Merry Christmas!

Our favorite holiday videos

First, Jingle Bell Goats

And now…our gift to you – The Great Question:
Who is in charge of your life?

Yes, it’s a personal question – but it’s the most important one we can each ask and answer. Please consider the following:

It’s Christmas once again, and the New Year lies just a week away, and this season always brings questions:

  • Where did the year go?
  • What did I accomplish?
  • What problems continue?
  • What problems got worse?
  • Why didn’t I fix what I said I would?
  • How can the upcoming year be different?

As you think through these questions about the past year, isn’t it time to also consider how you have disappointed yourself, and others, by failing to resolve problems you could have fixed?

No, we’re not trying to play the Grinch on your Christmas morning. You may already have done that and don’t need our help in any case.

We are suggesting that you don’t have to continue to be miserable, or to add misery to those around you.

The alternative is to consider the answers to a couple of other questions:

  • Who am I becoming?
  • Where am I going?

Chances are your alcohol abuse has you avoiding those two questions as best you can. You probably fear that the answers are:

  • I’m becoming a powerless alcoholic.
  • I’m going down the drain.

We all know that’s the conventional “wisdom” even though there isn’t a shred of evidence that that’s your future unless it’s the future you choose!

The truth?

  • More so than at any time in history you are in charge of your life.
  • More so than ever before, you have an array of resources available to you to help address almost any problem you encounter.
  • Yes, that includes alcohol abuse.

This is all true, but, sadly, there aren’t any magic cures or answers. There is, however, plenty of slow, steady, long-term change that happens on-purpose when we assume responsibility for our lives and choices.

Yes, you are changing and evolving, all of the time. Age and circumstances, like tide and time, wait for none of us. We are not the same people we were a year ago – nor will be the same a year from now.

The question is, who will we be? Will we be better, or will we allow ourselves to slip away? Will we make active choices or passive ones?

Who’s really in charge of your life? That’s right. You are! Isn’t it time you got back to being good at it?

And, yes, one of us does answer the phone personally, even on Christmas.

How Is AA/12 Step Treatment Supposed to Work?

If you understand how a treatment program is designed to “work” you’ll have a better idea as to whether or not it’s apt to work for you.

In the case of traditional treatment, or even the typical “90 meetings in 90 days” admonitions, the theory is pretty simple and predicated pretty much on old style military basic training.

Take an individual, isolate them, scare them, break them down to functioning at about the age of 12, indoctrinate them into the “cult,” and keep them at that ridgedly conformist level forever.

As research has shown, AA “works” for those whose emotional development has been arrested at or before the age of 12. In the model developed by Jane Loevinger, Ph.D. of Washington University in St. Louis, these are the folks who do indeed score at the Self-Protective and Conformist levels, and who find comfort in cults.

Take a look at most U.S. and Canadian treatment programs and you will see how this plays out. First you’re isolated from family, friends, home, and community. Then you’re beaten down with requirements that you “admit you are a powerless alcoholic.”

You are next immersed into your new supposed peer group – the AA meeting – and warned to avoid spouses, families, “normies” and so on.

After being intimidated, abused, harassed, hazed, and financially (and sometimes sexually) exploited you are released and told, “don’t drink; go to AA.”

If all of that appeals to you, be our guest. You’re clearly not the sorts of clients we work with.

If, on the other hand, you are a smart, independent adult who wishes to GROW, NOT REGRESS, then you’re reading the right Newsletter.

That pretty much sums up your choices –
Shrink with AA, or Grow with Us.

If your preference is the latter then why aren’t you calling?

Links to Success:

Our Expanded Program Description

“How Can You Possibly Cure My Years of Alcohol Abuse in Just 5 Days?”

The Real “Steps” to Overcoming Alcohol Abuse

Smart Women and Alcohol Abuse

Ten Things I Wish I’d Known Before I Sent My Brother Off To Rehab;