Passivity, Passive-Aggression, Assertiveness, Aggression A very common characteristic our clients share is a lack of assertiveness in their personal relationships. Attorneys, surgeons, diplomats, professional athletes, business owners, physicians, artists and a host of other successful professionals - successful because they are assertive and, when needed, aggressive in the work -  turn into passive wimps the [...]

5 Days? Really? A couple of times a month we have families come to our offices with their alcohol abusing loved one to find out about our program.  Usually the alcohol abusing family member found us online and is interested in participating in our 5-day intensive outpatient program. Frequently, at least one family member is [...]

Your success..... The process of successfully changing an unwanted behavior is easy to describe and hard to accomplish. In that regard, stopping drinking is like losing weight. With weight loss you can join the best gym, hire the finest trainer, read all of the diet books, and go away to the "health spa" for 30, [...]

We get letters.... Some people criticize us and/or unsubscribe to this newsletter because they object to us putting 12 step programs and AA down and tell us we should just stand on our own merits instead.  We agree. However, there really are 2 messages we are sending most weeks. One is that AA works for [...]

Our March 3rd Edition of the Newsletter included an introduction to Anne Fletcher's new book "Inside Rehab," showing that traditional rehab is more of a con game than anything else, and that residential treatment in particular is an expensive failure. We expected that the negative reaction from the AA/12 Step dominated "industry" would be worse [...]

Women and Men: Yes, There Really Are Differences In  Creating Success. About two thirds of our clients are women and one third men. That means that over the years we have worked with over 200 women and 100 men and we have noticed differences that are generally applicable. Examples? Women tend to want to talk [...]

Spouses, Sabotage, and Success A major factor in your success can be having a supportive spouse - but, strange as it seems given the amount of complaining they've done about your drinking, many spouses find themselves sabotaging your efforts instead. What's going on here? One of the exercises we ask clients to undertake is the [...]

"All alcoholics are liars!" We hear variations on the universal theme all the time, of course. The AA twist on this is that, if you have a problem with alcohol, then you are either "an admittedly powerless alcoholic or you are (a liar) in denial!" This bit of nonsense suits the 12 step treatment industry [...]

"Inside Rehab" is a new book by Anne Fletcher which sums up her four year investigation of the treatment industry in the U.S. It's a book worth reading if you want to know what actually happens in most "programs" and how we compare. A useful Appendix is her "Consumer Checklist For Checking Out Rehabs" and [...]

Self-Destructive? Perhaps, But That's Not Necessarily Bad. Those of us who have developed alcohol related problems may also have an attraction to high risk behaviors - and people. That is a genetic predisposition, one of several factors that can lead to developing alcohol problems. Others may also include a high tolerance for alcohol and resistance [...]