Monthly Archives: October 2008

Buddhist Hallowe’en — Hungry Ghost Festivals

Posted on by
Reply

Hungry ghosts are pitiable creatures. They have huge, empty stomachs, but their mouths are too small and their necks too thin to take in food. Sometimes they breath fire; sometimes what food they do eat turns to ash in their mouths. They are doomed to live with incessant craving.

The Hungry Ghost Realm is one of the Six Realms of Samsara, into which beings are reborn. Understood as a psychological rather than a physical state, hungry ghosts might be thought of as people with addictions, compulsions and obsessions. Greed and jealousy lead to a life as a hungry ghost.

Hungry ghost festivals are held in many Buddhist countries to give the poor creatures relief….

Hungry Ghost Festivals – Buddhist Festivals to Placate Hungry Ghosts

Bill Wilson on the 11th Step

Posted on by
Reply

Around me I see many people who make a far better job of relating themselves to God than I do. Certainly it mustn’t be said I haven’t made any progress at all over the years; I simply confess that I haven’t made the progress that I might have made, my opportunities being what they have been, and still are.

Bill Wilson wrote the words above in 1958, just before his 24th AA Anniversary.  His honest appraisal of his shortcomings and his willingness to discuss them are a lesson to me, and perhaps to you as well.  How many of us, in his position, would have been sorely tempted to simply bask in the glory of being one of the Founders, and forget how to be one of the bozos on the bus?

The AA Grapevine carries articles like this every month.  It is an invaluable resource for alcoholics in recovery — and for other kinds of addicts if they are willing to set aside their prejudices and “read between the lines.”

Bill Wilson on the 11th Step — AA Grapevine Current Issue

University Uses ‘Social Norming’ To Curb Drinking

Posted on by
Reply

At colleges across the United States, the number of alcohol-related deaths is on the rise. But at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, no student has died from intoxication or an accident linked to drinking since 1998.

What’s UVA’s secret? It’s called “social norming,” and relies on peer counseling, social events and solid information to challenge misperceptions students have about drinking.

University Uses ‘Social Norming’ To Curb Drinking : NPR

Drug Replacement Therapy

Posted on by
Reply

Spiritual River asks:

Is Drug Replacement Therapy a Good Option for Recovering Addicts?

This is a good treatment of the possibilities inherent in replacement therapy, and of some of the options. See my comment after the article for the areas in which I disagree, and my opinion on the subject in general.  It is signed “DZ” (by accident).

Maven No More

Posted on by
Reply

Some of you may notice that the “Health Maven” badge is missing from beneath George’s bit of wisdom on the right.   I find that most of Wellsphere’s professionals are waaaay up in their heads, and seem to have mostly theoretical notions about alcoholism and addiction.  Beyond that, the site is so diluted by other issues that I see no likelihood of its becoming a particularly useful resource for the recovering community at large.  The other sites and online resources in which I participate seem to be far more effective in both attracting and informing folks who are serious about recovery.

I’m sure Wellsphere’s founders have their hearts in the right place, but they are trying to re-invent the wheel.  WebMD does it better, as do any number of other sites.  As to addicts and alcoholics: they’re dying right now.  I don’t have time to mess with start-ups that aren’t — in my opinion — sufficiently focused.

Memories of Best Friends Past

Posted on by
Reply

I was at one of those meetings tonight where things just seem to fall into place.  There was hardly anyone there because of a memorial service for Jere, about whom I wrote a few weeks ago.  (I chose not to go; said goodbye already).  The two speakers failed to show as well, so the chair — a woman with about a year and a half — and another guy with about 4 years shared instead.  Naturally, since neither of them had a chance to think about it, their sharing was spontaneous and completely from the heart.  Really nice.

Both spoke of their early lives; of remembering how it felt to never know “the rules,” the isolation, the discovery of their new best friend, better living through chemistry.  I remembered along with them.

One of the interesting things that I recalled a few years ago came back to me.  When I was about 16, I came into possession of a half bottle of liquor — I think it may have been Johnnie Walker Red, based on what I recall of the appearance.  At the time, I didn’t drink at all.  I had probably had a total of maybe two beers in my life, and maybe a sip of altar wine as an altar boy (I’m not even sure of that).  I pretty-much figured I couldn’t get away with drinking it, and I sure didn’t want to bring it home with me, so I buried it out in an orange grove, where it stayed for several months.

I never drank it; ended up giving it to an older guy.  But I remember the good feeling it gave me to know it was there.  That I had a stash.  That I could drink it if I wanted to — the same warm feeling I got some years later whenever I’d contemplate a new, unopened bottle of booze, or whatever other collection of chemicals I might have managed to acquire.  That feeling of being secure with my best friend.

I don’t ever want to forget that feeling, because as long as I can bring it to mind, it’s one more reminder that I’m still an addict, and the stuff is still out there.

Waiting for me.

Alcohol Abuse Increases Breast Cancer Risk from 1 in 9 to ~1 in 4

Posted on by
1

While there are many different risk factors for developing breast cancer, including family history and obesity, the association between alcohol and breast cancer is well established.

There are more than 45,000 new cases of breast cancer in the UK every year, and the “lifetime risk” of developing it is approximately one in nine.

Women who drink one large glass of wine a day, which means 21 units of alcohol a week compared with the recommended 15, increase this by a fifth.

Drinking two glasses a night boosts it by a third, while three big glasses mean more than a 50% increase.
BBC NEWS | Health | Women ‘unaware of alcohol threat’

Drinking Shrinks the Brain

Posted on by
Reply

“The take-home message is that, if you drink a lot, you’re going to hurt your brain,” said Rajesh Miranda, an associate professor of neuroscience and experimental therapeutics at the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine. “This is something we knew, but this is a huge study that quantifies that.”

“It’s not surprising that alcohol would cause shrinkage of the brain. That kind of thing has been observed in animal models and smaller studies,” Miranda added. “The surprising thing is that they [the study authors] showed that even low levels of drinking are not protective, as people had seen in other cases.”
Drinking Shrinks the Brain – washingtonpost.com

Is It OK To Be Angry?

Posted on by
1

A friend asks if it is OK to be angry about a relative having “chosen” behavior that has led to his imminent death and a lot of grief for those around him.

You have an absolute right to feel angry; in fact, you don’t have a choice.  Anger is an emotion, and it will happen whether we agree or not.  If we try to suppress emotions completely, they always come out in other ways eventually.  We can moderate them when we need to for social reasons, but we have to allow ourselves to feel and walk beyond them.

Once your anger has discharged, you will probably find it easier to appreciate why people with various compulsions do things the way they do — whether or not you come to understand it.  The one thing you must understand now is this: working through the anger (and, yes, the grief) is something that you have to do for yourself.  It is not about loyalty, it is not about propriety, it is not about right or wrong.  It’s about dealing with an emotional upheaval of mythic proportions.

I tell people that it’s like taking out the garbage.  If you throw the bag in the pantry instead of taking out the trash, eventually cleaning the pantry becomes not only a nasty job, it becomes imperative — otherwise, stuff starts leaking under the door and ruining things in the kitchen.

Be angry.  Yell, scream, and don’t feel guilty about it.  After that — and it may take quite a while — try to come to understand, for your sake as well as that of the others who may remember him differently.

Some Comments About Alcohol Use

Posted on by
Reply

People use alcohol for only one reason, to alter their brain chemistry so that they feel “better” than they did previously. Therefore, without exception, a person who is “under the influence” is suffering from chemically induced abnormal brain function, and is unable accurately to judge her own behavior.  That is why so many people swear that they drive better, dance better, think better when high.

The people around them, of course, know the truth of the matter. This truth has been borne out in literally hundreds of experiments all over the world. ( You, of course, are an exception.) The physiology of intoxication and addiction is well-known here at the beginning of the 21st Century. We know that the brain and other organs undergo changes when subjected to the frequent presence of alcohol. We know that eventually semi-permanent and some permanent changes occur which cause the victim to be convinced absolutely that s/he cannot exist without the drug. This conviction is on the sub-cortical level, based on information interpreted by the primitive portion of the brain. It is not a conscious thought, and is not amenable to reason or education. Only when the person’s life is in such chaos that it presents a greater challenge than living without booze does the individual become capable of considering change, (the “rock bottom” we hear about.)

It is probably impossible for a person who has not himself been subject to such compulsion to understand it other than in a shallow, intellectual way. It is something that one either believes, because it makes sense and describes an observed reality, or that is disbelieved for whatever reasons — many of which may bear looking at.

We need to be careful, when we make statements about alcoholics, addicts, and addiction, that we are speaking from empirical knowledge. Addiction has touched virtually every person in the country in one way or another. We all have an emotional stake in the concept. If we are to discern effective ways of dealing with these problems, we need to insure — to the extent possible — that we are viewing the subject accurately, rather than “through a glass, darkly.”

Here is a link to the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse FAQ page, for a real eye-opener regarding the impact of these problems on society in the US.
Fact Sheet