A plan is ever changing so accountability must be ever changing also. What works for a person the first year will not work in year two. Likewise what worked in year two will not work in year three and so on. This will go on for the rest of our lives. We will always be [...]
progress not perfection does not equal permission Most people get better. They just don’t get better in the way we think they should. - The Natural History of Recovery
Is this normal? Am I crazy?I hear some form of these questions almost every day.Over the years, I have answered in various lighthearted ways that were mostly intended to sooth and encourage.But lately I have been thinking about the question more deeply and more personally.What is normal and considered to be mentally healthy? To compete [...]
Stop Sending People to AA It’s easy to understand why it happened. For the first time, there seemed to be a solution for a seemingly hopeless condition (alcoholism). There were many of us whose lives were saved and there just wasn’t another plan that offered any real hope. Punishment and incarceration had not worked. At [...]
“When did this happen?” “Have they always felt this way?” “Do they know what I believe in and feel?”
An opportunity to let go of 2020 and community rituals to bring in 2021 An opportunity to let go of the resentments towards self and others and bring in forgiveness. This will be a time of contemplation, meditation, and ritual. We will include self-forgiveness, self-acceptance, and a ritual weaving of all that we are. It [...]
Clay Hightower, LMSW The Holidays and Boundaries Part III: Taking a Risk By Clay Hightower, LMSW Throughout this entire series on boundaries, I have reaffirmed and will continue to reaffirm that it is my right to set boundaries that ensure my safety, and that others do not get to dictate if they [...]
Clay Hightower, LMSW The Holidays and Boundaries Part II: Little or No Contact By Clay Hightower, LMSW Halloween may be behind us now, but some of us are still thinking about ghosting this holiday season. “Ghosting” is slang for cutting somebody out of your life without any sort of contact or [...]
Clay Hightower, LMSW 2020 has been timeless. No, I don’t mean timeless like Mariah Carey’s timeless classic “All I Want for Christmas is You.” I mean timeless as in largely void of any normal social or cultural events that signal a changing of the seasons or help orient me to time. Even the [...]
The 4th Horseman of Relapse – StonewallingBy Clay Hightower, LMSW“If I do not think about it, maybe it will get better.”If you have had a thought like this about a problem before, no matter how big or small, you have engaged in a form of stonewalling. That does not mean that you committed a grave [...]
