About Eric Anderson

Addiction is a word that has been thrown around a lot over the past decade. You hear it all the time. “I’m addicted to chocolate” or buying new clothes, or working too much, or video games, etc…. However, there’s still a stigma around the word addiction and what it really means.    The word is …read more

One of the most important concepts in early recovery is surrender. In active addiction, we try to control everything in our world. This includes trying to maintain the appearances, maintaining a secret life, or avoiding any unwanted or uncomfortable experiences. We approach life in survival mode. We try to hold it all together. In recovery, …read more

Narcissism is a common buzzword that seems to have been coming up a lot in the media and in therapy circles recently. When people think of narcissism it’s often associated with ego, entitlement, or an excessive love of self. While these things can be parts of narcissism, it can be more simply defined as obsession …read more

As with many repeating patterns, domestic violence has a cyclical nature that follows 3 stages. Knowing these stages is helpful to identify these abusive patterns in a relationship. There are 3 stages that we will look at: tension building, explosion, and the honeymoon.   The Tension Building Stage In this phase of the domestic violence …read more

Blaming Parents vs. Acknowledging the Past – What’s the Difference?   This is a question I hear a lot from people beginning counseling.  As soon as we starting looking at life experiences from childhood and growing up, often times clients may feel like they shouldn’t talk about negative events they have experienced.Often times, they feel …read more

Addiction is a progressive illness.  The more time someone is active in his or her addiction the more their behavior escalates both in terms of the intensive and risk as well as the time involved.  Many clients have been involved in their addiction for many decades.  When this happens the patterns in someone’s life become …read more