Anyone for an almost full bottle of NyQuil free?
I have one to give away, and there is quite a story behind it.
It began on our vacation-winter-break to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. On a coolish 60+ degree day at 7 in the morning I had decided to go for a swim in the 80 degree pool, and then down to the beach to walk along the ocean to enjoy the early morning.
Well, as you might know I was chilled and caught one hell of a cold, and the next evening when it came into full bloom I went to the drugstore for something to alleviate the agony, and make my vacation more enjoyable.
I looked for neo-citron, which comes in powder, however, the natives in this part of the U.S. had never heard of it. I was advised to use several potions which of course were chuck full of codeine, a drug that I steadfastly refuse to use, because I think I can handle a little bit of pain without running to such a drug, which incidentally is supposed to be quite habit forming.
Turning down several cold remedies I decided to go along with some advertising, seen on television and therefore selected NyQill, a green fluid which comes with a plastic shot glass, which holds the right amount, an ounce of the medicine.
Back at the motel room, at bedtime I sat down to take some of this elixer whch "relieves major cold symptoms for hours, to let you get the restful sleep your body needs."
Well, it was just like the good old days as I relaxed, and threw back the shot glass full. In fact it even tasted like booze I thought. Suddenly I felt a cold chill run down my back. I ran to the NyQuil box and hurriedly read over all the small print, and there it was! In small letters on the side of the box below some long unintelligable words under the heading "active ingredients", alcohol 25%!
Now for the ordinary Joe this is not problem, for doesn't a little shot come in handy when one is suffering the agony of a cold?
But, for me, full of Antabuse for the past six years, it presented a potential disaster.
What should I do? Having heard of seizures and hsopitalization after drinking on Antabuse, I was a little worried. There probably wasn't enough alcohol in that drink to cause any serious problems, but should I try to do anything to avoid any minor problems?
I tried to bring the alcohol up by inserting my fingers down my throat, but this only caused a massive nose-bleed, which only forced me to give up this plan of attack because I don't particularly like the sight of blood, whether it is mine or not.
I went back to the bed, and sat down wto ponder whether I was likely to go into a seizure, or what? Probably my over reaction was causing most of the minor panic feelings I was experiencing.
My wife Diane then came into the picture and brought me back down to earth by saying that it probably wouldn't cause me any more than some minor discomfort, and for God's sake lie down and go to sleep.
Which I did, and in the morning felt quite a bit better.
In spite of this brief problem, I still believe in the taking of Antabuse, and will continue to do so as long as I wish to remain sober, which is, I hope, for the rest of my life.
Antabuse has helped me in gauging my moods, and measuring my desire to drink, and has made the daily decision not to drink a little bit easier.
It will be six years next month since I had my last drink, but it is not the time to become complacent. I must continue to realize that I am one-drink away from a lot of problems. Contrary to all those great doctors, and so-called responsible psychologists who say alcoholics can return to social drinking, I still think an alcoholic must not drink ever again.
Antabuse is just another aid to remaining sober, such as attend A.A. and completing the Donwood programme.
Try it! It can work for you!
It has for me.
DON FELSTEAD
DON SAYS: I wrote this article for the Donwood Newsletter in May of 1975. I have remained true to my vow to stay sober up to todays date in 2009.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Friday, January 30, 2009
IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!
Towards the end of April, a man who had been out of Donwood about a year asked me how long after taking antabuse would he have to wait before he could "safely" use alcohol. I told him he would have to wait forever.
Sure, I was playing upon words, but he had used the word "safely". His reaction was predictable....he thought I was being a wise guy and said so. I gave him the information he wanted and he cooled down.
I asked him why he wanted to know. He replied he was looking ahead to his holidays and just wanted to be sure of his facts. At this point, I shifted gears a bit and asked him what his plans were. He immediately became enthusiastic.
"The wife and I have always wanted to see the east coast and this year we decided we would do it, come hell or high water - we haven't had a really good holiday in years." I asked him about last summer, his first summer after being in Donwood.
"Well" he said "we really didn't really do anything last summer - I had some bills that had to be paid and I really didn't feel much like going anywhere, anyway - I don't think the wife did either."
I asked him about the summer before that. He half snorted, half chuckled and said "That was the first time we were going to go down east, but we never got there. We had planned to drive down and were to leave on a Monday. I got so stoned on Saturday and Sunday that the wife refused to go. I stayed drunk for three weeks".
As we talked on he seemed to realize that he was boxing himself in - that he was developing a good case for "not" drinking on his holidays. It made him a bit unhappy.
"Damn it all, a man SHOULD be able to take a drink on his holidays," he muttered. He had just told me a story that proved that HE couldn't. He was uncomfortable - he was being pulled in two directions at the same time and it hurt.
After another ten or fifteen minutes, he suddenly asked if he could use my phone. He was calling his wife. When she answered, he told her where he was and about our conversation. Then he said, "honey, you're married to a damn fool that just might be getting smarter. I'm NOT going to drink on that holiday or any other time if I can help it - it's going to be the best damn holiday we ever had." I think he may be right.
How are your holiday plans coming?
MIKE WILSON
Mike was on the staff at Donwood at that time. A very compelling story. This bolsters my contention that taking Antabuse is an excellent idea for the alcoholic that wants to keep sober. As in my case, when I took antabuse I knew I could NOT drink for at least a couple of days. This forced me to contemplate what would happen if I did. I always landed up not drinking after talking it over with my wife, or the Donwood Staff, or Dr. Birtch.
Sure, I was playing upon words, but he had used the word "safely". His reaction was predictable....he thought I was being a wise guy and said so. I gave him the information he wanted and he cooled down.
I asked him why he wanted to know. He replied he was looking ahead to his holidays and just wanted to be sure of his facts. At this point, I shifted gears a bit and asked him what his plans were. He immediately became enthusiastic.
"The wife and I have always wanted to see the east coast and this year we decided we would do it, come hell or high water - we haven't had a really good holiday in years." I asked him about last summer, his first summer after being in Donwood.
"Well" he said "we really didn't really do anything last summer - I had some bills that had to be paid and I really didn't feel much like going anywhere, anyway - I don't think the wife did either."
I asked him about the summer before that. He half snorted, half chuckled and said "That was the first time we were going to go down east, but we never got there. We had planned to drive down and were to leave on a Monday. I got so stoned on Saturday and Sunday that the wife refused to go. I stayed drunk for three weeks".
As we talked on he seemed to realize that he was boxing himself in - that he was developing a good case for "not" drinking on his holidays. It made him a bit unhappy.
"Damn it all, a man SHOULD be able to take a drink on his holidays," he muttered. He had just told me a story that proved that HE couldn't. He was uncomfortable - he was being pulled in two directions at the same time and it hurt.
After another ten or fifteen minutes, he suddenly asked if he could use my phone. He was calling his wife. When she answered, he told her where he was and about our conversation. Then he said, "honey, you're married to a damn fool that just might be getting smarter. I'm NOT going to drink on that holiday or any other time if I can help it - it's going to be the best damn holiday we ever had." I think he may be right.
How are your holiday plans coming?
MIKE WILSON
Mike was on the staff at Donwood at that time. A very compelling story. This bolsters my contention that taking Antabuse is an excellent idea for the alcoholic that wants to keep sober. As in my case, when I took antabuse I knew I could NOT drink for at least a couple of days. This forced me to contemplate what would happen if I did. I always landed up not drinking after talking it over with my wife, or the Donwood Staff, or Dr. Birtch.
THE PATRON SAINT OF RECOVERED ALCOHOLICS
Did you know there is a Patron Saint of Recovered Alcoholics? Yes, there is. A real one.
He is, or was, St. Martin of Tours. He appears in books on the Saints as the "Patron of innkeepers and reformed drunkards", or in later versions, "of recovered alcoholics".
St. Martin was an army man in France in the years 313 to 390 A.D. While a soldier he one day gave his cloak to a freezing beggar and saw Christ in him. From then on he became a Christian missionary who travelled throughout France by foot and donkey, often being given a bed in local inns. He ministered to whomever he met. Later he became Bishop of Tours and founded a monastery.
St. Martin's feast day is November 11th, in England it is called Martinmas.
"St. Martins Summer" is an English expression meaning the same thing we call "Indian Summer" on this continent - a time of unusually warm weather in late October or early November.
St. Martins's-in-the-fields, a famous church in Longdon's Trafalger Square, is one of many named after him.
MARY BECKER
DON SAYS: Mary Becker is or was on staff with the Donwood Institute
He is, or was, St. Martin of Tours. He appears in books on the Saints as the "Patron of innkeepers and reformed drunkards", or in later versions, "of recovered alcoholics".
St. Martin was an army man in France in the years 313 to 390 A.D. While a soldier he one day gave his cloak to a freezing beggar and saw Christ in him. From then on he became a Christian missionary who travelled throughout France by foot and donkey, often being given a bed in local inns. He ministered to whomever he met. Later he became Bishop of Tours and founded a monastery.
St. Martin's feast day is November 11th, in England it is called Martinmas.
"St. Martins Summer" is an English expression meaning the same thing we call "Indian Summer" on this continent - a time of unusually warm weather in late October or early November.
St. Martins's-in-the-fields, a famous church in Longdon's Trafalger Square, is one of many named after him.
MARY BECKER
DON SAYS: Mary Becker is or was on staff with the Donwood Institute
Thursday, January 29, 2009
DEAR DIARY
Diary keeping is often associated with what young girls do. There is something coy and whimsical about keeping secrets hidden under lock and key.
Yet now I hear strong men and attractive women discussing the merits of writing a daily diary. Some say it has made all the difference in their development. They are even able to tell us why.
For a long time Dr. Bell had been recommending a daily diary as an Aid to Recovery. Those who have accepted the recommendation have found that it does help in a remarkable way. And that for several reasons.
For one thing, it helps to keep you honest. A person can deceive his friends, his spouse, his employer, and often does during the drinking days. He can even deceive himself by rationalizing his behaviour. But when you sit down to write it all on paper it's a different matter. Who are you kidding anyway? It is hard not to be honest with your diary.
It also helps you trace patterns in your progress toward recovery. Most people have mood swings. But during the recovery period they really swing. There are days of tension that make you climb the wall. There are periods of depression that descend like dark clouds. One man reports that during his first year of recovery he faithfully recorded all these ups and down. As he wrote it all down he began to detect a pattern. It got to the point where he could almost predict to the day when that bad time would hit him and how long it would last. It helped him tremendously to become so aware of what shape his pattern was taking.
There is another reason that is more subtle. It has to do with what it means to be human.
What makes us human? What distinguishes a human, say, from an ape? Different people with different slants on life will come with different answers. The simplest definition I know is that what makes us human is that we know that we are human. We have an awareness of ourselves. You can call it self-consciousness. We can, as it were, sit back and appraise ourselves and our behaviours. I can say "I hate myself for doing that." Who is this "I" that hates "myself". It is the self being conscious of the self.
Because we are self-aware several consequences follow.
For one thing, we are not bound by the present. We can look back on the past and learn from it. We can anticipate the future and plan for it. All other creatures are simply part of the emerging stream of life. Man makes history.
For another thing, we can work together with other people to create a society that has meaning and which each person has opportunity to realize his own potential. Animals have social structures too that seem to work smoothly. They do by instinct what we have to learn. We have to learn how to live together. We have to be critical of our relationships and search for ways to improve them.
Being self-aware means also that we can set goals for ourselves and then set out to reach them. We can sacrifice immediate pleasure for the sake of lasting gain. We can find a purpose in our lives that goes beyond merely existing, satisfying our needs for food, shelter, and pleasure.
We can even detect meanings in the universe. The astronomer, the biologist, the ethologist, the anthropologist, the philosopher, the theologian, all search for order, for meaning, for the deeper understanding of what existence is all about.
That is what it means to be human. But what has this to do with keeping a diary?
It is possible for a person to live without much self-awareness at all. He gets up, he eats, he goes to work, he sits hypmotized in front of his TV and then sleeps again - day after day. Life becomes dull monotony, endless routine.
The habit patterns are so deeply grooved that creative thought becomes unnecessary. That person is already dead, even though he has yet to lie down.
To be alive is to be self-aware. One sits back to consider the meaning of it all. He faces the realities of his existence. He searches for better ways, for improved relationships, for a higher functioning level. He takes charge of his life.
This is where the diary comes in. It is really an exercise in self-awareness. It is learning from experience, translating insight into action. If to live is to grow and to learn, keeping a diary is a useful device for staying alive. It can make one more fully human.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS: This is the most profound and deeply moving article I have ever read. It is a tribute to a fine man and a great pastor.
Yet now I hear strong men and attractive women discussing the merits of writing a daily diary. Some say it has made all the difference in their development. They are even able to tell us why.
For a long time Dr. Bell had been recommending a daily diary as an Aid to Recovery. Those who have accepted the recommendation have found that it does help in a remarkable way. And that for several reasons.
For one thing, it helps to keep you honest. A person can deceive his friends, his spouse, his employer, and often does during the drinking days. He can even deceive himself by rationalizing his behaviour. But when you sit down to write it all on paper it's a different matter. Who are you kidding anyway? It is hard not to be honest with your diary.
It also helps you trace patterns in your progress toward recovery. Most people have mood swings. But during the recovery period they really swing. There are days of tension that make you climb the wall. There are periods of depression that descend like dark clouds. One man reports that during his first year of recovery he faithfully recorded all these ups and down. As he wrote it all down he began to detect a pattern. It got to the point where he could almost predict to the day when that bad time would hit him and how long it would last. It helped him tremendously to become so aware of what shape his pattern was taking.
There is another reason that is more subtle. It has to do with what it means to be human.
What makes us human? What distinguishes a human, say, from an ape? Different people with different slants on life will come with different answers. The simplest definition I know is that what makes us human is that we know that we are human. We have an awareness of ourselves. You can call it self-consciousness. We can, as it were, sit back and appraise ourselves and our behaviours. I can say "I hate myself for doing that." Who is this "I" that hates "myself". It is the self being conscious of the self.
Because we are self-aware several consequences follow.
For one thing, we are not bound by the present. We can look back on the past and learn from it. We can anticipate the future and plan for it. All other creatures are simply part of the emerging stream of life. Man makes history.
For another thing, we can work together with other people to create a society that has meaning and which each person has opportunity to realize his own potential. Animals have social structures too that seem to work smoothly. They do by instinct what we have to learn. We have to learn how to live together. We have to be critical of our relationships and search for ways to improve them.
Being self-aware means also that we can set goals for ourselves and then set out to reach them. We can sacrifice immediate pleasure for the sake of lasting gain. We can find a purpose in our lives that goes beyond merely existing, satisfying our needs for food, shelter, and pleasure.
We can even detect meanings in the universe. The astronomer, the biologist, the ethologist, the anthropologist, the philosopher, the theologian, all search for order, for meaning, for the deeper understanding of what existence is all about.
That is what it means to be human. But what has this to do with keeping a diary?
It is possible for a person to live without much self-awareness at all. He gets up, he eats, he goes to work, he sits hypmotized in front of his TV and then sleeps again - day after day. Life becomes dull monotony, endless routine.
The habit patterns are so deeply grooved that creative thought becomes unnecessary. That person is already dead, even though he has yet to lie down.
To be alive is to be self-aware. One sits back to consider the meaning of it all. He faces the realities of his existence. He searches for better ways, for improved relationships, for a higher functioning level. He takes charge of his life.
This is where the diary comes in. It is really an exercise in self-awareness. It is learning from experience, translating insight into action. If to live is to grow and to learn, keeping a diary is a useful device for staying alive. It can make one more fully human.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS: This is the most profound and deeply moving article I have ever read. It is a tribute to a fine man and a great pastor.
CLIMBING THE MOUNTAIN
Edward Whymper was a mountaineer.
Not only did he climb mountains, he wrote a book about it. There were two things he had to say about his experiences and observations. that reminded me of some of the climbing we have to do on these lower levels. For there is a sense in which the ascent from uncontroled addiction to a higher pinnacle of recovered health qualifies as real, strenuous mountain climbing.
One thing Mr. Whymper said was this: When a mountain climbing party sets out to scale a peak, they do not leave each person to go it alone. A rope is tied around the waist of the first and the second and so on, so that they are all linked together. Thus, if one foot slips, that person does not crash to the rocks below. The others who still have a foothold steady him until he can start climbing again.
Needless to say, when one man loses his foothold it is an unnerving experience for them all, not least for the weaker climbers. They really can do little to help the unfortunate one except to cling to their own precarious toehold for dear life. It is at such a time that they need so much the steadying reassurance of the experienced climber. He will make sure that they all take time to get settled before beginning the ascent again. Never would he think of asking one of the weaker climbers to scramble over to where the unfortunate one is dangling to help him regain his hold. This is a job for the expert on the slopes.
The second observation Mr. Whymper made was that most of the serious accidents occur in the easy places. When they begin the climb, or when they reach a part of the mountain face that seems to defy their effort, every climber is alert, every precaution is taken and no move is made that would increase the danger.
But when they reach an easy stretch muscles relax. They pause and look around at the distant slopes. They may even untie the rope that links each on to the rest of the group. And that, says Mr. Whymper, is when more tragedies occur than at any other time. Vigilance is relaxed. There is a feeling, especially on the part of the novice climber, We've got it made". The easier path deceives the person into believing that the danger is all past.
Unwittingly, Mr. Whymper has provided us with a parable for continuing therapy that needs no interpretation.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS; This is a great way of showing what the recovering alcoholic faces early on in his quest to overcome his addiction. The easiest times are the most dangerous! I can remember coping with with my inability to recognize that I could not fall back into my old ways just because I was suddenly getting everything right. All the good things would fall into place, and in my mind I would think, I have got this beaten now, why not just a little drink to celebrate what I had done? Bad and destructive thinking!
Fortunately at this point I could fall back on the fact that I was full of antabuse, and if I took a drink I would flush, possibly go into convulsions, have an elevated heart rate, which would all scare the hell out of me? It was than that I thanked God for antabuse, it saved my life many times over.
Not only did he climb mountains, he wrote a book about it. There were two things he had to say about his experiences and observations. that reminded me of some of the climbing we have to do on these lower levels. For there is a sense in which the ascent from uncontroled addiction to a higher pinnacle of recovered health qualifies as real, strenuous mountain climbing.
One thing Mr. Whymper said was this: When a mountain climbing party sets out to scale a peak, they do not leave each person to go it alone. A rope is tied around the waist of the first and the second and so on, so that they are all linked together. Thus, if one foot slips, that person does not crash to the rocks below. The others who still have a foothold steady him until he can start climbing again.
Needless to say, when one man loses his foothold it is an unnerving experience for them all, not least for the weaker climbers. They really can do little to help the unfortunate one except to cling to their own precarious toehold for dear life. It is at such a time that they need so much the steadying reassurance of the experienced climber. He will make sure that they all take time to get settled before beginning the ascent again. Never would he think of asking one of the weaker climbers to scramble over to where the unfortunate one is dangling to help him regain his hold. This is a job for the expert on the slopes.
The second observation Mr. Whymper made was that most of the serious accidents occur in the easy places. When they begin the climb, or when they reach a part of the mountain face that seems to defy their effort, every climber is alert, every precaution is taken and no move is made that would increase the danger.
But when they reach an easy stretch muscles relax. They pause and look around at the distant slopes. They may even untie the rope that links each on to the rest of the group. And that, says Mr. Whymper, is when more tragedies occur than at any other time. Vigilance is relaxed. There is a feeling, especially on the part of the novice climber, We've got it made". The easier path deceives the person into believing that the danger is all past.
Unwittingly, Mr. Whymper has provided us with a parable for continuing therapy that needs no interpretation.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS; This is a great way of showing what the recovering alcoholic faces early on in his quest to overcome his addiction. The easiest times are the most dangerous! I can remember coping with with my inability to recognize that I could not fall back into my old ways just because I was suddenly getting everything right. All the good things would fall into place, and in my mind I would think, I have got this beaten now, why not just a little drink to celebrate what I had done? Bad and destructive thinking!
Fortunately at this point I could fall back on the fact that I was full of antabuse, and if I took a drink I would flush, possibly go into convulsions, have an elevated heart rate, which would all scare the hell out of me? It was than that I thanked God for antabuse, it saved my life many times over.
MORE FOR THE FAMILY?
THAT IS THE QUESTION that is asked from time to time. It is a good question. For it recognizes the fact that, when one member of a family has an alcohol or drug problem, the whole family is affected. The sickness is not a private affair. By the same token, recovery cannot be a private affair either. The family should be included in the treatment.
They should be helped in several directions.
The family, like the patient, should learn the nature of addiction. They should know what it does to a person physically, mentally, and socially. Such knowledge can give them a whole fresh understanding of why things have been the way they were. Understanding goes a long way in healing relationships.
Second, the family should be helped to understand their own emotions. They have responded with anxiety and anger mingled with compassion and love. Often they have felt guilty about their own feelings and behaviour. The family needs help in recognizing that their emotional responses were not unnatural or unexpected. Not only the person who has the illness but the family, particularly the spouse, should be honest in revealing these emotions, discussing them, and so coming closer to one another in understanding. The great word is "communication".
The Basic Orientation to Addiction course that Donwood ran each week is designed to give the family some help in these directions. Those who have taken the course say that it has been of real assistance. To a lesser degree our weekly Family Day gives some support. Al-anon and Al-ateen are also greatly helpful.
More important, though, is the recognition that recovery is a family affair. What is done in Donwood can only be a small beginning. The real work has to be done, in patience, good will, and love, within the family itself.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS:
This article, to me, shows the inner power and love, and insight of this extraordinary man. His ability to come to a very common sense approach is remarkable. Since I have not been in contact with the Donwood Institute for many years now, I do not know what kind of programmes they present now. In the years I had contact, the work done by the staff and doctors was wonderful.
They should be helped in several directions.
The family, like the patient, should learn the nature of addiction. They should know what it does to a person physically, mentally, and socially. Such knowledge can give them a whole fresh understanding of why things have been the way they were. Understanding goes a long way in healing relationships.
Second, the family should be helped to understand their own emotions. They have responded with anxiety and anger mingled with compassion and love. Often they have felt guilty about their own feelings and behaviour. The family needs help in recognizing that their emotional responses were not unnatural or unexpected. Not only the person who has the illness but the family, particularly the spouse, should be honest in revealing these emotions, discussing them, and so coming closer to one another in understanding. The great word is "communication".
The Basic Orientation to Addiction course that Donwood ran each week is designed to give the family some help in these directions. Those who have taken the course say that it has been of real assistance. To a lesser degree our weekly Family Day gives some support. Al-anon and Al-ateen are also greatly helpful.
More important, though, is the recognition that recovery is a family affair. What is done in Donwood can only be a small beginning. The real work has to be done, in patience, good will, and love, within the family itself.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS:
This article, to me, shows the inner power and love, and insight of this extraordinary man. His ability to come to a very common sense approach is remarkable. Since I have not been in contact with the Donwood Institute for many years now, I do not know what kind of programmes they present now. In the years I had contact, the work done by the staff and doctors was wonderful.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE
TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE
If memory serves, it was Voltaire who said that:
Here is a true illustration of the sort of situation he may have had in mind.
A person who had been a patient in a psychiatric hospital was telling some of us how difficult it had been for her, after discharge, to get enough courage to face life's common demands. It was six months, for example, before she had enough nerve to drive her car. One evening she set her jaw and forced herself to drive herself to a meeting. When it was over she was tremendously proud of her achievement.
The next day she happened to be talking to her sister-in-law. She said, "I went to the meeting last night."
"Did your husband drive you?", asked the sister-in-law.
"No, I drove myself" she proudly said.
The response was, "Well, it's about time!"
The immediate reaction of the former patient was anger. But before the outburst came, she checked herself. Her thoughts ran something like this: "How could my sister-in-law know what that victory meant to me? She probably thought I was just putting an act."
I was fascinated by her account of how she handled herself in that situation. She actually tried to put herself inside her sister-in-law's skin and to see how it all must look to her.
Most of us are not at our best in handling criticism, especially if it seems underserved. We resent the angry barb, the verbal kick in the pants. When shot at that way, we often shoot back.
The lady with the nervous disorder sent me scuttling home to have another look at my personal inventory.
Monsieur Voltaire would have been grateful to her for illustrating so beautifully what he meant by his dictum "TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE'.
DON SAYS: A very worthwhile story. It is difficult to overcome the action that we desire to make against someone who has hurt our feelings, or calls us to task for our actions. It takes a strong person to do this. And I think most of us are strong persons if we want to be.
If memory serves, it was Voltaire who said that:
Here is a true illustration of the sort of situation he may have had in mind.
A person who had been a patient in a psychiatric hospital was telling some of us how difficult it had been for her, after discharge, to get enough courage to face life's common demands. It was six months, for example, before she had enough nerve to drive her car. One evening she set her jaw and forced herself to drive herself to a meeting. When it was over she was tremendously proud of her achievement.
The next day she happened to be talking to her sister-in-law. She said, "I went to the meeting last night."
"Did your husband drive you?", asked the sister-in-law.
"No, I drove myself" she proudly said.
The response was, "Well, it's about time!"
The immediate reaction of the former patient was anger. But before the outburst came, she checked herself. Her thoughts ran something like this: "How could my sister-in-law know what that victory meant to me? She probably thought I was just putting an act."
I was fascinated by her account of how she handled herself in that situation. She actually tried to put herself inside her sister-in-law's skin and to see how it all must look to her.
Most of us are not at our best in handling criticism, especially if it seems underserved. We resent the angry barb, the verbal kick in the pants. When shot at that way, we often shoot back.
The lady with the nervous disorder sent me scuttling home to have another look at my personal inventory.
Monsieur Voltaire would have been grateful to her for illustrating so beautifully what he meant by his dictum "TO UNDERSTAND IS TO FORGIVE'.
DON SAYS: A very worthwhile story. It is difficult to overcome the action that we desire to make against someone who has hurt our feelings, or calls us to task for our actions. It takes a strong person to do this. And I think most of us are strong persons if we want to be.
BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE
The other day I encountered a little five-year old girl on the street, a neighbour's child. She had her mother's compact and was looking in the little mirror, doing something with her hair. With the curiosity of age I asked her "What are you doing?" Without even looking at me she replied "I'm making myself beautiful."
The influence of TV no doubt. Persuading people to make themselves beautiful has become big business. Yet with all the skin fresheners, blemish removers, odor repellents and weight reducers that are heralded as the secret of the body beautiful, there is one beauty aid that is seldom, if ever, mentioned.
That is courtesy.
A person may have irregular features, a hooked nose, a wobbly gait or a hunched back, but if he or she is a courteous person who speaks with kindliness and treats people with thoughtfulness, they have an attractiveness about them that the rude Apollo or the impatient Diana fail to achieve.
Courtesy has been described as "obedience to the unenforceable". No one can demand it of you. No set of rules can be laid down that will produce the courteous person. It is an attitude toward people that grows out of respect for the feelings of others. It is expressed in politeness, in gentleness, in considerateness and in patience. The possessor of it is a beautiful person.
One picture is worth a thousand words. The picture that comes to my mind of the gracious, courteous person is Gertrude in the Donwood dining room. She waits on tables, but Gertrude somehow makes that humble occupation an act of graciousness and dignity. She speaks with unfailing courtesy. Somehow she remembers the needs, the tastes, the special diets and the peculiar whims of each one. Even her lighthearted banter never crosses the boundaries of impropriety. She is an outstanding therapist, for when she speaks to you, you know you matter. There is about her a deep respect for th feelings of others. And that is courtesy.
We learn at Donwood the importance of expressing our deep feelings. Side by side with that, and just as important, is the need to be sensitive to the feelings of others.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS; Why shouldn't we all aspire to be like Gertrude: she is a wonderful and warm human being. With more like her the world would be a kinder place. After reading this I am going to try to be better, and kinder to my fellow human beings.
The influence of TV no doubt. Persuading people to make themselves beautiful has become big business. Yet with all the skin fresheners, blemish removers, odor repellents and weight reducers that are heralded as the secret of the body beautiful, there is one beauty aid that is seldom, if ever, mentioned.
That is courtesy.
A person may have irregular features, a hooked nose, a wobbly gait or a hunched back, but if he or she is a courteous person who speaks with kindliness and treats people with thoughtfulness, they have an attractiveness about them that the rude Apollo or the impatient Diana fail to achieve.
Courtesy has been described as "obedience to the unenforceable". No one can demand it of you. No set of rules can be laid down that will produce the courteous person. It is an attitude toward people that grows out of respect for the feelings of others. It is expressed in politeness, in gentleness, in considerateness and in patience. The possessor of it is a beautiful person.
One picture is worth a thousand words. The picture that comes to my mind of the gracious, courteous person is Gertrude in the Donwood dining room. She waits on tables, but Gertrude somehow makes that humble occupation an act of graciousness and dignity. She speaks with unfailing courtesy. Somehow she remembers the needs, the tastes, the special diets and the peculiar whims of each one. Even her lighthearted banter never crosses the boundaries of impropriety. She is an outstanding therapist, for when she speaks to you, you know you matter. There is about her a deep respect for th feelings of others. And that is courtesy.
We learn at Donwood the importance of expressing our deep feelings. Side by side with that, and just as important, is the need to be sensitive to the feelings of others.
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS; Why shouldn't we all aspire to be like Gertrude: she is a wonderful and warm human being. With more like her the world would be a kinder place. After reading this I am going to try to be better, and kinder to my fellow human beings.
CONSTRUCTIVE COERCION
"CONSTRUCTIVE COERCION"
This was the phrase used by a Director of Medical Services at a large company to describe to a Donwood alumni audience the method used by his company in relation to the alcoholic. This Director was telling something of the work of the May Street Clinic in whose treatment program his company participates.
What the phrase means is this, as far as the Company is concerned: When an employer or supervisor detects the tell-tale signs of alcoholism in an employee, that person is sent to the medical office. He is told that his job is on the line, and that unless he takes treatment he will lose it. Having taken the course of treatment at the clinic, he returns to the job and reports daily to a staff nurse who gives him his antabuse.
If he wishes to remain as an employee of the company, he has no alternative but to comply. This is constructive coercion. The report is that the success rate is high!
The presentation stirred up some lively discussion among our alumni.
Some argued that the method is justified. Certainly, from management's point of view, it is an efficient way of saving their investment in an employee.
But, also from the patient's point of view, there are favourable considerations. The person with the alcohol problem is reluctant to admit there is something here he cannot handle. His "defensive thinking" takes over. Rather than let him stew in his own juice and continue in his sick condition until his life has become unmanageable, the company steps in and says, "Man, you're in trouble. Get Help or else!" By making him take antabuse his sobriety is maintained until (hopefully) his own better judgment supplies the motivation.
Others argued that such coercion takes from the individual his freedom of choice. We believe, they said, that the responsibility for his own recovery should not be taken away from the person who is addicted. This is just one more example of "Big Brother" taking over and deciding what is good for you and making you do it. It robs a man of his dignity as a human being.
There are arguments both ways.
What do you think?
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS: I agree with the principle that since the employee cannot handle his own addiction, outside pressure must be made. It is not only good for the company, but for the individual and his family as well.
This was the phrase used by a Director of Medical Services at a large company to describe to a Donwood alumni audience the method used by his company in relation to the alcoholic. This Director was telling something of the work of the May Street Clinic in whose treatment program his company participates.
What the phrase means is this, as far as the Company is concerned: When an employer or supervisor detects the tell-tale signs of alcoholism in an employee, that person is sent to the medical office. He is told that his job is on the line, and that unless he takes treatment he will lose it. Having taken the course of treatment at the clinic, he returns to the job and reports daily to a staff nurse who gives him his antabuse.
If he wishes to remain as an employee of the company, he has no alternative but to comply. This is constructive coercion. The report is that the success rate is high!
The presentation stirred up some lively discussion among our alumni.
Some argued that the method is justified. Certainly, from management's point of view, it is an efficient way of saving their investment in an employee.
But, also from the patient's point of view, there are favourable considerations. The person with the alcohol problem is reluctant to admit there is something here he cannot handle. His "defensive thinking" takes over. Rather than let him stew in his own juice and continue in his sick condition until his life has become unmanageable, the company steps in and says, "Man, you're in trouble. Get Help or else!" By making him take antabuse his sobriety is maintained until (hopefully) his own better judgment supplies the motivation.
Others argued that such coercion takes from the individual his freedom of choice. We believe, they said, that the responsibility for his own recovery should not be taken away from the person who is addicted. This is just one more example of "Big Brother" taking over and deciding what is good for you and making you do it. It robs a man of his dignity as a human being.
There are arguments both ways.
What do you think?
DR. GEORGE BIRTCH
DON SAYS: I agree with the principle that since the employee cannot handle his own addiction, outside pressure must be made. It is not only good for the company, but for the individual and his family as well.
ABSTINENCE MUST BE THE TARGET
Abstinence, not controlled drinking, should be the primary treatment objective for all clinitians dealing with alcoholics, according to the director of the Alcohol Behavior Research Laboratory, Rutgers University.
"That is my view at this point and on the basis of the dada available" keynote speaker Dr. Peter Nathan told the converence on Behavioral Approaches to Alcoholism and Drug Dependencies, held at the University of Washington, Seattle.
"I have strong disagreement with others in the field".
"Also, on the basis of data available, we cannot now nor perhaps will we ever be in a position to say to the alcoholic who has been sober, "We can now offer you the opportunity to return to drinking and help you to be a controlled drinker".
"We do not have that ability, anyone who tells you that we do, is a liar."
On the other hand, he said, many alcoholics have tried to achieve abstinence repeatedly over the course of a very lengthy drinking history and have failed.
"In my view, again based on the data we have available, it may be that efforts to teach controlled drinking for these people may produce a more desireable effect than seeing them continue a pattern of uncontrolled drinking."
"In this case, less drinking is better than more drinking. It is probably not as good as no drinking, " said Dr. Nathan.
"This whole treatment aim stemmed from the widely held conviction that alcoholism is a progressive, irreversible disease characterized by loss-of-control drinking, and a profound craving for alcohol during sobriety.
The belief that a single drink by the dry alcoholic inevitably leads to loss-of-control drinking has been reinforced through the years by Alcoholics Anonymous which considers total abstinence to be its only treatment goal."
"I think it is important on the basis of what must be considered admittedly preliminary outcome data that controlled drinking may well be an appropriate treatment objective for some individuals, but an inappropriate treatment objective for many others."
DR. PETER NATHAN
DON SAYS: I can see where Dr Nathan is coming from, and I disagree. I along with Alcoholics Anonymous believe that complete abstinence is necessary. "Controlled drinking" sounds great to the alcoholic, and in some few cases it may work. The alcoholic could possibly hold for a short period of time, however, somewhere along the line he or she will go on a spree, living it up, and thusly losing complete control, returning to out of control drinking. This can only be prevented by complete abstinence. This is coming from the mouth of a previously out of control alcoholic.
"That is my view at this point and on the basis of the dada available" keynote speaker Dr. Peter Nathan told the converence on Behavioral Approaches to Alcoholism and Drug Dependencies, held at the University of Washington, Seattle.
"I have strong disagreement with others in the field".
"Also, on the basis of data available, we cannot now nor perhaps will we ever be in a position to say to the alcoholic who has been sober, "We can now offer you the opportunity to return to drinking and help you to be a controlled drinker".
"We do not have that ability, anyone who tells you that we do, is a liar."
On the other hand, he said, many alcoholics have tried to achieve abstinence repeatedly over the course of a very lengthy drinking history and have failed.
"In my view, again based on the data we have available, it may be that efforts to teach controlled drinking for these people may produce a more desireable effect than seeing them continue a pattern of uncontrolled drinking."
"In this case, less drinking is better than more drinking. It is probably not as good as no drinking, " said Dr. Nathan.
"This whole treatment aim stemmed from the widely held conviction that alcoholism is a progressive, irreversible disease characterized by loss-of-control drinking, and a profound craving for alcohol during sobriety.
The belief that a single drink by the dry alcoholic inevitably leads to loss-of-control drinking has been reinforced through the years by Alcoholics Anonymous which considers total abstinence to be its only treatment goal."
"I think it is important on the basis of what must be considered admittedly preliminary outcome data that controlled drinking may well be an appropriate treatment objective for some individuals, but an inappropriate treatment objective for many others."
DR. PETER NATHAN
DON SAYS: I can see where Dr Nathan is coming from, and I disagree. I along with Alcoholics Anonymous believe that complete abstinence is necessary. "Controlled drinking" sounds great to the alcoholic, and in some few cases it may work. The alcoholic could possibly hold for a short period of time, however, somewhere along the line he or she will go on a spree, living it up, and thusly losing complete control, returning to out of control drinking. This can only be prevented by complete abstinence. This is coming from the mouth of a previously out of control alcoholic.
A BRAIN DESTROYING DRUG
Alcohol is a brain destroying drug! If alcoholic beverages came on the scene today, would you need a prescription from the doctor to buy some?
Alcohol is a drug, you know. A sedative. So, the question is fair.
The answer to that question goes like this: "If alcohol came on the scene today it could not get through The Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), it could not be marketed."
The answer comes from Dr. Stanley E. Gitlow, who has studied the effects of alcohol on the body and published nearly 200 papers on the subject. He is clinical professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
He made the point while participating in a seminar on the "Executive Alcoholic," sponsored by Silver Hill Foundation in New Canaan, Conn.
The FDA which passes on the safety of things ingested by humans, would find itself unable to ok alcoholic beverages they are that bad for humans according to Dr. Gitlow.
Research has shown it's impossible at an autopsy to tell the difference between the brain of a punch drunk fighter and a drunk. The fighter gets his damage from trauma outside. The drinker gets his punches from the inside. Both kinds of trauma destroy brain cells, they don't grow back.
Sedative drugs, of which alcohol is one, also damage brain cells. Librium, a popular tranquilizer, in some circles is considered "a very dry martini," Dr. Gitlow said.
What alcohol does to the liver "deserves only one mention," as the doctor views the scene.
"A person goes to the doctor and says he's worried about his liver," Dr. Gitlow said. "I don't give a damn about his liver."
"If he continues to drink I can't help. It will get worse. If he stops, his liver will get better."
Dr. Gitlow said research on the damage done by alcohol to the brain and other vital body systems is "upsetting" - in a society where alcohol is used by 100 million persons, including pregnant women."
"I seriously wonder about the advisability of all this alcohol use," he said. "We don't have eight million alcoholics, we have more like 80 million. The official estimate - eight million - is just looking at the tip of an iceberg.
"The use of alcohol in our society is quite ill. Physicians are simply covering up."
As a central nervous system depressant, alcohol diminishes function.
"The brain does not function as well," he said. "If you give enough the brain will stop functioning. You will go to sleep. And, given enough alcohol you will go to sleep permanently."
Dr. Gitlow made these other points: The first two or three hours are what alcoholics are after.
- No matter how much you drink you can't make alcohol sedate you longer than five hours. Then agitation sets in. Its duration? Twelve hours.
- marks of agitation: vague disruption of personality. Diminished attention span. Uncomfortable. Drinking in spade? Accept agitatation in spades. Delirium tremens.
- "Evidence is mounting that damage to the body by alcohol is not reversible, that it does not go away even when one stops drinking. One reason? A human has just so much central nervous system material - what he is born with. Destroy some and it doesn't grow back. As you lose them - brain cells - you go down hill from birth, ." Dr. Gitlow said. "Brain function going all the way into the barn (life's end) is going down.
BOCA RATON NEWS
DON SAYS: Quite elequant and frankly scary. I am so glad I quit after 20 years of drinking, it seems I have retained some quantity of brain cells, enough to get through life to "the barn".
Alcohol is a drug, you know. A sedative. So, the question is fair.
The answer to that question goes like this: "If alcohol came on the scene today it could not get through The Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.), it could not be marketed."
The answer comes from Dr. Stanley E. Gitlow, who has studied the effects of alcohol on the body and published nearly 200 papers on the subject. He is clinical professor of medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
He made the point while participating in a seminar on the "Executive Alcoholic," sponsored by Silver Hill Foundation in New Canaan, Conn.
The FDA which passes on the safety of things ingested by humans, would find itself unable to ok alcoholic beverages they are that bad for humans according to Dr. Gitlow.
Research has shown it's impossible at an autopsy to tell the difference between the brain of a punch drunk fighter and a drunk. The fighter gets his damage from trauma outside. The drinker gets his punches from the inside. Both kinds of trauma destroy brain cells, they don't grow back.
Sedative drugs, of which alcohol is one, also damage brain cells. Librium, a popular tranquilizer, in some circles is considered "a very dry martini," Dr. Gitlow said.
What alcohol does to the liver "deserves only one mention," as the doctor views the scene.
"A person goes to the doctor and says he's worried about his liver," Dr. Gitlow said. "I don't give a damn about his liver."
"If he continues to drink I can't help. It will get worse. If he stops, his liver will get better."
Dr. Gitlow said research on the damage done by alcohol to the brain and other vital body systems is "upsetting" - in a society where alcohol is used by 100 million persons, including pregnant women."
"I seriously wonder about the advisability of all this alcohol use," he said. "We don't have eight million alcoholics, we have more like 80 million. The official estimate - eight million - is just looking at the tip of an iceberg.
"The use of alcohol in our society is quite ill. Physicians are simply covering up."
As a central nervous system depressant, alcohol diminishes function.
"The brain does not function as well," he said. "If you give enough the brain will stop functioning. You will go to sleep. And, given enough alcohol you will go to sleep permanently."
Dr. Gitlow made these other points: The first two or three hours are what alcoholics are after.
- No matter how much you drink you can't make alcohol sedate you longer than five hours. Then agitation sets in. Its duration? Twelve hours.
- marks of agitation: vague disruption of personality. Diminished attention span. Uncomfortable. Drinking in spade? Accept agitatation in spades. Delirium tremens.
- "Evidence is mounting that damage to the body by alcohol is not reversible, that it does not go away even when one stops drinking. One reason? A human has just so much central nervous system material - what he is born with. Destroy some and it doesn't grow back. As you lose them - brain cells - you go down hill from birth, ." Dr. Gitlow said. "Brain function going all the way into the barn (life's end) is going down.
BOCA RATON NEWS
DON SAYS: Quite elequant and frankly scary. I am so glad I quit after 20 years of drinking, it seems I have retained some quantity of brain cells, enough to get through life to "the barn".
Sunday, January 25, 2009
FOUR DRINKS A DAY DANGEROUS
Men who have more than four drinks of whisky a day or a litre of wine may damage stomachs and vital body organs, three doctors said recently.
Dr. Henri Sarle, professor of gastroenterology in France said, on the average, such drinkers will develop pancreatic disease in 18 years.
And it's worse for women. If they drink half as much as that they can expect pancreatic disease in 11 years he said.
Four whisky shots, are equivalent to six ounces.
Dr. Ivan Beck, professor of medicine at Queen's University, Kingston, said such drinking will destroy cells in the small intestine resulting in malnutrition in the drinkers.
Dr. Richard Gillies, associate professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, said the drinking erodes the lining of the stomach and leads to massive bleeding.
Gillies said the connection between alcohol and liver damage and cirrhosis is well-known, but people are not so aware of the damage caused to other parts of the digestive tract.
More disease of the pancreas may occur in Canada because, since 1963, alcohol consumption has risen by 80 percent, mainly in teenage groups, he said.
Sarle said people "who drink to coma on weekends" but don't drink every day get acute attacks of pancreatic disease even more dangerous than the chronic disease. An attack can kill.
He said 60 percent of those with chronic disease who quit drinking at the first sympton usually live normal lives but often develop diabetes 20 years later.
If they continue drinking, the pain will become worse and they will become diabetic in two or three years, he said.
Beck said the businesman who has a couple of drinks before meals and bed, is a "prime candidate" for small bowell disease. It destroys his body's ability to use vitamins and other nutrients and he may get diarrhea, anemia and nerve changes.
Sarle said sarcastically that heavy drinkers save the nation money. "They usually die about age 60 and that is an economy for the state. It has no pension to pay," he said.
The government should force large distilleries to limit their production of booze. Alcoholism is a social and political responsibility, not a medical problem he said.
In France during World War Two cirrhosis of the liver disappeared completely among the French because the Germans drank all the booze, he said.
DON SAYS: Quite alarming! I never knew that drinking could be so destructive. It is apparent that even social drinking has its hazards. It is perfectly normal that a social drinker will go through life, enjoying a pleasant time with wine or alcohol, or beer, at a meal or during a party. It looks like the problems sneak up on us, without our knowing it. It is a wake up call.
Dr. Henri Sarle, professor of gastroenterology in France said, on the average, such drinkers will develop pancreatic disease in 18 years.
And it's worse for women. If they drink half as much as that they can expect pancreatic disease in 11 years he said.
Four whisky shots, are equivalent to six ounces.
Dr. Ivan Beck, professor of medicine at Queen's University, Kingston, said such drinking will destroy cells in the small intestine resulting in malnutrition in the drinkers.
Dr. Richard Gillies, associate professor of medicine at the University of Ottawa, said the drinking erodes the lining of the stomach and leads to massive bleeding.
Gillies said the connection between alcohol and liver damage and cirrhosis is well-known, but people are not so aware of the damage caused to other parts of the digestive tract.
More disease of the pancreas may occur in Canada because, since 1963, alcohol consumption has risen by 80 percent, mainly in teenage groups, he said.
Sarle said people "who drink to coma on weekends" but don't drink every day get acute attacks of pancreatic disease even more dangerous than the chronic disease. An attack can kill.
He said 60 percent of those with chronic disease who quit drinking at the first sympton usually live normal lives but often develop diabetes 20 years later.
If they continue drinking, the pain will become worse and they will become diabetic in two or three years, he said.
Beck said the businesman who has a couple of drinks before meals and bed, is a "prime candidate" for small bowell disease. It destroys his body's ability to use vitamins and other nutrients and he may get diarrhea, anemia and nerve changes.
Sarle said sarcastically that heavy drinkers save the nation money. "They usually die about age 60 and that is an economy for the state. It has no pension to pay," he said.
The government should force large distilleries to limit their production of booze. Alcoholism is a social and political responsibility, not a medical problem he said.
In France during World War Two cirrhosis of the liver disappeared completely among the French because the Germans drank all the booze, he said.
DON SAYS: Quite alarming! I never knew that drinking could be so destructive. It is apparent that even social drinking has its hazards. It is perfectly normal that a social drinker will go through life, enjoying a pleasant time with wine or alcohol, or beer, at a meal or during a party. It looks like the problems sneak up on us, without our knowing it. It is a wake up call.
SEX LIFE IMPAIRED BY ALCOHOL ABUSE
Alcohol abuse is the commonest cause of the first episode of secondary impotence among men in the United States, according to Domeena C. Renshaw, associate professor of psychiatry and director of the sexual dysfunction clinic at Loyola University of Chicago.
"When a man comes to you with impotence, please get a good history. Ask him how much alcohol there was on the very first time," she advised doctors attending a conference of the New Zealand College of General Practitioners.
Six ounces of hard liquor or the equivallent of beer will cause a partial frection in a male, Dr. Renshaw said.
"If he's upset about that, he''ll lose it completely. If he sleeps through the night for four hours or so he'll metabolize the alcohol and if he tries in the morning he'll be able to function"
"They usually don't do this. They go to work. They come home. They drink four on the way home, a few more before supper, a couple after, and one just befor bed. They try intercourse, the whole cycle repeats itself, and we really have a problem."
She said chronic alcoholism does something different, causing retarded ejaculation at a certain phase before a male has permanent impotence.
Dr. Renshaw said some pharmaceutical drugs, particularly Valium, interfere with sexual functioning by prevent climatic responses in women, and causing potency progblems in men.
Antihistamines, antihypersensives, and apparently nicotine, can also afffect secual performances, she added.
DON SAYS: Quite apparent - you don't use it you lose it. Somewhere in this equation the drinker (alcoholic) really has to make a decision, liquor or sex? Going with liquor means problems on the job, at home, strife in the family leading to anger, and fear for the future by the partner. Giving up drinking, (I mean completely) will smooth things on the home front. Try a little R and R with your loved one. Get away with she or he for a weekend somewhere far from home, at a motel, and try to recreate those lovely days when you were younger. It can be a healing process, to get your marriage and life back on track. But it will take will power, and alot of love and forgiveness by both parties.
"When a man comes to you with impotence, please get a good history. Ask him how much alcohol there was on the very first time," she advised doctors attending a conference of the New Zealand College of General Practitioners.
Six ounces of hard liquor or the equivallent of beer will cause a partial frection in a male, Dr. Renshaw said.
"If he's upset about that, he''ll lose it completely. If he sleeps through the night for four hours or so he'll metabolize the alcohol and if he tries in the morning he'll be able to function"
"They usually don't do this. They go to work. They come home. They drink four on the way home, a few more before supper, a couple after, and one just befor bed. They try intercourse, the whole cycle repeats itself, and we really have a problem."
She said chronic alcoholism does something different, causing retarded ejaculation at a certain phase before a male has permanent impotence.
Dr. Renshaw said some pharmaceutical drugs, particularly Valium, interfere with sexual functioning by prevent climatic responses in women, and causing potency progblems in men.
Antihistamines, antihypersensives, and apparently nicotine, can also afffect secual performances, she added.
DON SAYS: Quite apparent - you don't use it you lose it. Somewhere in this equation the drinker (alcoholic) really has to make a decision, liquor or sex? Going with liquor means problems on the job, at home, strife in the family leading to anger, and fear for the future by the partner. Giving up drinking, (I mean completely) will smooth things on the home front. Try a little R and R with your loved one. Get away with she or he for a weekend somewhere far from home, at a motel, and try to recreate those lovely days when you were younger. It can be a healing process, to get your marriage and life back on track. But it will take will power, and alot of love and forgiveness by both parties.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
HEAVY DRINKERS RUN GREATER RISK OF MOUTH CANCER THAN SMOKERS
NEW YORK (UPI)
Heavy whiskey, beer and wine drinkers may run a greater risk of mouth cancer than two-pack-a-day cigerette smokers, the American Cancer Society Journal reports.
And heavy drinkers who stick to beer or wine alone may run a greater risk than those who drink equivalent amounts of whiskey, the Journal report by Dr. Arthur Mashberg and Lawrence Garfinkel says.
Mashberg is chief of oral and maxillo-facial surgery at Veterans Administration Medical Centre in East Orange, N.J., and clinical professor of surgery at New Jersey Medical School, Newark, N.J. Garfinkel is the ACS vice president for epidemiology and statistics.
Setting up a "whiskey equivalent" system - one ounce of whiskey equals four ounces of wine or 12 ounces of beer - the report said:
Those who drank less than 6 whisky equivalents a day had an oral cancer risk 3.3 times greater than those who did not drink.
Those who drank between 6 and 9 increased their risk to 15.2.
For those drinking 10 or more whiskey equivalents, the risked dropped to 10.6. This apparent drop in risk for the heaviest drinkers was attributed to the fact that this group consisted primarily of whiskey drinkers, whereas the 6 to 9 whiskey equivalent group was heavily weighted with drinkers who favored beer and wine
Those smoking 10 to 19 cigarettes daily incurred a 3.2 times greater risk of oral cancer than those who did not smoke.
Those who smoked 40 or more were 5 times more at risk.
For someone who smokes and drinks, doubling the alcohol consumption leads to a much great risk of oral cancer than doubling the cigarette consumption.
DON SAYS: Wow! Am I ever glad I quit drinking and smoking 40 years ago! Now that I am here at 75 years of age, still going, and apparently in good enough physical shape to last a few years more, I surely would not have reach the here and now - I smoked a pack a day, and drank regularly both at the same time.
Heavy whiskey, beer and wine drinkers may run a greater risk of mouth cancer than two-pack-a-day cigerette smokers, the American Cancer Society Journal reports.
And heavy drinkers who stick to beer or wine alone may run a greater risk than those who drink equivalent amounts of whiskey, the Journal report by Dr. Arthur Mashberg and Lawrence Garfinkel says.
Mashberg is chief of oral and maxillo-facial surgery at Veterans Administration Medical Centre in East Orange, N.J., and clinical professor of surgery at New Jersey Medical School, Newark, N.J. Garfinkel is the ACS vice president for epidemiology and statistics.
Setting up a "whiskey equivalent" system - one ounce of whiskey equals four ounces of wine or 12 ounces of beer - the report said:
Those who drank less than 6 whisky equivalents a day had an oral cancer risk 3.3 times greater than those who did not drink.
Those who drank between 6 and 9 increased their risk to 15.2.
For those drinking 10 or more whiskey equivalents, the risked dropped to 10.6. This apparent drop in risk for the heaviest drinkers was attributed to the fact that this group consisted primarily of whiskey drinkers, whereas the 6 to 9 whiskey equivalent group was heavily weighted with drinkers who favored beer and wine
Those smoking 10 to 19 cigarettes daily incurred a 3.2 times greater risk of oral cancer than those who did not smoke.
Those who smoked 40 or more were 5 times more at risk.
For someone who smokes and drinks, doubling the alcohol consumption leads to a much great risk of oral cancer than doubling the cigarette consumption.
DON SAYS: Wow! Am I ever glad I quit drinking and smoking 40 years ago! Now that I am here at 75 years of age, still going, and apparently in good enough physical shape to last a few years more, I surely would not have reach the here and now - I smoked a pack a day, and drank regularly both at the same time.
LIVER DISEASE CALLED THIRD-ranking killer
Liver disease, often linked to heavy drinking, is the third-ranking killer in Canada, a doctor's gathering at Toronto General hospital was told hesterday.
Dr. M. M. Fisher, a member of the Canadian Hepatic Foundation, said the exact extent of mortality due to liver damage could be even higher. A damaged liver can pass toxic substances to the blood, heart and brain, and death in such cases is often not traced to liver disease, he said.
Cirrhosis of the liver, often caused by prolonged heavy drinking, is the third leading cause of death among New Yorkers aged 25 to 65, Dr. Charles S. Liebver of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, told the group.
He said no treatment has been developed because it is not yet known how alcohol produces its effects on the liver.
Only the liver can rid the body of alcohol, but in doing so it stops burning off fat. "The result is fatty tissue in the liver, Dr. Lieber said.
This appeared to be the first step in the progressive deterioration of the liver. It is followed by alcoholic hepatitis and eventually cirrhosis or irreparable scarring of the liver.
DON SAYS: This article was published in the Donwood Newsletter in May of 1974. Now some time has passed, and further work may have been done to update this information. The reason I publish this here is to inform the interested alcoholic that may read this will be appraised of the short and long term problems caused by abusive alcohol intake.
Dr. M. M. Fisher, a member of the Canadian Hepatic Foundation, said the exact extent of mortality due to liver damage could be even higher. A damaged liver can pass toxic substances to the blood, heart and brain, and death in such cases is often not traced to liver disease, he said.
Cirrhosis of the liver, often caused by prolonged heavy drinking, is the third leading cause of death among New Yorkers aged 25 to 65, Dr. Charles S. Liebver of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, told the group.
He said no treatment has been developed because it is not yet known how alcohol produces its effects on the liver.
Only the liver can rid the body of alcohol, but in doing so it stops burning off fat. "The result is fatty tissue in the liver, Dr. Lieber said.
This appeared to be the first step in the progressive deterioration of the liver. It is followed by alcoholic hepatitis and eventually cirrhosis or irreparable scarring of the liver.
DON SAYS: This article was published in the Donwood Newsletter in May of 1974. Now some time has passed, and further work may have been done to update this information. The reason I publish this here is to inform the interested alcoholic that may read this will be appraised of the short and long term problems caused by abusive alcohol intake.
ABSTINENCE MAY REPAIR BRAIN DAMAGE
Brain damage suffered by long-term alcoholics may be partially reversible with abstinence, says a University of Toronto neurological researcher.
Dr. Peter Carlen, who is also a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, says severe alcoholics - whether overdosing on beer, wine or liquor, who quit drinking may recover some of their impaired memory, co-ordination, and ability to reason and learn new tasks.
"This is the first time anyone has shown reversible cerebral atrophy (wasting) in adult human beings," Carlen said in an interview.
Carlen does not say entire brain cells - called neutrons - regenerate and grow. But he and his associates theorize that tiny threads, called dendrites, which carry impulses into nerve cells, can recover and grow if not irrevocably damaged by alcohol.
Along with the dendrite regrowth, there may also be regeneration in other nerve fibres, supporting tissues and small vessels.
Carlen and his associates are based at the Addiction Research Foundation Clinical Institute of Ontario.
They developed their theory on the basis of a series of special brain x-rays taken of eight chronic alcoholics.
The patients, all with more than 10 year histories of heavy drinking, received no special treatments. As part of the studies, six patients stopped drinking, while two continued.
The first x-ray scans of four abstainers initially showed a loss of cerebral tissue and large cavities in the brain. Months later, scans showed smaller cavities and what appeared to be more nerve tissue.
The other two abstainers showed no change either, But Carlen and his associates said changes could have occurred before the first scan was taken.
Carlen said there was no data to show whether alcoholics with brain damage who drank less, or for a shorter period of time, were more likely to recover mental functions than others.
"But we have evidence to show that all chronic alcoholics who drink for 10 years or more have signs of cerebral atrophy."
Carlen said studies are continuing on the amount of regeneration possible after extreme impairment.
"The whole thing is interesting because while psychiatric literature indicated that regeneration is possible, nothing neurological writings ever backed it up. Now we are starting to find out."
DON SAYS: Scary stuff! I drank for over 20 years, gradually increasing the pattern of drinking more and more until I was at a point that I would (a.) quit drinking completely, or (b.) sink into the morass of alcoholism with no hope of return. Saints be praised I took the right path. I quit drinking at the age of 36. It was one of the most difficult things I ever faced in my life, and I made it. YOU CAN TOO!
NOTE: This article appeared in the 70's and some of the information, and the persons named could have changed.
Dr. Peter Carlen, who is also a neurosurgeon at Toronto Western Hospital, says severe alcoholics - whether overdosing on beer, wine or liquor, who quit drinking may recover some of their impaired memory, co-ordination, and ability to reason and learn new tasks.
"This is the first time anyone has shown reversible cerebral atrophy (wasting) in adult human beings," Carlen said in an interview.
Carlen does not say entire brain cells - called neutrons - regenerate and grow. But he and his associates theorize that tiny threads, called dendrites, which carry impulses into nerve cells, can recover and grow if not irrevocably damaged by alcohol.
Along with the dendrite regrowth, there may also be regeneration in other nerve fibres, supporting tissues and small vessels.
Carlen and his associates are based at the Addiction Research Foundation Clinical Institute of Ontario.
They developed their theory on the basis of a series of special brain x-rays taken of eight chronic alcoholics.
The patients, all with more than 10 year histories of heavy drinking, received no special treatments. As part of the studies, six patients stopped drinking, while two continued.
The first x-ray scans of four abstainers initially showed a loss of cerebral tissue and large cavities in the brain. Months later, scans showed smaller cavities and what appeared to be more nerve tissue.
The other two abstainers showed no change either, But Carlen and his associates said changes could have occurred before the first scan was taken.
Carlen said there was no data to show whether alcoholics with brain damage who drank less, or for a shorter period of time, were more likely to recover mental functions than others.
"But we have evidence to show that all chronic alcoholics who drink for 10 years or more have signs of cerebral atrophy."
Carlen said studies are continuing on the amount of regeneration possible after extreme impairment.
"The whole thing is interesting because while psychiatric literature indicated that regeneration is possible, nothing neurological writings ever backed it up. Now we are starting to find out."
DON SAYS: Scary stuff! I drank for over 20 years, gradually increasing the pattern of drinking more and more until I was at a point that I would (a.) quit drinking completely, or (b.) sink into the morass of alcoholism with no hope of return. Saints be praised I took the right path. I quit drinking at the age of 36. It was one of the most difficult things I ever faced in my life, and I made it. YOU CAN TOO!
NOTE: This article appeared in the 70's and some of the information, and the persons named could have changed.
Friday, January 23, 2009
HOW TO KEEP THE LIFE OF THE PARTY ALIVE
Your party was great!
Everyone told you so. Now they're all leaving to get their cars and drive home.
As hostess or host, your job should be over. But it isn't. Because suddenly it's obvious that George has had too much to drink. If he gets behind the wheel, he becomes a potential danger to himself and others.
What's the best to do? Here are some actions other people have taken. Put them to use, but don't limit yourself. Anything you can think of that works to deep an impaired person off the road is the right thing to do.
1. Take your guest aside and quietly suggest that you drive him home. He can always come back for his car the next day.
2. Invite your guest to stay at your house overnight. This may be inconvenient for you, but surely your friend is worth it.
3. Take his car keys away if he insists on driving. He may resent it, but if he refuses to listen to reason, you must take charge.
4. Call a taxi to take him home and pay for the cab yourself. Your friend can't object to a free ride home. When he comes to his senses, he'll probably thank you and reimburse you gladly.
5. Physically restrain him if he starts for his car. It may sound a bit drastic, but someone with too much slcohol in his system, whether from drinking beer, wine or spirits, must not be allowed to drive.
6. If all other measures fail, call the police to prevent him from driving. As unfriendly as this gesture sounds, you really be doing your friend a favor. There's little chance he will be arrested. Instead, he'll get home safely. And the sight of a police officer just might cause him to act a bit more rationally.
SEAGRAM'S DISTILLERY
DON SAYS "AMEN".
Everyone told you so. Now they're all leaving to get their cars and drive home.
As hostess or host, your job should be over. But it isn't. Because suddenly it's obvious that George has had too much to drink. If he gets behind the wheel, he becomes a potential danger to himself and others.
What's the best to do? Here are some actions other people have taken. Put them to use, but don't limit yourself. Anything you can think of that works to deep an impaired person off the road is the right thing to do.
1. Take your guest aside and quietly suggest that you drive him home. He can always come back for his car the next day.
2. Invite your guest to stay at your house overnight. This may be inconvenient for you, but surely your friend is worth it.
3. Take his car keys away if he insists on driving. He may resent it, but if he refuses to listen to reason, you must take charge.
4. Call a taxi to take him home and pay for the cab yourself. Your friend can't object to a free ride home. When he comes to his senses, he'll probably thank you and reimburse you gladly.
5. Physically restrain him if he starts for his car. It may sound a bit drastic, but someone with too much slcohol in his system, whether from drinking beer, wine or spirits, must not be allowed to drive.
6. If all other measures fail, call the police to prevent him from driving. As unfriendly as this gesture sounds, you really be doing your friend a favor. There's little chance he will be arrested. Instead, he'll get home safely. And the sight of a police officer just might cause him to act a bit more rationally.
SEAGRAM'S DISTILLERY
DON SAYS "AMEN".
REACTION - NOT STRESS REAL CULPRIT
STRESS!
It's like the plague to most people. That creeping, uptight nervous tension should be avoided at almost any cost.
Or so the conventional wisdom goes.
But, according to Dr. Hans Selye, world recognized authority on stress and anxiety, stress itself is not bad for people - it's only the negative psychological reaction to it that causes discomfort.
"We must remember there is also the stress of fulfilment: of creation, of doing any thing good.
KEY IS MASTERY
"The key to dealing with stress - which is an inevitable condition of life - is to master it, utilize it to do constructive things for yourself and humanity."
Dr. Seyle, director of the Institute For Experimental Medicine And Surgery at McGill University, was the keynote speaker at the opening session of Conference 74, the annual conference of the Ontario Children's Aid Societies.
Dr. Selye, whose latest book is Stress Without Distress, told more than 1,700 representatives that it took 40 years to formulate a definition of stress acceptable to scientists of all nations.
"We finally decided at a meeting of the World Health Congress a few years ago that stress is the non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it.
"And that demand can be pleasant or unpleasant; only the intensity is relevant. As I always say, the lash of the whicp and a passionate kiss can be equally stressful. All that matters is the impression made on the mind and the individual's reaction to it."
Dr. Selye expanded on his theory by saying that many physical diseases could be eliminated if human beings could learn to control their psychological reaction to them.
"Often it's not the disease itself that causes a person discomfort, but his over-reaction, his acute sensitivity to the pollen. If we could prevent people from defending themselves so adamantly against a foreign agent, we could lessen the resultant stresses".
Although he emphasized that his lifelong work has been devoted only to the biochemical basis of stress, Dr. Selye said he has developed a "code of ethics" that can help sideroad stress.
TOLERANCE OF SELVES
Individuals must first develop a stress situation and a tolerance of themselves. "You can be a turtle or a racehorse: your biological makeup will determine that. But you must allow yourself the freedom to do your own thing and life will be less stressful.
"Secondly, develop a worthwhile aim in you life to which the energy stress creates can be directed."
Although Dr. Selye emphasized that he was an atheist, he said he believed in the biblical code of "love thy neighbor as thyself."
THE TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: Stress and the control of it is very important for the recovering alcoholic. I personally have had stress and panic attacks while drinking and also in my recovering period. I found that, as time passed and I maintained my sobriety, stress became less of an issue, and I learned to relax, and take things as they come. I personally had to change my level of stress by leaving my principal employer, a national bank. I learned that I could not cope with the demands without a drink. I think I could now go back to my previous employer and handle the stress on the job in a satisfactory way, but in all things we cannot go back and change the past.
I hope that anyone reading this blog will realize that it is a gut wrenching event quitting drinking, but it must be done to ensure your survival. And though the road to complete sobriety can be rocky it can be done, and you will be a much better over-all person for it. GOOD LUCK!
It's like the plague to most people. That creeping, uptight nervous tension should be avoided at almost any cost.
Or so the conventional wisdom goes.
But, according to Dr. Hans Selye, world recognized authority on stress and anxiety, stress itself is not bad for people - it's only the negative psychological reaction to it that causes discomfort.
"We must remember there is also the stress of fulfilment: of creation, of doing any thing good.
KEY IS MASTERY
"The key to dealing with stress - which is an inevitable condition of life - is to master it, utilize it to do constructive things for yourself and humanity."
Dr. Seyle, director of the Institute For Experimental Medicine And Surgery at McGill University, was the keynote speaker at the opening session of Conference 74, the annual conference of the Ontario Children's Aid Societies.
Dr. Selye, whose latest book is Stress Without Distress, told more than 1,700 representatives that it took 40 years to formulate a definition of stress acceptable to scientists of all nations.
"We finally decided at a meeting of the World Health Congress a few years ago that stress is the non-specific response of the body to any demand made upon it.
"And that demand can be pleasant or unpleasant; only the intensity is relevant. As I always say, the lash of the whicp and a passionate kiss can be equally stressful. All that matters is the impression made on the mind and the individual's reaction to it."
Dr. Selye expanded on his theory by saying that many physical diseases could be eliminated if human beings could learn to control their psychological reaction to them.
"Often it's not the disease itself that causes a person discomfort, but his over-reaction, his acute sensitivity to the pollen. If we could prevent people from defending themselves so adamantly against a foreign agent, we could lessen the resultant stresses".
Although he emphasized that his lifelong work has been devoted only to the biochemical basis of stress, Dr. Selye said he has developed a "code of ethics" that can help sideroad stress.
TOLERANCE OF SELVES
Individuals must first develop a stress situation and a tolerance of themselves. "You can be a turtle or a racehorse: your biological makeup will determine that. But you must allow yourself the freedom to do your own thing and life will be less stressful.
"Secondly, develop a worthwhile aim in you life to which the energy stress creates can be directed."
Although Dr. Selye emphasized that he was an atheist, he said he believed in the biblical code of "love thy neighbor as thyself."
THE TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: Stress and the control of it is very important for the recovering alcoholic. I personally have had stress and panic attacks while drinking and also in my recovering period. I found that, as time passed and I maintained my sobriety, stress became less of an issue, and I learned to relax, and take things as they come. I personally had to change my level of stress by leaving my principal employer, a national bank. I learned that I could not cope with the demands without a drink. I think I could now go back to my previous employer and handle the stress on the job in a satisfactory way, but in all things we cannot go back and change the past.
I hope that anyone reading this blog will realize that it is a gut wrenching event quitting drinking, but it must be done to ensure your survival. And though the road to complete sobriety can be rocky it can be done, and you will be a much better over-all person for it. GOOD LUCK!
HOW FITNESS HELPS BEAT THE BOTTLE
Exercises like volleyball and cross-country skiing are helping alcohoolics' physical wellbeing.
MONTREAL.
Every morning a group of men and women puff and strain their way through an hour of fitness exercises. Later they play a game of softball or volleyball, or go cross-country skkiing in winter, then do some gardening or wood chopping depending on the season.
This is no holiday camp for fitness fanatics, the participants are alcoholics taking part in a recreation program that has achieved encouraging results.
The program is offered at Pavillon Foster, an English-language, live-in treatment centre in the tiny village of St. Phillippe-de-LaPrairie, about 30 kilometers south of Montreal.
"Alcoholics are generally in terrible physical condition," says recreation director Tom Brown. They are often emaciated, or both malnourished and overweight, and have little body co-ordination since their muscles and nervous systems have deteriorated from lack of exercise.
Many suffer from liver and heart problems, brain damage or abnormal imbalances caused by chronic drinking.
Brown tests new patients on a bicycle machine, crammed in the corner of his tiny office and checks their heart rate. He usually finds them well below the average population in fitness.
FEELING BETTER:
After six weeks of good food and regular activity in the centre, "on a tangible meat and potatoes level, they walk out of here feeling better," and their fitness levels are up to normal.
But apart from this, a study conducted by Concordia University pschologist Peter Seraganian found indications the program helps keep alcoholics off the bottle.
Before the recreation activities were introduced, 38% of Foster residents continued to abstain from drinking three months after rehabilitation. After the program began, 72% remained abstinent after three months. The average rate of abstinence for four other centres in the province was 37%.
Alnother study showed abstinence rates were consistently higher at Pavillon Foster than at other centres up to 18 months after treatment.
The researchers have not yet pinpointed why exercise helps, or even if this is the factor that gives Pavillon Foster better-than-average results, but graduate student David Sinyor suggests that exercise does lower anxiety levels, making residents more receptive to treatment.
MORE TESTS NEEDED
In the coming months the psychologists will look at whether exercise has any effect on the sugar metabolism of alcoholics. Alcoholics often have an impaired blood sugar regulating mechanism, Sinyor notes and fitness training has been found to alter blood sugar metabolism in non-alcoholics.
Brown, trim, dark and curly haired, has his own theories about the usefulness of exercise.
First, it gives staff an additional tool for assessing the newly-arrived patient. "Often a person at play is at his most uninhibited. If he has jerky or violent movements, for example, this gives us an insight into the way he relates to other people, or thinks about himself."
Brown also hopes the program provides residents with a means of self-expression. "They get a lot of one-to-one therapy and group discussion here to help them express their feelings, and recreation gives them another method of developing their human potential."
DON SAYS: A very interesting concept - exercise and fitness! AS WITH ANYTHING, KNOWLEDGE IS MOST IMPORTANT! The alcohol addict who sincerely wants to break the habit, dry out and face a confident future must commit themselves to listening and learning from those who have preceded them. To study, and learn! Soak everything up an forge ahead! It is an exhilarating voyage to lasting sobriety, and well worth the work entailed.
MONTREAL.
Every morning a group of men and women puff and strain their way through an hour of fitness exercises. Later they play a game of softball or volleyball, or go cross-country skkiing in winter, then do some gardening or wood chopping depending on the season.
This is no holiday camp for fitness fanatics, the participants are alcoholics taking part in a recreation program that has achieved encouraging results.
The program is offered at Pavillon Foster, an English-language, live-in treatment centre in the tiny village of St. Phillippe-de-LaPrairie, about 30 kilometers south of Montreal.
"Alcoholics are generally in terrible physical condition," says recreation director Tom Brown. They are often emaciated, or both malnourished and overweight, and have little body co-ordination since their muscles and nervous systems have deteriorated from lack of exercise.
Many suffer from liver and heart problems, brain damage or abnormal imbalances caused by chronic drinking.
Brown tests new patients on a bicycle machine, crammed in the corner of his tiny office and checks their heart rate. He usually finds them well below the average population in fitness.
FEELING BETTER:
After six weeks of good food and regular activity in the centre, "on a tangible meat and potatoes level, they walk out of here feeling better," and their fitness levels are up to normal.
But apart from this, a study conducted by Concordia University pschologist Peter Seraganian found indications the program helps keep alcoholics off the bottle.
Before the recreation activities were introduced, 38% of Foster residents continued to abstain from drinking three months after rehabilitation. After the program began, 72% remained abstinent after three months. The average rate of abstinence for four other centres in the province was 37%.
Alnother study showed abstinence rates were consistently higher at Pavillon Foster than at other centres up to 18 months after treatment.
The researchers have not yet pinpointed why exercise helps, or even if this is the factor that gives Pavillon Foster better-than-average results, but graduate student David Sinyor suggests that exercise does lower anxiety levels, making residents more receptive to treatment.
MORE TESTS NEEDED
In the coming months the psychologists will look at whether exercise has any effect on the sugar metabolism of alcoholics. Alcoholics often have an impaired blood sugar regulating mechanism, Sinyor notes and fitness training has been found to alter blood sugar metabolism in non-alcoholics.
Brown, trim, dark and curly haired, has his own theories about the usefulness of exercise.
First, it gives staff an additional tool for assessing the newly-arrived patient. "Often a person at play is at his most uninhibited. If he has jerky or violent movements, for example, this gives us an insight into the way he relates to other people, or thinks about himself."
Brown also hopes the program provides residents with a means of self-expression. "They get a lot of one-to-one therapy and group discussion here to help them express their feelings, and recreation gives them another method of developing their human potential."
DON SAYS: A very interesting concept - exercise and fitness! AS WITH ANYTHING, KNOWLEDGE IS MOST IMPORTANT! The alcohol addict who sincerely wants to break the habit, dry out and face a confident future must commit themselves to listening and learning from those who have preceded them. To study, and learn! Soak everything up an forge ahead! It is an exhilarating voyage to lasting sobriety, and well worth the work entailed.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
THE PAIN IN YOUR NECK IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD
The business executive who makes a telephone call with his fists unconsciously clenched and his jaw out-thrust and the secretary, who types all day with her knees pressed tightly together and her back arched are both suffering from the same thing: Tension. It is brought on by excessive use of muscles not really involved with their tasks at hand.
This point-that tension with all its physically and emotionally debilitating effects, is related to the prolonged contraction of extraneous muscles-was made repeatedly here by speakers at the initial meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Tension Control (AAATC).
Moreover, they emphasized their belief that tension starts in the brain with the issuance of commands to contract and hold contracted various muscle bundles throughout the body.
In short, that pain in the neck is all in your head.
If this is so, they argued, that people are the originators of their own tension, headaches and backaches, high blood pressure and various other ailments linked to tension, then they can also be the agents of their own recovery.
There were no magical cures, however, for tension revealed at this meeting. Speaker after speaker stressed the importance of self-awareness of the individual's muscle state and the absolute necessity of continued practice to master tension.
F. Joseph McGuigan, executive director of the AAATC and a professor of psychology at Hollins College in Roanoke, Va. said that a wide variety of techniques-including biofeedback and hypnosis and yoga-may be used to control tension and that the new association was not pushing any particular one.
However, most of the 150 psychologists, psychiatrists, physical therapists and physical educators who attended the meeting showed varying degrees of ideological indebtedness to Dr. Edmund Jacobson, an 86-year-old Chicago physician who has made tension and its control his life's work.
Jacobson's approach to the problem is basically educational in nature. Through a series of simple exercises, at first involving only the big muscles in the arms and legs, Jacobson helps the individual to recognize both the presence and the absence in muscles.
Through repetitive effort, the individual comes to recognize the signs of tension in his or her muscles and to concentrate on relaxing until those sensed signs evaporate. In many regards it is not unlike yoga.
Charles Beach, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University, and Thomas R. Burke, a psychologist with Hunter Collece in New York city, told the meeting about the usefulness of tension control techniques for athletes.
Beach, who has worked on tension control experiments for the past few years with Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitching star Mike Marshall, said that while an athlete must employ tension to compete successfully, the tension of muscles not directly needed for hitting baseball can be an impediment.
"Choking", said Beach of the anxieties that afflict some athletes at crucial mements in a game, "is simply a matter of too much muscular tension. Tlhe successful athlete uses the right muscles in the right sequence to do the job he's got to do."
Beach said that high school athletes who have successfully completed a tension control program run by himself and Marshall have reported that while they might not perform any better than they did before, they were able to block out such things as crowd noises and squelch butterflies in their stomachs at critical moments in the game.
Burke said that there was no conclusive proof of increased performance as a result of tension control techniques, but that he thought that calories not wasted by a long-distance runner in holdin his facial muscles in a grimace or his head cocked at an odd angle might be available to him later in the race, thus enabling him perhaps to run either farther or slightly faster.
But many physicians view with scepticism claims that tension control can master such physiological alilments as heart disease, hypertension (hi blood pressure) or ulcers. Although all of these illnesses have some element of tension or emotional stress in them, no one knows just what role it plays or what fraction of the illness it accounts for.
"Tension control is not a cure-all," McGuigan said in rebuttal, "and I would not want to represent it as that. But I do think we have impact on heart disease, hypertension and ulcers. To the extent that tension control reduces a person's tension, it reduces the effect of tension as a factor in these diseases."
TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: An extremely interesting concept. Perhaps in early life I could have controlled better my fight/flight condition in the world of big business. How wonderful if I had learned to handle the tension in the work place! Perhaps I would not have abused alcohol as much.
This point-that tension with all its physically and emotionally debilitating effects, is related to the prolonged contraction of extraneous muscles-was made repeatedly here by speakers at the initial meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Tension Control (AAATC).
Moreover, they emphasized their belief that tension starts in the brain with the issuance of commands to contract and hold contracted various muscle bundles throughout the body.
In short, that pain in the neck is all in your head.
If this is so, they argued, that people are the originators of their own tension, headaches and backaches, high blood pressure and various other ailments linked to tension, then they can also be the agents of their own recovery.
There were no magical cures, however, for tension revealed at this meeting. Speaker after speaker stressed the importance of self-awareness of the individual's muscle state and the absolute necessity of continued practice to master tension.
F. Joseph McGuigan, executive director of the AAATC and a professor of psychology at Hollins College in Roanoke, Va. said that a wide variety of techniques-including biofeedback and hypnosis and yoga-may be used to control tension and that the new association was not pushing any particular one.
However, most of the 150 psychologists, psychiatrists, physical therapists and physical educators who attended the meeting showed varying degrees of ideological indebtedness to Dr. Edmund Jacobson, an 86-year-old Chicago physician who has made tension and its control his life's work.
Jacobson's approach to the problem is basically educational in nature. Through a series of simple exercises, at first involving only the big muscles in the arms and legs, Jacobson helps the individual to recognize both the presence and the absence in muscles.
Through repetitive effort, the individual comes to recognize the signs of tension in his or her muscles and to concentrate on relaxing until those sensed signs evaporate. In many regards it is not unlike yoga.
Charles Beach, a doctoral candidate at Michigan State University, and Thomas R. Burke, a psychologist with Hunter Collece in New York city, told the meeting about the usefulness of tension control techniques for athletes.
Beach, who has worked on tension control experiments for the past few years with Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitching star Mike Marshall, said that while an athlete must employ tension to compete successfully, the tension of muscles not directly needed for hitting baseball can be an impediment.
"Choking", said Beach of the anxieties that afflict some athletes at crucial mements in a game, "is simply a matter of too much muscular tension. Tlhe successful athlete uses the right muscles in the right sequence to do the job he's got to do."
Beach said that high school athletes who have successfully completed a tension control program run by himself and Marshall have reported that while they might not perform any better than they did before, they were able to block out such things as crowd noises and squelch butterflies in their stomachs at critical moments in the game.
Burke said that there was no conclusive proof of increased performance as a result of tension control techniques, but that he thought that calories not wasted by a long-distance runner in holdin his facial muscles in a grimace or his head cocked at an odd angle might be available to him later in the race, thus enabling him perhaps to run either farther or slightly faster.
But many physicians view with scepticism claims that tension control can master such physiological alilments as heart disease, hypertension (hi blood pressure) or ulcers. Although all of these illnesses have some element of tension or emotional stress in them, no one knows just what role it plays or what fraction of the illness it accounts for.
"Tension control is not a cure-all," McGuigan said in rebuttal, "and I would not want to represent it as that. But I do think we have impact on heart disease, hypertension and ulcers. To the extent that tension control reduces a person's tension, it reduces the effect of tension as a factor in these diseases."
TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: An extremely interesting concept. Perhaps in early life I could have controlled better my fight/flight condition in the world of big business. How wonderful if I had learned to handle the tension in the work place! Perhaps I would not have abused alcohol as much.
MIDLIFE - A CRISIS FOR MEN
Male menopause is a real phenomenon and businesses must learn to deal with it, an organizational behavior researcher says in a recent issue of Business Horizons.
At least one man in four faces a severe crisis, wrote Michael E. McGill of Southern Methodist University's School of Business, citing personnel files with accounts of dramatic changes in the behaviour of managers.
Researchers are split over the cause of the mid-life crisis, which affects men between the ages of 40 and 60.
McGill said some men develop an "achievement-aspiration gap," assessing their achievements in light of unrealistically high goals. Others suddenly develop a need to fulfill childhood dreams forsaken in order to meet the demands of family, society or career.
The "empty nest" theory has it that the husband-father reaches a crisis when he sees his wife and children become less dependent on him and less subject to his influence as they become more active outside the home.
McGill said proponents of another theory called the "limits to life" feel the death of a friend or parent, a major illness or even an insurance physical can cause a man to see his own mortality of "the little time left."
"Physiological changes" which are a part of aging become threats, according to one theory, while another says reductions in work activity and family roles create a "role-status" crisis.
McGill said the seventh theory asserts that middle-aged men begin to see the stability they worked for as nothing more than stagnation and change their behaviours to regain a sense of adventure.
He said it is likely mid-life crisis comes from different sources for different men. He said businesses should first recognize when employees are going through the state, then make the workers realize their problem is not unique, and provide counselling.
DON SAYS; This hits home for the alcoholic! The forgoing article shows the case of a normal person going through all the different problems in life. Imagine having an alcohol dependency as well! Think of all the extra problems inherent for the poor guy! The problem should probably handled through counselling with a qualified person to talk to, and don't forget to take the wife along. She is in on all this too.
At least one man in four faces a severe crisis, wrote Michael E. McGill of Southern Methodist University's School of Business, citing personnel files with accounts of dramatic changes in the behaviour of managers.
Researchers are split over the cause of the mid-life crisis, which affects men between the ages of 40 and 60.
McGill said some men develop an "achievement-aspiration gap," assessing their achievements in light of unrealistically high goals. Others suddenly develop a need to fulfill childhood dreams forsaken in order to meet the demands of family, society or career.
The "empty nest" theory has it that the husband-father reaches a crisis when he sees his wife and children become less dependent on him and less subject to his influence as they become more active outside the home.
McGill said proponents of another theory called the "limits to life" feel the death of a friend or parent, a major illness or even an insurance physical can cause a man to see his own mortality of "the little time left."
"Physiological changes" which are a part of aging become threats, according to one theory, while another says reductions in work activity and family roles create a "role-status" crisis.
McGill said the seventh theory asserts that middle-aged men begin to see the stability they worked for as nothing more than stagnation and change their behaviours to regain a sense of adventure.
He said it is likely mid-life crisis comes from different sources for different men. He said businesses should first recognize when employees are going through the state, then make the workers realize their problem is not unique, and provide counselling.
DON SAYS; This hits home for the alcoholic! The forgoing article shows the case of a normal person going through all the different problems in life. Imagine having an alcohol dependency as well! Think of all the extra problems inherent for the poor guy! The problem should probably handled through counselling with a qualified person to talk to, and don't forget to take the wife along. She is in on all this too.
MALE, PAST 45? yOU'RE LIKELIER A BETTER LOVER
The middle-aged man may not be just getting older, he may be getting better as a lover, a Vancouver doctor said recently.
Dr. Peter Grantham, speaking at the world conference on family medicine at the Sheraton Centre on the so-called "male menopause," said doctors do not yet agree on whether there is such a thing. He called it the "pause that perplexes."
Are the changes in the glands or in the times?" he asked.
Family doctors do see a pattern of change in men aged 45 to 50, he said. Typical are sexual problems, depression, insomnia, forgetfulness, loss of confidence, signs of aging that include prostate and heart disease and skin changes.
Grantham said some doctors think these conditions are due to a decreasing amount of male hormones. Other doctors feel it is all a state of mind brought about by stresses of middle age, such as increasing fear of death, sexual boredom, menopause in their wives, rebellious children and job problems.
"But," he said, "most of us don't really know."
Nevertheless, he said, most men can be reassured if their doctors tell them that is normal for sexual activity at 50 to take more time. That, he said, may well be an advantage by making the man a better lover.
"The middle-aged man takes longer to come to climax, he has more staying power than a younger man, and his endurance is more sexually pleasurable for his partner," he said.
Impotence, he said, is not a normal condition. A man can expect sexual activity to be continued through life although less often. "The normal changes of aging partially alter the nature but should not reduce the enjoyment of sex."
"Age affects primarily your speed, not your power," he said. Fifty-year-old men he said, should keep themselves active, intellectually, phsically and sexually.
"Use it or you'll lose it applies to your muscles and brain as well," he said.
THE TORONTO STAR
DON SAYS: Very reassuring for old guys like me. At the ripe old age of 75, I still enjoy a satisfactory sex life with my life. Just imagine! The kids are gone, there is more time to do it, there is a compliant partner, with whom you communicate much better, especially after 50 years of marriage. We tend to lose our modesty to some extent, and the times of passion can be really great! As far as the physical body is concerned, I have prostate cancer, which is well under control, my hair is thinner, I am fatter, but if you and your partner are really in love as we are, we see each other as much younger, and trimmer, we overlook the bumps and sags, leading to a very pleasurable life. May it last forever!
Dr. Peter Grantham, speaking at the world conference on family medicine at the Sheraton Centre on the so-called "male menopause," said doctors do not yet agree on whether there is such a thing. He called it the "pause that perplexes."
Are the changes in the glands or in the times?" he asked.
Family doctors do see a pattern of change in men aged 45 to 50, he said. Typical are sexual problems, depression, insomnia, forgetfulness, loss of confidence, signs of aging that include prostate and heart disease and skin changes.
Grantham said some doctors think these conditions are due to a decreasing amount of male hormones. Other doctors feel it is all a state of mind brought about by stresses of middle age, such as increasing fear of death, sexual boredom, menopause in their wives, rebellious children and job problems.
"But," he said, "most of us don't really know."
Nevertheless, he said, most men can be reassured if their doctors tell them that is normal for sexual activity at 50 to take more time. That, he said, may well be an advantage by making the man a better lover.
"The middle-aged man takes longer to come to climax, he has more staying power than a younger man, and his endurance is more sexually pleasurable for his partner," he said.
Impotence, he said, is not a normal condition. A man can expect sexual activity to be continued through life although less often. "The normal changes of aging partially alter the nature but should not reduce the enjoyment of sex."
"Age affects primarily your speed, not your power," he said. Fifty-year-old men he said, should keep themselves active, intellectually, phsically and sexually.
"Use it or you'll lose it applies to your muscles and brain as well," he said.
THE TORONTO STAR
DON SAYS: Very reassuring for old guys like me. At the ripe old age of 75, I still enjoy a satisfactory sex life with my life. Just imagine! The kids are gone, there is more time to do it, there is a compliant partner, with whom you communicate much better, especially after 50 years of marriage. We tend to lose our modesty to some extent, and the times of passion can be really great! As far as the physical body is concerned, I have prostate cancer, which is well under control, my hair is thinner, I am fatter, but if you and your partner are really in love as we are, we see each other as much younger, and trimmer, we overlook the bumps and sags, leading to a very pleasurable life. May it last forever!
WHAT IS MATURITY?
MATURITY is the ability to control anger and settle differences without violence or destruction.
MATURITY is patience. It is the willingness to pass up immediate pleasure in favor of the long-term gain.
MATURITY is perseverance, the ability to sweat out a project or a situation in spite of heavy opposition and discouraging set-backs.
MATURITY is the capacity to face unpleasantness and frustration, discomfort and defeat, without complaint or collapse.
MATURITY is humility. It is being big enough to say "I was wrong." And when right the mature person need not experience the satisfaction of saying. "I told you so."
MATURITY is the ability to make a decision and stand by it. The immature spend their lives exploring endles possibilities, then they do nothing.
MATURITY means dependability, keeping one's word, coming through in a crisis. The immature are masters of the alibi. They are the confused and disorganized. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, former friends, unfinished business and good intentions that somehow never materialize.
MATURITY is the art of living in peace with that which we cannot change, the courage to change that which should be changed - and the wisdom to know the difference.
TORONTO STAR
DON SAYS: This is a take off of the Serenity Prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous. A wonderful prayer, no matter what the venue.
MATURITY is patience. It is the willingness to pass up immediate pleasure in favor of the long-term gain.
MATURITY is perseverance, the ability to sweat out a project or a situation in spite of heavy opposition and discouraging set-backs.
MATURITY is the capacity to face unpleasantness and frustration, discomfort and defeat, without complaint or collapse.
MATURITY is humility. It is being big enough to say "I was wrong." And when right the mature person need not experience the satisfaction of saying. "I told you so."
MATURITY is the ability to make a decision and stand by it. The immature spend their lives exploring endles possibilities, then they do nothing.
MATURITY means dependability, keeping one's word, coming through in a crisis. The immature are masters of the alibi. They are the confused and disorganized. Their lives are a maze of broken promises, former friends, unfinished business and good intentions that somehow never materialize.
MATURITY is the art of living in peace with that which we cannot change, the courage to change that which should be changed - and the wisdom to know the difference.
TORONTO STAR
DON SAYS: This is a take off of the Serenity Prayer from Alcoholics Anonymous. A wonderful prayer, no matter what the venue.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
EXECUTIVE HEALTH
"There are many myths about executives' health," says Dr. Harry Johnson, chairman of the medical board of the Life Extension Institute, New York. "People in the advertising business talk about the ulcer factories they work in, but studies show they have no more ulcers than any other executive group."
The business executive is generally in excellent health , better than average. "This executive has a better than average life expectancy, is stable, and is not overly tense," Dr Johnson says, adding that health exams show 75 percent of all executives are free of any significant disease.
But, Dr. Johnson points out, executives do have physical fitness problems. "About one-third of all executives have ten percent more weight than they should. They are physically lazy, and this is a health hazard they face.'
One of the degenerative diseases that has become a serious problem for executives is cirrhosis of the liver. "No doubt, alcohol is our Nation's No. 1 health problem" Dr. Johnson says. "We are seeing greater and greater consumption of alcohol by busines executives. It has become the major indoor sport for these people."
A recent survey of 8,200 executives showed that 23 percent were non-drinkers, Another 50 percent had one to two drinks per day, and 20 percent had three to four drinks per day. However, 5 percent admitted to having five to six drinks per day, and 2 percent had seven drinks or more per day.
Cirrhosis of the liver is difficult to detect before serious damage occurs. "When we tell them that someone drinking five, six or seven drinks a day is a problem drinker, they say they can quit any time. But they don't. Now, we can tell them that we are finding more and more cirrhosis of the liver, and that stems from excessive drinking. Hopefully, they'll begin to listen to that." He adds.
Addiction to alcohol in Canada is becoming an increasing problem in industry and commerce: both recognize their obligation to assist addicted employees, and addiction is accepted as a disease. These are some of the facts emerging from a research council survey.
Top level executives and industrial relations personnel in major companies from all parts of Canada participated in the survey. "One hundred percent of the respondents see addiction as treatable, a significant change of attitude over the past twenty years, when that figure might have been only 10 percent. The fact that addiction is now considered to be a disease by 59 percent is equally encouraging, as is the fact that 87 percent of the respondents stated industry had an oblgation to their problem drinking employees and that 94 percent believed such obligation should be shared by unions.
Asked whether alcohol or other drugs presented a problem within the company, 57 percent replied in the negative, and 41 percent in the affirmative.
Fifty-eight percent believed this problem to be greater among hourly rated employees, versus salaried employees.
OFFICE OVERLOAD MANAGEMENTIPS
DON SAYS: There seems to be a serious problem in industry and commerce, however the matter of alcoholism is being attended to and we look forward to overcoming the abuse of alcohol.
The business executive is generally in excellent health , better than average. "This executive has a better than average life expectancy, is stable, and is not overly tense," Dr Johnson says, adding that health exams show 75 percent of all executives are free of any significant disease.
But, Dr. Johnson points out, executives do have physical fitness problems. "About one-third of all executives have ten percent more weight than they should. They are physically lazy, and this is a health hazard they face.'
One of the degenerative diseases that has become a serious problem for executives is cirrhosis of the liver. "No doubt, alcohol is our Nation's No. 1 health problem" Dr. Johnson says. "We are seeing greater and greater consumption of alcohol by busines executives. It has become the major indoor sport for these people."
A recent survey of 8,200 executives showed that 23 percent were non-drinkers, Another 50 percent had one to two drinks per day, and 20 percent had three to four drinks per day. However, 5 percent admitted to having five to six drinks per day, and 2 percent had seven drinks or more per day.
Cirrhosis of the liver is difficult to detect before serious damage occurs. "When we tell them that someone drinking five, six or seven drinks a day is a problem drinker, they say they can quit any time. But they don't. Now, we can tell them that we are finding more and more cirrhosis of the liver, and that stems from excessive drinking. Hopefully, they'll begin to listen to that." He adds.
Addiction to alcohol in Canada is becoming an increasing problem in industry and commerce: both recognize their obligation to assist addicted employees, and addiction is accepted as a disease. These are some of the facts emerging from a research council survey.
Top level executives and industrial relations personnel in major companies from all parts of Canada participated in the survey. "One hundred percent of the respondents see addiction as treatable, a significant change of attitude over the past twenty years, when that figure might have been only 10 percent. The fact that addiction is now considered to be a disease by 59 percent is equally encouraging, as is the fact that 87 percent of the respondents stated industry had an oblgation to their problem drinking employees and that 94 percent believed such obligation should be shared by unions.
Asked whether alcohol or other drugs presented a problem within the company, 57 percent replied in the negative, and 41 percent in the affirmative.
Fifty-eight percent believed this problem to be greater among hourly rated employees, versus salaried employees.
OFFICE OVERLOAD MANAGEMENTIPS
DON SAYS: There seems to be a serious problem in industry and commerce, however the matter of alcoholism is being attended to and we look forward to overcoming the abuse of alcohol.
MIDDLE- AGED MEN HAPPY IN NEW JOBS
Middle -aged men who change jobs find themselves happier, depspite the financial risks, a preliminary University of Connecticut study claims.
The researchers said the majority of the men interviewed said they took substantial financial risks in changing jobs, but virtually all said it was worthwhile.
The reasearchers said when they began their study they had expected to see a large number of divorces among their subjects, but the 75 interviews that made up the study showed the opposite.
Among the career changes studied were a systems analyst who became a kindergarten teacher, an engineer who bought a book store, a businessman who became a college professor, a stock broker who became an inn-keeper, and a data processing manager who joined the clergy.
Paula Robbins, a project researcher said the study found that the men's marriages benefited from the upheaval. "In most cases the change seemed to be very much a 'we' rather than an 'I' effort," she said.
She said in many cases the men switched jobs to be able to spend more time with their families and that most men said they made the changes after evaluating their lives and desires.
DON SAYS: This is exactly why I changed my job at the bank to various other occupations.
I found that my old job held too much connection with my pattern of drinking, so I left to find a kindlier occupation.
The researchers said the majority of the men interviewed said they took substantial financial risks in changing jobs, but virtually all said it was worthwhile.
The reasearchers said when they began their study they had expected to see a large number of divorces among their subjects, but the 75 interviews that made up the study showed the opposite.
Among the career changes studied were a systems analyst who became a kindergarten teacher, an engineer who bought a book store, a businessman who became a college professor, a stock broker who became an inn-keeper, and a data processing manager who joined the clergy.
Paula Robbins, a project researcher said the study found that the men's marriages benefited from the upheaval. "In most cases the change seemed to be very much a 'we' rather than an 'I' effort," she said.
She said in many cases the men switched jobs to be able to spend more time with their families and that most men said they made the changes after evaluating their lives and desires.
DON SAYS: This is exactly why I changed my job at the bank to various other occupations.
I found that my old job held too much connection with my pattern of drinking, so I left to find a kindlier occupation.
TURN YOUR BACK?
There is the ominously empty bottle.
There is the unconscious figure slumped across a sofa.
There is someone who is an alcoholic.
And though it is your own husband or wife or mother or father, you are agonizingly unable to do anything to help.
Where can you turn?
After you've tried your doctor, clergyman or Alcoholics Anonymous, a new book, The Alcoholic In Your Life, suggests another alternative - TURN YOUR BACK!
"When it is apparent no amount of aid is going to turn the tide", writes Jo Coudert, a writer-editor specializing in psychology, "must a strong life be sacrificed to prolong an enfeebled one? I think not. I think the choice must be made and that it must be to save the healthiest. Anything else is waste compounded."
It's a shocking point of view - but Miss Coudert speaks from unhappy experience. She's the daughter of an alcoholic mother, and she's spent 18 years nursing, coaxing, pleading, scolding. All wasted.
At the age of 25 Miss Coudert gave it up. She and her mother never lived together again although her mother lived another 20 years.
"One person can provide for another the climate for change, the courage for change, and the incentive to change," she says, "but when change still doesn't come, you must accept the alcoholic's drinking - or leave.
"It's a terribly human thing to try to do it, but you just can't save someone else," she says. "People save themselves or the're not saved.
"THE TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: A shocking and provocative solution, but necessary for the sanity of the family. Of course every avenue must be taken to try everything possible, including enlisting the family doctor or a psychiatrist to help in the situation. I personally lived with my mother, (who with her husband adopted me at 18 months) wh0 was manic depressive. The burden on her husband and I became intolerable, and I left home at the age of 20 years and moved out of town. Partially this was done to get away from an unhappy series of depressive bouts, hospitalization, and suicide attempts by my mother. Did I do right? God only knows.
There is the unconscious figure slumped across a sofa.
There is someone who is an alcoholic.
And though it is your own husband or wife or mother or father, you are agonizingly unable to do anything to help.
Where can you turn?
After you've tried your doctor, clergyman or Alcoholics Anonymous, a new book, The Alcoholic In Your Life, suggests another alternative - TURN YOUR BACK!
"When it is apparent no amount of aid is going to turn the tide", writes Jo Coudert, a writer-editor specializing in psychology, "must a strong life be sacrificed to prolong an enfeebled one? I think not. I think the choice must be made and that it must be to save the healthiest. Anything else is waste compounded."
It's a shocking point of view - but Miss Coudert speaks from unhappy experience. She's the daughter of an alcoholic mother, and she's spent 18 years nursing, coaxing, pleading, scolding. All wasted.
At the age of 25 Miss Coudert gave it up. She and her mother never lived together again although her mother lived another 20 years.
"One person can provide for another the climate for change, the courage for change, and the incentive to change," she says, "but when change still doesn't come, you must accept the alcoholic's drinking - or leave.
"It's a terribly human thing to try to do it, but you just can't save someone else," she says. "People save themselves or the're not saved.
"THE TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: A shocking and provocative solution, but necessary for the sanity of the family. Of course every avenue must be taken to try everything possible, including enlisting the family doctor or a psychiatrist to help in the situation. I personally lived with my mother, (who with her husband adopted me at 18 months) wh0 was manic depressive. The burden on her husband and I became intolerable, and I left home at the age of 20 years and moved out of town. Partially this was done to get away from an unhappy series of depressive bouts, hospitalization, and suicide attempts by my mother. Did I do right? God only knows.
Monday, January 19, 2009
ODD BINGE CAN DAMAGE MODERATE DRINKERS HEART
That New Year's Eve party or that drinking binge every now and then may be damaging to your heart even if your over-all consumption of alcoholic beverages is moderate, a study says.
The finding is an important warning in light of recent evidence that mild drinking may help prevent heart disease, said researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Their report was presented to the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Miami Beach, Fla.
"While there seems to be a protective effect of alcohol at moderate levels, it is probably countered by drinking occasional large amounts," said Dr. Harvey Gruchow, the biostatistician who headed the study.
"Our study suggests this 'binge effect' is independent of total consumption. The crucial variable is not so much how much they're drinking as the difference between what they usually drink and the amount they drink on these special occasions."
Several recent studies have shown that moderate drinking seems for unknown reasons to be associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
These studies, however, have measured only the over-all consumption of alcohol, not drinking habits, Gruchow said.
To see whether drinking habits mattered, researchers examined the drinking history of 225 men who underwent a procedure called coronary angiography.
This is used to measure the amount of blockage in the arteries that supply blood to the heart. A measure of the severity of heart disease, it is commonly used to tell whether heart patients need surgery.
Ninety-six of the men were classified as "binge" drinkers, meaning that every now and then - less often than once a week, they drank more than usual, and that this amount exceeded the equivelent of five ounces of pure alcohol.
Five ounces is the amount of alcohol in about eight mixed drinks, or six beers, or a bottle and a half of wine.
The researchers found that those who drank much more on a "binge" night than on a normal night tended to have more heart disease.
For example, men on a binge who drank three times their normal amount had 50 percent more heart blockage than those whose binges involved drinking only about twice the normal amount.
A similar relationship prevailed for other drinking levels.
Despite studies linking moderate drinking to low heart risk, doctors do not advise non-drinkers to imbibe, since drinking has other health risks, including esophageal cancer and liver disease.
Gruchow said his study reiforces the earlier ones but adds the warning that "moderate drinking" means regular drinking of small amounts, not occasional drinking of large amounts.
THE TORONTO STAR
DON SAYS: In other words, it makes much more sense to drink NOTHING AT ALL!
The finding is an important warning in light of recent evidence that mild drinking may help prevent heart disease, said researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Their report was presented to the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Miami Beach, Fla.
"While there seems to be a protective effect of alcohol at moderate levels, it is probably countered by drinking occasional large amounts," said Dr. Harvey Gruchow, the biostatistician who headed the study.
"Our study suggests this 'binge effect' is independent of total consumption. The crucial variable is not so much how much they're drinking as the difference between what they usually drink and the amount they drink on these special occasions."
Several recent studies have shown that moderate drinking seems for unknown reasons to be associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
These studies, however, have measured only the over-all consumption of alcohol, not drinking habits, Gruchow said.
To see whether drinking habits mattered, researchers examined the drinking history of 225 men who underwent a procedure called coronary angiography.
This is used to measure the amount of blockage in the arteries that supply blood to the heart. A measure of the severity of heart disease, it is commonly used to tell whether heart patients need surgery.
Ninety-six of the men were classified as "binge" drinkers, meaning that every now and then - less often than once a week, they drank more than usual, and that this amount exceeded the equivelent of five ounces of pure alcohol.
Five ounces is the amount of alcohol in about eight mixed drinks, or six beers, or a bottle and a half of wine.
The researchers found that those who drank much more on a "binge" night than on a normal night tended to have more heart disease.
For example, men on a binge who drank three times their normal amount had 50 percent more heart blockage than those whose binges involved drinking only about twice the normal amount.
A similar relationship prevailed for other drinking levels.
Despite studies linking moderate drinking to low heart risk, doctors do not advise non-drinkers to imbibe, since drinking has other health risks, including esophageal cancer and liver disease.
Gruchow said his study reiforces the earlier ones but adds the warning that "moderate drinking" means regular drinking of small amounts, not occasional drinking of large amounts.
THE TORONTO STAR
DON SAYS: In other words, it makes much more sense to drink NOTHING AT ALL!
PSYCHIATRY - MAKE IT WORK FOR YOU
Psychiatry helps a patient air his conflicts.
It is not always possible to say with certainty who needs psychiatric help and who does not. The assistance will not hurt. It can speed up recovery from a nervous breakdown, and it can prevent the breakdown from happening in the first place.
Psychiatry does its work by giving the patient an opportunity to ventilate his conflicts. Psychoanalysts call this catharsis - the act of overcoming your conflicts by taking them out of your system. In a way, each patient cures himself.
It would be impossible to estimate the many thousands who commit what might be called "psychic suicide".
A friend told me of a young doctor who had been disappointed in love. Despite warnings by other physicians, he refused to slow up. He insisted that he had no alternative.
When he began to complain of pain in the region of his heart, it was too late. A fatal heart attack brought the career of this brilliant young man to an end. He was an example of psychic suicide.
You must determine that if you ever find yourself, now or in the future, turning to an excess of anything - work, play, liquor, food, gambling, or other irresponsible behavior - you will recognize it for what it is; An escape from life, a form of psychic suicide. And you will get to the reason underneath.
No one is ever going to have the perfect life. If they did, it would be too glassy smooth to be interesting. So do not run from life but view complications as interesting puzzles and pride yourself on being able to solve them.
Here are some suggestions that can guide you in life;
1.k Never be without a project or goal that you can work toward.
2. Do not let an emotional problem sit there on your shoulders, becoming like the proverbial monkey on you back. Talk it over with a friend or let a competent psychiatrist help you.
3. No matter how bad things seem, learn to count your blessings each morning.
4. Tell yourself that you can survive all life's adversities.
5. Every time you find yourself guilty of negative thinking, take the same statement and reword it into a positive statment of how you are going to handle a problem or how you are going to rise above it.
6. Form the habit of becoming useful to others.
7. Have a physical checkup at least once a year and then do whatever your doctor suggests without making a big thing of it and broadcasting your medical reports to the world.
8. Take one vacation - and two if you can - every year. Enjoy life. Learn to laugh.
9. Be sensible about the number of hours you work. Write out your schedule every day and provide entertainment and self-rewards.
10. Always be involved with two books - one that you are reading and the other one that you are going to read.
11. Make self-improvement a lifetime goal - in physical appearance, social graces, speech improvement, cultural pursuits and additional acquired knowledge in your professional field.
12. Never stand aloof from people. Never hesitate to strike up conversations with strangers.
Those are the even dozen guidelines - and sometimes lifelines - that I give to my patients and friends. If you use them you may still not dance a jig every day, but you will not be crying the blues either. New contentment will be yours.
Two final thoughts.
First, remember that what you do now is up to you. Do not wait for others to lead you by the hand or make you welcome.
Second. Consider an old Chinese proverb: "You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair".
DR. FRANK S. CAPRIO AND FRANCES SPATZ LEIGHTON
FROM THE TORONTO DAILY STAR.
DON SAYS: Quite inspiring, and I am going to read it every morning before I start my routine! This is wonderful outline for living your life. GO FOR IT!
APPEARANCES
Let not appearances deceive you,
They are merely shadows of a mirage
Having little to do with the heart.
Seek not wholeness outside yourself,
For it swells from one's own centre
Like the blossom from the bulb.
Struggle not against your sadness,
Its currents will carry you
To Wisdom's haven.
Seek not from another that which
Only you can give yourself.
Peace is not another's to bestow.
Each must create his own.
Contend not to comprehend.
Your mind will unveil the answer,
When you are ready.
Seek not from another
That which is not his to give.
Fulfillment is an inner knowing,
Not an outer gift.
ANONYMOUS (a Donwood patient)
DON SAYS: Deep and self explanatory. Read it a couple of times, and it will get to you.
They are merely shadows of a mirage
Having little to do with the heart.
Seek not wholeness outside yourself,
For it swells from one's own centre
Like the blossom from the bulb.
Struggle not against your sadness,
Its currents will carry you
To Wisdom's haven.
Seek not from another that which
Only you can give yourself.
Peace is not another's to bestow.
Each must create his own.
Contend not to comprehend.
Your mind will unveil the answer,
When you are ready.
Seek not from another
That which is not his to give.
Fulfillment is an inner knowing,
Not an outer gift.
ANONYMOUS (a Donwood patient)
DON SAYS: Deep and self explanatory. Read it a couple of times, and it will get to you.
DRUNKEN PEDESTRIANS CAUSE CRASHES
Society has too long ignored the role of drunken pedestrians in causing severe highway crashes, according to Prof. Julian Waller of the University of Vermont.
"Ingestion of alcohol by pedestrians is an important factor in severe highway crashes, just as alcohol is important in the injury of drivers and their passengers, Prof. Waller reports in "California Medicine".
Prof. Waller points out 20 percent of all highway fatalities in the U.S. (the majority in some urban areas) are pedestrians, and about 50 percent fatally injured adult pedestrians have high blood alcohol concentrations.
"In most such fatalities involving alcohol, the pedestrian, rather than the driver is responsible for iniating the crash," he says.
In addition, almost half of fatally injured adult passengers have alcohol in their systems: "When both fatally injured drivers and their passengers have been tested, they have been found in most cases to have limilar blood alcohol concentrations."
Alcohol is also a significant factor in crashes causing property damage and minor injuries, and can be blamed for the deaths of an estimated 25-40% percent innocent victims, he says.
With such data available, Prof. Waller deplores the common erroneous statement that half of all highway fatalities are caused by drinking drivers. "
There must be less emphasis in implicating drinking per se, and more on implicating drinking sufficient to cause impairment.
He points out the majority of drinkers consume less than three drinks at one sitting and do not usually have crashes involving alcohol. Of those that do have trouble on the highway because of alcohol, two thirds are serious problem drinkers and most of the remainder are teenagers (inexperienced at both drinking and driving) and "very heavy social drinkers".
Prof. Waller would encourage "recognition that the basic goal of highway safety is reducing losses, rather than changing presumed or documented unsafe behaviaor" and suggest it may be done "by moderating energy transfer in crashes through changes in vehicle and highway consturction, and by providing better emergency care for the injured.
THE JOURNAL
DON SAYS: Some of the statistics are quite interesting. How do we however, regulate the walking alcoholic. It would be hard to handle from that angle, and we suppose better regulation of rules of the road and the construction thereon is the best way to go.
DON
"Ingestion of alcohol by pedestrians is an important factor in severe highway crashes, just as alcohol is important in the injury of drivers and their passengers, Prof. Waller reports in "California Medicine".
Prof. Waller points out 20 percent of all highway fatalities in the U.S. (the majority in some urban areas) are pedestrians, and about 50 percent fatally injured adult pedestrians have high blood alcohol concentrations.
"In most such fatalities involving alcohol, the pedestrian, rather than the driver is responsible for iniating the crash," he says.
In addition, almost half of fatally injured adult passengers have alcohol in their systems: "When both fatally injured drivers and their passengers have been tested, they have been found in most cases to have limilar blood alcohol concentrations."
Alcohol is also a significant factor in crashes causing property damage and minor injuries, and can be blamed for the deaths of an estimated 25-40% percent innocent victims, he says.
With such data available, Prof. Waller deplores the common erroneous statement that half of all highway fatalities are caused by drinking drivers. "
There must be less emphasis in implicating drinking per se, and more on implicating drinking sufficient to cause impairment.
He points out the majority of drinkers consume less than three drinks at one sitting and do not usually have crashes involving alcohol. Of those that do have trouble on the highway because of alcohol, two thirds are serious problem drinkers and most of the remainder are teenagers (inexperienced at both drinking and driving) and "very heavy social drinkers".
Prof. Waller would encourage "recognition that the basic goal of highway safety is reducing losses, rather than changing presumed or documented unsafe behaviaor" and suggest it may be done "by moderating energy transfer in crashes through changes in vehicle and highway consturction, and by providing better emergency care for the injured.
THE JOURNAL
DON SAYS: Some of the statistics are quite interesting. How do we however, regulate the walking alcoholic. It would be hard to handle from that angle, and we suppose better regulation of rules of the road and the construction thereon is the best way to go.
DON
LOVE CAN BE AN ADDICTION
Michael and Joanna became lovers while he was in his third year of university and she was in her first. Neither had ever had a love before. Whenever possible they spent their time together. They isolated themselves from their friends. They supported each other in conflicts with their families. After a few years they married and moved to another city.
There their social and political life became more active. They both began careers. They no longer needed each other as much. Michael felt free of the situations that made him feel inadequate. Joanna grew more confident and found that she didn't need a dominant man to direct her actions and her feelings. Their marriage ended immediately after Joanna revealed she had been having an affair.
People can become addicted to other people in the same way they become addicted to drugs, say psychologists Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky. They came to this conclusion after studying the addiction process and looking at many relationships that ended, like Michael's and Joanna's, in separation or in a therapist's files.
By addiction, Peele and Brodsky mean the classic semi-physiological syndrome characterized by tolerance and withdrawal. A person has built up a tolerance when he requires larger and larger doses of a substance in order to obtain the desired effect. Withdrawal is the body's traumatic readjustment to a drugless state. Most agonizing, apparently, is an intangible feeling that something central is missing from the addict's body and his existance.
That concept of addiction - as an physical dependence - had been refined to include a largely psychic dependence. The biochemical aspect of addiction is only half of the story. The other half is that addiction can be self- induced. A person may use drugs, for example, to give structure to his life and to secure him from changes and challenges.
As a person becomes more involved with a drug, he becomes more dependent on the reassurance it offers. As a result he becomes less able to deal with the problems and uncertainties that made the drug desirable in the first place. Eventually he reaches a point where he can't be deprived of this source of reassurance without considerable trauma.
If addiction is more mental than physiological, then many things other than drugs can be addictive. Anything that is repetitive, safe, predictable and sufficiently consuming will do.
The most prevalent form of addiction, say Peele and Brodsky, one that touches all our lives to some degree, is interpersonal addiction - addiction to someone we love or think we love.
An addictive relationship is a single overwhelming involvement. For addicted lovers, the relationship becomes paramount. It becomes their only point of certainty.
They may let go of other interests and activities. They use each other to fill the emptiness in themselves, and each begrudges any form of the other's personal growth. They are not together for mutual growth or self-expression, but for comfort and familiarity. Eventually they reach a tolerance for each other. Addictive relationships are ultimately self-destructive.
A mature not-addictive relationship, on the other hand, involves a desire to grow and expand through the relationship.
Mature lovers are improved by their relationship; they are stronger, more accomplished, more sensitive individuals. They maintain serious interests outside the relationship - including other meaningful personal relationships. They are friends as well as lovers, and each has a strong belief in his own value.
This concept of love as an addiction provides a useful means of self-examination. It is a way of distinguishing love from the destructive exploitation of self and others that often masquerades as love.
DR. SHEILA WILLSON
TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: This is a decidedly different outlook on addiction. The article made me pause and look at my own relationship with my wife, in our fiftieth year of marriage. I have often said to her "I am addicted to you, body and soul." In my case it is a good addiction, because over the years we have managed to lead seperate lives, me with my occupations and writing, as well as hobbies. We both do Civil War Reenacting, I write, she belongs to the Sweet Adelines, a singing group as well as running cross country skiing groups in both Orillia and Barrie. I volunteer at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie. We do a lot of things together, and a lot apart. We are seperate entities, off on our own paths, coming back home at night to share our day's works. Ours is a constructive addiction, and I recommend it to anyone.
There their social and political life became more active. They both began careers. They no longer needed each other as much. Michael felt free of the situations that made him feel inadequate. Joanna grew more confident and found that she didn't need a dominant man to direct her actions and her feelings. Their marriage ended immediately after Joanna revealed she had been having an affair.
People can become addicted to other people in the same way they become addicted to drugs, say psychologists Stanton Peele and Archie Brodsky. They came to this conclusion after studying the addiction process and looking at many relationships that ended, like Michael's and Joanna's, in separation or in a therapist's files.
By addiction, Peele and Brodsky mean the classic semi-physiological syndrome characterized by tolerance and withdrawal. A person has built up a tolerance when he requires larger and larger doses of a substance in order to obtain the desired effect. Withdrawal is the body's traumatic readjustment to a drugless state. Most agonizing, apparently, is an intangible feeling that something central is missing from the addict's body and his existance.
That concept of addiction - as an physical dependence - had been refined to include a largely psychic dependence. The biochemical aspect of addiction is only half of the story. The other half is that addiction can be self- induced. A person may use drugs, for example, to give structure to his life and to secure him from changes and challenges.
As a person becomes more involved with a drug, he becomes more dependent on the reassurance it offers. As a result he becomes less able to deal with the problems and uncertainties that made the drug desirable in the first place. Eventually he reaches a point where he can't be deprived of this source of reassurance without considerable trauma.
If addiction is more mental than physiological, then many things other than drugs can be addictive. Anything that is repetitive, safe, predictable and sufficiently consuming will do.
The most prevalent form of addiction, say Peele and Brodsky, one that touches all our lives to some degree, is interpersonal addiction - addiction to someone we love or think we love.
An addictive relationship is a single overwhelming involvement. For addicted lovers, the relationship becomes paramount. It becomes their only point of certainty.
They may let go of other interests and activities. They use each other to fill the emptiness in themselves, and each begrudges any form of the other's personal growth. They are not together for mutual growth or self-expression, but for comfort and familiarity. Eventually they reach a tolerance for each other. Addictive relationships are ultimately self-destructive.
A mature not-addictive relationship, on the other hand, involves a desire to grow and expand through the relationship.
Mature lovers are improved by their relationship; they are stronger, more accomplished, more sensitive individuals. They maintain serious interests outside the relationship - including other meaningful personal relationships. They are friends as well as lovers, and each has a strong belief in his own value.
This concept of love as an addiction provides a useful means of self-examination. It is a way of distinguishing love from the destructive exploitation of self and others that often masquerades as love.
DR. SHEILA WILLSON
TORONTO DAILY STAR
DON SAYS: This is a decidedly different outlook on addiction. The article made me pause and look at my own relationship with my wife, in our fiftieth year of marriage. I have often said to her "I am addicted to you, body and soul." In my case it is a good addiction, because over the years we have managed to lead seperate lives, me with my occupations and writing, as well as hobbies. We both do Civil War Reenacting, I write, she belongs to the Sweet Adelines, a singing group as well as running cross country skiing groups in both Orillia and Barrie. I volunteer at Royal Victoria Hospital in Barrie. We do a lot of things together, and a lot apart. We are seperate entities, off on our own paths, coming back home at night to share our day's works. Ours is a constructive addiction, and I recommend it to anyone.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
DEAR GROUP
Don't leave me,
Don't forget me,
Don't ignore me.
That's why I'm here - everyone rejected me,
except my killer friend, the bottle.
You know, group, I'm out here, and I need
you, and I need you to need me. I may not
say it, look it, or act it, but it is hell to be
left alone.
If you could only hear my silent plea!
I know you have your own recovery
problems and I don't really want to bother
you with mine, but if you could spare one
moment to tell me you care, that I am an
asset to the group,
To your recovery,
To somebody.
You would light the light which would
kindle the glimmer of hope that I might
someday be whole again.
I have looked at each of you, and I have
longed to put my arm around you, to
comfort you.
To be somebody if only for a moment, but
alas, I am not far enough along in my
recovery to be that secure, but please,
don't forsake me, wait for me,
I'm coming.
ANONYMOUS
DON SAYS:
I see and feel the pain of this recovering addict. He or she wrote this anonymously to me for the Donwood newsletter back in the 70's, and I never did find out who they were. I only hope that they found what they were looking for, and have found the peace they so desperately needed.
Don't forget me,
Don't ignore me.
That's why I'm here - everyone rejected me,
except my killer friend, the bottle.
You know, group, I'm out here, and I need
you, and I need you to need me. I may not
say it, look it, or act it, but it is hell to be
left alone.
If you could only hear my silent plea!
I know you have your own recovery
problems and I don't really want to bother
you with mine, but if you could spare one
moment to tell me you care, that I am an
asset to the group,
To your recovery,
To somebody.
You would light the light which would
kindle the glimmer of hope that I might
someday be whole again.
I have looked at each of you, and I have
longed to put my arm around you, to
comfort you.
To be somebody if only for a moment, but
alas, I am not far enough along in my
recovery to be that secure, but please,
don't forsake me, wait for me,
I'm coming.
ANONYMOUS
DON SAYS:
I see and feel the pain of this recovering addict. He or she wrote this anonymously to me for the Donwood newsletter back in the 70's, and I never did find out who they were. I only hope that they found what they were looking for, and have found the peace they so desperately needed.
SELF CONTROL
iS THERE NOTHING SACRED?
Is there nothing left in life that I can abuse? First there was drinking, which I quit 8 years ago because of the trouble it caused me, and the sad state of affairs in my life then. Then it was smoking, which I gave up 7 years ago because I didn't enjoy it if I couldn't drink. Now it is my size!
Having hit the rather grand weight of 240 lbs., which frankly scared me, it was decided (by me) that I would have to go on a diet.
You will probably know how important eating is for the recovering alcoholic. It is a supremely enjoyable pastime. It is also most important because it is the last thing that one can abuse, without a nasty hangover, and a feeling of shame and remorse.
Odd jibes from my wife, and comments from friends that I seemed to be getting larger every day, did not deter me from enjoying seven slices of bread a day, along with five cokes , with full sugar, and all forms of food heavily laden with calories. I went merrily along and over the period of the past five years put on an additional 25 pounds.
With self-righteous indignation I regularly told my wife to go to the blazes, and my friends to mind their own business whenever they mentioned my expanding mid-section.
Until, alas I hit the magic number of "240". Recently I had been finding myself short of breath, and unable to last very long bending over in the garden without getting dizzy spells. It was time to do something! But, to give up my beloved eating! That would be Hell on earth - or so I thought.
Actually, it was easy. Six weeks ago I started a strict diet with my doctor's blesing, took off eight pounds in the first two weeks, and two pounds each week following, until I am now down to a much more comfortable 224 pounds. Now, I still don't look like Charles Atlas, there is still 30 pounds to take off, but I can see my feet again,bend over without straining, and, miracle of miracles, I can run up the subway stairs at Finch without feeling weak, puffing for air, without heart racing.
The thing that surprised me the most was the ease with which I started, and maintained the diet. Also I feel confident that I will keep to it.! But where would an ex drunk like me get all this magical will-power? In retrospect I believe that I learned it at the Donwood Institute. I learned to overcome my addiction, and in doing so learned that I was strong enough to control my own destiny (waist-line) if I chose to!
I believe that anyone who can overcome drinking to excess, can do anything humanly possible on the earth. We from the Donwood learn to control our urges, do what we want to in life, not what our bodies urge us to do. We are the bosses of our own individual destinies, and to Hell with anything or anyone else that gets in the way of our well-being, be it physical, or a healthy mental attitudes.
So I am now not surprised at my ability to stick to a diet, for I am master of myself and nothing can ever change that attitude except a drink.
That is what I learned at the Donwood.
DON FELSTEAD
DON SAYS: This was written in the 1970s, and it is now 2008. My weight has bounced around the figure of 205, and I haven't had a drink since 1969. I feel good about myself, and I know the gentle reader could do the same.
Is there nothing left in life that I can abuse? First there was drinking, which I quit 8 years ago because of the trouble it caused me, and the sad state of affairs in my life then. Then it was smoking, which I gave up 7 years ago because I didn't enjoy it if I couldn't drink. Now it is my size!
Having hit the rather grand weight of 240 lbs., which frankly scared me, it was decided (by me) that I would have to go on a diet.
You will probably know how important eating is for the recovering alcoholic. It is a supremely enjoyable pastime. It is also most important because it is the last thing that one can abuse, without a nasty hangover, and a feeling of shame and remorse.
Odd jibes from my wife, and comments from friends that I seemed to be getting larger every day, did not deter me from enjoying seven slices of bread a day, along with five cokes , with full sugar, and all forms of food heavily laden with calories. I went merrily along and over the period of the past five years put on an additional 25 pounds.
With self-righteous indignation I regularly told my wife to go to the blazes, and my friends to mind their own business whenever they mentioned my expanding mid-section.
Until, alas I hit the magic number of "240". Recently I had been finding myself short of breath, and unable to last very long bending over in the garden without getting dizzy spells. It was time to do something! But, to give up my beloved eating! That would be Hell on earth - or so I thought.
Actually, it was easy. Six weeks ago I started a strict diet with my doctor's blesing, took off eight pounds in the first two weeks, and two pounds each week following, until I am now down to a much more comfortable 224 pounds. Now, I still don't look like Charles Atlas, there is still 30 pounds to take off, but I can see my feet again,bend over without straining, and, miracle of miracles, I can run up the subway stairs at Finch without feeling weak, puffing for air, without heart racing.
The thing that surprised me the most was the ease with which I started, and maintained the diet. Also I feel confident that I will keep to it.! But where would an ex drunk like me get all this magical will-power? In retrospect I believe that I learned it at the Donwood Institute. I learned to overcome my addiction, and in doing so learned that I was strong enough to control my own destiny (waist-line) if I chose to!
I believe that anyone who can overcome drinking to excess, can do anything humanly possible on the earth. We from the Donwood learn to control our urges, do what we want to in life, not what our bodies urge us to do. We are the bosses of our own individual destinies, and to Hell with anything or anyone else that gets in the way of our well-being, be it physical, or a healthy mental attitudes.
So I am now not surprised at my ability to stick to a diet, for I am master of myself and nothing can ever change that attitude except a drink.
That is what I learned at the Donwood.
DON FELSTEAD
DON SAYS: This was written in the 1970s, and it is now 2008. My weight has bounced around the figure of 205, and I haven't had a drink since 1969. I feel good about myself, and I know the gentle reader could do the same.
YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW
There are two days in every week about which it is useless to worry:
One is YESTERDAY with it's mistakes and faults and blunders:
The other is TOMORROW: It too is beyond our control. Tomorrow's sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds - but it will rise.
That leaves TODAY and usually our present trials are easier to bear than remorse for what happened yesterday, or ahead to what tomorrow may bring.
Let us therefore, journey but one day at a time.
ANON
One is YESTERDAY with it's mistakes and faults and blunders:
The other is TOMORROW: It too is beyond our control. Tomorrow's sun will rise either in splendor or behind a mask of clouds - but it will rise.
That leaves TODAY and usually our present trials are easier to bear than remorse for what happened yesterday, or ahead to what tomorrow may bring.
Let us therefore, journey but one day at a time.
ANON
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
LUNCH IN A BAR
I had lunch in a bar recently.
Since I quit drinking I don't go there often, but when my friends or business aquaintances go there, I tag along.
A quarter to noon.
A very dark bar, and it smells like every other bar. Booze, cigarette smoke, a smell of rancid dampness.
I order a coke - a dirty look from the waitress. They don't want to sell just coke. Just the hard stuff - that's where it's at. The profit.
Five minutes to twelve. A little man in a dark suit comes in and sits in the corner. Works in an office somewhere. He is restless, eyes bloodshot, a slight quiver. Nervous. Noon.
He orders a beer. Has to drink with two hands. Some small sign of relief in sight.
Another beer. Really starting to relax.
Third beer. Drinking slower now. The world is coming into perspective. He relaxes more.
There is a warm glow coming on. The muscles start to relax, the inner shakes are going away. The face starts to smile.
Can forget last night now. The blur of bars, lights, loud sounds. The long woozy drive home, the quick look outside, is the car there? Any blood, dents? No.
The cold hard disapproval of the hurt wife.
The children are in bed. Haven't seen them for several days now. Too late getting home at night, unable to face them in the morning.
The cold meal and the loneliness, and the dropping off into a fitful sleep for a couple of hours. The awakening into those awful cold sweats and shakes.
Back to work with the stress and strain of the day's problems. The only thing keeping him focussed is the bar waiting for him at noon.
Back at the bar, at 12.30, three drinks and some french fries. Life is returning to normal. To Hell with the wife and kids and the job. Everything is ok now, the alcohol coursing through the veins. As good as the peace of the junkie's needle.
I look at the little man, and I see myself, waybackwhen. He was me and I was him. God how I pity you little man!
You are obsessed, incapable of functioning without your chemical.
You are in your own jail.
Incarcerated by your addiction. You can get out, but do you want to? Can you take the pain, and the facing up to life that you must do, in order to kick the habit? Or are you going to continue through life like the "dirty little junkie you are?" I hope you can make it.
DON FELSTEAD, (December, 2008) I wrote this from personal experience. In order to kick the habit I had to go through a very hard time of suffering from withdrawal. Without going into detail here, I made it and I have not had a drink since May 24th, 1969.
Since I quit drinking I don't go there often, but when my friends or business aquaintances go there, I tag along.
A quarter to noon.
A very dark bar, and it smells like every other bar. Booze, cigarette smoke, a smell of rancid dampness.
I order a coke - a dirty look from the waitress. They don't want to sell just coke. Just the hard stuff - that's where it's at. The profit.
Five minutes to twelve. A little man in a dark suit comes in and sits in the corner. Works in an office somewhere. He is restless, eyes bloodshot, a slight quiver. Nervous. Noon.
He orders a beer. Has to drink with two hands. Some small sign of relief in sight.
Another beer. Really starting to relax.
Third beer. Drinking slower now. The world is coming into perspective. He relaxes more.
There is a warm glow coming on. The muscles start to relax, the inner shakes are going away. The face starts to smile.
Can forget last night now. The blur of bars, lights, loud sounds. The long woozy drive home, the quick look outside, is the car there? Any blood, dents? No.
The cold hard disapproval of the hurt wife.
The children are in bed. Haven't seen them for several days now. Too late getting home at night, unable to face them in the morning.
The cold meal and the loneliness, and the dropping off into a fitful sleep for a couple of hours. The awakening into those awful cold sweats and shakes.
Back to work with the stress and strain of the day's problems. The only thing keeping him focussed is the bar waiting for him at noon.
Back at the bar, at 12.30, three drinks and some french fries. Life is returning to normal. To Hell with the wife and kids and the job. Everything is ok now, the alcohol coursing through the veins. As good as the peace of the junkie's needle.
I look at the little man, and I see myself, waybackwhen. He was me and I was him. God how I pity you little man!
You are obsessed, incapable of functioning without your chemical.
You are in your own jail.
Incarcerated by your addiction. You can get out, but do you want to? Can you take the pain, and the facing up to life that you must do, in order to kick the habit? Or are you going to continue through life like the "dirty little junkie you are?" I hope you can make it.
DON FELSTEAD, (December, 2008) I wrote this from personal experience. In order to kick the habit I had to go through a very hard time of suffering from withdrawal. Without going into detail here, I made it and I have not had a drink since May 24th, 1969.
ARE YOU PAST FORTY?j
Just past forty?
A little depressed? A vague feeling of uneasiness, that life is passing you by? Your children are growing up, you haven't quite made it at work, and you've not gone as far as you planned? You are getting older, and you've suddenly discovered that you are not as immortal as you thought you were when you were younger?
Don't despair, brother or sister. From what I can see, this is quite normal, and most of us feel this way when we pass the magic point in our life that denotes the beginning of middle age. There are two things you can do; one is to accept the fact that the body is getting older, and slow down to a walk, or give up, feel sorry for yourself, and wait to slowly die, figuratively, through degeneration of your thinking and mental attitude.
Or, you can get up on your hind legs and fight. So you are a little older! So what! There is a lot of time left, but it must be used to the fullest degree. Think of it this way; Up until the time you were twenty, what did you do? Not a Hell of a lot.
Spent a lot of time in school, in the corner restaurant talking with the boys, mooning a lot over the latest little bit of fluff in a skirt, and generally doing a lot of useless nonsensical kind of things. There is nothing wrong with this, since we should have some time in our lives when there is little responsibility, and life can be enjoyed without feelings of guilt.
It's too bad we can't live like that now, when we can appreciate it to its fullest, instead of losing it in an adolescent fog. So much for your life up until twenty.
When did you really start to function like a responsible and productive adult? From the age of twenty of course, and if you are now forty, then you have lived a whole lifetime in twenty years. Yes, instead of being forty, in many ways you are only twenty years old, everything that had gone on before was a waste of time, and better forgotten. So what am I saying? It is just this:
If I so choose, I have a whole lifetime ahead of me up until sixty. And, God willing, I can depend on another lifetime until I reach eighty. (how about Rose Kennedy!). Although the body may sag a wee bit, I am not going to let myself grow old mentally, and within reason, I am going to take on new enterprises, and work hard, and sleep well and love well; and I'm going to say "To Hell with the rest of you. I am going to stay young, and if I look a bit silly at times in my colourful clothes, and long hair, and young attitude, you can bet your bottom dollar that I am going to enjoy life, and get the best out of it.
Incidentally, there is no place in my life for booze, for it just screws everything up. I want to have my senses at full alert so that I can enjoy my wife, kids, friends, an early sunrise, a late sunset, fishing, the birds, listening to the grass grow, and I am going to enjoy even a rainy day, when everything is wet and clean smelling, and new and wonderful. How about you?
DON FELSTEAD
Don says: I wrote this article for the Donwood Newsletter in 1974. It is now 2008 and I am 75 years of age. What a lot has transpired! And what a wonderful life it has been. I have a wonder ful wife of nearly 50 years, four grown children doing well, and some grandchildren. I walk 3 to 5 miles a day, volunteer at Royal Victoria Hospital, live life like I always wanted to do.
Of course there are minor health problems, but that comes with the territory. The most important thing I ever did in my life was to quit drinking completely in 1959. It was slowly destroying my life and I had to do something. I changed my job, moved to Orillia for some years and now live in retirement heaven in Barrie, Ont. You can do the same, in your own way. GO FOR IT!
A little depressed? A vague feeling of uneasiness, that life is passing you by? Your children are growing up, you haven't quite made it at work, and you've not gone as far as you planned? You are getting older, and you've suddenly discovered that you are not as immortal as you thought you were when you were younger?
Don't despair, brother or sister. From what I can see, this is quite normal, and most of us feel this way when we pass the magic point in our life that denotes the beginning of middle age. There are two things you can do; one is to accept the fact that the body is getting older, and slow down to a walk, or give up, feel sorry for yourself, and wait to slowly die, figuratively, through degeneration of your thinking and mental attitude.
Or, you can get up on your hind legs and fight. So you are a little older! So what! There is a lot of time left, but it must be used to the fullest degree. Think of it this way; Up until the time you were twenty, what did you do? Not a Hell of a lot.
Spent a lot of time in school, in the corner restaurant talking with the boys, mooning a lot over the latest little bit of fluff in a skirt, and generally doing a lot of useless nonsensical kind of things. There is nothing wrong with this, since we should have some time in our lives when there is little responsibility, and life can be enjoyed without feelings of guilt.
It's too bad we can't live like that now, when we can appreciate it to its fullest, instead of losing it in an adolescent fog. So much for your life up until twenty.
When did you really start to function like a responsible and productive adult? From the age of twenty of course, and if you are now forty, then you have lived a whole lifetime in twenty years. Yes, instead of being forty, in many ways you are only twenty years old, everything that had gone on before was a waste of time, and better forgotten. So what am I saying? It is just this:
If I so choose, I have a whole lifetime ahead of me up until sixty. And, God willing, I can depend on another lifetime until I reach eighty. (how about Rose Kennedy!). Although the body may sag a wee bit, I am not going to let myself grow old mentally, and within reason, I am going to take on new enterprises, and work hard, and sleep well and love well; and I'm going to say "To Hell with the rest of you. I am going to stay young, and if I look a bit silly at times in my colourful clothes, and long hair, and young attitude, you can bet your bottom dollar that I am going to enjoy life, and get the best out of it.
Incidentally, there is no place in my life for booze, for it just screws everything up. I want to have my senses at full alert so that I can enjoy my wife, kids, friends, an early sunrise, a late sunset, fishing, the birds, listening to the grass grow, and I am going to enjoy even a rainy day, when everything is wet and clean smelling, and new and wonderful. How about you?
DON FELSTEAD
Don says: I wrote this article for the Donwood Newsletter in 1974. It is now 2008 and I am 75 years of age. What a lot has transpired! And what a wonderful life it has been. I have a wonder ful wife of nearly 50 years, four grown children doing well, and some grandchildren. I walk 3 to 5 miles a day, volunteer at Royal Victoria Hospital, live life like I always wanted to do.
Of course there are minor health problems, but that comes with the territory. The most important thing I ever did in my life was to quit drinking completely in 1959. It was slowly destroying my life and I had to do something. I changed my job, moved to Orillia for some years and now live in retirement heaven in Barrie, Ont. You can do the same, in your own way. GO FOR IT!
FIVE YEARS WITHOUT ALCOHOL
Thanks to a lot of help from Donwood, and the use of inner strength I didn't know I had, I quit drinking 5 years ago On May 30th, 1969. It has been a good 5 years, although not all sublime. There have been a lot of ups and downs, though overall, the ups have outnumbered the downs.
This one very important thing that I learned at Donwood, and made good use of, that the bad mood I may have today, will change probably tomorrow or the next day. All I have to do is stay sober today, and tomorrow will be better.
I am proud of my accomplishment, however I must remain humble, for complete ruin is only one drink away for me. Looking back on the past five years, (and how good they have been!), I feel very fortunate to have been an alcoholic, for I was forced by circumstances to change my way of life, and with the help of Donwood, and AA I learned how good life can be without the use of that mind destroying chemical called alcohol.
It all boils down to the fact that one must face life head on. It gets you right in the guts, the fears are all there, but when you have faced something traumatic without giving in, you gain a good sense of strength and wonderful feeling of accomplishment.
I can only say to you, gentle reader that have recently quit drinking, and still in the first year of your sobriety, do not, at any time despair! It always gets better, and you can maintain a happy sobriety, as long as you take it easy and listen to the people around you at AA. They know what they are talking about! It is not easy to quit drinking, especially after many years of abuse! And you must constantly remember to keep your guard up.
The longing for a drink returns periodically, and sometimes it would be quite easy to return to the old ways to escape this sometimes painful thing called life. To make sure that I do not fall prey to return to drinking I continue to take Antabuse. "Still taking Antabuse" you say? Yes, it still serves as a barometer to me. When I want to quit taking it, I will know that I want a drink.
Why do I want a drink? Maybe it is pressure from the job, a disappointment or just "what 's the use?", "why keep on fighting?" Well, at least with Antabuse, I have 5 days to examine my way of thinking, do some housecleaning of the garbage that has built up.
I have also found over the past five years that the mood does change, if not the next day, the the day after. Things have a habit of straightening out. I couldn't end this article without mentioning a word about AA. Although now I do not attend regularly, I remember most of what I learned from them years ago and it has stayed with me. The serenity prayer, the slogans, the whole programme is very useful to me and I find myself going back to them when I have problems. It is a wonderful life without alcohol. I hope you will join me in enjoying it. HANG IN THERE!
DON FELSTEAD
DON says: I wrote the above article in 1974 for the Donwood. I look back now and see how happy I have been. I plan to practice abstinence to the end of my days!
This one very important thing that I learned at Donwood, and made good use of, that the bad mood I may have today, will change probably tomorrow or the next day. All I have to do is stay sober today, and tomorrow will be better.
I am proud of my accomplishment, however I must remain humble, for complete ruin is only one drink away for me. Looking back on the past five years, (and how good they have been!), I feel very fortunate to have been an alcoholic, for I was forced by circumstances to change my way of life, and with the help of Donwood, and AA I learned how good life can be without the use of that mind destroying chemical called alcohol.
It all boils down to the fact that one must face life head on. It gets you right in the guts, the fears are all there, but when you have faced something traumatic without giving in, you gain a good sense of strength and wonderful feeling of accomplishment.
I can only say to you, gentle reader that have recently quit drinking, and still in the first year of your sobriety, do not, at any time despair! It always gets better, and you can maintain a happy sobriety, as long as you take it easy and listen to the people around you at AA. They know what they are talking about! It is not easy to quit drinking, especially after many years of abuse! And you must constantly remember to keep your guard up.
The longing for a drink returns periodically, and sometimes it would be quite easy to return to the old ways to escape this sometimes painful thing called life. To make sure that I do not fall prey to return to drinking I continue to take Antabuse. "Still taking Antabuse" you say? Yes, it still serves as a barometer to me. When I want to quit taking it, I will know that I want a drink.
Why do I want a drink? Maybe it is pressure from the job, a disappointment or just "what 's the use?", "why keep on fighting?" Well, at least with Antabuse, I have 5 days to examine my way of thinking, do some housecleaning of the garbage that has built up.
I have also found over the past five years that the mood does change, if not the next day, the the day after. Things have a habit of straightening out. I couldn't end this article without mentioning a word about AA. Although now I do not attend regularly, I remember most of what I learned from them years ago and it has stayed with me. The serenity prayer, the slogans, the whole programme is very useful to me and I find myself going back to them when I have problems. It is a wonderful life without alcohol. I hope you will join me in enjoying it. HANG IN THERE!
DON FELSTEAD
DON says: I wrote the above article in 1974 for the Donwood. I look back now and see how happy I have been. I plan to practice abstinence to the end of my days!
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