I recent ran across an article that demonstrates, in about 500 words, how it is that alcohol causes alcoholism.
This process is not only little known by people who are not addicted, but it is literally missing in the knowledge base for most alcoholics about how it is they became addicted.
The article "The Brain is Re-Wired by Alcoholism" is an easy read. It will give you the information you need to know if you are ever talking to a friend or loved one about their drinking and the damage alcohol can do to the human brain.
One of the great frustrations for a "true believer" like me when it comes to the topic of addiction is that it is so difficult to inform and then convince people about the biological nature of the disease of addiction. Many will call it out as a disease, but then fall into a criticism of the alcoholic based on the "immoral" results of what a person with a diseased brain does when they drink. Well, it can't be both ways - a disease and a moral issue. Thankfully this article helps straighten that out.
Of course, there is another good source for this that has already been mentioned in the blog. Pleasure Unwoven, a superb video issued by the Institute of Addiction Studies in Utah, is the very best look - through the eyes on an addicted doctor - at what the REAL disease of addiction is.
I recommend both the web article and the video to anyone struggling with their own awareness of the disease of addiction or who may need help in convincing another person of the problem.
All the best,
Roger W.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Another retreat...
Today I signed up for another retreat. But, it will not be like any other retreat I have ever been on.The Lodge at Hazelden - a facility devoted to the study of the Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book and the spirituality that flows from it - is holding a special, free retreat for employees in two weeks. And, I'm rarin' to go! Here's why.
About two years ago, Hazelden published a book entitled, "The Book That Started It All." It is a large, oversized coffee-table book that is a very special book to AAers. In it were reproduced the original pages from the manuscript that Bill W. used to draw up what we now know as the first 164 pages of the Big Book. The pages are laid out, in order, and each page has the equivalent of a photograph of the original typewritten manuscript. You can tell it is old by the style of type of the old Royal typewriter it was written on (according to the secretary to Bill W. who wrote the Big Book). You can also see how it was faded and, in some places, torn or folded.
The most impressive part of it is that there are hand-written comments in the margins and crossed out or overwritten words throughout the pages. Many of these marks were made by some of the original proof readers of the manuscript - part of the corps of 100 drunks in recovery who formed the core of AA at the time. Hank Parkhurst was one of these people... you can see his trademark initials "HYP" in the lower left hand corner of every page. He was a professional editor at a magazine in New York and had a flare for presenting material in a very readable and acceptable way.
But, much of the marking up came from Bill W. himself. Bill was a brilliant amateur writer. He could put things in a certain way that the sentences rang out with clarity and precision. He was devoted to the topic, of course, but his folksy Vermont-based dialect was, and still is, an astonishingly wonderful way to communicate the process of recovery that these founders of the AA program went through. Bill was a pragmatist at heart: He knew that it was important to make compromises in the language of the book that could accommodate the needs of all the AA members. So, he willingly bent the sentences to make room for people under the broad tent that AA was to become for recovering people. Perhaps no more is this true than were Bill took Hank's advice and added the "...God as we understood Him" rejoinder to the places in the book that Bill had originally just let stand as "God."
So, in two weeks, I'll be among a small group of people who will examine this book in detail. It only deals with the first 164 pages of the Big Book. Throughout the years, these pages have survived four editions and numerous attempts to "refine" the original language. But AA, in its wisdom, has kept those original pages just as they were in 1939 when the first books rolled off the presses. So, we'll be studying history. We'll be deconstructing, page by page, the language and meaning that these words have for recovering people. We'll learn about how Bill did the writing (he dictated the entire book standing up over 9 months) and the philosophy that the pages put forth.
I'm really looking forward to that.
It's good to be back in AA after 24 years in Narcotics Anonymous where you couldn't breath a word about the Big Book or even mention Bill W.'s name. NA is still trying to carve out its own territory and is very sensitive to comparisons to AA. So, when I made the jump back to AA I found I was going home. This retreat is like settling in next to a warm fireplace in that home.
All the best,
Roger W.
Monday, July 15, 2013
The pressure of work...
There's nothing particularly new in my life these days, but I think it is worthwhile to write about some things that have been kicking around in my life these past few weeks.
I am busy preparing for the two new classes I will teach this Fall. I have undoubtedly stretched myself thin by agreeing to teach a second course on Co-Occurring Psychological Disorders at the Hazelden Graduate School of Addiction Studies. I already teach the Group therapy course to graduate students in counseling, and the out-going dean (who has become a good friend of mine) suggested that I teach the second course as a way to show my range and abilities as a teacher.
The second new course I will teach this Fall is at Concordia University. There I will teach an Introduction to Psychology course to undergraduate students as a part of the core Liberal Arts curriculum.
Things will REALLY get hairy in January 2014 when, addition to these courses, I will add a fourth course in mental health counseling for undergraduates at Concordia. At that point I will be teaching four courses at two schools and carrying a full counseling load myself.
I was quick to agree to do these new courses because I feel that such a commitment will show my loyalty to the schools and perhaps put me in a good position should a full-time professorship open up at either one. And, to say the least, I could use the money. I know there is a full-time, tenured job open at Concordia, and I think the offer to teach there this Fall is part of a tryout for the position. There is no guarantee, of course, that such will ever happen and colleges are notorious for using up part-time faculty to teach vital courses with the tenuous promise of full-time employment. But, I am doing both anyway. Such a decision has placed a big burden on me this Summer because I need to construct the Hazelden course from scratch, and my obsessive attention to detail means I am trying to get the bulk of lessons done in advance. While I've taught the Concordia Intro course before at other colleges, I need to make fundamental changes in the course structure because it will be taught twice a week - my existing lessons are designed to only teach the material once a week so the material must be broken up and re-assembled for this course.
So, instead of kicking back this Summer, I am chained to the computer and hammering out course material. All this in addition to teaching an Introduction to Psychology class to inmates at the local maximum security prison for the Summer and holding down a full clinical counseling caseload.
Of course a reasonable person would ask why I am pressing so hard at this. The answer is simple: I need to transition to a teaching job as soon as possible as my counseling career winds down. It's no secret at my existing job at Hazelden that teaching at the Graduate School would be a first choice for my work. They know it and actually take pride in knowing that one of their counselors would become a professor there. I'm not necessarily prepared to jump ship should a teaching job open at Concordia...I would need to negotiate such a position given how I would be taking a pay cut to do so.
Regardless, knowing that I cannot ever really retire, I need - at the age when most people are looking fondly over the fence at the pasture of retirement - to press hard to prove myself so I can get work in my old age. I am not alone. Recent studies by the AARP show that more than a third of all households headed by a Baby Boomer like me can never retire and will need to work for as long as they can into their old age. The economy, lack of a pension, and rising rental costs all conspire against an aging person these days and this academic activity is my response to it.
But, through it all I realize I am tired. I will not be able to press like this forever. In fact, I see this push this year as perhaps my last attempt to assemble a teaching career. I know I will not be able to do this as I approach 70 years old, so I am making hay while the sun shines. With any luck at all, I will be teaching full time at this point next year. Without that luck I will need to cut back at one of the colleges and consolidate my energies into perhaps a couple of the courses. And, I will need to re-double my efforts at my counseling job to ensure I am still meaningful there (It's perhaps coincidence that Hazelden is considering a wholesale revamping of the outpatient counseling program and my job in it for the Fall of 2014...perhaps another signal that the year may be a turning point in my career.)
So it is that I plod onward and upward. Every day I am grateful that I have such problems. I am clean and sober and able to face the challenges my life brings to me. I have a program of recovery I still practice every day. And, I have a foundation of love with my family and friends that helps me get through all this. Who could ask for more?
All the best,
Roger W.
I am busy preparing for the two new classes I will teach this Fall. I have undoubtedly stretched myself thin by agreeing to teach a second course on Co-Occurring Psychological Disorders at the Hazelden Graduate School of Addiction Studies. I already teach the Group therapy course to graduate students in counseling, and the out-going dean (who has become a good friend of mine) suggested that I teach the second course as a way to show my range and abilities as a teacher.
The second new course I will teach this Fall is at Concordia University. There I will teach an Introduction to Psychology course to undergraduate students as a part of the core Liberal Arts curriculum.
Things will REALLY get hairy in January 2014 when, addition to these courses, I will add a fourth course in mental health counseling for undergraduates at Concordia. At that point I will be teaching four courses at two schools and carrying a full counseling load myself.
I was quick to agree to do these new courses because I feel that such a commitment will show my loyalty to the schools and perhaps put me in a good position should a full-time professorship open up at either one. And, to say the least, I could use the money. I know there is a full-time, tenured job open at Concordia, and I think the offer to teach there this Fall is part of a tryout for the position. There is no guarantee, of course, that such will ever happen and colleges are notorious for using up part-time faculty to teach vital courses with the tenuous promise of full-time employment. But, I am doing both anyway. Such a decision has placed a big burden on me this Summer because I need to construct the Hazelden course from scratch, and my obsessive attention to detail means I am trying to get the bulk of lessons done in advance. While I've taught the Concordia Intro course before at other colleges, I need to make fundamental changes in the course structure because it will be taught twice a week - my existing lessons are designed to only teach the material once a week so the material must be broken up and re-assembled for this course.
So, instead of kicking back this Summer, I am chained to the computer and hammering out course material. All this in addition to teaching an Introduction to Psychology class to inmates at the local maximum security prison for the Summer and holding down a full clinical counseling caseload.
Of course a reasonable person would ask why I am pressing so hard at this. The answer is simple: I need to transition to a teaching job as soon as possible as my counseling career winds down. It's no secret at my existing job at Hazelden that teaching at the Graduate School would be a first choice for my work. They know it and actually take pride in knowing that one of their counselors would become a professor there. I'm not necessarily prepared to jump ship should a teaching job open at Concordia...I would need to negotiate such a position given how I would be taking a pay cut to do so.
Regardless, knowing that I cannot ever really retire, I need - at the age when most people are looking fondly over the fence at the pasture of retirement - to press hard to prove myself so I can get work in my old age. I am not alone. Recent studies by the AARP show that more than a third of all households headed by a Baby Boomer like me can never retire and will need to work for as long as they can into their old age. The economy, lack of a pension, and rising rental costs all conspire against an aging person these days and this academic activity is my response to it.
But, through it all I realize I am tired. I will not be able to press like this forever. In fact, I see this push this year as perhaps my last attempt to assemble a teaching career. I know I will not be able to do this as I approach 70 years old, so I am making hay while the sun shines. With any luck at all, I will be teaching full time at this point next year. Without that luck I will need to cut back at one of the colleges and consolidate my energies into perhaps a couple of the courses. And, I will need to re-double my efforts at my counseling job to ensure I am still meaningful there (It's perhaps coincidence that Hazelden is considering a wholesale revamping of the outpatient counseling program and my job in it for the Fall of 2014...perhaps another signal that the year may be a turning point in my career.)
So it is that I plod onward and upward. Every day I am grateful that I have such problems. I am clean and sober and able to face the challenges my life brings to me. I have a program of recovery I still practice every day. And, I have a foundation of love with my family and friends that helps me get through all this. Who could ask for more?
All the best,
Roger W.
Saturday, July 6, 2013
Down the new road...
As I was contemplating whether or not to use the above photo as a billboard for The Happy Hour, I was intrigued by the ideas behind the action we must all take on the road to recovery. The metaphor of the new road we must travel away from the point where we stop the lifestyle of active addiction is an apt one for most of us.
If you're like me, we've traveled a rocky road to recovery. There were many twists and turns, many dead ends, and many potholes in the road of the life I was leading before recovery began in 1987. Up to that point, I thought I was on the super highway toward success. From the point when I graduated from college and had my first job secured, I thought I was going to race to the finish line well ahead of others and in fine shape. I could see no end to the road, no barriers in my way, and no detours...No, I was on a straight shot to becoming a success at anything I tried. And, it worked that way for a while. I had a good job and soon got another that was even better. I was a star in the workplace and bosses loved me. Surely, there was nothing to divert me from my goals.
But, there were signs early on that all was not going to be the way I pictured it. And, these signs came in the form of drinking alcohol to excess and smoking marijuana through my 20's, signs that I did not see as they whizzed by me as I sped along this road. In fact, it soon became apparent that I wanted to drink and smoke more than I wanted to work hard to deal with my problems. There were blocks in the road, but, until I was about 30, I had managed to swerve around them and continue at the fast pace I had set out for myself. Surely, I said during this decade between when I started using alcohol and drugs until it sank in that I had a problem, no one could manage to go from being a small town publicist to working in the White House press office without their being some kind of powerful engine propelling me forward. What I didn't realize was that, in the form of a true tragedy, there was something inside me that was so flawed that it spelled doom for me almost from the start. And, that doom did not show up until I was in my 30's when things were much rockier on that road with bumps and stumps and roadblocks that eventually made my road unusable.
It's no coincidence that I managed to get clean and sober through the efforts at people in a clubhouse for recovering people in Delray Beach FL called, The Crossroads. My life had truly come to a crossroads and I needed to get off the backroads of my using life and onto the super highway of recovery. When I decided to make the turn, things had become pretty difficult for me along that old road. I had lost some things, but I was about to lose even more right after I got clean because of the continuation of the problems even after I took the turn for the recovery road. It was just like this: Speeding down the highway of my life with the back seat full of baggage, I suddenly came to a stop with my using to avoid a deadly collision. But, the baggage just kept going forward at the same speed. Before you knew it, I had all the baggage of my life in the front seat of my existence, and I couldn't negotiate any more or see the alternatives. It wasn't until I unpacked that baggage in treatment and put it back into its proper place through using the 12 Steps that I could resume a sane journey.
That's what my life was for me when I stopped using alcohol and drugs: I had made the turn at the crossroads onto the road of recovery, but I had to deal with all the effects of my using over the years. Fortunately, coming to a stop like I did - with the help of people in Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous and my family - I was able to clear away the baggage in front of me and resume my journey down the road of recovery. While there are been occasional rough going on this trip, there has never been anything close to blocking my path...it's been as clear a way as that shown in the photo above.
There is a passage in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text that summarizes this road trip for recovery well..."Just for today, so long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear."
All the best, Roger W.
If you're like me, we've traveled a rocky road to recovery. There were many twists and turns, many dead ends, and many potholes in the road of the life I was leading before recovery began in 1987. Up to that point, I thought I was on the super highway toward success. From the point when I graduated from college and had my first job secured, I thought I was going to race to the finish line well ahead of others and in fine shape. I could see no end to the road, no barriers in my way, and no detours...No, I was on a straight shot to becoming a success at anything I tried. And, it worked that way for a while. I had a good job and soon got another that was even better. I was a star in the workplace and bosses loved me. Surely, there was nothing to divert me from my goals.
But, there were signs early on that all was not going to be the way I pictured it. And, these signs came in the form of drinking alcohol to excess and smoking marijuana through my 20's, signs that I did not see as they whizzed by me as I sped along this road. In fact, it soon became apparent that I wanted to drink and smoke more than I wanted to work hard to deal with my problems. There were blocks in the road, but, until I was about 30, I had managed to swerve around them and continue at the fast pace I had set out for myself. Surely, I said during this decade between when I started using alcohol and drugs until it sank in that I had a problem, no one could manage to go from being a small town publicist to working in the White House press office without their being some kind of powerful engine propelling me forward. What I didn't realize was that, in the form of a true tragedy, there was something inside me that was so flawed that it spelled doom for me almost from the start. And, that doom did not show up until I was in my 30's when things were much rockier on that road with bumps and stumps and roadblocks that eventually made my road unusable.
It's no coincidence that I managed to get clean and sober through the efforts at people in a clubhouse for recovering people in Delray Beach FL called, The Crossroads. My life had truly come to a crossroads and I needed to get off the backroads of my using life and onto the super highway of recovery. When I decided to make the turn, things had become pretty difficult for me along that old road. I had lost some things, but I was about to lose even more right after I got clean because of the continuation of the problems even after I took the turn for the recovery road. It was just like this: Speeding down the highway of my life with the back seat full of baggage, I suddenly came to a stop with my using to avoid a deadly collision. But, the baggage just kept going forward at the same speed. Before you knew it, I had all the baggage of my life in the front seat of my existence, and I couldn't negotiate any more or see the alternatives. It wasn't until I unpacked that baggage in treatment and put it back into its proper place through using the 12 Steps that I could resume a sane journey.
That's what my life was for me when I stopped using alcohol and drugs: I had made the turn at the crossroads onto the road of recovery, but I had to deal with all the effects of my using over the years. Fortunately, coming to a stop like I did - with the help of people in Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous and my family - I was able to clear away the baggage in front of me and resume my journey down the road of recovery. While there are been occasional rough going on this trip, there has never been anything close to blocking my path...it's been as clear a way as that shown in the photo above.
There is a passage in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text that summarizes this road trip for recovery well..."Just for today, so long as I follow that way, I have nothing to fear."
All the best, Roger W.
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