Celebrating 420 in Quarantine

Chantelle
April 20, 2020
Addiction / Healing / Healthy Living / Mental Health / Sobriety

Today is a day for celebration. 420 is commenced, but there's only one issue: We're all in quarantine. Since this is the first year in over 15 years that I haven't spent 420 with other people, I figured I share it with all of you. As we all know, and for those of you who don't know, I am 100% pro cannabis. This includes legalization for all medical and recreational use. Weed always gets a bad reputation of being a gateway drug. For me, weed has helped me stay OFF of drugs. I've been sober for over four years now and the only medication I use to stay sober is marijuana. There isn't a better day to celebrate my appreciation for cannabis than today, 420. For those of you who still think cannabis is dangerous, or the devil's lettuce, I wanted to list some of the other things found in the scientific study by Harvard University on the medical uses of Marijuana. Cannabis has so many medicinal properties that could…

Four Years Sober: Still An Addict

Chantelle
January 7, 2020
Addiction / Healing / Sobriety

January 8, 2020 marks four years sober for me; I haven't had a single alcoholic drink in four years. Sobriety is one of the hardest things I've had to go through and I'm very grateful to have been able to get myself to where I am now. I'm still an addict though, and I think I will most likely always be one. I just put up a video that went over the pros and cons of sobriety. I'll put the video here in case you want to check it out. https://youtu.be/9zhaQppcHok While I was making that video, I came to the conclusion of, "Even though I'm four years sober, I'm still an addict." I just replaced alcohol with various things. The main thing I've replaced alcohol with is food. I definitely have struggled with food addiction my entire life, but I didn't truly realize it until I was actually sober. The definition of food addiction according to Medical News Today is, "When the need to eat becomes compulsive or uncontrollable.…

Creating My (Unconventional) Dream Life

Chantelle
August 27, 2019
Healing / Manifesting / Personal Development / Unconventional Living

When I was younger, I was always asked what I wanted to be when I was growing up. I always answered something different every time I was asked because what five year old knows what they want to do to support themselves as an adult? I feel it's the same now, except I'm now thirty and it isn't adorable anymore to change my mind every year with my interests. Regardless of what hobby I'm learning that year, my dreams have always been unconventional. I'm now accepting the fact that this means I'm not going to live a conventional life. I battled the thought of doing the norm. Respectively, I tried college a few times, and really pushed myself to be the 9-5 "cubicle normy" that was expected of me. I found out after years of depression and crippling anxiety that wasn't what I wanted for myself. I tried hard to be that person, to the point where it almost killed me, and have slowly been peeling off the layers of…

Structural model of Fentanyl on the blackboard.

American Addiction – The Rise of Fentanyl and Synthetic Opiods

America has an epidemic on their hands when it comes to drug overdoses. The number of deaths has nearly doubled since 2007. According to the NIH, in 2007 the number of deaths as a result from a drug overdose was at 36,010. In 2017, we saw 70,237 people die from drug overdose and it has only gone up since then. The biggest killer on our hands has skyrocketed to the most lethal only in the last four years. Prescription opioids were the number one killer since 2001, following the crack epidemic that topped the drug charts before then. That was until 2016 when a synthetic opioid by the name of Fentanyl surpassed the prescription opioids on the charts. In 2017, out of the 70,237 people who died, 28,466 of them died from fentanyl overdose. Prescription opioids come in second with 17,029 and Heroin in third with 15,482. (4. Cocaine- 13,942 | 5. Benzos- 11,537 | 6. Psycho-stimulants (Meth)- 10,333 | 7. Other (Mostly Antidepressants)- 5,269) Opioids are obviously this eras…

Law of Attraction: The Scales of Life

Imagine that your life is a scale; One of those “old-school” ones with two sides. One side of the scale represents everything good in life, or all of your positive thoughts, emotions or actions. The other side of the scale represents all of the bad things, or the negative thoughts, emotions or actions. What most of us don’t realize, though, is that we control what we put into either side of the scale. Through the law of attraction, the more we put into one side or the other, life will ultimately become “better” or “worse.” Rhonda Byrnes talks about this concept a lot in her book (and movie), The Secret, to better explain the Law of Attraction and how it works. Recently, I lost control of that thought process. I tilted my scale deep into the dark side. When it rains, it pours, right? However, I was having a really hard time seeing anything positive in my life. It was one thing after another for about six long months. I…