We Get Letters :-{)
“Enjoyed the newsletter as always. I read it through such different eyes having met you both and working your program than I did in the two or three months before I did.
I went through your program in June and over the summer started a “testimonial” about how well it worked for me. Then in the last month of caring for Dad your approach and support have been helpful in vastly different ways. The non-judgmental, thought-provoking phone sessions and newsletters helped me weather that extremely difficult period and a return to drinking without going off the deep end emotionally or with alcohol.
Now I am back to “Been there, Done that.” I am feeling good and starting to have little tickles of happiness. I’m almost ready, to accept the challenge you repeatedly issue, to think about what I want my new life to look like. So far, I envision only what it won’t feature — living with a hoarder, care giving, and daily alcohol abuse.”
This letter really succinctly embodies what our work is about – helping you to move towards a happier life unencumbered by alcohol abuse. It is about addressing and surmounting real issues and life situations without descending into demeaning and dehumanizing cults, rituals, and a vastly reduced life.
A second reader reinforced this approach with:
“What a great weekly blog! I’m pondering about forwarding to some people!
Truth! I’m so happy I chose to empower! A great name for your work.
I was talking to a friend yesterday and saying how much better it was for me to be treated as an adult, and to be in touch with friends.
It’s so easy to eat right & not drink when I remind myself of how much better I feel, I can only wish that for others.
Thank you!”
And so, the choice is yours, too.
Follow-up, Rat Park, and Other Details That Make a Difference
Above, our first correspondent noted the difference that all of the follow-up sessions made. She isn’t the first to appreciate how important those weeks and months of coaching, hand holding, commiserating, absolving, interpreting, adapting, and adjusting are.
That’s why “Rehab” programs don’t do it.
“Don’t drink. Go to AA” is what they all say, knowing that that will almost always have you making a U-turn back to their door – which is what it’s supposed to do.
We, on the other hand, want to help you adjust to a new normal life that is expanding, not contracting, and doesn’t include any focus on drinking.
Which brings us to, Rat Park, or Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Addiction is Wrong. This link will lead you to a TED talk about an experiment which debunked previous experiments which showed that rats kept in isolation and given a choice between drugged water and plain water chose the drugged water until they died. Hence the “progressive disease” theory.
Until someone named Dr. Bruce Alexander in Vancouver decided the experiment was bogus. Thinking that, he built Rat Park where the rats led interesting and engaged lives. Guess what? Given the plain water vs drugged water choices they went for the plain water.
Taking it a step farther, Dr. Alexander took caged and isolated rats to the brink of death and then relocated them to Rat Park. And? Spontaneous remission of their so-called addiction in nearly every case.
You say, well, that’s rats.
Except the same thing happened during the Viet Nam War when supposedly addicted Air Force pilots ended their tour, returned to the U.S., and the “addiction” disappeared.
So what do we know?
We know that people who are, or become, actively engaged in their lives either avoid abusing drugs and/or alcohol or they recover by becoming engaged.
And, by the way, joining a cult is not an act of “engagement.”
During your 5 Day Intensive foundation work with us we will come up with a plan to re-engage you in your life, provide the skills that will help you escape isolation, and hang in there with you until the process becomes self-sustaining.
See: Ending Alcohol Abuse: What Works
Or you can go back to your self-created cage.
Park or Cage? Again, your choice….
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