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• See what you identify with – read through the definitions, symptoms and side-effects, add make note of anything that rings true to you
• Explore tentative solutions – read through the various types of therapy, treatment and healing practices to find something that sparks interest or that suits your needs
• Start conversations – what you will find herein presents food for thought, my hope is that it will inspire you to reach out, share experiences, ask questions and discuss with others.
• Seek out a support system – use the provided resources to connect with like-minded individuals who are also seeking support and understand what you’re going through.

How to uncover root causes of addiction and trauma?
So often, people treat the symptoms and not the root cause. Particularly with addictions, that’s simply not the best way to assure long-term success. Research shows that up to 96% of addicts seeking substance abuse treatment report having a major traumatic event in their lives. The first step to uncover the root causes of addiction is to remember that you engaged in those addictive behaviors to stop pain you were feeling. Exploring that pain is often best done with a counselor, therapist, or group program.

What is personal transformation?
Personal transformation is the challenging but achievable task of changing something inside yourself — for example, reshaping some deep-seated faulty impressions. A complete transformation isn’t necessarily easy, but — as Deepak Chopra points out — it happens everywhere in nature. “Despite the stubborn way that people resist change, clinging to beliefs, fears, biases, and personal habits for no rational reason, we are transformative beings,” he wrote.

What is transmuting? 
Transmuting is another word for transformation.

How to transmute negative emotions into positive energy? 
As your sense of self-awareness deepense, you’ll be able to process your emotions to access the information they contain. Here are the steps to follow:

• Slow down and identify what’s going on inside you
• Bring awareness to all the physical sensations in your body
• Take responsibility for the emotions, but don’t judge them
• Breathe deeply and try to feel that energy moving through you
• Eventually, the energy inside that emotion will be set free

What is self mastery?
Self mastery is, at its core, the feeling of having an extended sense of self control in order to direct your own future. This requires resisting impulses that don’t align with our goals and desired behaviors. As Scott Jeffrey writes, “Self mastery requires having a vision for your future self. And harnessing the will to realize that vision.”

What is self-actualization? 
Self-actualization refers to the process of becoming a comprehensive whole self, or “the psychological process aimed at maximizing the use of a person’s abilities and resources.” It can then be thought of as the full realization of creative, intellectual, and social potential through intrinsic purpose.

The idea of self-actualization grew in popularity thanks to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. After the basic needs for physiology and safety are met, and the psychological needs around belongingness, love, and esteem, the triangle is capped with self-actualization — the meeting of self-fulfillment needs.

What are peak experiences? 
A peak experience refers to an altered state of consciousness characterized by euphoria, usually achieved by self-actualizing individuals. These transcendent moments of elation stand out from everyday events. The memory of these peak moments is often likened to a spiritual experience.

Three characteristics of peak experiences include:

• Fulfillment: intrinsically rewarding experiences that generate positive emotions
• Significance: increased personal awareness and understanding that can serve as a turning point in a life
• Spiritual: typically a feeling of oneness with the world at large that often includes the sense of losing track of time

What is consciousness? Collective consciousness?
The conscious mind — or what Carl Jung called the ego — is composed of the thoughts, memories, and emotions a person is aware of. The idea of collective consciousness is explained by French sociologist Emile Durkheim, who believed that society exerts a powerful force on individuals. Formed through social interactions, especially those close-knit interactions of families and small groups, collective consciousness is created by society, then exerts a social force back on the individuals.

What is vedic/yogic knowledge?
The Vedas — which means “knowledge,” — are the oldest texts associated with Hinduism. Vedic knowledge is understanding our true nature as pure consciousness, beyond all limitations of time and space. Expressed through yoga, this is the integration of our individual self with the Supreme Self.

What are self-awareness skills?
Self-awareness is an important component of emotional intelligence. Daniel Goleman described it as a combination of emotional awareness, accurate self-assessment, and self-confidence. Here are a few examples of what mastery of self-awareness might look like:

• Knowing how you feel, and how those feelings connect to your thoughts and behaviors
• Basing your behavior on your values rather than your emotions
• Understanding and being straightforward about your strengths and weaknesses

What are the four stages of learning?
It’s difficult for learners to know what they do or don’t know while they’re learning. That’s why learning programs must be set up with these four stages of learning in mind.

• Unconscious incompetence: The learner doesn’t have a skill or knowledge set yet, nor do they see any reason to learn it.
• Conscious incompetence: The learner is aware of the skill or knowledge set they lack, acknowledging the deficit.
• Conscious competence: The learner has acquired a skill but has not yet reached unconscious mastery.
• Unconscious competence: The learner has acquired and mastered the skill so as to perform that skill almost unconsciously.

What is the difference between conscious and unconscious awareness?
Conscious awareness is made up of those things you actively think about and recognize. Unconscious awareness is deeper inside your body, and your mind might not even realize that the awareness exists. Your body is unconsciously aware of the trauma inside you, and your repressed emotions around that trauma, and it has an impact just as conscious awareness does.

What is emotional energy? 
Many people don’t even realize the level of emotional energy we have, leading them to let the feelings of being emotionally drained go unnoticed or unassessed. If you’re emotionally drained, that may feel like a physical energy problem — like being lethargic all the time.

Emotional energy problems often come from unresolved issues or blocked emotions. For example, people who avoid confrontation and hold their feelings in are likely to experience emotional energy drain. Ruminating about negative experiences and thoughts can also be a drain. Finally, interpersonal relationships can have negative impacts on our emotional energy if we deal with toxic people or have relationships without boundaries.

What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and manage the motions of yourself and others. It’s commonly defined by these four attributes: self-management, self-awareness, social awareness, and relationship management. If one is unable to understand and manage one’s own emotions, he or she may be vulnerable to anxiety and depression and find themselves struggling to form strong relationships.

What is the difference between releasing emotions and integrating emotions?
Releasing emotions is about letting them go. While you may find that appropriate in some situations, that’s not always possible. By integrating emotions, we learn to switch our perspective — to see our emotions as allies that are telling us something. By integrating our emotions, we can learn to recognize our emotions and the message that they’re sending without being bowed by them and spiralling into a negative mindset.

How do you integrate your emotions? 
The key to integrating your emotions is to be able, after practice, to mindfully be aware of them and understand what they are trying to tell you, so you don’t have to deny those emotions — but you can do something healthy as a result of the message you receive from them.

What are repressed emotions? 
Repressed emotions are the emotions we unconsciously avoid. Since we avoid them, they never have a chance to be processed — but that doesn’t mean they disappear. Emotional repression often relates to childhood experience. People with caregivers who displayed the following qualities are more likely to repress emotion:

• Rarely talked about or expressed feelings and emotions
• Shamed or punished you for expressing emotions
• Invalidated your emotional experience

How do repressed emotions affect the body?
In the Taoist tradition, emotions are seen not just as psychic events, but as information, and energy. Repressed emotions aren’t gone — they’re just buried. They still live inside your body, trying to protect you from a pain you can’t articulate. This is why dealing with trauma is so important to recovery. Some say that different emotions can impact specific parts of the body:

• Anger impacts the liver
• Grief impacts the lungs
• Fear impacts the kidneys

What are compulsive behaviours? 
Compulsive behaviors are those performed persistently and repetitively, even when the individual performing them wishes they could stop. Obsessive compulsions are those performed in an attempt to relieve underlying anxiety or negative emotions. In some cases, compulsive behaviors can trigger negative outcomes like interpersonal conflicts.

What are neurotic tendencies? 
The word “neurotic” has plenty of negative connotations today, but let’s look at what the word really means. Neuroticism, one of the Big 5 personality traits recognized by psychologists, exists on a spectrum — so everyone is at least a little bit neurotic.

Neurotic tendencies include:

• Hyper-awareness of mistakes and imperfections
• A propensity to dwell on negative possibilities
• An expectation that the worst outcome is the most likely to occur
• High level of reactivity to emotions and stress
• Compulsive repetition of scenarios playing in one’s head
• Prone to hypochondria and panic disorders
• Tendency to adopt maladaptive behaviors like self-medication

What is dry-drunk? 
Dry-drunk syndrome was coined by the creators of Alcoholics Anonymous to describe the presence of actions that characterized the alcoholic prior to recovery, even though the person no longer drinks. This refers to the period of recovery in which one may have stopped drinking but hasn’t worked through all the baggage and trauma of their lives that caused them to become an alcoholic in the first place.

If you or someone you know has recently stopped drinking but still carries around resentment and negativity, feels depressed or anxious, expresses jealousy of friends not struggling with addiction, or replacing one addiction with another (e.g., sex, food), these may be indicators of dry-drunk syndrome.

What is cross-addiction? 
Cross-addiction is a concept implying if a person develops a severe substance use disorder, that person is at a higher risk of developing a substance use disorder to another substance. Cross-addiction is not a dual diagnosis; dual diagnosis typically refers to two different, unrelated psychological disorders.

What is trauma attraction?
People who have experienced trauma will often emit certain signals — in the form of body language, for instance — that make them easy for other people with unhealed traumas to identify.

What is woundology?
Woundology refers to the tendency to hold on to old traumas and define yourself by the things that have hurt you instead of the things that give you strength. So often, people believe their life is ruined because of what happened to them in the past. Instead of healing from their wounds, then, they continue to re-expose themselves and others.

How does trauma affect recovery? 
Trauma is what’s often at the root of resentment and poor self esteem, so working through trauma is essential to recovery. A holistic recovery program should encourage therapy to deal with past trauma.

What is the shame-core?
Shame is both a primary emotion and a freeze state, which has a profound effect on personal development and relationship success. While shame is often confused with guilt, shame is primary and exists in the body while guilt is secondary and cognitive, relating to both shame and remorse.

Shame is perhaps the most painful of all emotions. It is at the root of both the inner critic and perfectionism. It binds with and hides behind other emotions, such as anger and fear, so that it is often hard to detect. Many people go to great lengths to avoid acknowledging or even feeling shame—and this gets in the way of making progress in treatment.

Shame often fuels and promotes the negative cycle between members of a couple. Where there is blame, there is shame.

Shame can be viewed as developmental trauma. It causes much of the same physical and emotional freezing as trauma does. Not only do we lose tonus and energy, but it becomes hard to think clearly in a shame state. And shame often accompanies trauma, forming a downward spiral that is hard to break.

What are faulty impressions?
Faulty impressions are, to say it simply, the things that we believe but which are not true. When we have faulty impressions about other people, it’s often because we don’t know them very well and/or because of some kind of implicit (or explicit) bias.

When we have faulty impressions of ourselves, it’s often based on what we were taught or what we deduced when we were children. If your parents made you feel as if you weren’t worthy of love, that’s a faulty impression — and one that cognitive behavioral therapy often deals with.

What is perfectionism? 
While some people believe that perfectionism is a healthy motivator, that’s not really the case. People with perfectionist tendencies hold themselves to impossible standards and never feel that they live up. Rather than being a motivator, it can lead to anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and self harm.

A few ways to know if you’re suffering from perfectionism:

• You feel like you fail at everything you try
• You regularly procrastinate
• Relaxing enough to share thoughts and feelings is a struggle for you
• You tend to become controlling in relationships

What is dissociation? 
Dissociation refers to a break in how your mind handles information, causing you to feel disconnected from thoughts, memories, feelings, and your environment. Dissociation exists on a spectrum, and dissociative disorders are mental illnesses that affect the way you think. Feelings of dissociation can be caused by trauma or times of high stress.

Some of the symptoms of dissociation include:

• Losing past memories (amnesia)
• Feeling disconnected from your body (depersonalization) or the world around you (derealization)
• Feeling confused about your current identity, or feeling that your identity has changed
• Losing control of body movements

What is codependency? 
Codependency is a learned behavior that can be passed down from one generation to another. It is an emotional and behavioral condition that affects an individual’s ability to have a healthy, mutually satisfying relationship. It is also known as “relationship addiction,” because people with codependency often form or maintain relationships that are one-sided, emotionally destructive and/or abusive. The disorder was first identified about ten years ago as the result of years of studying interpersonal relationships in families of alcoholics. Codependent behavior is learned by watching and imitating other family members who display this type of behavior.

What is love addiction? 
Love addiction, also known as “pathological love,” is typified by a pattern of behavior that includes maladaptive, pervasive and excessive interest towards one or more romantic partners. This behavior can result in a lack of control, loss of other interests, changes in overall behavior, and other negative consequences.

People with a love addiction are often in love with the feeling of being in love, which triggers compulsive behavior.¹ But falling in love is not an act of magic, as some people believe. Instead, it is a complex physiological process that involves hormones, neurotransmitters, and other bodily chemicals.²

What is sex addiction?
Sex addiction is a type of behavioral addiction that involves a compulsive need to engage in sexual activity to feel ok. Though, like love addiction, sex addiction is not listed as a disorder in the DSM-5, it has the potential to cause negative impacts to people’s personal and professional lives, relationships, mental health, and safety.

A person with a sex addiction may act that out in other compulsive ways like masturbation, watching pornography, or put themselves in stimulating situations, and may even put themselves in situations dangerous to their physical or mental health. That said, how do you identify a set of behaviors not officially listed in the DSM-5?

Some of the signs of a sex addiction may include being secretive about sexual behaviors, having chronic sexual thoughts and fantasies, entering into sexual relationships compulviely, feeling guit or remorse after having sex, or feeling an inability to control sexual behavior.

What is sex anorexia?
Sexual anorexia develops when a person obsessively avoids sex to the point that it consumes his or her life. It occurs as a defense mechanism and offers a way of achieving power, much like with starvation or hoarding. People also use their obsession with sex avoidance as a way to cope with stress or disappointment. Sexual anorexia may sound like an eating disorder, but it is actually a separate condition from anorexia nervosa.

Why are boundaries necessary for recovery? 
To be successful in the long term, people in recovery must be able to speak up for themselves and feel in control of their lives. Setting boundaries will help people going through recovery to work toward and maintain a healthy self-image. When one does things simply to make another happy, those boundaries are broken down — resulting in a gradually worsening self-image.

Healthy boundaries are also necessary to keep behavior and emotions under control. Some examples of lacking healthy boundaries are:

• Talking down to yourself or others
• Doing things you wouldn’t typically do, to make someone else happy
• Trying to make others change to suit your personal beliefs
• Allowing others to influence the way you feel or behave

How does self-esteem affect recovery? 
Low self-esteem is often linked to drug and alcohol use, and people in recovery who retain that low self-esteem are less likely to succeed in their full recovery process. Self esteem is really about believing in yourself. If you don’t believe in your ability to change your life and shift your behavior away from negative behaviors, recovery will be much more difficult.

How does denial affect recovery?
Denial is a coping mechanism used to avoid having to face the truth, either with yourself or to someone else. True recovery simply is not possible if we remain in a state of denial about what our problems are or what caused them.

How does resentment affect recovery? 
Resentment, like denial, gets in the way of the mental and emotional work that needs to be done during recovery to be fully successful. As the Buddhist saying goes, holding onto anger is like holding onto a hot coal — it only hurts you. While you still hang on to that resentment, it will be difficult to improve your self-esteem and do the work of healing.

There are any number of methods and approaches to creating change within. People respond differently to each, so you may have to try a few different approaches to find the one that works for you.

Types of Therapy & Approaches

The spiritual approach to sobriety makes faith in a higher power a key part of the recovery process. Alcoholics Anonymous is an example of a program that uses a spiritual approach.

The brain science approach to sobriety focuses primarily on the brain’s reward circuitry through medication and other treatments.

The clinical approach to sobriety focuses on the mental and emotional aspects of sobriety and recovery.

A non-pathologizing approach refers to treating people in a way that sees them as a whole person who is similar to all other beings, as opposed to seeing them as a person with a condition that makes them different from others. The non-pathologizing lens allows people to show respect toward others and treat everyone with equality. Pathologizing happens when people treat others differently or mentally categorize someone as abnormal.

Positive Psychology

Positive psychotherapy (PPT) is a therapeutic approach that focuses on supporting clients to overcome challenges through their own inner resources. The core of PPT is moving away from the negative aspects and instead focus on what’s good and positive.

Through a range of interdisciplinary approaches like multicultural stories, ideas, and metaphors, individuals become active in their healing process and become, in a sense, their own ‘therapist.’ PPT requires three core principles to be addressed:

1. Hope: Focus on the overall positivity of humanity, and reframe negative experiences as having a higher purpose.
2. Balance: Examine how the experience of discontent and how to cope.
3. Consultation: The five stages of therapy to work through for a positive outcome:
   1. Observation
   2. Inventory
   3. Situational support
   4. Verbalization
   5. Development of goals

SMART Recovery

SMART refers to self-management and recovery training and is a global community of mutual-support groups. SMART uses a science-based approach emphasizing self-empowerment and self-reliance, offering specific tools and techniques for each point on the 4 Point Program:

1. Building and maintaining motivation
2. Coping with urges
3. Managing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
4. Living a balanced life

Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT)

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is used widely in addiction treatment to teach those recovering from addiction and mental illness to find connections between thoughts, feelings, and actions, increasing awareness of how these things impact recovery. It also treats co-occurring disorders like anxiety, ADD/ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, OCD, eating disorders, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Using CBT, addicts identify their negative “automatic thoughts” and continually revisit them to reduce the pain they cause and then learn new, positive behaviors to replace drug or alcohol use.

ANT Therapy

ANT therapy focuses on automatic negative thoughts that create self-fulfilling prophecies and limit growth. Much like CBT, ANT therapy focuses on recognizing and challenging our automatic thoughts. With every thought, the brain releases chemicals, causing deep limbic problems like irritability, moodiness, and depression. 

Nutritional Therapy

Treatment programs are becoming more and more holistic, paying attention to the whole body and mind. Drugs and alcohol can cause damage to your digestive system and affect typical digestive processes, like the ability to absorb nutrients. Nutritional therapy, then, involves eating a diet that can heal and nourish your body. 

Nutritional therapy works by encouraging positive self-care, healing damage in the body, promoting a healthy lifestyle, reducing cravings and stress, and stabilizing moods. One other important aspect is helping the patient learn the difference between a craving for drugs or alcohol and a craving for food.

Internal Family Systems (IFS)
IFS is an evidence-based model of therapy developed by Richard Schwartz. It recognizes that our minds are naturally multiple and divide into parts, which you can think of like mini-personalities. These parts take on different roles for us throughout our life dependent on external events. Some may do amazing things, like keep us motivated, and others may cause some difficulty, like causing us to lash out.

The overall belief of IFS is that all parts are good. The IFS therapy model also believes that each person has a Self, the essence of a person that acts like a compassionate leader for our system and assists us in healing these parts.

Methods & Techniques

Gratitude

Cultivating a habit of being grateful helps to recenter your thoughts away from your perceived challenges and misfortunes.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is the act of being present in the moment. The act of mindfulness is the polar opposite of being unsober. Mindfulness can help people in recovery to improve their focus, control emotions, reduce stress, and stop rumination.

Nutraceuticals

Nutraceuticals are foods or food-derived products that have supposed medical or health benefits. There are many forms of nutraceuticals available on the market today, like ginseng, echinacea, omega-3 fatty acids, and fish oils are some examples.

Sleep Hygiene

Newly sober people often have problems with insomnia, so focusing on sleep hygiene can be important — the habits and environment that make good sleep easier.

Orthomolecular Restoration

Orthomolecular restoration refers to the application of biochemistry to the art of medicine — or, in essence, using nutritional supplements like vitamins, minerals, and amino acids to detoxify the body and restore mental health. 

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT)

EFT, also known as “tapping therapy,” brings together traditional Chinese medicine, neuroscience, and cognitive behavioral therapy by stimulating a series of acupressure points with cognitive restructuring to shift thought patterns and relieve physical tension and excess negative emotion.

Sedona Method

The Sedona Method is a method for letting go of undesirable emotions and beliefs, like fear, anger, limiting thoughts, and more. The Sedona Method essentially teaches practitioners to “practice” letting go of negative emotions. Welcome the feeling of letting go and ask three simple questions:

• Could I let it go? 
• Would I let it go? 
• When?

Releasing Technique

The Releasing Technique is based on the premise that our only limits are those we place upon ourselves. And, when we let go of our subconscious limitations, we discover unlimited potential. 

Complete Sobriety 

Complete sobriety refers to abstaining from all substances and negative habits in order to allow the mind and body to regain proper functioning. When the mind and body are functioning at a higher capacity, it becomes easier to confront and curb the knee-jerk, instant gratification responses and habits we develop to avoid emotional, mental and/or physical discomfort.

It is human nature to develop coping mechanisms that protect us and provide escape from vulnerability, pain and perceived danger. Throughout our lifetime, we collect habits that help us to avoid or blindly push through challenging experiences. 

Complete sobriety is recommended to help the individual work through feelings they are accustomed to avoiding. Complete sobriety differs from sobriety in that it requires abstinence from all forms of avoidance as opposed to addressing one negative habit at a time. 

Often, when we attempt to abstain from just one or some of the negative patterns we have trained ourselves to depend on, we end up moving that energy from one bad habit to another, thereby creating a transfer of dependence as opposed to encouraging new habits that discourage dependence altogether. 

While the idea of complete sobriety might be daunting, most who have created significant change in their lives agree that an attempt at partial sobriety only leads to further struggle, whereas complete sobriety allows for deep work and change to start to take place. 

Emotional Sobriety

The essence of emotional sobriety is good self-regulation. It means that we have mastered those mind/body skills that allow us to balance our moods. When our emotions are out of control, so is our thinking, and when we can’t bring our feeling and thinking into some sort of balance, our life and our relationships feel out of balance too. The ability to self-regulate, to bring ourselves into balance, is key to emotional sobriety.

• Meditation
• Mindfulness
• Connecting
• Breathing / Breathwork

Contingency Management
Uses positive reinforcement such as providing rewards or privileges for remaining drug free, for attending and participating in counseling sessions, or for taking treatment medications as prescribed.

Motivational Enhancement Therapy
An intervention and counseling approach specifically designed to evoke internally motivated change. MET uses strategies to make the most of people’s readiness to change their behavior and enter treatment and is often combined with other forms of counseling, such as the 12-Step treatment method.

Family Therapy
Designed to address specific issues that affect the psychological health of the family, such as addiction and recovery. It may be used as the primary mode of treatment or as a complementary approach.

Twelve-step Facilitation (TSF)
Individual therapy is typically delivered in 12 weekly sessions to prepare people to become engaged in 12-step mutual support programs. 12-step programs, like Alcoholic Anonymous, are not medical treatments, but provide social and complementary support to those treatments. TSF follows the 12-step themes of acceptance, surrender, and active involvement in recovery.

NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) 

NARM is a cutting-edge model for addressing attachment, relational and developmental trauma, by working with the attachment patterns that cause life-long psychobiological symptoms and interpersonal difficulties. These early, unconscious patterns of disconnection deeply affect our identity, emotions, physiology, behavior and relationships. Learning how to work simultaneously with these diverse elements is a radical shift that has profound clinical implications for healing complex trauma.

• Alcoholics Anonymous: Alcohol addiction recovery through a 12 step program.
• Families Anonymous: A 12-step fellowship for the families and friends who have known a feeling of desperation concerning the destructive behavior of someone very near to them, whether caused by drugs, alcohol, or related behavioral problems.
• Celebrate Recovery: A Christ-centered, 12-step recovery program for “anyone struggling with hurt, pain, or addiction of any kind.”
• Chemical Dependent Anonymous: A 12-step program supporting abstinence from all mood-changing and mind-altering chemicals, including street-type drugs, alcohol and unnecessary medication.
• Cocaine Anonymous: A 12-step program for cocaine, alcohol, and other mind-altering substances.
• Crystal Meth Anonymous: A 12-step program for Crystal Meth addiction.
• Dual Recovery Anonymous: A 12-step program for those who have a psychiatric disorder and a substance abuse problem.
• Life Ring Secular Recovery: The Life Ring philosophy differs from the 12-step programs in that it does not require you to rely on a higher power but believes in supporting your ability to strengthen your sober self and weaken your addict self.
• Marijuana Anonymous: A 12-step program for marijuana addiction.
• Moderation Management: Moderation Management supports responsible drinking rather than a philosophy of total abstinence.
• Narcotics Anonymous: Search the meeting database by location. You can also download an NA Meeting Search app for iOS or Android.
• Pills Anonymous: A 12-step program with meetings around the world.
• SMART Recovery: SMART (Self Management And Recovery Training) is not a 12-step program, but a self-help addiction recovery program for substance abuse and alcohol abuse.
• Women for Sobriety: An abstinence-based group for women facing drug or alcohol addiction, WFS offers in-person meetings as well as videoconferencing meetings and an online support forum.
• Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA): Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, or S.L.A.A., is a program for anyone who suffers from an addictive compulsion to engage in or avoid sex, love, or emotional attachment.
• LifeRing Secular Recovery: Abstinence-based, anonymous organization dedicated to providing a safe meeting space where you can experience a non-judgmental recovery conversation with your peers.
• Secular Organizations for Sobriety (SOS): A nonprofit network of autonomous, non-professional local groups, dedicated solely to helping individuals achieve and maintain sobriety/abstinence from alcohol and drug addiction, food addiction and more.
• Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others (JACS): Encouraging and assisting Jewish alcoholics, chemically dependent persons and their families, friends and associates to explore recovery in a nurturing Jewish environment.
• Parents of Addicted Loved Ones: Provides hope and support through addiction education for parents dealing with an addicted loved one.
• Recovery Dharma: Uses Buddhist practice and principles to heal the suffering caused by all types of addiction.
• Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist-oriented, non-theistic recovery program that does not ask anyone to believe anything, only to trust the process and do the hard work of recovery.

• The Phoenix: A sober active community that fuels resilience and harnesses the transformational power of connection so that together we rise, recover, and live.
• YPR Chapters’ All Recovery: A community offering life skills programs for people of all ages with substance use disorder.
• VetChange: a free and confidential online self-management program for active duty military and Veterans who are concerned about their drinking following military deployment.
• Partnership to End Addiction: Free online support community for parents and caregivers who may have children experimenting with, or dependent on, substances.
• r/stopdrinking: A place to motivate each other to control or stop drinking.
• r/redditorsinrecovery: A place for Redditors in recovery to hang out, share experiences, and support each other. Discuss the various ways to achieve and maintain a life free from active addiction.
• r/redditorsinrecovery: Their group goal is to “discuss the various ways to achieve and maintain a life free from active addiction.” Threads in this group focus on topics such as how to cope with triggers, recovery from porn/sex addiction, how to learn after a relapse and so much more.
• Soberistas: This online-only community is worldwide, which makes it easy to connect with like-minded women who are friendly, non-judgmental, and helping each other kick the booze and stay sober.
• Sober Recovery: A place for people with substance use disorder to find assistance and helpful information.
• This Naked Mind Group: Facebook community for fans of Annie Grace, author of The Naked Mind: Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness & Change Your Life, a book that has helped countless people reevaluate their relationship with alcohol.
• Hello Sunday Morning: A community that supports anyone who wants to change their relationship with alcohol, in whatever form — whether abstaining, taking a break, or just better understanding it.
• Sober Mommies Support Group: A Facebook group for moms in sobriety to connect to their fellow sober mothers.
• LGBTteetotaler: A group for members of the LGBT community to share sobriety-related concerns.
• Sober Mom Squad: An online community supporting women who are sober and now find themselves overloaded with taking care of the kids while also working and quarantining.
• In The Rooms (ITR): A global online community with over 650,000 members who share their strength and experience with one another daily.
• Alcohol Help Center: A free interactive web site dedicated to helping those who have concerns about their drinking. The goal is to promote interaction between people who have drinking problems and health professionals.

Get Unstuck: The Get Unstuck program takes a holistic approach, combining traditional clinical methodologies with mindfulness, breathwork, and Vedic/Yogic knowledge to heal old wounds and build a life that fully expresses the resilience you have within you.

Tempest: A modern recovery company that helps you stop drinking and start feeling better. By using evidence-based treatment and peer support, we can provide you with the education, tools, and community you need to recover.

Sober School: Kate Bee helps women to quit drinking and create alcohol free lives they love.

Recovery with Russell Brand: In this Commune course you’ll learn to untangle yourself from problematic relationships to work, romance, social media, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, food, or family.

Life Recovery Program: The Life Recovery Program is a self-directed online wellness platform for individuals struggling with addiction. It consists of pre-recorded video-clips, behavioral contracts, supportive/informative downloads, e-mails, grounding techniques, eBooks and a forum moderated by a clinician for immediate support and resources.

Online Alcohol & Drug Counseling Classes: This is online learning program combines evidence-based and 12-step drug and alcohol education. It is for low-risk, low-need individuals who do not need inpatient treatment or who have barriers to accessing treatment.

Self Recovery.org: This holistic online recovery program was developed by a psychiatrist specializing in addiction.   Video lessons and mindfulness meditations help you gain a deeper understanding of yourself and what contributed to your addiction.  The program consists of 6 modules: The science of addiction behavior; Addiction; Cravings; False Pleasures, Emotional Pain/Distress, and Health.

Addiction Therapy Beyond Treatment: This skype-based or phone therapy for people in all stages of recovery is conducted by a licensed professional counselor and master addiction counselor with over 27 years of sobriety and active 12-step participation.

Bright Eye Counseling: This is an online counseling and psychology service for people having problems with alcohol, including those concerned with binge drinking. Rather than a 12-step approach, it uses a cognitive behavioral approach to help people develop their own solutions.

New Horizons Hawaii: Skype counseling is available based on a non-12 step cognitive behavioral approach.

Online Substance Abuse Treatment (OSAT): Live online counseling: Three times a week over ten weeks, group members meet online under the guidance of an experienced addiction counselor to work on addiction recovery issues using cognitive therapy and the 12-Step approach. Self-directed online treatment: A 30-45 day work-at-home program with 30 downloadable interactive workbook chapters plus 5 online tests.

Recovery From Addiction Ltd: Online counseling and recovery support is provided by counselors who are accredited and have extensive experience at addiction treatment centers. Clients are guided through a process to help them understand why they became addicted and identify patterns that keep them stuck in addiction.

Right Recovery: Provides comprehensive substance abuse and addiction treatment completely online. Designed by a Ph.D. to be a full-service addiction treatment program, with 12-step or without, services are delivered via highly secure and encrypted video conferencing software.

Workit Health: A telemedicine provider of medically-assisted treatment for alcohol and opioids. 100% virtual with access to online recovery groups, messaging with your care team, and therapeutic courses tailored to your recovery goals.

Addictions Counselling Nottingham: This UK-based addiction counseling and therapy service offers private telephone and online counseling via SKYPE. Counseling is provided by Andrew Harvey, a registered member of the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists and The Federation of Drug and Alcohol.