Meditation - A Secret to Success

There is no question that consistent meditation is one of the best practices for sound emotional and mental health, but it is a powerful secret to success as well.  When we meditation, we clear away distractions to problems, we dispel fear, and we are given solutions - actions for achieving our goals.

Rehab Recommendations

As someone who has been in drug and alcohol treatment in three different programs, I have the experience of being a patient and a client.  As an interventionist, I am familiar with many different treatment programs and as the director of a treatment program, Sea of Sharks Recovery, I know what we are trying to achieve for our clients.  The following are recommendations for people going into a treatment program:

Rehab Recommendations

I.                   The Do’s

1.     Participate in everything.  You will never meet these people again so let go of “what will they think of me”.  Who care? Do it!!

2.     Be honest with your therapist and staff.  If something is bothering you or you have a problem, share it!

3.     Keep a journal.  It will be one of your best resources later.

4.     Do follow the rules and guidelines.  It simply makes life easier and it holds the rehab accountable – if you screw up and don’t succeed, the rehab can blame it on you. If you do ALL the recommendations, you can blame your lack of success on them.

5.     Do tell on your friends – this is the one place where it’s not only cool, but will save their lives.  This is not prison, college, or … home.

6.     Understand no place is perfect.  There will always be something to complain about.

7.     Live life like you wish you would – in other words, be clean!!!!

8.     Try new things – do something you always wanted to.

9.     Take time to be alone and pray, read, and meditate.

10.  Set goals and work toward them.

11.  Ask for HELP!!!!

12.  Tell your therapists/staff what you think you need and then be open to what they think you need.

II.                 The Don’ts

1.     Don’t break the rules – they are there for a reason and we need practice following rules.

2.     Don’t sleep with other clients.  It’s messy, it’s against the rules and usually gets you thrown out.

3.     Don’t use or drink – need we say more.

4.     Don’t keep secrets – it’s true that secrets keep us sick and we are really bad at it. We always have to tell our best friend and everyone has a best friend.

5.     Don’t be afraid to make sober mistakes – we can recover from anything if we stay sober for it.

Fist Day of Spring - Letting go of the past

HOPE = Hang On, Pain Ends

HOPE has many acronyms and it is true that hope never abandons us - we give up, lose hope. We abandon hope forgetting that pain ends.  It is why adolescents commit suicide when they have so much to live for.  They simply forget that pain ends and find a permanent solution to a temporary problem.  

As for me, I often try to spare others the pain that I had to endure to get sober and to reclaim my life.  It was my sponsor who said, "Why should you spare others the pain that has taught you so much, that has given you life, and has given you unending hope?"  She was right.

Life today!!

March coincides with the 3rd Step and the principle behind the Third Step is faith.  Faith is not just belief, but trust.  Trust.  The hardest thing in an intervention is establishing trust because trust is earned through experience so how do I instill trust - by being real, really real.

Adolescent Marijuana Use and Aubse

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/03/283545932/evidence-on-marijuanas-health-effects-is-hazy-at-besthttp://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/03/283545932/evidence-on-marijuanas-health-effects-is-hazy-at-best                                                                                  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/03/283545932/evidence-on-marijuanas-health-effects-is-hazy-at-bestqqqqq                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/03/283545932/evidence-on-marijuanas-health-effects-is-hazy-at-best

Uncertain Effects of Marijuana

Many young clients and the parents of these young marijuana users do not realize the permanent and semi-permanent damage to the adolescent brain. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/03/283545932/evidence-on-marijuanas-health-effects-is-hazy-at-best

Five Alive

March - the month of faith