There’s a story I share with my clients that comes from Robert Bly, an author and poet who wrote a book called “A Little Book About the Human Shadow”. He says we’re all born as beautiful, loving golden globes of light and energy. As we grow up in our families, go to school and develop friends, we feel loved or not, to varying degrees. In response, we often give up parts of ourselves to please our parents, our teachers, churches, friends, etc.
Problems are often temporary – the name of the person who breaks your heart today will be a dim memory at some point. Pain is real at the time and difficult. Don’t isolate. Find a safe person to talk with.
Life is beautiful, precious, valuable and worthwhile – right? How can suicide seem like the best or only choice? If you’ve never been there yourself, it can be hard to believe anyone could get that down.
Ever feel like you’re a fat slob, a lazy bum, or just a bad person because you abuse opioids, get lost in meth, binge on food or have spent 2 days gaming? I’ve heard many a person say these things about themselves in my counseling office as they struggle to make better choices.
Put a rat it in a cage and give it two water bottles. One is just water, and one is water laced with either heroin or cocaine. If you do that, the rat will almost always prefer the drugged water and almost always kill itself very quickly, right, within a couple of weeks. So there you go. It’s our theory of addiction.
I know, pot affects people differently so if your experience is that it enhances reality, fine. At the age of 20 I smoked daily for a year and it was the most unproductive, wasted, sleepy year of my life. I was able to take care of my son, clean the house and nap a lot. I remember the realization that sluggishness was not how I wanted to live each day, quit and felt mentally clear. But it took awhile!…
Guest Blog by Michelle Peterson, recoverypride.org
Drug and alcohol addiction doesn’t discriminate, impacting people from all walks of life and spanning age groups from the pre-teens (or even younger) to senior citizens.
Does smoking pot affect your IQ? Yes, if you start smoking under the age of 18. A study from New Zealand’s University of Otago of 1,000 people IQ tested and followed from 18 to 34 showed that people who smoked and became dependent by 18 had an average drop of 8 points. Unfortunately, quitting didn’t remove the problem researchers reported. (Modesto Bee, Tue. 28, 2012)
Recently, the San Francisco Chronicle had a heartbreaking letter written by Ricci & Vernae Graham’s about the loss of their son Malcolm to an opioid overdose. The Graham’s son is a typical story. He got hooked on prescription opioids after a football injury, over time became addicted, had mood problems, got in trouble with the
We must and can do better to prevent and treat alcohoism and addiction. We have had success with another addiction – smoking. The U.S. reduced smoking rates from nearly 60% in the 1950s to about 20% today. We did it with a collective will to stop that killer and with a focus on prevention and treatment