“Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”  
–  Ralph Waldo Emerson

This week is Thanksgiving once again and Mr. Emerson advises what we might all be thankful to achieve.

Yes, we all have “old nonsense” that haunts us, “blunders and absurdities” galore, if we have lived at all.

Still, we have survived and endured, if poorly at times, and with discouragements and undeserved defeats and disappointments.

Yet the day is yours, the choices yours, and you have a great deal to offer both to your life and to the lives of others if you so choose.

To that end, I offer the following Inyupik (Eskimo) maxim I first learned (and haltingly translated with much laugher, and to the great amusement of the Elders) in the Arctic whaling village of Tigara (Pt. Hope) where I lived over four decades ago:

“Yesterday is ashes, tomorrow is wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly.”

And in this time of thankfulness, the benediction:
 
“May the Goddess who dwells beneath the sea, keep you from the cold and from the darkness, but most of all, may she keep you from the heedless ones among you.”

Both from Inyupik Shamans
James Kaligivuk and Kalib Machine

May this be the beginning of a holiday season that is one you are pleased to remember  –  not one you wish you didn’t, or wish you could.

Best Regards,

Ed and Mary Ellen


It’s not the alcohol…

It’s easy to get distracted by the erroneous idea that “alcohol” is the culprit that has turned us into “alcoholics” suffering from “alcoholism” that will force us to be “in recovery” with episodic “relapses” for the rest of our miserable lives.

Hogwash.

You are free to change your drinking habits whenever you want to. The question is, do you want to? And the answer is that we do, but only about 49% of the time.

It’s that other 51% that gets in the way.

Then there’s the effort needed, and the delayed gratification, and the fear of the unknown, and, and, and….

So usually the 51% wins out and we pull another cork, pop a pull tab, or open a bottle, and defer any changes until another day.

Our existing habits, including bad ones, hold a degree of familiarity that is comforting and safe and predictable. That’s how they became habits.

Creating new habits is uncomfortable, unpredictable, and scary. That’s why we don’t.

At least not until the old habits’ consequences become so unbearable that the misery of staying with them offsets the fear of change.

Then, perhaps, we let the 49% take a turn, learn enough Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to see change as an adventurous research project on ourselves, and begin the creation of new habits for old. New habits that don’t contain as much self-medication.

No, you’re not “powerless” or “diseased” and you don’t need to be victimized by cults and “Steps,” whether 1-12 or the 13th.

You don’t need a label, meetings, or life long adherence to silliness you outgrew by 10th grade, if not sooner.

What you need is a life of your own. That’s what we help you create.

As a former client noted, “I got it! Three steps! Get a grip! Get going! Get a life!”

We couldn’t have said it better ourselves…