While smart educated men and women have similar conditions we self-medicate with alcohol – loneliness, boredom, and anxiety are the common ones – men are more inclined to try and fix the problem themselves.

This tendency has the advantage of reducing men’s depression rates to half of women’s, but it also means we are less successful at correcting the problems in the long run.

It also means feeling more alone which exacerbates the drinking, or finds you tolerating your spouse’s drinking, or worst of all, joining your spouse in abusing alcohol.

Better choices?

Good short term help of the sort we offer that supports assertiveness, reduces isolation, and gives you permission to build a better life.

It’s particularly important that we work with you as a team and that you get support from both of us, free of any gender driven agendas. While women also find this helpful, it is critical for men who may have to overcome years of being bullied in their personal lives.

If that sounds different, it is – you aren’t powerless, but you do need support in exercising your power effectively and appropriately – as well as avoiding the passive aggressiveness that frequently results from alcohol abuse, for both men and women.

Ready to regain your self-esteem and self-confidence while leaving self-medication, self-flagellation, and frustration behind?

Good! That’s what we’re here to help you do. Yes, it is time to make that call!

The Gym Analogy

At some point in their 5 Day stay with us, most clients are stuck with listening to my Gym Analogy of how our program works. Today you get the story for free.

Ten years ago I quit smoking, not for the first time, but this time it seems to have stuck. Without cigarettes I gained weight, not a lot, but 25 pounds my 6’5″ frame certainly didn’t need.

Five years ago, as I grumbled about it, Mary Ellen suggested I join a small training gym in the neighborhood and get some help.

I was curious but not enamored with the idea. I hadn’t been in a gym since high school and I hadn’t liked it then. But I’d also always wondered about weight lifting.

We drove over for me to take a look and discovered she was right. Small, private, catering to individuals, not a bunch of young “hard bodies”. Good.

There were also two trainers, men in their 70s, who understood older bodies impacted by decades of use and misuse.

The result was that I paid my membership fee, a couple of months’ dues, and thought about what I know about me.

Truth is, if that was all I did, I’d go a few times, decide it wasn’t for me for whatever reasons, and I’d drop out. It would be too inconvenient, or too hard, or too something or other. Really, it would be too much work in the short run with only the possibility of benefits in the long run.

Sound familiar?

So I sat down with Sam and John and paid them, in advance, for 3 sessions a week, for the next 6 months.

Why?

Having invested the equivalent of 3 years worth of cigarette money (my justification for reluctantly proffering my VISA card – if I could always find cigarette money, I could certainly dig up the health improvement money) I knew I’d show up, pay attention, learn, and get whatever there was out of my workouts.

Results?

In 6 months I dropped 25 pounds of fat, added 7 of new muscle, and felt better than I had in years.

I’d also paid attention and learned, modified my diet, designed my own workouts, loved the physical, emotional, and other benefits of weight lifting, and no longer needed Sam or John.

Lessons learned?

I needed good short term individual help on top having a clear goal and some motivation. But I didn’t need it forever, I wasn’t “powerless” and labels would have just been excuses to fail.

But I also knew that no matter how good the program, or Sam and John, I was still going to be the one who had to show up and lift the weights and live my life a bit differently and take responsibility for maintaining my gains.

5 years later I have lopped off another 15 pounds of fat, maintained my muscle mass, enjoy my thrice weekly hour and half stints at the gym, manage my diet, and no longer need a trainer.

Think of Mary Ellen and I as being your “Sam and John” and my experience with weight loss and management – really life style management – as being analogous to enrolling in our 5 Day Recovery Program with its 12 weeks of follow-up “training”.

You invest in yourself, work with us, and in a few months you will have learned to incorporate and enjoy your redesigned life that has no more room for alcohol abuse.

And just as I still drop by occasionally and thank Sam and John, you can drop us a note, or call, or drop by and let us know how you’re doing, if you want.

What’s not to like, and be proud of, in that?

Please,

As we wrote last week, Ms. Gabrielle Glaser is writing a book for Simon and Schuster on women’s relationships with alcohol. If you are willing, she would appreciate hearing from our women readers whether you’ve ever been a client or not.

We believe that Ms. Glaser is writing an important book on this important topic and we have been pleased to assist. We hope that you will too.

You may contact her confidentially at: americauncorked@gmail.com.

Client Program Review:

Last week’s Newsletter contained a former client’s detailed review of our work with her. Click HERE to read it.

Odds and Ends:

For the May 23rd article Smart Women and Alcohol Abuse;

Our Comparison Shopping issue is available here;

An expanded description of our Five Day Full Recovery Program;

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

And old Newsletters are archived on our website under, you guessed it, Newsletters!