Addiction

Get More Information

I have worked in the mental health field for over twenty years. My area of interest focused on addiction. I was interested in any kind of addiction whether it be gambling, sex, food, alcohol or other drugs. I learned from people like Melody Beattie, Terry Gorski and of course Sigmund Freud. I studied different types of treatment modalities and learned from my clients how to work with addicts.

I have also had the privilege of working with Dr. David Myers. He is internationally known for his work in addiction and pain management.

Want to know when an addict is lying? Their lips are moving! They don't even know how much they lie until they get clean and sober. I mean really clean and sober Not just putting down the drug. As the saying goes: Denial is not a river in Egypt. A major change is needed physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

I began my work in the basement of a Mental Health Center in Illinois. There was an underground tunnel that led to the Hospital's ER. After having a seizure, I would wheel patients, strapped to a gurnie, through a dimly lit walkway to the uninformed ER staff that would say to me, "I've told you all over that all you need to do is give these kind of people a bottle of booze and send them on their way. They are hopeless."

I would get so very angry because I had seen some of "those kind of people" get and stay clean and sober. I could not believe that educated people could be so prejudice and insensitive. We were attempting to help sick people get better, not bad people get good! What kind of education had those so called professionals really had? I knew then helping "those" people was going to be a real challenge. That was 1983.

Addiction as a Disease

Not only were the professionals uninformed, addicts were clue less and their denial system still keeps them in the dark.

"Just Say No!" Let's think about this a moment. Do you really believe that a human being would allow drinking and using drugs ruin their lives if they could just stop? So, you get up one morning and say: "Think I will choose to use alcohol and drugs today so I can loose my family, my job, my home and maybe die." If addicts could "just say no", I believe they would.

So much has been discovered about the disease of addiction. There are so many websites to go to for updated information. To me, one of the most interesting articles are those about identifying that addiction is stored in our DNA. Alcoholism and addiction is a real disease.

I find this website, Join Together.org, as one of the many sites that has a wealth of information regarding all kinds of addiction.

Please Remember...

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -that principle is contempt prior to investigation. -Herbert Spencer