How Can I Help When I Feel So Helpless?
Alyssa Adkins, Addiction & Recovery, Prayer Alyssa Adkins Alyssa Adkins, Addiction & Recovery, Prayer Alyssa Adkins

How Can I Help When I Feel So Helpless?

I tend to overcomplicate things when I feel under pressure. One stormy night last summer, I frantically searched the house for flashlights while the lights flickered, and the wind whistled outside the windows. I was irritated that my three teenagers weren’t engaged in my panicked preparations for an impending power outage. My 16-year-old son sat up on the couch grinning while waving his cell phone and said, “you know, we could just use the flashlights we’re all holding right here in our hands...”

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What do I do with My Secret...?
Alyssa Adkins, Secrets, Addiction & Recovery Alyssa Adkins Alyssa Adkins, Secrets, Addiction & Recovery Alyssa Adkins

What do I do with My Secret...?

As far as I know, I’m still the only one in our family who can do it. My husband freely admits that he can’t, and not interested in ever trying. The few times my kids could have benefited from trying, there was no way I was going to show them. Visions of them using it for all the wrong reasons kept me from demonstrating a technique I had perfected. How comfortable are you stimulating your gag reflex to make yourself throw up? I’m not referencing this bathroom behavior to introduce you to nights I spent intoxicated on the bathroom floor. No, I’m using it to tell you that I know how you feel.

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Why Can't I Get it Under Control</a>?
Alyssa Adkins, Addiction & Recovery Alyssa Adkins Alyssa Adkins, Addiction & Recovery Alyssa Adkins

Why Can't I Get it Under Control?

You’re not alone

I see you. I feel you. I understand. It wasn’t that long ago that I woke up on a Sunday morning, a holiday or even a weekday, feeling like a failure. Mornings were the most painful. Sure, my head hurt with hangover, but my self-confidence was shattered by shame. Once again, I felt defeated. Despite my best efforts to control, my promises to play it safe, my determination to only drink a couple, I’d failed again. No one knew the level of loneliness I was living, the solitary confinement I had self-imposed. I was convinced no one would understand. I didn’t look or act like an alcoholic. Everyone in my social circle drank too. How could I ever ask for help? How could I ever consider living life without drinking?!

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