My sober friends who have come to know me also know that I like to chunk things down. Give me a list and I’m good to go!

When I look at my life in retrospect without the fog of alcohol, and also look at my life with curiosity going forward, I can segment it into four categories: Outside Me, Reclamation Me, Inside Me and Journeywoman Me.

Outside Me

In my Outside Me phase, I became a pro at personal and physical reinvention.

Addiction can roil relationships with abuse, betrayal, and domestic violence, placing great stress on a family. Typically, parents and siblings who try to help or manage a family member’s addiction find themselves sapped of emotional energy and drained of financial resources. My survey shows as many as 10 percent of respondents suspect that a sibling is hiding an addiction.

I wonder: Does the addiction produce family problems, or do a dysfunctional family’s issues result in addiction?

When a family member is struggling with a substance use disorder, it affects the entire family. Their substance use may make others in the family feel like they are dealing with a stranger. It’s not uncommon for the person experiencing addiction to act completely out of character, making the entire family feel out of sync.

If your loved one is in this situation and your family feels upside down, things may start to improve after they begin rehab.

There are two ways to think about college, both equally prevalent in our cultural knowledge of the subject. The first is about doors opening: doors to opportunity for economic advancement and financial security, and doors to a deeper understanding of one’s own true self. The second conceptualization of college is also about discovery, but of a different kind: the discovery of substances, usually alcohol, sometimes drugs.

More than two million Americans suffer from substance abuse issues related to prescription painkillers and this epidemic takes the lives of more than 90 Americans every single day.

These alarming statistics led researchers to ask: How do we make pain management safe? Specifically, how can we balance opioid prescription length and the risk of dependence?