How to Recognize a gambling Problem
Here are some ways to help determine if someone you know has a gambling problem.
Alcohol Addiction: A Solution
With the increase of binge and underage drinking are we heading for problems of an epidemic scale? Is the fun and free living going to come back and haunt us in the not so distant future? Well it is certainly possible as diabetes, liver failure and so many other physical ailments can be helped along by bad drinking habits. So why are we experiencing problems like this in the twenty-first century – at the beginning of the information age – and more importantly, how can we chan…
Alcohol And Honesty
Irene, in her late 40s, had been in an out of treatment centers for years before consulting with me. When in treatment, she was fine, with no desire to drink, but once she returned home with her husband, Frank, and two adolescent children, it didn’t take long before she was back to drinking. Even though she faithfully attended AA meetings, she could not stay sober once she returned home. She loved her husband and children and could not understand why she could not stay sober …
Alcohol Kills A Person’s Necessary Growing Pains
When I was in high school during the early 70’s the drinking age was 18 years old. Every one of my friends was a big drinker; some of them even drank in my father’s bar, where I worked. It was unbelievable how much booze these kids could consume. I witnessed kids drinking a case of beer in one night, others drinking pitchers of mixed drink, and still others drinking booze right out of a bottle. I myself would have a few beers occasionally, but my real drinking didn’t start un…
Alcoholism: Why Can’t I Stop Drinking?
The underlying basis of all addictions – and alcohol is no exception – is the avoidance of pain. While there is evidence that some people have genetic and biological predispositions toward alcoholism, not all people with these predispositions abuse alcohol or become alcohol dependent. Many people who join AA learn to deal with their painful emotions without the use of alcohol, regardless of their genetic predisposition.
What if you are a person who wants to stop drinking, …
Alcoholism And Healing
Jeffrey showed up at one of my 5-Day Inner Bonding Intensives to deal with his alcoholism and resulting relationship problems. His past two marriages had ended in messy divorces. His business was falling apart. Yet in the face of all of this, Jeffrey could not or would not stop drinking.
Two things were immediately apparent in my first session with Jeffrey. First, he had completely abandoned himself, making others responsible for his self-worth. Due to his unwillingness to…
Control Your Drinking With Hypnosis
Alcoholism has negatively impacted many lives. Though it’s a sad thing, there are plenty of people who just can’t put down the bottle. Like most other addictions, alcoholism has the ability to warp reality to the point where addicts no longer have any control over their functions. Alcoholism is a problem that can rip apart families, end careers, or even end lives. There are many medical downfalls associated with alcoholism and some of the social implications are just as serio…
Dealing With Addiction In The Family
Dealing with addicted family members is always a big challenge. There are some important issues to explore when someone you love is harming themselves.
ARE YOU CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM?
People use various addictions to avoid their painful feelings, especially their feelings of anxiety, stress, aloneness, emptiness and loneliness. Is there some way that you are contributing to their pain? While you are not responsible for how someone deals with pain, you are responsi…
Recovery From Addictions: Part 1
This is the first of a 5-part series on recovery from addictions. This first part defines substance and process addictions and describes the four major false beliefs that underlie most addictions.
Christian Psychotherapy for Convicts?
Repeated research studies have revealed that secular efforts at rehabilitation have been unsuccessful in preventing recidivism. Not one of the various approaches to psychological counseling has been able to demonstrate success statistically in helping inmates rehabilitate. Among nearly 300,000 prisoners released in 15 states in 1994, 67.5% were re-arrested within 3-years. A study of 1983 releases estimated 62.5% (Langan and Levin, Bureau of Justice Statistics, June 2002).
Historically, this has been true according to the publication of The Effectiveness of Correctional Treatment (Lipton, Martinson, & Wilks,1975), which highlighted the controversy as to whether correctional treatment reduces recidivism. This review examined a variety of treatments (e.g., individual and group psychotherapy and counseling, intensive casework, and skill development) and reported the results on a number of different outcome criteria (e.g., adjustment to prison life, vocational success, recidivism rate). The relationship between any single treatment or combination of programs and recidivism rate was far from being convincing. In a review of the Lipton study, Martinson concluded that “with few isolated exceptions, the rehabilitative efforts that have been reported so far have had no appreciable effect on recidivism.”