Making Informed Decisions

Several time over the past weeks, and more times than we can count over the years, we’ve found that clients are very afraid to collect the information they need in order to plan their lives.

For example, “J” knows nothing – absolutely nothing – about her financial standing. She is clueless about what assets exist, what tax returns report, what investments, mortgages, and debts exist.

When we suggest that all of us need to know, as best as possible, where we stand financially – just as we do legally and medically and in other areas – we can feel the panic rising.

The result? The same kind of anxiety we experience when there is crucial information missing in any part of our lives.

Can you imagine having a spouse who demands that all of your medical information and test results be reported to them and they will decide what, if anything, to pass on to you?

Yet in couple after couple we see spouses hiding every grain of financial information.

Yes, it’s mostly, but certainly not exclusively, women who are being kept in the dark by domineering husbands, but that doesn’t make it less awful.

All of us, men and women alike, need and deserve good medical, financial, and legal advice. None of us can effectively manage our anxiety if we don’t have basic information about where we stand in any of these areas.

And, of course, anxiety is the #1 driver of alcohol abuse.

Frankly, for our clients, it is extremely unlikely that any situation is worse than you already imagine. But even if it is, how is not knowing going to protect you?

How is ignorance, which may be short term bliss, allowing you to make informed choices about what to do with the rest of your life?

All of these considerations parallel our advice around your drinking: give it up for awhile; replace it with different life choices; and then decide.

You can always go back to drinking, living in ignorance, or passive-aggressively retaliating against a spouse, but why not give a different life option a chance? Try deciding with knowledge for a change?

At least then you’ll know what you’re doing, to yourself and others, and you can know that you made the choice.

No, we won’t tell you what to do – only how to best make your own decisions.

How much maturity is too much?

Those of you who have been clients know that we use Dr. Jane Loevinger’s model and measure of emotional and psychological maturity – “ego development” in her words – to help you understand how you compare with the people in your life.

We also use this same construct in screening potential clients, writing this Newsletter, creating and building the website, and helping you develop your “treatment plan.”

Why?

We have learned over the years, with our own experience and that of hundreds of clients, that our niche is working with people who are “too old for their age.”

That’s right – by virtue of self-selection – those of you who come to our website, and are interested enough to subscribe to this Newsletter, are smart, sensitive, and somewhat fearful people who have matured beyond your chronological peers.

That turns out to be a major cause of anxiety and loneliness driven alcohol abuse.

Again, as you frequently are, you’re right! You really don’t fit in! And you probably won’t – at least until you’re over 70 and others begin to catch up with you.

Or you can keep yourself “regressed” with alcohol.

Interested in a third option?

Ready to try living more happily unimpaired,
as well as less lonely, anxious, bored, and resentful?

We thought that might appeal to you and that’s what we offer.