The heart is the literal and metaphorical center of our lives. We have either an open heart toward life or we may be closed hearted. Our response toward life may be one full of heartache or heartfelt joy. All of us have issues and challenges from time to time. How we respond will tell us […]
Reducing Your Risk of Alcoholism
Posted byA new evidence-based protocol offers insight into helping those at risk because of their drinking. Most people in America drink little or nothing at all, but a significant number of those who do drink develop problems. We know from cost analyses and review of morbidity and mortality statistics that alcoholism is a number one health […]
Against the Pollution of the I
Posted byJacques Lusseyran was born in 1924. At school one day when he was seven, as classes ended and he was rushing for the door, he was accidentally shoved. He fell, hitting his head on one of the sharp corners of the teacher’s desk. He was wearing glasses and the blow drove one of the arms […]
A Recovery Story: Alcoholism is a Family Disease
Posted byI am a Double-Winner. For the uninitiated, that means that I am a member of both Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon. Al-Anon is for the friends and family of Alcoholics. The focus of my story will be a little different than the kind of story you typically read. These articles usually focus on how the disease of alcoholism, and subsequent […]
Denial And The Self-Deception of Addictive Disease
Posted byIn a previous column Dr. Mooney and I looked at the link between genetics and the disease of alcoholism and the neuropharmacology that leads to the compulsion to drink. We saw that once there is the onset of the disease that certain neuro-chemical sequences occur in the brain each time alcohol is introduced into the […]
Self-examination Through Journaling
Posted byLast year I had the chance to read David McCullough’s biography of John Adams and to read the Adam’s biography that preceded it by Catherine Drinker Bowen published in 1949. What is striking about the two stories of one man’s life is how McCullough focuses on Adam’s emotional life his insecurities, his emotions under pressure in […]
Achieving Balance As A Lawyer Through Decision-Making
Posted byLawyers are increasingly aware of the need to find balance in their lives. Balance between home life and work-life. Balance between the need for physical exercise and sitting long hours in an office chair. Balance between the mental activities of long factual analyses and hours of library research, and one’s emotional needs for fun and […]
Alcoholism Is A Family Disease
Posted byThe Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea are supplied by the exact same water source. Water flows down from Mt. Hermon into the Sea of Galilee and then out of it to enrich and fertilize the Jordan plain. Water also comes down from Mt. Hermon to form the Dead Sea, but it has no […]
Healthy Relationships as Alternative Medicine
Posted byWhat is alternative about alternative medicine? Increasingly we note that main stream pharmaceutical companies are mass producing and selling the most popular herbal remedies such as St. John’s Wort and echinacea-goldenseal. Acupuncture is now covered by some insurance companies for certain medical problems. Recently, I was at an addictions conference and a former medical school […]
Anger and Alcohol
Posted byRecently I was speaking at a CLE program about lawyers, and chemical addiction. I talked about the need to understand the signals one gets from the dashboard of the physical/mental/emotional vehicle that we call the self. After the program I talked with a lawyer who told me that the only emotion he was aware of […]