I am, in fact, a heroin user in long term recovery from addiction. Nineteen years, 34 abscesses, and eleven arrests ago, I had my last shot of heroin. I had been using opioids for ten years, heavily for eight of those. Like many users, my journey to recovery began in handcuffs
High-achievers are able to still perform at work and thus, their substance abuse can go unnoticed for quite a bit of time. This was my story, until it wasn’t.
August 31st is International Overdose Awareness Day, the perfect time to understand that the opioid crisis affects people from all walks of life and backgrounds.
The first three parts of this series focused on our brains – how we start to heal them in recovery. Equally important are the ways we can take care of our bodies in recovery, ways that also support our efforts to heal our brains and maintain their neuroplasticity.
In a nutshell, we create new neuropathways by establishing and practicing new habits. The more we repeat them, the more ingrained those neuropathways become. Here are four key elements of the process.
Neuroplasticity is how we learn to speak a new language or play a new instrument – and it’s also what recovery from opioids depends on. It's hard, but it's possible.
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