Really?
With the New Year comes the usual flood of “treatment” offers descending on us and we presume you. A new twist this year is receiving an offer through a mass email campaign using at least a dozen different names and claiming to personally address the following laundry list of “addictions.”
“Food, Sex, Pornography, Using computers / the internet, Playing video games, Working, Exercising, Spiritual obsession, Pain (seeking), Cutting, Shopping, Alcohol, Opioids, Prescription drugs, Cocaine, Cannabis (marijuana), Methamphetamine, Hallucinogens, Inhalants, PCP or Angel dust, Other unspecified substances.”
Wow!
We are much more modest in our offering, sticking to alcohol. We are of the opinion that none of the “addictions” list above have much to do with each other and certainly not with self-medicating with alcohol. To claim to be competent in all of these diverse habits, obsessions and maladies is equivalent to a physician claiming to cure everything from athlete’s foot to stage 4 metastatic cancer (along with dementia and cataracts, bone degeneration, and…).
To this we have one response, “Quack.”
But people who are desperate and vulnerable are easy prey for the con artists and scams which offer a lot of puffery and little of substance while branding you with the permanent Scarlet A of alcoholic. Don’t go for empty promises and the magic of Malibu or Huntington Beach or any other exotic location.
Yes, a few of you do need to detox and rest and regain your mental and emotional stability, but a hospital detox unit or a stay at a spa can manage that.
After that you need substance, not filler. Encouragement, not fear.
Reinforcement, not humiliation and indoctrination in one cult or another.
Regardless, you do need and deserve an honest, non-threatening, age appropriate and comprehensive assessment of your situation and options.
We provide that. Free. Why not find out what your real needs and options are?
Extended Services
Ever since we opened the practice we’ve had clients who wanted to extend their work with us to cover other issues that had emerged as problems they had been medicating or problems that arose when they quit drinking. Indeed, our first client, a local physician, continued to do sessions two evenings a month with me on her way home from work to figure out how not to go back to vodka as a defense against an abusive mother, mentally ill spouse, gambler son, and manipulative daughter.
Over the years we have seen people through divorces, career changes, family reunifications and dissolutions, illnesses and a plethora of other conditions and situations – some of them coming years after their initial work with us.
As one former client put it, “Why would I spend months bringing another therapist up to speed when I can get there with you in a couple of hours? Including not having to finesse my drinking history.”
So some folks have scheduled a few sessions with one or the other of us and a few come back for a few days.
With our new format, and use of the internet, that possibility is now open to far more of you without the time, trouble and expense of flying here to meet in person.
Need to talk? Find yourself edging back to the same old, same old? Have new and/or unexpected developments now that the alcohol has been removed? Just need a bit of reinforcement or some new ideas?
All of that, and more, is just a phone call away. So give one or the other of us a call and see what the possibilities may be. We’re always happy to hear from you and help resolve whatever is troubling you.
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