You have to “change your playgrounds and playmates.”

Based on my experience with having Bipolar Disorder, addictions, and unresolved emotional trauma, getting into Recovery and beginning to heal is impossible if you stay in a sick, toxic environment with sick, toxic people.

In AA, one of my modalities of Recovery, we say that you have to “change your playgrounds and playmates.”

Much of Recovery and healing is about changing behaviors and thinking patterns. If you stay closely connected with people who share the same self-destructive, maladtive ways, change is nearly impossible. They tend to keep dragging you back into the sickness AND reopening emotional wounds, because hurt people hurt people.

My journey towards Recovery and healing started taking a significant upward arc once I began setting strict boundaries with toxic people and finding a mutual support network of others striving for Recovery.