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Sobriety and New Age Alcoholics Anonymous

If you find yourself feeling like you can’t get out of the rut starting your recovery journey, you will definitely experience some days where staying motivated alone will feel extremely difficult. Being independent in the battle for long term health is the worst way to get over an addiction to very strong substances like drugs or alcohol. Having a close knit peer support system who can guide you and keep you motivated throughout your addiction recovery is crucial to prevent any relapses from happening in the future.

Traditional methods of peer support groups like Alcoholics Anonymous have been around for many years as the go-to opportunity to talk amongst a group of people who can understand and listen to your struggles. In the past few years, we have been quickly integrating our lives with the internet and social media. Public forums, online messenger, and even video chat groups has allowed the peer support method to evolve into a powerful online community to help keep people motivated, learn more about their “triggers” to avoid sinking to temptation, and staying consistent to ensure long term success. People from a variety of lifestyles and backgrounds pursuing this accessible resource and are finishing it with success as a stronger person than ever before.

Peer Support Impact

It’s a long journey that is required to recover from addiction without any consistent support from other people around you. Although people who are within a peer support group may come from different walks of life and each have a variety of needs, everyone depends on each other as a line of support. Every person involved in the group is aware of what life is like as an addict in our current society, the difficulty of dealing daily temptations, and dealing with feelings that occur during recovery like sadness, guilt, and remorse that comes recovery. Most people try to rebuild their sense of self -confidence, their relationships with any friends and family, and their professional careers for the future. Being part of an active support group increases your likelihood to stay in recovery and finish it strong. You will gain needed emotional support with understanding mentors and informational support from educational seminars that teach important recovery skills. You will also acquire an important sense of belonging, as well as tips for interacting with other people that don’t revolve around consuming drugs or alchohol.

A Variety of Services

No matter where you start in your recovery journey, there are a variety services available for to help you gain sobriety and ensure relapse prevention. Peer support groups are great at being adaptable and could be individualized to your pre-recovery, recovery in progress, or post-recovery time line. For example, a peer support group can be initiated before a person enters their rehab treatment to help them develop an organized mindset for making lifestyle changes. If they’re already enrolled in a specific treatment program, support groups can also accompany it and provide an important link to a community of people going through the same experience. If treatment is done, a person has the option to still join to increase their chance of preventing relapse in the future. Even if you feel like pursuing a support group is expensive or do not exactly wish to open up to a room full of strangers, the support system that develops is foundational to your overall success as a patient. Throughout each stage, while participating in each meeting, members of peer support groups will be building their leadership abilities that will be vital to use in the future.

Online Support

There is definite evidence that having a peer support group provides enormous benefits to the body, mind, and spirit. If you have a very busy schedule and can’t find enough time to attend Alcoholic Anonymous type events in person, you might want to take a look at joining online programs to digitally stay on track. No matter how large the forum is, chances are you will find someone who shares similar troubles and can form a meaningful bond alongside you as you grow. New Age Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are now increasingly popular for people to bond over remote locations and global time zones. The online community provides a safe space to discuss personal failures, goals, and experiences to develop into a healthy person again. Facebook and Reddit has many forums and groups that are open to their members for free, and welcome them with open arms. A lot of colleges throughout the country also run discussion forums for their students to join on a weekly basis. You can also easily Google search for online AA groups that suit your lifestyle and personal goals to help you best succeed!

Teen Mental Health

These days, the dialogue about mental diseases like anorexia, depression, and addiction among teens has been brought up more than ever before thanks to school education programs, awareness conferences, and the movies and shows developed from the mainstream media. Television series like the new “13 Reasons Why” is a prime example of what factored into this resurgence, as it depicts a teenager who struggles with depression from her environment and being angry at her peers. While it’s based on a fake story line, the issues it shows are extremely realistic since many kids go through social pressure, stress from school, and adapting to puberty. Studies show that at least one of every eight teens in the U.S. are diagnosed with depression, which is shocking. That means that out of a normal sized class of 32 students a high school, 4 of those students will be going through depression at the time. Depression can build up to a boiling point for many reasons, but it’s a given that adequate treatment is crucial for the health and safety of someone if they have it.

Forming Depression

Depression can be caused for a great deal of reasons, from feeling extremely insecure compared to others, experiencing emotional or physical abuse from a friend or parent, feeling consistently hopeless, or not being accepted by the people around you. For a teen, being teased in school or flunking tests, feeling left out from friends, and being extremely dissatisfied with their body, social status, etc. all play a role. With these events bringing constant stress, depression can develop and spiral into an abyss of negative emotions and idleness for an individual.  

Spotting someone with depression may be difficult, but it’s generally agreed that a change in personality and behavior will be apparent. Look out for red flags like seeing someone being less interested in activities they once enjoyed, sleeping a lot more, eating a lot more or less, and not being able to focus at school or at tasks. They could also have bad memory, underperformance, or may even turn to addictive substances to get through the pain. That’s definitely a dangerous plan and could lead to much more harmful consequences in the future.

Getting through Depression

There’s a lot of professionals who can help a teen with their profession. Spending time with them to hear their fears, stress, and hopes will help you gain their trust to pursue help and hopefully start a rehab program. Make sure to let know that their emotions are okay to experience, but their idleness and reluctance to change at the moment is not. After some time, you can move on to approaching the topic of seeking therapy and telling them that it will be a positive impact to their health and future years.

Receiving Treatment

It all comes down to what their lifestyle and personality is like to choose what therapy will work best. However, helping them acknowledge the problem is the most important step so they can take action on it. If they are extremely stubborn at this stage, you may even have to resort to taking a medical test which shows concrete proof of depression being active. One example is doing a blood test to identify genetic markers associated with depression. With the test’s help, doctors can get to the cause of their problem way quicker and reach a much quicker diagnosis as well. From there, they can recommend what type of therapy to take and changes they can make to their sleeping habits, nutrition, and physical activity to aid the process.

Persistence is Key

Depression is a great mountain to climb, but with a team of help and dedication to getting better it can be tackled. Instead of taking no action or turning to unhealthy addictions to cope, asking for help will bring quicker results and better health overall. Combined with using holistic therapy that includes aromatherapy, massage therapy, meditation, better nutrition, and more exercise, awareness of the body can be increased so the person can prevent spiraling into the illness again in the future.

Improving your safety at home with home locks

Your house should be a sanctuary where you feel your safest; where you can escape the world and retire to it with peace of mind knowing that no one can get in if you don’t want them too. Having this type of safety comes with the responsibility of making it a reality. Your first line of protection at home is your home lock. Without a strong lock you may find yourselves with some unwanted guests – no one wants this to happen – therefore, understanding what type of lock you should install is crucial. Many people do not know the different types of locks and why certain ones are better than others. Being educated on these matters is an important safety to having peace of mind that your belongings are safe and most importantly your family is safe. If you want to start this process today get in touch with an efficient lock smith service as this can really make the difference.

The different types of locks for commercial and residential

When we are talking about locks, there are many different types of locks and grades depending on the strength of the lock. First, there are residential locks, commercial locks and automotive locks. We will be looking at what type of locks are suitable for residential and commercial use so you can make a more educated decision when evaluating a lock to see if its needs to be changed. Locks are graded on an ANSI grading system. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) established three grades for door locks to help identify the quality and durability of lock sets and deadbolts. Each lock must pass multiple tests, including cycles, door strikes and weight test. One cycle consists of the knob or handle turning completely to retract the latch bolt and open the door, and then it is released, allowing the door to re-latch.

The different grades are as follows:

  • Grade 1 – Best

This is the highest security available and meets commercial building requirements; it is available for residential uses via deadbolts. There are no standard knobs, handle sets or mortise lockset that will meet ANSI Grade 1 certifications, only commercial lever handles. To achieve this grade:

Knobs must withstand 800,000 cycles, 6 door strikes and a 360 pound weight test

Deadbolts must withstand 250,000 cycles and 10 door strikes (hammer test)

  • Grade 2 – Better

Meets light commercial building requirements; exceeds standard residential security and building requirements. To achieve this grade:

Knobs must withstand 400,000 cycles, 4 door strikes and a 250 pound weight test

Deadbolts must withstand 150,000 cycles and 5 door strikes (hammer test)

  • Grade 3 – Good

Meets residential building requirements only and provides minimal residential security. To achieve this grade:

Knobs must withstand 200,000 cycles, 2 door strikes and a 150 pound weight test

Deadbolts must withstand 100,000 cycles and 2 door strikes (hammer test)

Hopefully this gives you insight on what type of locks you should be using based on your needs.

Cost of course can play a factor in these situations but a little extra cost is a small price to pay for peace of mind at home. If you are serious about upgrading your residential or commercial locks contact ABC Locksmith, ABC is an efficient locksmith service that can guide you through this process and give you the security you need.

Why you should invest in a gun safe

With gun sales steadily increasing across the United States, safety becomes a priority with families that have guns in the house. More families now own guns as a means of self-defense. In case of an attempted break in or murder, having a gun in the house can save lives in these types of situation. However, just because you own a gun doesn’t mean you are safe from the power it has. It is a lethal killing machine and sometimes I think this is lost information to many people. Keeping it in a draw or under a bed really isn’t good enough to protect your family from its killing ability. There is a great responsibility that comes with owning a gun that must not be overlooked.

Owning a gun doesn’t mean an accident can’t happen

Once the gun is fired a bullet will travel 2,500 feet in one second. This means there is no going back after the triggered is pulled and the damage is done. Many homes that own guns have accidents occur all the time as the gun was easily accessible. Accidents can range from showing someone the gun with the safety off and it randomly firing, a young child thinking it is a toy and firing it, or even if a burglar robbing your house was to get to it first and use it against you. Whatever it is, there is no excuse to not have your gun kept in a safe place in the house. This doesn’t only mean hidden but in a protective environment, a gun safe is the perfect answer to this solution.

A gun safe is a great place to keep a gun

Once you start using a gun safe it is very hard for anyone else to have access to the weapon Only trusted members should be given the code and this way less fatalities will occur from accidental incidents around the house. No children or unknown visitors would be able to access it once it is locked away and this is for the best. When you are deciding what type of safe to get installed in your home, there are a few different options you have. First, you would either be looking at getting a large gun safe or a small gun safe depending on the size of your gun. This is a rather self-explanatory feature of the safe as if the gun doesn’t fit inside then it becomes pretty useless! Another great feature is an electronic key pad, it provides much quicker access than a dial lock which is manual and can be prone to human error. If you are being robbed no one will wait for you to fiddle with the lock. Many trusted local locksmiths that can provide you with good information and install the type of gun safe you want. If you are serious about keeping your home safe then Locksmith Sarasota could be your answer. They will guide you through the process and install whatever gun safe you eventually decide on. Keep your family safe today and do the right thing!