Sober on Purpose - Healing Families of Addiction Tanya Gioia

If you intend to lose weight, get up earlier, travel or stop or start something in your life, this quick episode is for you!
Good intentions are grand ideas without a plan.  How do you change those ideas into actions?  Practice!
This episode is me, Tanya, with few life-changing thoughts about being Sober on Purpose.  There is no magic pill!  Finding your way takes Purpose and Practice.

The relief of you or the loved one getting sober lifts a momentous wait off the family.  Now everything is going to be OK. He, she or they will stop doing whatever they were doing that caused the family so much harm. For years, the families desperate mantra for sobriety may have gone something like this:
IF he would just … stop using drugs, pron, spending money, working 90 hours. IF she would just.. stop nagging, drinking, shopping, yelling. Our expectations breed more expectations.  We expect a whole new person after the addictive behavior stops. What we often get is a confused, fragile person trying to sort out their lives.
When our expectations are not meet we can get frustrated or even angry. This creates an endless no-win cycle. A child quickly learns that; if you can’t ever win, why play.  #soberlifehappylife #soberonpurpose

Jerry and I discuss the dangerous fantasy land of expectations after you become Sober on Purpose.

Hey, this is Jerry with the first short workin´ it minisode.  Just my opinion on who you can and cannot control in the addiction recovery process.
Maybe you have been sober a while or maybe you are new to sobriety.  Tanya and I want to do these short mindset focused minisodes between the longer Sober on Purpose episodes to give you a quick minute or two of support.
Often one thing said by one person in a recovery group or by a trusted advisor can turn my mind around.

I hope these little shorts trigger healthy thoughts and bring you day up.
Hey, remember to trust God, clean house, and tell the truth.  Plus we would love it if you leave us an iTunes review!!

Getting sober often leaves us and our families with a long list of hurt feelings.  We can resent people, organizations and ourselves.
Hanging our hats on resentments, holding them close and nurturing them only serves to feed them.  Just like expectations, resentments tend to repopulate given the chance.  They grow and grow and grow bigger like a balloon.
The long slim needle of truth about a resentment is they are a recycling of old negative feelings that we choose to reboot in our minds over and over again.  How do addicts and their families pop the resentment balloon?

Comfortably Unhappy
I hate this concept.  It is the golden cage of work, home and play.  The sound for comfortably unhappy is “meh” ( expressing a lack of interest or enthusiasm).
Just saying it makes me cringe--MEH.  It is that chocolate chip cookie that is not good but not bad it is just a cookie.   This is why I don’t eat cheesecake. It is sweet and creamy, but for my taste, it is just meh at the cost of a whole lot of calories.
Don't waste your sober on purpose life on comfortably unhappy relationships in work or play.
 

Turkey Day is upon us.  No one wants to struggle with Family Holidays.  After recovery from addictions, the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays may trigger unwanted feels and emotions.

Here are our Top Ten Tips for staying Emotionally Sober during the Holidays.  

Designed to help you accept the things that you can't change and the courage to stay sober and addiction free during high-stress times.

Got some strategies of your own?  Share it with us in the Sober on purpose facebook group!