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Urge Surfing: Learning to Ride a Craving Instead of Fighting It
Cravings can feel urgent, but they do not have to make the decision. Learn how urge surfing can help you notice, understand and ride the wave of a craving while creating space for safer, more supportive choices.
Leigh-Anne Brierley
6 days ago9 min read


Managing Cravings in Recovery: A Craving Is Information, Not an Instruction
Cravings can feel urgent, convincing and overwhelming — but they are not commands. Learn how mindfulness, curiosity and practical recovery tools can help you understand what a craving is telling you and create more space between urge and action.
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Sep 810 min read


Beyond Willpower: Building Sustainable Recovery
Recovery takes more than determination. Sustainable change is built through structure, supportive systems, healthy habits, connection and practical tools that still work when motivation is low. In this post, we explore how moving beyond willpower can help you build a recovery that is realistic, resilient and designed to last.
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 2813 min read


What Does Sustainable Recovery Look Like in Everyday Life?
When What Does Sustainable Recovery Look Like in Everyday Life? I think we sometimes imagine sustainable recovery as a version of recovery in which we finally become really good at everything. We have a solid morning routine, exercise regularly, eat properly, sleep eight hours a night, attend all the right meetings, meditate, journal, maintain healthy relationships, manage our stress beautifully and remain calm and emotionally regulated regardless of what life throws at us...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 1811 min read


Recovery is more than Stopping: What are You Actually Building?
Recovery is not only about what you leave behind. It is also about what you begin to build — healthier routines, stronger relationships, greater self-awareness, meaningful goals and a life that feels worth showing up for.
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 1310 min read


Recovery Is Not a One-Lane Road: Multiple Pathways, Recovery Coaching and Healing the Family System
One of the things I have become increasingly certain of, both through my own recovery and through the years I have spent working with people affected by substance use and addiction, is that there is no single pathway to recovery. There is no one programme, philosophy, fellowship, treatment centre, therapist, coach, medication or spiritual practice that is going to work for every person. Yet when someone is struggling with alcohol or other drugs, families are often desperate t
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 119 min read


Caring for Myself While Caring for Others
Working as a substance use professional is deeply meaningful to me. It is not simply a career I chose; it is work that connects closely with my own lived experience of recovery.
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Jul 116 min read


Self-Love in Recovery: What Does it Really Mean?
Self-love is a term we hear in recovery, personal growth and development circles all the time, but what does it really mean?
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Oct 18, 20249 min read


Living My Purpose: Becoming a Recovery Coach
Once upon a time I was a chronic binge drinker. So let’s call it what it is – an alcoholic. It’s a cringey type of word that elicits...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 14, 20246 min read


Rebuilding Self-Worth and Worthiness in Recovery
Building your self-worth in recovery is an important part of your healing process. If you're in the early stages of recovery...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 12, 20246 min read


Abstinence, moderation and harm reduction in the management of my substance use disorder?
Abstinence, moderation management or harm reduction as a recovery choice. Dr Gabor Maté, a leading expert on addiction and trauma, uses three criteria in his definition of addiction: Craving the addictive substance or behaviour. Engaging in the addictive substance or behaviour to experience pleasure or temporary relief from some kind of pain. The inability to give the substance or behaviour up. Addiction is an attempt to solve a problem. It is the symptom of a deeper malaise,
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Jul 23, 20247 min read


Will I be boring now that I've stopped using drugs and alcohol?
Will I be boring now that I've stopped using? So you’ve decided to try recovery and stopped using drugs and/or alcohol!?
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Mar 28, 20249 min read


What I continue to learn in my recovery and healing process: It's okay to not be okay!
What I've learned in my recovery and healing process: It's okay to not be okay! I celebrated 16 years of sobriety on 1st January 2024,...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Mar 6, 20247 min read


Mastering the Art of Stress Management: Healthy Coping Strategies for Overcoming Anxiety in Your Recovery
Mastering the Art of Stress Management: Healthy Coping Strategies for Overcoming Anxiety in Your Recovery Recovery is a process filled with ups and downs, highs and lows, challenges, and triumphs. As you learn to operate in this new space, you're bound to encounter stress and anxiety along the way. These emotions are your body's natural response to the significant changes you're going through and the challenges you're probably facing. You can learn to understand the sources o
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Feb 15, 202410 min read


Rising Above the Stigma: A Guide to Overcoming Shame and Embracing Addiction Recovery
Rising Above the Stigma: A Guide to Overcoming Shame and Embracing Addiction Recovery What is addiction? And how come I ended up with this particular disease? If you've found yourself grappling with this question, know that you're not alone. Millions of individuals worldwide are impacted by addiction and addictive disorders, a complex condition that extends far beyond physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and mental boundaries. What makes addiction even more exhausting to o
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Jan 7, 202412 min read


Embrace the New Year: Setting Intentions to Support Your Recovery
As the old year wraps itself up and a new one dawns, it's a natural time for introspection, personal growth, and setting intentions...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Dec 30, 202313 min read


Navigating the Dark: Healing from Loss in Addiction Recovery
Healing from loss in addiction recovery is challenging and recovery is not just a path littered with the debris of addiction...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Dec 17, 20236 min read


Building Resilience and Grit: Unleashing the Power of Positive Psychology in Addiction Recovery
Building resilience and grit, and unleashing the Power of Positive Psychology in Addiction Recovery. The process of addiction recovery is...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Nov 12, 20236 min read


Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming Addiction Relapse in Relationships
Breaking the Cycle: Overcoming Addiction Relapse in Relationships Addiction relapse in relationships is complex. It's not just a vicious...
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Oct 29, 20235 min read


Alchemy Wellness...It's a Kinda Recovery Magic
Spiritual Alchemy is the act of inner transformation. It is healing and freeing the inner parts of ourselves that need to be changed.
Leigh-Anne Brierley
Aug 9, 20235 min read
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