Blog

It would be wonderful if completing treatment meant you would never experience another craving for drugs or alcohol. Unfortunately, addiction is a chronic disease, so you probably will have cravings for months or even years after you complete treatment. For this reason, it is important to have a plan for...

Pain and addiction are problems that can fuel each other. If you are concerned that someone in your life who struggles with chronic pain could be headed toward addiction or that their recovery could be endangered by chronic pain, it is important to learn more about the connection between these...

Stress is an unfortunate part of life for everyone. For people in recovery, however, managing it effectively can be the difference between staying sober and having a relapse. Because relapses can be very dangerous, at Safe Harbor Recovery Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, we like to reduce the likelihood of our...

Your spouse is relying too much on pain pills, using more than prescribed, and going to different doctors to get multiple prescriptions. Your adult daughter has lost her job and is now drinking more than she ever did. Your best friend has been to drug and alcohol addiction treatment once...

Often, when people think about behavioral health, they focus on the tragedies associated with addiction and mental illness. It is important that we always remember that recovery is possible. Since 1989, September has been designated as National Recovery Month, a time to raise awareness about innovations in treatment, address stigma,...

A quick way for a person in recovery to assess how well they are managing their self-care is the HALT test. If you’re hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, you’ve got an unmet need. At Safe Harbor Recovery Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, we support people in recovery, and we know how...

People who have turned to substances to cope have often done so as a result of going through something that exceeded their ability to manage. Navigating something truly traumatic can leave us feeling broken, lost, and desperate for anything that will ease our suffering. Alcohol and drugs may be the...

More and more states are legalizing marijuana. In some cases, it’s just for medical purposes, and in others, recreational use has been decriminalized. The full impact of these changes is still not entirely clear, but there is emerging research that is laying out trends that are already observable since legalization...

You have probably heard of binge drinking, and you may have seen our blog posts about how dangerous it is. Have you heard of high-intensity drinking? At Safe Harbor Recovery Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, we offer a supportive, compassionate setting that encourages clients to develop healthier lifestyles and build sober...

You can’t keep it unless you give it away. That’s a common sentiment within the recovery community. It means that to stay sober, you have to help other people. At Safe Harbor Recovery Center in Portsmouth, Virginia, we encourage clients in our residential, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs to...