A Better Life Counseling & Coaching, LLC

People who drink just 1-7 drinks per week have smaller brains than nondrinkers, according to a 2008 study at Johns Hopkins that appeared in Archives of Neurolog...y. This same research found that people who have 2 or more drinks per day have even more brain shrinkage. Changes in the brain can occur early. A 2020 study in Scientific Reports found that moderate drinking was associated with lower total brain volume in early middle age (ages 39-45) in both males and females. Research on adolescents and alcohol consumption in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience showed that those who became heavy drinkers between the ages of 12-17 compared to those who did not drink alcohol started out with less brain volume and lost even more brain volume over time. When it comes to the brain, size matters! To rehab your brain, follow these tips: Stop poisoning your brain with alcohol. Love your brain. Fuel your brain with nutrient-dense foods. Avoid sugar in all its forms. Eliminate things that lower blood flow, including too much caffeine or smoking. Learn to kill the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) that steal your happiness. #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalillness #alchohol

I rarely think about my sobriety in terms of years. For me, celebrating 25 years of sobriety is about reflecting back on trying to do the next right thing for... the past 9,125 days or, more honestly, for the past 219,000 hours. It also means staying humble and grateful that, with the help of countless people, I’ve been able to get back up the same number of times I’ve fallen down. And I fall a lot. The biggest learnings from the past 25 years are twofold: 1. Own the stories and the hard shit, or the stories you’re trying to outrun and the pain you’re denying will own you. The truth will set you free. It will kick your ass first, but then it will set you free. 2. We don’t have to do the hard stuff alone. We weren’t meant to. We heal in connection. This is why it pisses me off when people shove my work into the self-help category. The gifts that have accompanied my daily and sometimes hourly decision to feel instead of numb have been too many to name, but the one that I rarely talk about is how my sobriety has affected my level of self-trust. I write a lot about trust as a marble jar. We build trust like we collect marbles one small gesture at a time. It’s not a big, sweeping act or a single gesture in a stressful moment. Trust is a collection of small moments. We talk about trust between people and groups, but we often forget about self-trust. Self-trust is normally the first casualty of failure or mistakes. We stop trusting ourselves when we hurt, get hurt, feel shame, or question our worth. Here’s how we use the BRAVING tool to think about self-trust: B - Did I respect my own boundaries? Was I clear about what’s okay and what’s not okay? R - Was I reliable? Did I do what I said I was going to do? A - Did I hold myself accountable? V - Did I respect the vault and share appropriately? I - Did I act from my integrity? N- Did I ask for what I needed? Was I nonjudgmental about needing help? G - Was I generous toward myself? Today, I’m putting 25 marbles in my self-trust jar. One for every year of my messy, hard af, wonderful, wholehearted, imperfect, sober life. xo, BB

The kindest people are not born that way, They are made. (credit to words & post: IG @rainbowsalt)

There is no timeline for healing. Please take good care

Battling addiction, depression, unrelenting grief is long known to the human condition. So much can be done to alleviate suffering better and faster. Please see these verses from The Bible to help us as we navigate coping through the treacherous valleys towards the light!! https://www.thehopeline.com/verses/suicidal-thoughts/

Hi! For anyone interested in developmental milestones, I have attached information on ASQ, Ages and Stages Questionnaire https://agesandstages.com