Genes, Addiction, & Personality (GAP) Study SHE RECOVERS® is proud to share our support and recruitment effort for VCU’s “The Genes, Addiction, and Personality” (GAP) study. As a person in long term recovery who also just happens to be a (former) researcher with a PhD in Health Care Policy, studies such as this are very close to my heart. Dawn Nickel, PhD ..read more

Understanding Harm Reduction September is Recovery Month and interviewing Michelle Bilan about Harm Reduction was definitely a highlight of the month for me. Michelle, a member of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses is an RN, BN, MN, ACRN and has worked in Saskatchewan as a public health nurse and educator in the community for 30 years. She has been a district public health nurse, maternal/infant nurse, nursing instructo ..read more

First of all – and this is an important point – I am one of you. For the past thirty years I’ve attended and been involved with a twelve-step recovery program for people who struggle with addiction. I’ve probably attended thousands of meetings, done years’ worth of service at the group, area, regional and national levels. I’ve worked about twelve sets of steps. I’ve sponsored dozens of women and had about six sponsors of my own. I came to believe in a higher power but I prefer not to define what it is. I can recite the literature although I usually don’t. I’m not a perfect member, but I’m a me ..read more

I graduated from college in May 1995 and immediately departed the East Coast for Wyoming, where I had lined up a job cleaning cabins at a dude ranch. I had earned two degrees but had no idea what I wanted to do in the world, or what I wanted to say to the world. The next month, Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill. Later that year Natalie Maines joined the Dixie Chicks. Alanis and the Chicks – now they had something to say. In November of that year, Monica Lewinsky had her first sexual encounter in the Oval Office with President Clinton. It wasn’t really sex though. Like all good girl ..read more

When she was three years old, my friend Christina refused to hug her grandfather. From that moment on, she was known in her family as someone who did not like hugs. She does not have a memory of this moment. It is a story she was told, and retold about herself, many times. Forty years later, she remains known as the cold, distant one in her family. “It isn’t true,” she tells me, “I like to hug people, and I like to be hugged.” This is how it works. The stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves, become our reality. Maybe these stories are true, maybe they aren’t. It does not matter, because we ..read more

We are so excited to share this guest post by Ester Nicolson. Ester is a recovery coach, author, speaker and recording artist. You can find more about her and her work at her website, esternicholson.com. You can also listen to this post, and the beautiful prayer she offers within it, on our SHE RECOVERS podcast, here. Forgiving someone who has abused you—blind-sided you with abandonment, betrayal and rejection—is the hardest frigging thing you will ever have to do.  I know from first hand experience what it’s like to be born to a mother who couldn’t show you love, but freely showed your face t ..read more

SHE RECOVERS founder Dawn Nickel shares what “we are all recovering from something” means to her as well as some fundamental truths she has discovered over her three decades of recovery. If I’ve learned anything over the past three decades of my own recovery – it is this. We are all recovering from something. Or many somethings. This truth – that every one of us has a thing or two that we need to address to live our healthiest, happiest lives – is the absolute foundation of what SHE RECOVERS is about. The principle is intended to be hopeful – not depressing. For one thing, it levels the playin ..read more