Columns

A new semester is upon us. This term I’ve eased my course load knowing full well that in the wintertime, I hibernate. Like so many plants and animals, each year during this season my energy wanes while my desire to recharge and reflect waxes. Flipping the calendar always elicits in me a desire to look […]

What lies beneath our addictions—what drives us to act addictively—is the key to going beyond our current limitations. Addictions are patterns: patterns of thought, patterns of emotional reaction, patterns of behaviour. Overcoming addiction—indeed, changing in any way—involves changing our patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour. We can start at any of these “layers,” if you […]

So, it’s two weeks into the semester, and we’re just starting to get that feeling of familiarity, of “This is how things work, and I think I understand things.” We probably have a bit of a pattern established of how and when to complete our weekly readings, of how much or how little we can […]

Addiction is about staying asleep, so to speak. Part of the function of being swaddled in the dark cloud of addiction is, more or less, to block out reality. In Pia Mellody’s book Facing Love Addiction she writes that all addicts—including sex, love, and relationship addicts—find reality “intolerable.” Addiction recovery is about waking up from […]

Recently, I read that students like ourselves are depressed over the amount of work it takes to take online classes. The number of emails that have to be answered, the online lectures, the scheduling of study time around the classes, and group meetings if—God forbid—you’ve been assigned a group project. And, of course, all of […]

It’s easy to make new year’s resolutions, but we tend to quit when it gets hard. In years past, I was not one to make any, realizing the futility. However, in honour of my ongoing recovery from addiction, primarily from sex and unhealthy relationships with men, I am more inclined to resolve to set clear […]

There is an enormous empty chasm in communication within this country right now. All across so-called “Canada” there is a rift developing that is setting Indigenous nations and their allies against the Canadian government and big corporations (specifically in the oil and gas industry). I am watching Indigenous communities stand in solidarity against fully militarized […]

Klaus Conrad, a psychiatrist, coined the term “apophenia” in 1958. It means to perceive pattern or meaning where there is none. He theorized that it was a natural human tendency to make these connections. Usually this term refers to patterns in everyday things like images or numbers. But I also think it plays a role […]

One of the best gifts I’ve received from joining the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA) fellowship is a plethora of genuine, fulfilling, connected friendships. I have developed new friendships over the past three years and deepened some of my longstanding relationships via the path of addiction recovery. This is not a coincidence. Addictions—whether to […]

Whether you are on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any of the hundreds of chatrooms that exist out there to fill your lonely, pleasure-seeking whims, what I am about to describe has undoubtedly happened to you. You believe you are having a meaningful conversation, when suddenly you are hit with a barrage of ???. Yes, that’s […]