Yes, we know it’s Super Bowl Sunday, and you’re busy “enjoying” another excuse for a “normal” alcohol fueled regression, but maybe…

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Your Personal “Normal” and How It Effects Alcohol Abuse…

We each carry our personal definition of “normal” around inside us with very little awareness of its existence. This normal is an amalgam of whatever we absorbed by osmosis while we were growing up.

No, it doesn’t matter how nuts our families were, how dysfunctional, abusive, or anything else. And it doesn’t matter that we swore we’d never be like them. We still internalized that as our “normal.”

The problem is, of course, that we then go through life being attracted to, and attracting, people who match this unconscious condition.

Mom was a psychopath? You’ll find Borderline Personality Disorder women and they’ll find you.

Dad was an abusive demeaning drunk? Guess who you’ll feel a magnetic pull towards even though you hated him for it.

It also works with less extreme traits but you can sort that out and we can help you. You can learn to manage the attraction of your very personally destructive “comfort” zone.

More importantly, you can avoid passing on the same problems, or their opposites, to your children.  Specifically, you can remember that you are teaching your children what to respond to by what you model.

It doesn’t matter what you say, only what you do. When you accept your own drinking, or your spouses, you are teaching your children that abusing alcohol is normal and not only acceptable but desirable. NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY!

We sometimes ask clients to draw up a list of the traits they want their children’s spouses to embody. Then we point out that these are the same traits they need to be demonstrating.

Not one has ever listed alcohol abuse on their slate of traits.

Shall we help you get your “slate” in order?

Deprogramming

Our “Six Secrets That Ex-Drinkers Know That You Don’t, and 12 Step Programs Don’t Want You To Find Out” download that you probably saw when you signed up for the Newsletter is all about debunking AA mythology.

So is what we spend varying amounts of time doing while you’re working with us because we have all internalized attitudes towards alcohol abuse, alcoholism and treatment from the surrounding culture just as we did “normal” while growing up.

Again, it’s tough to manage and change what you are unaware of.

A few of the myths?

  •     You’re “powerless” over alcohol;
  •     Alcohol abuse is a “disease;”
  •     You need to go away for 30, 60, or 90 days of “rehab”;
  •     AA “works;”
  •     You need to “hit bottom;”
  •     You must be “In Recovery;”
  •     You must attend “Meetings;”

Most of us have internalized these pervasive myths, and many others, and as a result we approach fixing our alcohol problems burdened with unnecessary and counter-productive fears and beliefs.

Strip away these, and many other myths, and the road to actually ending your misuse of alcohol becomes easier and more apt to succeed, not to mention a lot more interesting and, yes, even enjoyable.

Imagine that!

Getting started just takes making a call where you will actually talk to one of us, not a marketing department, ex-client, gofer, or other clueless individual (for an enlightening experience, try calling any other treatment provider and ask to talk to whomever you will actually be working with – good luck).

And if you’d like another copy of the “Six Secrets…” download, just drop us an e-mail and we’ll get another copy to you.