourself, if you need to, and with that thought, you slink out from under the ship enough to look.

When you peer out, she’s standing in front of the sewer outlet, just waiting.

That’s fine.

You don’t know much about ships. But you know enough to recognise a HMS Starbruiser when you see it, after all the nights Riccin spent trying to explain them to you. “They’re the fucking best,” she’d told you, practically curling in on herself from enthusiasm, “and they’re pure magnesium, girl, that’s the best part about it. Pure fucking - you can’t get better than that, in terms of weight, in terms of goddamn quality.” They were so expensive that the two of you’d barely been able to understand the price, back when she’d finally gone and found a listing online. And then, barely a perigee later, they’d all been recalled.

Except this one, apparently. There’s a fuel line, right above your head, brushing against your ears. When you sidle back and give it a yank, just hard enough for your prosthetic to stir, the line gives.

Another yank, and it gives.

The spray of gas hitting the ground sounds like thunder in the silence of the hall. She must hear it. She has to. So you’re sidling back before it’s even hit the ground, and as soon as you’re back on your feet, you lean forward and give the back of the ship a shove. The fangs of your prosthetic biting in stings, more than it should after two weeks of healing. You can almost feel the siphon of blood as it pulls in -

- but it’s worth it, because a moment later, when you shove the ship again, the brake snaps somewhere underneath it. It lurches forward, uneasily at first, but with the minor slope of the ground rapidly giving it momentum. You’ve only got a second to fumble your lighter out of your pocket. A flick of the switch, then you toss it over your shoulder, hands shaking.

You don’t stay to watch. You’re already bolting when there’s a sizzle behind you, and then, a scarce second later, you feel the heat as the fuel line catches fire.

It’s when the ship’s hull catches fire that you hear it, though: the crackle of metal catching flame, and the shriek of the bolts, already beginning to protest under the new heat. Ducking behind a new ship, there’s a shriek and crumple of metal behind you, loud enough that it makes your soundflaps pin.

But you have to keep moving. There’s another ship that you give a shove, hard enough that it leaves you shaking, but it’s sliding right towards the flaming mess in the center. The air’s full of smoke already, black and billowing up at your feet, not at all deterred by the shriek of the sprinklers above flicking on. The smoke tickles at your lungs. It burns at your throat, and pulling your shirt over your nose doesn’t do anything to stop it. Pulling up the hood of your jacket helps a little, but not much.

It’s fine, you remind yourself. You’re not going to be here long, and the fish inside the labs -

- well, if they’re still alive, you hope you didn’t just blow up their ship.

(You hope Taalik’ll be fine. “Try not to die,” she’d told you, and you didn’t even think to say anything back.)

There’s crates along the side of the shipbay. You duck into those, and now.. all you have to do is wait. So you count to sixty, hidden neatly behind the cargo, and try to breathe in through your mouth. The girl will have bolted for the ships. IPC agent, ID had said, and an expensive model like a Starbruiser - well, it’s got to have been hers, doesn’t it?

And even if it isn’t, there’s six tons of water above you, and more below. A single crack in the frame of this place will drown the lot of you, from the fuschia on down. She’s a telekinetic. She’s probably securing a net over the flames even right now, siphoning out the oxygen and snuffing them before anything can blow.

It’s been sixty seconds. She has to. And in the meanwhile, the smoke’s burning all the way through your lungs, and you know the sort of damage that does. The sort of shit you’re probably breathing in.

(You didn’t get away from the explosion as quickly as you should’ve, you think. Your flaps hurt. Your bulbs hurt. Your body hurts, in a way you can’t tell if it’s from blood loss, or the explosion, and that’s doing nothing to stop the frantic patter of your heart.)

She’s going to be at the ship, and you have to go, you have to go now. So you take a shaky breath, you duck out of your hiding place, and you make for the sewage outlet.

She’s not there. It’s clear, and there’s a weight off your shoulders. The air is full of smoke, and your body aches, and she’s going to kill you if she finds you, but - she didn’t. She isn’t going to. And you’re half-way into the pipe when something snatches you by the back of the neck, and hauls you out.

There’s a burn on her cheek, shining a sickly green in the light. Her eyes are red, red as the cuffs around Wilcox’s wrist, and you’re twisting to swing a fist right in her face before you’ve even processed who you’re looking at.

It’s like punching a wall. You shriek, pulling away from her, curling your arm in on yourself, and she just sighs, shaking her head. There’s a thousand warning notes flashing in front of your eyes, wailing about damage, and the fangs of your prosthetic are sinking in, tighter and tighter, to try and fix it.

“Merci, ma sounis,” she scolds you. There’s soot on her nose. The edges of her hairs are burned black, frayed in the dark. “Hadn’t run, wouldn’t have chased, yeah? But you ran! And you broke things. Friend built ship! What supposed to say? Rebel blew it up? Shame on you.”

You want to say something witty. All that comes out is a snarl, instead, but all of your thrashing isn’t doing anything to free you: it’s like being held by iron, and the only result you get is an exasperated cluck. “Aah. How old you? Seven? Wilcox all wrong, wrong, wrong, shouldn’t be done. Should’ve known better. Bad enough, pulling guppies in.”

“Can no do nothing about guppies. But mice?” She shakes her head, sending the white locks flying. “Sorry,” she says, and maybe it’s even real. You don’t care. There’s brown crowding your eyes, blocked only by the way you keep blinking, and you - you don’t even know why you’re bothering, honestly. She’s going to cull you, and you don’t know what you’re going to do, and you didn’t tell Hadean, and you didn’t tell Pheres, and -

"Sorry,” she says again, and draws her hand back again. This time, you can’t exactly stop her, not with your prosthetic shattered. All you can do is thrash, but a heel to the gut doesn’t do anything - your leg bounces off of her psi like armor, and her grip is iron. Your hood falls back. All you can do is pin your ears back, and hiss.

(You’re going to die, and nobody is ever going to know.)

But when your hood falls, her face blanches. “Poivre?” she breathes, and then she takes a step back. A moment later, she seems to realise you’re still in her hand: she drops your collar, as quick as she’d snatched you up, and when you land on your feet, already staggering back, she doesn’t try to follow you.Her face’s as pale as her hair.  Only for a moment, though, and then there’s green flooding her cheeks, all at once. Her hand falls. Your pumpbiscuit is pounding like a drum, too loud for you to make out more than the shapes of the words that she’s saying.But there’s a hand on her mouth, and when your hiss fades into a cough, wet and raspy even past the thump of your blood, just like that, something in her crumples.She doesn’t turn away from you. She just takes a step back, and then another, her eyes taking you in like she’s seeing you for the first time.You’re missing something, here. You should figure it out - but all you can think about is the outlet, right behind her. When you take a shaky step towards it, one hand on your throat, she doesn’t move. And even the second doesn’t illict a reaction.So you dive into the pipe, instead, and run.

[componentplanet]

Tested: High-Tech Cooking With the Cinder Grill and Meater Thermometer

After decades of only minor changes, the last few years have brought us an onslaught of high-tech updates to traditional cooking devices. Among those have been a variety of smart ovens and connected thermometers. As someone who cooks dinner almost every night, I can both appreciate how useful more technology can be in the kitchen, but also that it can sometimes just make life more complicated. So I set out to test the Cinder Grill ($429) and Meater’s completely wireless thermometers ($69-$269) with that in mind. Would they make life easier for a tech-enthusiast cook, and would they produce better results than the devices they aim to replace?

Cinder Is a Cool Name for a Grill, but What Does It Do?

When you first see a Cinder Grill it is hard not to think of the George Foreman grill. But the Cinder is light years ahead of the Foreman. Yes, it is a grill (technically, more of a griddle or “flattop” since it has flat surfaces), but it is a high-precision and versatile version. You can dial in just about any temperature, and use either one or both cooking surfaces. Speaking of which, the surface isn’t huge, so like the Foreman, you’re constrained to how much you can cook at once. I found I could cook four eggs or four burgers at once, but either filled the entire 9-inch by 10-inch grilling surface.

Cinder Promises Sous-Vide Without the Water

I’ve been using a thermal bath and vacuum-sealed bags to help get meat and fish cooked to a precise temperature for 15 years because the results are excellent. The trick is that the water bath is held at a specific temperature so that your food can’t get hotter than that — meaning you won’t overcook or burn it. However, it’s a bit of a cumbersome process, and the resulting texture and color aren’t typically appetizing, especially for steaks. So an additional step of patting the meat dry and searing it is needed (aka a reverse sear).

The Cinder Grill provides a remarkably evenly-heated cooking surface as shown using this thermal image from a FLIR ONE Pro camera.

The Cinder grill replaces the water bath with carefully heated heavy metal plates. A set of three high-tech heating coils under both a top and bottom plate allows you to control the temperature of the grill surface precisely. At least that’s what Cinder and a control knob calibrated to the nearest degree promised. I wanted to check for myself, so I used my FLIR ONE Pro to measure the surface temperature of the grill plates when I had the control set to 350 degrees. While it wasn’t perfect, the Cinder did a much better job than most grills. The middle third or so of the lower grill was within a degree of 350 (at least as measured by the FLIR), and most of the rest — except for the extreme corners — was within about 10 degrees. That compares well with a typical grill or oven, where temperatures can vary 20 to 40 degrees with time or across the cooking surface.

The Cinder Grill makes it a cinch to cook a perfect steak — simply pick your desired temperature for the doneness you want, and then use the Sear mode to get a great crust.

For its next trick, the Cinder can also sear. So you can accomplish both the initial cook of your food to the correct temperature, and then sear it. Cinder makes that a simple process. Simply take your food off, turn the temperature knob to sear, wait for it to heat up, and then put your food back on. If you want both sides seared, as you would for a steak, close the grill so both the top and bottom plates will be used, and then press the knob. The Cinder will do a 45-second countdown for you, which is just about the right amount of time for searing most meat and some fish.

The Cinder Also Makes an Accurate and Convenient Griddle

While some stoves come with a grill/griddle burner, most of them aren’t that accurate. If you have room for it on your counter, Cinder is a nice alternative. You can simply dial in the temperature you want — I taped the temperature chart from the Hester Cue on a  cabinet over my review Cinder — and cook up anything you can make on a traditional flattop. I had great success with grilled cheese sandwiches, Reuben sandwiches, Smashburgers (using Cinder’s recipe), fried eggs, toast, and bacon.

In this mode, you are back to the standard cooking practice of checking your food for doneness and making sure it doesn’t burn. If it is thick enough to tolerate a thermometer I found that the Meater wireless probes worked perfectly. I loved that I could use them even with the Cinder closed, and not worry about wire leads needing to snake out between the very hot plates.

Comparing the Cinder and the Brava

The Cinder reminded me initially of the Brava smart oven that I reviewed last year, in particular, because they both claim to make it easy to cook a perfect steak. But after using it for a while, it’s clear they serve quite different purposes (once you get past the fact that they both do an excellent job of cooking steaks). The Brava lets you cook several elements of a meal at once, and can often do that automatically, without you needing to do more than prep and load the food according to directions, and then use the touch screen to pick out what you’re cooking. So the Brava is without question an excellent labor-saving device.

If you’re cooking a steak, or something similar, the Cinder can also save you a lot of labor (I don’t say time, because the process isn’t any faster than sous-vide and sear, and slower than the simple throw-it-in-a-skillet approach). But for most foods, the promise isn’t less work; it’s a better and more repeatable result.

Brava also has a very large array of recipes for ingredients and combinations, along with tons of videos. Cinder has a few recipes, a few videos, and a depressingly sparse food guide. That’s an area where I think they need to really step up their efforts, as I was often stuck with trial and error when cooking something they didn’t have instructions for. The Cinder also has more trouble handling either delicate fish (if you cook with the lid down to get the full effect, it squeezes the fish) and uneven-width ingredients (for example bone-in short ribs) as the top can’t heat them evenly.

On the other hand, the Brava is more than twice as expensive as the Cinder ($1,095 for the Brava versus $429 for the Cinder) and can’t be used as a traditional cooking surface. Both are fairly small and unlikely to replace the need for a traditional oven or stove or even microwave. However, either can certainly replace a toaster oven and take up about the same room on your counter. Note that both are heavy, so they are not something you’re going to want to pull out when you use it and put away afterward.

Meater: The First Truly Wireless Remote Food Thermometer

Meater block with four wireless probes

Whatever technology you use to cook perfect meat and fish — whether it is a skillet, a grill, a smoker, or a sous-vide bath — accurate temperature measurement is vital. If you’re a pro, like my friend who owns our local restaurant, you can tell the doneness of a steak by comparing it with the softness of the skin on your hand. But if you’re like most of us, a fast-reading digital thermometer is the way to go. It’s also your best option for getting consistent results with trickier foods like poultry and fish. And of course, if you’re cooking in a smoker, you need a way to know what’s going on without frequently opening the lid.

Traditionally, there have been a couple of types of digital thermometers for food. One is a hand-held probe that you can stick directly into the food. I keep one of those near our stove and another near our outdoor grill. They’re simple and don’t need any wires. Then there are thermometers that use wired probes. They range from entry-level models, such as Weber’s iGrill, to more sophisticated versions like the excellent Fireboard 6-probe model. These now offer internet connectivity, but you wind up having to deal with untangling and routing the wires each time you use them.

So-called wireless thermometers before Meater still required wires to their probes, and they required separate probes for measuring ambient and food temperatures. Meater addressed both of these issues with a unique wireless probe that measures the food temperature at the point and the ambient temperature at the back end where the electronics live. The probes use Bluetooth to talk to a nicely designed wood base. You can either read the temperatures directly from the base’s display or have it connect to Wi-Fi so that you can monitor it from your mobile phone.

Cooking With a Meater Thermometer

To be honest, I have put off looking at Meater because I really didn’t think it would work with the probes in a large Faraday cage as with my pellet smoker. Much to my surprise, the probes worked great in it. They also worked well when I sealed them up with a steak I was cooking sous-vide in a thermal bath, and when I stuck them into a steak I was cooking in the Cinder Grill. The probes are limited to an ambient temperature of 527F (higher temps can damage them), so I’ve been nervous about trying them in my Brava oven.

The MEATER worked perfectly when I used it with my Memphis Advantage pellet cooker.

The Meater probes recharge by being placed in their base, and in turn, the base is powered by AA batteries. I’m used to similar devices recharging over USB, but it is easy enough to use rechargeable AA batteries instead. When I first got the Meater system for review, I found it hard to tell the probes apart (they have a tiny number 1-4 on their rear end), but shortly after that Meater sent out small metal number tags ($8 on their site), and now it’s easy. The only other small thing I found tricky is that the probes need to be inserted a couple of inches into the food. For large items, that’s easy. But in some cases like sausages or chicken thighs, it can take a little doing.

Overall, I really like the Meater system. When it first launched, Meater was pretty expensive, but the company has done a good job of providing some value-priced options. You can get a single probe plus a base without a display and with a 33-foot range for $69, or a 165-foot range version with a Bluetooth repeater for $99. The unit we reviewed has four probes, Wi-Fi, and a display, and sells for $269. So you’re definitely paying a premium over wired units like the iGrill, but you’re getting the convenience of no wires and having two sensors in each probe.

[Image Credits: Cardinal Photo]

Now Read:

Brava Review: It’s a Better Oven, If You Have the Budget

The Best Smart Kitchen Appliances for 2019

‘Smart’ Ovens May Turn On and Preheat Themselves Overnight, Which Is Totally Safe

from ExtremeTechExtremeTech https://www.extremetech.com/electronics/300706-high-tech-cooking-with-the-cinder-grill-and-meater-thermometer from Blogger http://componentplanet.blogspot.com/2019/10/tested-high-tech-cooking-with-cinder.html

[pitz182]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

[alexdmorgan30]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://ift.tt/2C6AgdK

[emlydunstan]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://www.spiritualriver.com/holistic/3-signs-recovery-sliding-towards-relapse/

[bobbiejwray]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241842 http://ift.tt/2C6AgdK

[journalingthisjourney]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

[alyssamanson5]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from http://www.spiritualriver.com/holistic/3-signs-recovery-sliding-towards-relapse/

[roberrtnelson]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241843 http://ift.tt/2C6AgdK

[jaylazoey]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241844 http://www.spiritualriver.com/holistic/3-signs-recovery-sliding-towards-relapse/

[violetsgallant]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241844 http://ift.tt/2C6AgdK

[haileyjayden3]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from http://www.spiritualriver.com/holistic/3-signs-recovery-sliding-towards-relapse/

[pitz182]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

[alexdmorgan30]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://ift.tt/2C6AgdK

[emlydunstan]

3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse

I want to talk about a few common warning signs of relapse today.

The first sign that I see popping up frequently, especially for people who are early in recovery, is the idea that they are compromising when it comes to treatment or recovery activities.

This is a huge warning sign and a massive red flag that their recovery is in trouble.

If a person says “Oh, I don’t really have time for an AA meeting today,” what they are really saying is that they are no longer prioritizing AA meetings in their life. I don’t care how busy you think you may be, any human being can go sit in an AA meeting for an hour if they choose to make that a priority.

This principle also holds true for treatment and rehab. Anyone who is saying something like “Oh I don’t want or need to go to treatment right now because of (insert excuse here)” is basically in denial and is only furthering their addiction rather than seeking recovery.

Anyone who is in treatment and decides to leave early is jeopardizing their recovery in a major way. No person who ever left treatment early has ever reported back a month later and said “that was a really good decision, I sure am glad that I left treatment early, that was smart of me.” No, every time that someone opts out of treatment or leaves it early they end up regretting the decision. It is always a short term gain in pleasure for a long term penalty of pain and suffering, and when that check comes due for the suffering, anyone can see that they made a poor decision by opting out of treatment.

It can be difficult to transition to “real life” after focusing heavily on recovery without also giving up the things that keep you grounded in recovery. So the challenge to people is that they somehow need to keep their recovery first and foremost while also figuring out how to live a real life again after treatment. They recommend that you go to 90 AA meetings in the first 90 days, for example. What do you do after completing those 90 meetings? Do you just stop going entirely and hope that you are permanently fixed? Of course not. There has to be a balance and a reasonable transition from the intense focus on rehab and treatment as you ease back into your “real life.” But if you are minimizing treatment or recovery too much then the quality of your sobriety may suffer, and if it leads you to relapse then all of your progress can be lost completely.

Now the next warning sign that I want to talk about is what is often referred to as being “restless, irritable, and discontent.” Once an addict or alcoholic becomes restless and irritable in this way, it is difficult for them to pull themselves out of without resorting to their drug of choice.

The problem is that their drug of choice is a perfect short term solution. Working through drama and chaos in their life is hard work, it is uncomfortable, and it is almost always a struggle. However, that is the struggle that needs to happen if they are going to overcome their discontent.

Once you get frustrated and upset during your recovery, you have a choice. You always have this same choice. You can self medicate and throw everything away on a relapse, or you can work through the frustration and find new solutions and learn how to overcome your specific challenges.

Recovery is all about new solutions. Our old solution was to self medicate, and that stopped working for us. Therefore our recovery is all about new solution, and in order to use those new solutions we have to learn about them, we have to test them out and apply them in our lives, and in order to do those things we need to become beginners again. We need to be vulnerable. We need to be humble.

You cannot succeed in recovery if you want to be arrogant or cocky or feel like you have all the answers. Somehow you have to humble yourself enough to be able to learn the lessons of sobriety.

You know you are sliding into trouble when you are “at odds with everything and everyone around you.” Everything is an argument. Everything feels like a tiny battle. Every interaction feels stressed.

There are ways of dealing with this kind of situation, but you have to be willing to try some new ideas. For example, one of the suggestions that I took in early recovery was to start exercising every day. What I found eventually is that being in good shape and going through with an intense workout was a great way to sort of “reset my day.” If I was upset or irritable or frustrated with anything or anyone, one way to overcome those negative feelings was to go do an intense workout. The physical effect of an intense workout also had an emotional impact on me, in that it seemed to reset me back to a more level emotional state. I found this to be very helpful when I was going through some events in my recovery that were emotionally stressful.

One final warning sign that I want to mention is when a person’s attitude shifts from being grateful to that of being selfish.

If you are consumed with resentments or self pity, or if you feel entitled all the time or like the world owes you something and you are not getting it, then you could be setting yourself up for relapse.

It can be difficult to “reset yourself” if you are stuck in this kind of selfishness. One way to do so is to engage in some 12 step work in which you work with other people in recovery. For example, you might sponsor newcomers at AA meetings, or perhaps you can do service work in which you take an AA meeting into a juvenile home and try to steer kids in the right direction. Reaching out and trying to help people this way is actually one of the most effective ways to overcome selfishness in addiction recovery. It is also a good way to get a healthy boost in gratitude, because when you work with newcomers in recovery you see the disease up close again, and then you are reminded of your own misery of the past and what you do not want to return to.

For me, it was about establishing routines and daily habits that allowed me to overcome this restlessness and irritability. So I exercised, I chaired a meeting each week, I wrote in a journal, and developed other habits as well that kept me in a more positive mindset. We all go through a funk at times, so you have to build systems and habits that are designed to pull you out of that funk so that it doesn’t lead to relapse.

The post 3 Signs that Your Recovery is Sliding Towards a Relapse appeared first on Spiritual River Addiction Help.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8241841 http://www.spiritualriver.com/holistic/3-signs-recovery-sliding-towards-relapse/