“Fifty Shades of Grey”?
Everyone else seems to be writing about this women’s erotic e-book so why shouldn’t we?
Most of our clients are between 40 and 65, and two thirds are women, so sex is a frequent topic for consideration. Given that our clients are also very successful professionals who try to balance a dozen plates at once, it’s not shocking that the “let go and let him” theme of “Grey” appeals.
The traditional “women’s submission” and “men’s dominence” roles also come up in other aspects of the relationship problems that lead our clients to drink — sometimes in surprising areas.
One of these is in the matter of money. We are seeing an increasing number of couples, married or not, where the women out earn the men. Given the educational and professional achievements of women over the past two decades that isn’t surprising.
What is surprising is that it’s the women who have the most trouble with it. They, more than the men, have trouble being with a partner who earns less, even when “less” is still five or ten times the national average.
Roles are complicated, as are our unconscious expectations, the influence of our culture, peers, and media. It’s tough to sort out what we want and need from the “political correctness” of the times.
And that includes our alcohol use and abuse. That’s why we help you to sort out what really matters to you and how to adjust your self-image, and consequent behaviors, to a healthier, happier edition.
Oh! If you want to read about “Fifty Shades…” you can click on Maureen Dowd’s column “Fit To Be Tied“…
Then give us a call and let’s get started sorting your life as you want it to be.
Mr. Paul Carr’s Wall Street Journal article “How I Stopped Drowning In Drink” engendered a lot of negative comments from the “powerless alcoholic” fringe.
It would seem reasonable to wonder why anyone would care about what route anyone took to stop abusing alcohol, or quit smoking, or losing weight, or any of a number of other things we might choose to do to improve our health and lives.
But zealots aren’t reasonable. “True Believers” are threatened by anything that diveates from their “AA is the only way” mantra even when 75 years of real research shows that it’s not only NOT THE ONLY WAY – it’s not even in the top 20 (see: Ending Alcohol Abuse: What Works).
Understanding this response to anyone’s deviation from “The Way” theme of their lives requires that we reflect back to Middle School and the nearly overwhelming need of most students to conform at all costs. Those who remain stuck at that level of social and emotional development are the ones who find “different” to be intolerable in their narrow little worlds.
It’s also why they find it impossible to leave alcohol behind as the central theme of their lives, impossible to have actual intimate relationships, and impossible to live normally with “nornies”.
Happily you don’t fit into that pathetic group, nor do you want to. You want to call.
Links:
“How Can You Possibly Cure My Years of Alcohol Abuse in Just 5 Days?”
Ten Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Sent My Brother Off To Rehab[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]
Leave A Comment