Collaboration, Anyone? Recently I was watching an interview with Sting on Bravo’s “Inside the Actors Studio.” He was talking about his work with the writer and director of his first Broadway musical and that the end result was a collaborative effort, not a competitive one, and that the result was a better play than any [...]

Regardless of the problem, there's neither a good time nor a bad time to choose to fix it. That’s right – fixing any problem means choosing to be uncomfortable with the necessary changes to your established habits for a while. But that’s true no matter when, or how, you decide it’s time. As with breaking [...]

Mary Ellen made the news again in the Daily Beast Article: "Elizabeth Pena and the Truth About Alcoholic Women." It’s a good article that not only covers AA’s failure to help women, and how AA actively harms women (not to mention men as well), but also notes some of what actually works and why. A [...]

Getting Older - A Cost/Benefit Analysis Most of our clients range in age from their early 40s to middle 70s with the majority of you being in your 50s. Among the obvious considerations in addressing alcohol abuse, therefore, are the effects of aging. Research studies have long noted that, generally speaking, older people are happier [...]

Crime and Punishment? No, we’re not talking about going to jail over DUIs or other alcohol related offenses.We’re interested in the way you may be using alcohol to punish yourself! Many of us grew up in very punitive homes where “punishments” - whether physical, psychological, and/or emotional - were about the only form of attention [...]

Thank you, But I'm Taking My Vote Back Now One of the first casualties your drinking inflicts on you is the loss of your vote in family decision making. This may extend to other areas of your life - social, professional, legal and others - but it most assuredly nullifies your voice in matters that [...]

The Holidays Approach Every year about now, as the retailers start ramping up for another holiday season, we too begin suggesting that the best gifts you can give to yourself and others is forgoing yet another 3 months of alcohol drenched events. Really. Let's take a look at current realities. Halloween, once the province of [...]

I Quit Abusing Alcohol, and Allowing Myself to Be Abused, and Now I'm the Bad Guy? As we have noted before, all of our relationships are essentially dances that we have developed with partners, spouses, siblings, friends, colleagues, and so on. In many cases, a silent - or not so silent - partner in these [...]

So How Do We Create a New "Normal?" Steppers always admonish you to "keep away from 'Normies'." Instead, we suggest that you create your own new normal and include whoever fits that life. Remember, you want alcohol abuse to move into the "been there, done that" category, not simply take on a new form as [...]

The Very Real Benefits of Alcohol Abuse One of the things we ask clients to do during the 5 Day Intensive portion of our program is to list the benefits they get from their drinking - obviously if there weren't compensating benefits you wouldn't be drinking, or in trouble, and you wouldn't have problems getting [...]