addiction

The realities of addition; the truth about living under, above and beyond the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Why Some People Apologize Even When They’re Not Wrong
Emma said "sorry" seventeen times before noon. Sorry for asking a question in the meeting. Sorry for walking through a door someone was holding. Sorry for her email being too long. Sorry for her email being too short. Sorry for needing to use the bathroom during a Zoom call. Sorry for existing in spaces that other people also existed in.
By Ameer Moavia3 months ago in Psyche
The Spine-Cracked Confessions
The library groaned, a familiar, ancient sound Elias had come to mistake for breathing. It was 4:30 AM, cold enough to see his breath in the vast reading room, even before the heating kicked in properly. He moved through the cavernous space, a lone figure amidst a million hushed stories, the scuff of his work boots the only intrusion on the deep quiet. Dust motes, like tiny, lost stars, danced in the weak pre-dawn light filtering through the high, arched windows. He loved this hour, before the students arrived, before the murmurs and the rustle of turning pages, before the world remembered the library existed.
By HAADI3 months ago in Psyche
How Constant Comparison Slowly Breaks Self-Worth
It started with a wedding photo. Jessica was scrolling through Instagram at 7:23 a.m., still in bed, coffee cooling on her nightstand. The algorithm served her a picture of someone she'd gone to college with—Amber, who she hadn't thought about in years.
By Ameer Moavia3 months ago in Psyche
The Hidden Psychology of Why We Procrastinate (and How to Stop)
The Night Before Everything Falls Apart It was 11:47 p.m., and Daniel was finally opening the document. The proposal was due at 9 a.m. A proposal he'd had six weeks to write. Six weeks that had somehow evaporated into this single desperate night, his laptop screen glowing in the darkness like an accusation.
By Ameer Moavia3 months ago in Psyche
The Obsidian Bloom
Elara found it by accident, or maybe her feet, numb with a sorrow she couldn’t quite name, just carried her there. A crumbling wall, ancient and choked with desperate, grasping ivy, behind the forgotten greenhouse at the edge of town. A ragged gap, just wide enough. Through it, a light. Not sunlight. Something else, shimmering, cold. The air inside hit her like a blast from a deep freezer, but it wasn’t unpleasant, not like the suffocating, humid stickiness of August. It was clean. A profound stillness pressed against her ears, quieting the frantic, buzzing static that had lived inside her head for months.
By HAADI3 months ago in Psyche
A Bruised Sky on the Tongue
The morning light, thin and watery through her window, bled into her mouth before it even touched her eyes. Not just a visual thing, no. For Elara, the color blue had a taste, a constant, low thrum against the back of her tongue, a cold, metallic tang that clung like forgotten copper pennies. She woke with it, breathed it, carried it through every hour, a secret, unshakeable burden. This morning, it was the pale, washed-out blue of a winter sky, sharp and brittle, like sucking on ice that had been scraped with a dull knife. She reached for her coffee, hoping the bitter black would cut through it, but it just added another layer, a murky undertow of cold. She swallowed, trying to dislodge the feeling, to scrape it off with her teeth.
By HAADI3 months ago in Psyche
Why Somatic Healing Techniques Trump Traditional Self Help
When the body feels and becomes safe - that is when pain and trauma starts to transmute. Talk therapy, combined with listing down the pros and cons of aiding in decision making, no matter the magnitude, is all well and good; yet such self-help and healing techniques do not reach the somatic and sticky bits, right up to the fascia. In no way, shape or form are these techniques being discounted and brushed aside; however for deep healing from caretaking, people pleasing, co-dependencies and addictions (all in the name of unresolved trauma - whether acquired through childhood and/or adulthood); being stuck in the head is a significant disservice to you, and to all of us. (Yes, we are all connected at the end of the day, even if you live in the Northern Hemisphere).
By Justine Crowley3 months ago in Psyche
The Digital Divide: How Access to Technology Is Redefining Social Inequality
Introduction: The Promise of Technology vs. the Reality of Access In the 21st century, technology promises to bring people together, bridge distances, open doors to opportunity, and enable us to be more connected, better-informed lives. But while technology has really transformed much of modern life, the reality is that access to the digital machinery and the web remains unequal, creating a broad gap between those who are connected and those who are not. The "digital divide" is not an issue of technology—it is social, and it most heavily impacts marginalized populations and widens existing disparities.
By The Chaos Cabinet3 months ago in Psyche
The Weight of Cobalt
The morning sky outside Elias’s kitchen window was a flat, bruised blue, the kind that promised nothing but more cold. And there it was again, on his tongue, a faint but distinct tang, metallic and almost icy, like a forgotten spoon left out overnight, gathering dew and despair. He didn't just see blue; he *felt* it, a specific, undeniable flavor that clung to his palate, a sensation he'd carried since he was small, a secret language only he spoke. It wasn't the sweet, light blue of cotton candy, or the sharp, artificial bite of a kids' drink. This was a deep, resonant blue, the taste of profound distances, of quiet sadness, of things left unsaid.
By HAADI3 months ago in Psyche
The Grey Harbor of My Mind
Leo’s life was a beige office cubicle, the kind with stains he didn’t want to think about. Fluorescent lights hummed a constant, low-grade headache into his temples. Every day, the same screen glow, the same spreadsheets, the same flat coffee from the breakroom machine. But in his head, the light was different. It was the bruised, pewter grey of a sky over a cold sea, pushing down on old stone cottages with slate roofs, black with damp and time. Always there, this image. A harbor, not grand, but tight, almost choked with fishing boats, their paint peeling, nets piled high like sleeping monsters. He’d never been, not in his life, not a single foot on that rough-hewn quay, but he knew the place like he knew the back of his own hand, better maybe. It was a constant ache, a phantom limb of a memory.
By HAADI3 months ago in Psyche
Being the First Dreamer in a Family of Survivors
I did not come from dreamers. I came from survivors. They woke before the sun because survival does not wait for rest. They worked through pain because pain never paid the bills. Their lives were shaped by necessity, not desire. Food mattered more than fulfillment. Stability mattered more than passion. In my family, dreams were considered dangerous. They were luxuries people indulged in when rent was paid, when cupboards were full, when tomorrow was guaranteed. Dreams, we believed, could distract you from staying alive. And then there was me. I wanted more than endurance. I wanted meaning. I wanted to imagine a future instead of bracing for the next emergency. I wanted to ask questions like “What do I want?” instead of “What do we need right now?” I wanted a life that did not revolve entirely around fear. That is how I became the first dreamer in a family of survivors. No one prepared me for the guilt. Every step forward felt like a quiet act of disobedience. When I rested, I felt lazy. When I imagined a different life, I felt ungrateful. When I pursued joy, I wondered who I was leaving behind. Their sacrifices built the ground beneath my feet. How dare I stand taller than they ever could. I learned early that ambition can feel like betrayal. That wanting more can sound like criticizing the lives that came before you. That growth can feel like saying, “Your way was not enough,” even when that is not what you mean. I loved them. And still, I wanted something different. That contradiction lived inside me like a second heartbeat. They taught me how to survive. But no one taught me how to dream without shame. I watched them carry exhaustion like a family heirloom. I inherited their discipline, their resilience, their silence. But I also inherited their unfinished hopes, buried so deep they no longer had names. Sometimes I think my dreams are not entirely mine. They are borrowed courage. They are postponed desires finally asking to be lived. Still, pride and guilt walk beside me everywhere I go. Pride, because I am doing things they never had the chance to imagine. Pride, because their struggles did not end with them. Pride, because survival evolved into possibility. Guilt, because my life is lighter. Guilt, because I can choose. Guilt, because my fears are not as sharp as theirs once were. Being the first dreamer means translating survival into something gentler. It means honoring the past without being imprisoned by it. It means carrying gratitude without carrying chains. I am not rejecting where I come from. I am continuing it differently. Their strength taught me how to endure. My dreams teach me how to live. And maybe that is the quiet purpose of progress. Not to erase the struggle of our families, but to make sure it does not have to be repeated.
By Luna Vani3 months ago in Psyche
Why Abrupt And Immediate Change Rarely Works
We are getting ready to come into a new year. You know what that means... Everyone is going to be trying something "new" to start off the year.
By Dr. Cody Dakota Wooten, DFM, DHM, DAS (hc)3 months ago in Psyche