A few years ago, I facilitated an in-person women’s support meeting. In preparation for this meeting, I found a video called “Will the Pain and Suffering Ever End?” Will the Pain and Suffering Ever End? I took the video to the group meeting. As the meeting began, a young, petite woman sat down next to me and began to sob. I put my arm around her, told her she was in the right place, and gave her my phone number. No one in the room made a fuss. They just smiled compassionately. They had been...

The Study of Recovery principles in our personal Recovery Path will help us build an ADDICTION-informed paradigm. When our responses to SHAME include self-shame in its many forms, watching for its many facets in our cognitive thinking, narrow paradigms, and self-shaming paradigms will give us the power to reject the onslaught of the negative shaming triggers. Strong and intentional boundaries are vital in this process; we never condone or excuse our past behaviors or the abuses we have...

Guilt, Shame, and Grace | August 1, 2026 Last week in our Thursday night Addiction Recovery Group for women, we explored how changing our negative thinking patterns can change our paradigm—the way we see the world and our place in it—and how vital that process is to recovery. This Thursday, August 6, we'll continue that discussion by looking more closely at guilt and shame, two of recovery's greatest enemies. By definition, guilt and shame are current feelings about something in the...