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Anxiety, Depression, and the Crash Nobody Mentions A lot of people leave rehab thinking sobriety will automatically fix their mood. Then they get home and anxiety hits hard, or depression creeps in, or panic returns. They start thinking something is wrong with them, or that rehab “didn’t work”. What is really happening is that mental …
Inpatient versus outpatient rehab Families often ask the inpatient versus outpatient question like it’s a menu choice, as if both options do the same job and the only real difference is convenience. In reality, these two models are designed for different levels of risk, different home environments, and different types of addiction patterns. The reason …
Families dealing with addiction often say the same thing, we just want peace. The strange part is that when peace finally shows up, many of those families do not know what to do with it. They become restless. They start scanning for the next problem. They poke at old wounds. They trigger fights over small …
Relapse Starts in the Mind Families often treat relapse as the moment someone drinks or uses again. Clinically and practically, the relapse started earlier, when thinking shifted. It started when the person began bargaining with themselves, just one night, just to take the edge off, just to sleep, just to feel normal, just to be …
South Africa is a place of contrast. Beauty and brutality coexist in the same streets. Opportunity and desperation sit side by side. Families build futures in environments shaped by uncertainty and stress. Under these conditions addiction does not appear as a mystery. It appears as a response to a life that feels overwhelming. When a …
The Rise of a Drug That Doesn’t Just Take Lives In every part of South Africa, from Cape Town’s Cape Flats to small mining towns and middle-class suburbs, methamphetamine has evolved from a “dangerous drug” to a full-scale societal emergency. Tik doesn’t just create chaos inside a person, it reshapes entire communities around its destruction. …
We love a trainwreck, especially when it’s famous. The world has always had a strange relationship with addiction, but when it involves fame, money, and beauty, the story changes. The fall becomes fascinating. The suffering becomes art. From rockstars to movie icons, we’ve romanticised self-destruction for decades. The “tortured genius,” the “wild heart,” the “troubled …
Every story starts the same way, “just a few drinks.” It’s the after-work beers, the Saturday braai, the birthday celebration that doesn’t end when it should. South Africa has built its social life around alcohol. It’s our national icebreaker, our lubricant for honesty, our symbol of celebration. But somewhere between the clinking glasses and the …
It starts small, a few drinks with friends, a toast at a wedding, a glass of wine to unwind after a long day. It’s part of culture, connection, and celebration. Alcohol fits neatly into our lives because it doesn’t feel like a drug. It feels normal. But somewhere between “just one” and “I need one,” …
