Giving back is a perfect way to kickoff the holiday season and it’s great for your recovery, too.  For one, it simply feels good to give. Beyond that, acts of altruism have been linked with lower levels of depression, greater positivity, increased confidence and self-worth and better overall life satisfaction.

Depending on how you choose to be charitable, it may also help you to meet new like-minded people and gain new skills and a sense of accomplishment. Plus, it feeds the soul and spirit.

Ready to get back as much (if not more) than you give? In the spirit of the upcoming holidays, here are few ways to give back during recovery:

• Become an advocate for recovery. You can become an advocate of alcohol and/or drug addiction recovery by simply sharing your story. This is a great service to help reduce the stigma of addiction and its treatment, to encourage someone who is struggling and to strengthen your own sobriety. When you do meaningful work, you have more to lose and less reason to relapse.
• Volunteer in the local community. Many addiction specialists consider volunteering a cornerstone of recovery. Find out if your local church has any volunteer initiatives, like soup kitchens or clothes drive, that need an extra hand this season.
• Work with pets. If you’re not yet secure around others, volunteering with animals can be a good fit. Working with pets is both a learning experience and a healing experience for people in recovery. Check with your local animal shelter about any volunteer opportunities.

Continual Growth at Christian Rehab
At Christian Rehab Network, we can help you explore your own recovery journey while learning to heal relationships and build a sober social network. If you are searching for help strengthening your relationship with Christ while overcoming an addiction to drugs or alcohol, call today: 877-310-9545.

Dwelling on the past can be detrimental to your recovery. This is because it can prevent you from moving forward and giving yourself the self-love and self-encouragement you need to endure the hard work of rehab. While it's okay to learn from the past, you must also learn how to leave it behind and move toward a better, brighter, healthier future. These steps can help:

• Make amends. Now isn’t the time to dwell on what you did to others but how to work toward repairing these relationships or making amends.
• Seek support. If you find yourself having a hard time leaving the past in the past, talk with your pastor or addiction counselor or recovery peers.
• Build goals. Having both short- and long-term goals will help point you in the right direction, so you’re moving toward the future and you’re not stuck in the past.
• Practice gratitude. Having an attitude of gratitude also means feeling thankful about you -- about how far you’ve come, where you are now, and how you are bettering your life.  Being grateful can give you the fuel you need to move past the past.
• Forgive yourself. Letting go of the past often starts with forgiving yourself – for past actions and behaviors. Do your best to encourage and forgive yourself. For example, tell yourself things like, “I’m taking steps to get better,” or “I made mistakes but I'm making amends.” And remember, recovery is your chance to start fresh and become the person you’ve always wanted to become.

Moving Forward Toward Sobriety
At Christian Rehab Network, we can help you learn valuable life skills to build a fulfilling life of sobriety and reduce your risk of relapse. If you are searching for help strengthening your relationship with Christ while overcoming an addiction to drugs or alcohol, call today: 877-310-9545.

Self-esteem plays a big part in your loved one’s recovery. After all, high self-esteem will help your loved one to:

• Act independently and responsibly
• Take pride in his/her accomplishments
• Attempt new tasks and challenges
• Better handle positive and negative emotions
• And more...

Conversely, low self-esteem can prevent your loved one from working toward personal recovery goals and can even lead to relapse, if your loved one feels so badly about himself that he gives up and starts drinking or drugging again.

You can play a positive part in helping your loved one build or rebuild his or her self-esteem. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind:

• Exercise with your loved one. Whether you go for a morning walk together or sign up for a yoga class, this will help encourage self-care, which is key to self-esteem.
• Help your loved one find a hobby. Whether writing a poem, playing a musical instrument, or going for a hike, identifying an enjoyable hobby/activity is the perfect way to help your loved one feel more confident and happy.
• Laugh with your loved one and encourage him to laugh at himself. People who take themselves very seriously are undoubtedly decreasing their enjoyment in life. A good sense of humor and the ability to make light of life are important ingredients for handling the ups and downs of sobriety.
• Remind him that mistakes are okay. Especially when you go outside your comfort zone, you’re bound to stumble along the way.

Healing Families at Christian Rehab
If you or someone you care about is caught in the bondage of drugs or alcoholism, Christian Rehab Network can help. We help families to find faith-based drug rehab programs based in Biblical truth. To learn more, call today: 877-310-9545.

Experiencing a relapse – or even multiple relapses – during recovery is pretty common, but it’s not inevitable. In fact, long before the first drink or drug use occurs, there are typically warning signs.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), when people who have had a stable recovery and have done well begin to relapse they may experience the following:

• Anxiety
• Nervousness
• Forgetfulness
• Inability to experience pleasure
• Lack of motivation
• Feeling slowed down or speeded up
• Being uncaring
• Avoiding others or isolating
• Being obsessed with something that doesn’t really matter
• Displaying of irrational thought patterns
• Feeling unconnected to your body
• Increased irritability
• Increased negativity
• Not keeping appointments
• Changes in appetite
• Restlessness

It goes without saying, then, that a smart relapse prevention plan should include your individual warning signs as well as your personal triggers. Many addiction experts recommend keeping a running list – and refining it as you progress in your recovery. If this isn’t your first slip, you may even want to go a step further and ask your family, friends, pastor and/or counselor what signs they’ve noticed in you prior to your relapse.

In addition, the SAMHSA recommends taking action with one of these tips to prevent a relapse:

• Reach out to a counselor, pastor or sober friends or family members.
• Remove yourself from the situation and take a walk around the block a few times.
• Distract yourself with a healthy snack or a book or movie.
• Ask your friends and family to stop you if you begin talking about the fun you had while drinking or using.
• Make a list of the good things about your new life: better relationships, more success at work or school, healthier appearance, more hobbies, etc.
• If you have already relapsed at least once, think of how it happened. What can you do differently this time? “Just be strong and say no” is not enough to handle the situations you will face, notes SAMHSA.

Aftercare for Lifetime Sobriety
Built on the same spiritual foundations as the inpatient facilities and detox services we offer, the use of outpatient drug and alcohol, mental health or other services can be used to help you develop relapse prevention strategies and build on the recovery you gained during rehab. To learn more, call today: 877-310-9545.

For Christians, the decision about whether to seek addiction treatment can be a difficult one. You may have convinced yourself that you don’t really have a problem or that you can will away your addiction through sheer willpower or faith. Or, perhaps, emotions like guilt and shame are stopping you from seeking treatment.

In fact, studies show that people who choose a faith-based Christian approach to addiction recovery are more likely to get (and stay) sober. Here we take a look at a few of these common roadblocks to treatment – and why they shouldn’t stop you from getting the help you need and deserve.

• Willpower: Addiction isn’t caused by a lack of willpower, nor will willpower alone result in sustained recovery. On the other hand, you’ll find that strength comes easily and your willpower is seemingly fortified by the presence of the Lord in your recovery process.
• Guilt and shame: Do you feel like you let God down or that your addiction put a wrench in your relationship with Him? There is a close relationship between guilt, shame and addiction – but faith-based recovery can help you escape these emotions. By becoming sober, you can ask for forgiveness, restore your faith and repair your relationship with God.
• Fear of stigma: Do you suspect that others in the church community will judge you or label you “an addict”? Getting help and being open and honest about the realities of addiction is perhaps the best step toward breaking the stigma of addiction. It’s also a powerful way to demonstrate to others the profound impact that spirituality has in your life and in your recovery.

A Christian Partner to Guide Recovery
As a Christian in recovery, you must find your way back to the Lord before you can achieve a truly lasting recovery. The founding principle of Christian Rehab Network is that you should never have to walk that journey alone. To learn more, call: 877-310-9545.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. (Psalm 32:8)

Every June is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Awareness Month, the perfect time to encourage people to get a better understanding of the condition, including the risk factors. By doing so, the hope is that anyone who has been touched by serious trauma will reach out for help — not just veterans.

Risk Factors of PTSD
According to the National Center for PTSD, about 7 or 8 out of every 100 people will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. This includes war veterans and people who have been through a physical or sexual assault, abuse, accident, disaster or many other serious events. Some factors that increase your or your loved one's risk for PTSD include:

• Living through dangerous events and traumas
• Getting hurt
• Seeing another person hurt, or seeing a dead body
• Childhood trauma
• Feeling horror, helplessness, or extreme fear
• Having little or no social support after the event
• Dealing with extra stress after the event, such as loss of a loved one, pain and injury, or loss of a job or home
• Having a history of mental illness or substance abuse

PTSD and Substance Use Disorder
Indeed, there’s a lot of overlap between addiction and PTSD. Many people mistakenly turn to alcohol or drugs in an effort to forget or cope with such symptoms as:

• Sleep troubles
• Traumatic memories or dreams
• Mood disturbances
• Extreme emotions

But this type of self-medicating actually worsens symptoms over time and can decrease functioning across many areas of life. Luckily, proper treatment can help people with PTSD to recover in a healthy way.

Christian Treatment for PTSD
At Christian Rehab Network, we work with pastors and credentialed therapists to lift the veil of darkness and offer hope and comfort to clients and their families. Our network of facilities and programs offers help for those dealing with mental health conditions, including PTSD. To learn more, call today: 877-310-9545.

Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. We take about half a billion breaths over the course of our life and yet many of us don’t fully pay attention to our breathing. But learning to breathe deeply and consciously can be a valuable tool in your recovery. It’s simple and it’s pretty powerful when it comes to bringing more mindfulness and peace in your life.

Some other health benefits of conscious, deep breathing include:

• Reduced anxiety and depression
• Lower/stabilized blood pressure
• Increased energy levels
• More relaxed muscles
• Better sleep
• Decreased stress
• Better ability to withstand pain
• Greater productivity and learning
• Better decision-making
• Heightened self-awareness

How to Practice Breathing Deeply
It’s kind of funny to think that we need to practice something that is so core to survival, but most of us need to learn how to breathe deeply. Here are a few steps:

• Sit or lie down in a quiet, comfortable place. Take a normal breath. Now, take a deep breath by breathing in slowly through your nose and hold it for a count of 7. Your chest and lower belly should rise as you fill your lungs.
• Slowly exhale through your mouth (or nose, if that feels more natural) for a count of 8.
• Repeat the cycle four more times for a total of 5 deep breaths.
• Once you become comfortable with the above steps, you may consider blending deep breathing with imagery or a mantra or prayer to deepen relaxation.

Christian-Based Addiction Rehab
Whether you’re in need of mental health services, inpatient addiction treatment or supervised drug detox, we can help you get the Christian based care you need to heal your mind, body, and spirit. Call today to learn more about our addiction treatment services for Christians: 877-310-9545.

You already know that good sleep habits are an important part of your overall health and recovery plan – but what you do in those first seconds, minutes and hours after you wake up counts, too. In fact, the right morning routine can help provide you with the energy and self-control to stay the sober path. Try these tips to set a positive tone that lasts the entire day.

• Drink a tall glass of water. This is a great health habit to make part of your a.m. routine. Water hydrates you, of course, but it also helps to fire up your metabolism, flush out any toxins and give your brain fuel.
• Stretch your extremities. Before jumping out of bed, take a few minutes to limber up your muscles and joints for the day. Start with your fingers, wrists and arms and then move to each body part.
• Say a morning prayer. A morning prayer will help you focus your time and attention on seeking God's plan for the day ahead.
• Get moving. There’s a bunch of benefits to working out first thing in the morning. For one, people who exercise regularly in the morning are more likely to stick with the routine. Plus, beginning your day with movement will inspire you to stay active throughout the rest of the day.
• Enjoy a healthy breakfast. They say it’s the most important meal of the day and for good reason. Fueling your body with the right a.m. foods can give you energy, boost brain activity and help you stave off cravings.
• Listen to music. Spending just 10 to 15 minutes listening to music is a great way to get in a good mood for the day ahead. Music has been touted for its ability to relieve stress, reduce pain and even make you smarter.
• Read a motivational quote. The right quote can help give you the energy and inspiration needed to get going and go to work toward your short- and long-term recovery goals.

Addiction Treatment for Men and Women
With our faith-based approach to addiction recovery, we can help you build a new, sober life while also rebuilding your relationship with Christ. Take that first step today. Call: 877-310-9545.

Even biblical figures struggle with depression. David often writes of his anguish, loneliness and guilt; Jeremiah, known as the “weeping prophet,” wrestled with feelings of loneliness, defeat and insecurity; and Hannah was a woman so depressed that she couldn’t eat.

For Christians, it’s crucial to realize that people from every age and every religion can suffer from depression. In fact, it’s a very common (and very treatable) mental illness; not simply a sign of a spiritual problem.

What’s more, there’s a strong link between depression and addiction: About 20 percent of Americans with depression also have a substance use disorder, and about 20 percent of those with a SUD also have an anxiety or mood disorder, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America.

Have you ever asked yourself, “Am I depressed?” If you have, and you’ve experienced any of these signs, it may mean you need professional help:

• You’re exhausted but can’t sleep. Studies show that three quarters of depressed patients have symptoms of insomnia.
• You become more reckless and make bad judgment calls, including abusing drugs or alcohol.
• You feel physical pain like joint pain, back pain or headaches. The same neurotransmitters that affect your mood play a part in pain regulation.
• Your sadness becomes severe and is accompanied by irritability, fatigue and loss of appetite.
• Your negative mood lasts for weeks, or even months, and interferes with daily living.
• You’re always angry and often for no apparent reason.

Mental Health Treatment at Christian Rehab Network
Individuals with behavioral health issues, such as depression, often struggle with addiction. That’s why we specialize in offering a variety of mental health services for Christians. To help address a complex dual-diagnosis, we can help with medication management, group and individual therapy and faith-based support. If you are dealing with behavioral health and addiction issues, call today: 877-310-9545.