I appreciate the opportunity to give someone else this space to say what I believe to be true about the work Mary Ellen and I are doing, have done, and can do for you.

Ed,

I have been thinking about this for a while and it reminded me that I once heard that every drama has a villain, a victim, and a vindicator. In this drama the villain is alcohol and the personal choice is to be either the victim or vindicator.

In my case I chose not to be a victim so your accountability based program had natural appeal. Alcohol is an incredibly efficient way to decompress in a hurry but has all the negatives that go with it. Through your program I learned to just let go of the vast majority of things that bothered me and to try to constructively deal with the rest.

I have not achieved perfection and probably never well but this is the most balanced my life has felt in 30 years. You and Mary Ellen have changed my life. An hour ago I was contemplating an interaction that I need to have with my wife this week that would not have been possible before I met both of you.

All the best.
C. C.

The upcoming weeks always give us an opportunity to provide services in a reduced format and/or during times when you may be able to get away without drawing attention to yourself. That point noted, we offer the following annual options:

In November, the 20th – 22nd we offer you an extra intensive 3 Day option with all of the same follow-up and other support. In reducing from 5 to 3 days we also include a $3,000 price reduction to $9,500. You will, of course, also save on lodging and other incidentals.

In December we are available Christmas week from the 26th – 29th which helps those of you in academia or similar school schedules escape for a “winter vacation” to sunny southern California without anyone raising an eyebrow.

Finally, in January, we offer either January 1st or 2nd – 5th for those of you who wish to put your resolutions into immediate action. In either the December or January option, we include a $2,000 fee reduction.

But more importantly, you again maximize your privacy and confidentiality by merely disappearing for a week’s vacation, not the obvious “30-day rehab” jaunt – an expensive and ineffectual choice in any case.

So why not call and at least discuss your options, our services, and your life?

Drinking In Isolation

It’s interesting that the majority of our clients are solitary drinkers. Yes, some of you are more of the party sort, but even many of you use that to get started and then end the night alone with your bottle of choice.

In her New York Times Bestseller, Her Best-Kept Secret, Why Women Drink – and How They Can Regain Control, author Gabrielle Glaser reports on the history of women’s alcohol use and misuse, particularly since the 1950s, and how it tends to be hidden. Solitary drinking, stashed bottles, late night runs to neighborhood dumpsters to dispose of bottles.

Men, while more social in their drinking generally, also have their secret stashes, “man caves,” and clubs that are more accurately described as private bars where we huddle up with similar privacy seeking drinkers who won’t intrude on our personal pursuit of oblivion.

There are those of us who lead isolated lives for whatever reason, or seek isolation through the numbing relief that alcohol may provide.

Those of us who don’t use alcohol to get a “buzz,” but to come down from the adrenaline high of intense careers (our physician clients tend to be surgeons or E.R. doctors; the attorneys, litigators or criminal defense lawyers).

Of course women, more often than men, may also medicate the loneliness, boredom, and pressures of motherhood – especially those who pursued rewarding professions prior to becoming mothers (an aside, don’t give up your day job).

As we frequently note, we don’t get into trouble with alcohol because we are dumb, diseased, weak, or lazy – we get into trouble because it works. Until it doesn’t.

Alcohol use will expand to fill the available space or it will generalize from one use to another and another and another. No, that doesn’t make it a “progressive disease,” it makes it an effective but very short-term palliative drug.

As we use more, we hide more, isolate more, withdraw more, and drink more to compensate for the increased isolation, and then…. But you know the picture.

Yet the opposite is also true. Just as the drinking can fuel a downward spiral, so too mitigating the drinking can result in an upward spiral. Assuming you don’t attempt to “fix” it by joining the even more isolating, depressing, dangerous, and spirit killing groups like AA.

You have developed your problem in varying degrees of isolation. You have kept it secret as best you can. But that’s no longer working. That why we offer you an equally private solution.

No labels, no “outing,” no groups, powerlessness, Steps, or life-long “in recovery.”

Just good research based assistance support as you eliminate the isolation, secrets, and guilt, and craft you own, unique, “empowering solution.” Isn’t it time to give yourself, and those around you, that gift this year?