Reprinted from another author:

1. Stop spending time with the wrong people. – Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you. If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth. And remember, it’s not the people that stand by your side when you’re at your best, but the ones who stand beside you when you’re at your worst that are your true friends.
2. Stop running from your problems. – Face them head on. No, it won’t be easy. There is no person in the world capable of flawlessly handling every punch thrown at them. We aren’t supposed to be able to instantly solve problems. That’s not how we’re made. In fact, we’re made to get upset, sad, hurt, stumble and fall. Because that’s the whole purpose of living – to face problems, learn, adapt, and solve them over the course of time. This is what ultimately molds us into the person we become.
3. Stop lying to yourself. – You can lie to anyone else in the world, but you can’t lie to yourself. Our lives improve only when we take chances, and the first and most difficult chance we can take is to be honest with ourselves. Read The Road Less Traveled<image001.gif>.
4. Stop putting your own needs on the back burner. – The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Yes, help others; but help yourself too. If there was ever a moment to follow your passion and do something that matters to you, that moment is now.
5. Stop trying to be someone you’re not. – One of the greatest challenges in life is being yourself in a world that’s trying to make you like everyone else. Someone will always be prettier, someone will always be smarter, someone will always be younger, but they will never be you. Don’t change so people will like you. Be yourself and the right people will love the real you.
6. Stop trying to hold onto the past. – You can’t start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading your last one.
7. Stop being scared to make a mistake. – Doing something and getting it wrong is at least ten times more productive than doing nothing. Every success has a trail of failures behind it, and every failure is leading towards success. You end up regretting the things you did NOT do far more than the things you did.
8. Stop berating yourself for old mistakes. – We may love the wrong person and cry about the wrong things, but no matter how things go wrong, one thing is for sure, mistakes help us find the person and things that are right for us. We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, and you are here NOW with the power to shape your day and your future. Every single thing that has ever happened in your life is preparing you for a moment that is yet to come.
9. Stop trying to buy happiness. – Many of the things we desire are expensive. But the truth is, the things that really satisfy us are totally free – love, laughter and working on our passions.
10. Stop exclusively looking to others for happiness. – If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either. You have to create stability in your own life first before you can share it with someone else. Read Stumbling on Happiness<image001.gif>.
11. Stop being idle. – Don’t think too much or you’ll create a problem that wasn’t even there in the first place. Evaluate situations and take decisive action. You cannot change what you refuse to confront. Making progress involves risk. Period! You can’t make it to second base with your foot on first.
12. Stop thinking you’re not ready. – Nobody ever feels 100% ready when an opportunity arises. Because most great opportunities in life force us to grow beyond our comfort zones, which means we won’t feel totally comfortable at first.
13. Stop getting involved in relationships for the wrong reasons. – Relationships must be chosen wisely. It’s better to be alone than to be in bad company. There’s no need to rush. If something is meant to be, it will happen – in the right time, with the right person, and for the best reason. Fall in love when you’re ready, not when you’re lonely.
14. Stop rejecting new relationships just because old ones didn’t work. – In life you’ll realize that there is a purpose for everyone you meet. Some will test you, some will use you and some will teach you. But most importantly, some will bring out the best in you.
15. Stop trying to compete against everyone else. – Don’t worry about what others doing better than you. Concentrate on beating your own records every day. Success is a battle between YOU and YOURSELF only.
16. Stop being jealous of others. – Jealousy is the art of counting someone else’s blessings instead of your own. Ask yourself this: “What’s something I have that everyone wants?”
17. Stop complaining and feeling sorry for yourself. – Life’s curveballs are thrown for a reason – to shift your path in a direction that is meant for you. You may not see or understand everything the moment it happens, and it may be tough. But reflect back on those negative curveballs thrown at you in the past. You’ll often see that eventually they led you to a better place, person, state of mind, or situation. So smile! Let everyone know that today you are a lot stronger than you were yesterday, and you will be.
18. Stop holding grudges. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate. Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.” It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.” Forgiveness is the answer… let go, find peace, liberate yourself! And remember, forgiveness is not just for other people, it’s for you too. If you must, forgive yourself, move on and try to do better next time.
19. Stop letting others bring you down to their level. – Refuse to lower your standards to accommodate those who refuse to raise theirs.
20. Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. – Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway. Just do what you know in your heart is right.
21. Stop doing the same things over and over without taking a break. – The time to take a deep breath is when you don’t have time for it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Sometimes you need to distance yourself to see things clearly.
22. Stop overlooking the beauty of small moments. – Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.
23. Stop trying to make things perfect. – The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists, it rewards people who get things done. Read Getting Things Done<image001.gif>.
24. Stop following the path of least resistance. – Life is not easy, especially when you plan on achieving something worthwhile. Don’t take the easy way out. Do something extraordinary.
25. Stop acting like everything is fine if it isn’t. – It’s okay to fall apart for a little while. You don’t always have to pretend to be strong, and there is no need to constantly prove that everything is going well. You shouldn’t be concerned with what other people are thinking either – cry if you need to – it’s healthy to shed your tears. The sooner you do, the sooner you will be able to smile again.
26. Stop blaming others for your troubles. – The extent to which you can achieve your dreams depends on the extent to which you take responsibility for your life. When you blame others for what you’re going through, you deny responsibility – you give others power over that part of your life.
27. Stop trying to be everything to everyone. – Doing so is impossible, and trying will only burn you out. But making one person smile CAN change the world. Maybe not the whole world, but their world. So narrow your focus.
28. Stop worrying so much. – Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy. One way to check if something is worth mulling over is to ask yourself this question: “Will this matter in one year’s time? Three years? Five years?” If not, then it’s not worth worrying about.
29. Stop focusing on what you don’t want to happen. – Focus on what you do want to happen. Positive thinking is at the forefront of every great success story. If you awake every morning with the thought that something wonderful will happen in your life today, and you pay close attention, you’ll often find that you’re right.
30. Stop being ungrateful. – No matter how good or bad you have it, wake up each day thankful for your life. Someone somewhere else is desperately fighting for theirs. Instead of thinking about what you’re missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing.

Reposted from: http://nypost.com/2015/10/11/our-double-lives-dark-realities-behind-perfect-online-profiles/

Written by: By Maureen Callahan

Kiersten Rickenbach Cerveny with her husband Andrew in a photo posted on Facebook. Photo: Facebook

The contrast between her life and death could not be more stark: The beautiful, successful blond doctor, a married mother of three, found lying in the vestibule of a strange apartment building, underwear stashed in her handbag, dying of a likely drug overdose.

To her family and friends, Kiersten Rickenbach Cerveny had it all.

“This was so out of character . . . I know this was atypical,” one said.

“She was human,” another said. “People forget that because she was so perfect.”

Even those who didn’t know the 38-year-old Cerveny would likely draw the same conclusion.

One look at her Facebook page — since renamed “Remembering Kiersten Rickenbach Cerveny” — would have been, until last Sunday, enough to induce envy in most anyone.

Her photo album is vast. She was photogenic, well-loved, well-traveled. Here she is on April 5, 2008, celebrating “my 30th birthday in Turks and Caicos” with her handsome future husband, Andrew, also a dermatologist.

Here they are again, dressed up for a formal event, looking utterly carefree. “Wow!” posted a user. “What a good-looking couple!”

There are pictures of Kiersten sailing in Jackie O-style sunglasses, on vacation in Hawaii, partying in New Orleans, lounging après-ski in Whistler, swathed in a thick spa robe and, later, dining by the fireplace. There are photos of her three adorable, beaming children, the youngest now a little over 1 year old. She lived with her family in a $1.2 million home in Manhasset, LI, and her life — at least on Facebook — seemed to be filled with equally good-looking, happy people living equally privileged lives.

But then, these days, the gap between the person we are and the person we present to the world has never been wider.

Reposted from: http://elitedaily.com/women/wine-drunk-best-drunk-will-ever/876374/

Written by: Ashley Fern on You’re Still Drunk

Women and wine — it’s perhaps the closest and most fun relationship out there. It’s stable, strong and reliable.

Wine is there to comfort you in the toughest of times and the most exciting of celebrations. Perhaps this is why women love wine in the first place — there is always a time for it.

Whether you are drowning your sorrows from yet another miserable day at the office or celebrating your most recent promotion, you know exactly what you are doing at the end of the day — that’s right, cracking open (or twisting off the cap of) a fresh bottle of vino.

So why is a wine drunk better than any other type of drunk out there?

1. It makes you feel classy

You could be bundled up in your sweatpants and underneath a blanket, but as long as you have a full glass of wine in hand, you’ve never felt classier.

You could be celebrating with tequila shots, but your classy ass goes straight for the vino.

2. It’s technically fruit

How many glasses does the recommended nine servings translate to?

3. Even if your teeth are purple, you still feel sexy

Chances are you won’t even realize your once pearly whites have turned five shades darker.

Reposted from: http://www.wwltv.com/story/news/features/2015/10/14/lessons-i-learned-from-loving-a-drug-addict/73958870/

Written by: Alicia Cook, Correspondent

EDITOR’S NOTE: Alicia Cook, 29, lost her cousin to a drug overdose when they were both teenagers. She regularly writes columns detailing the gut-wrenching journey in hopes that her story can save at least one life. Today, she writes about what it’s like to love someone who’s addicted to drugs.

am not an addict.

But try and love one, and then see if you can look me square in the eyes and tell me that you didn’t get addicted to trying to fix them.

If you’re lucky, they recover. If you’re really lucky, you recover, too.

Loving a drug addict can and will consume your every thought. Watching their physical deterioration and emotional detachment to everything will make you the most tired insomniac alive.

RELATED: The hellish truth about drugs, relationships

You will stand in the doorway of their bedroom and plead with them that you “just want them back.” If you watch the person you love disappear right in front of your eyes long enough, you will start to dissolve too.

Those not directly affected won’t be able to understand why you are so focused on your loved one’s well-being, especially since, during the times of your family member’s active addiction, they won’t seem so concerned with their own.

Don’t become angry with these people. They do not understand. They are lucky to not understand. You’ll catch yourself wishing that you didn’t understand, either.

Heroin addict fakes death before losing his life

“What if you had to wake up every day and wonder if today was the day your family member was going to die?” will become a popular, not-so-rhetorical question.

Drug addiction has the largest ripple effect that I have ever witnessed firsthand.

It causes parents to outlive their children. It causes jail time and homelessness. It causes sisters to mourn their siblings. It causes nieces to never meet their aunts. It causes an absence before the exit.

You will see your loved one walking and talking, but the truth is, you will lose them far before they actually succumb to their demons; which, if they don’t find recovery, is inevitable.

Drug addiction causes families to come to fear a ringing phone or a knock on the door. It causes vague obituaries. I read the papers and I follow the news; and it is scary. “Died suddenly” has officially become obituary-speak for “another young person found dead from a drug overdose.”

Jessica Cook died at 19 from a drug overdose. (Photo: COURTESY OF ALICIA COOK)

Drug addiction causes bedrooms and social media sites to become memorials. It causes the “yesterdays” to outnumber the “tomorrows.” It causes things to break; like the law, trust and homes.

Drug addiction causes statistics to rise and knees to fall, as praying seems like the only thing left to do sometimes.

People have a way of pigeonholing those who suffer from addiction. They call them “trash,” “junkies” or “criminals,” which is hardly ever the truth. Addiction is an illness. Addicts have families and aspirations.

You will learn that drug addiction doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t care if the addict came from a loving home or a broken family.

Alicia Cook, right, with her cousin Jessica, before she died from a drug overdose. (Photo: COURTESY OF ALICIA COOK)

Drug addiction doesn’t care if you are religious. Drug addiction doesn’t care if you are a straight-A student or a drop-out. Drug addiction doesn’t care what ethnicity you are. Drug addiction will show you that one decision and one lapse in judgment can alter the course of an entire life.

Drug addiction doesn’t care. Period. But you care.

You will learn to hate the drug but love the addict. You will begin to accept that you need to separate who the person once was with who they are now.

It is not the person who uses, but the addict. It is not the person who steals to support their habit, but the addict. It is not the person who spews obscenities at their family, but the addict. It is not the person who lies, but the addict.

And yet, sadly… it is not the addict who dies, but the person.