While we were on Vancouver Island we decided to visit the Avatar Grove we’d read about. Then we set out to see the “gnarliest tree” in Canada. […]

Just how do we work with “couples?” A section of our website is devoted to Treatment for Couples and we wanted to elaborate a bit further since there are several variations: A couple where one drinks and the other enables; A couple where both drink; A couple where one drinks and the other has different [...]

AA Alternatives For Men What does it mean that 95% of the men who try AA find it useless, or worse? It means you are, after all, the men who visit our website and read our Newsletters. It actually means that you are the lucky ones. You don’t need to join a cult, label yourself, [...]

This week we’re following our own advice. We’re taking a few days off and doing a staff retreat! Given that we are a staff of only two you’d think it would be easier to manage, but it’s still easy to skip. We’re just as good as you are at coming up with reasons we “can’t” [...]

Jim's Legacy Many of you wrote expressing your condolences and sympathy after reading Mary Ellen's article on the death of her brother Jim. There is a bit more to the story and we'd like to take this opportunity to complete the picture of his last 20 years. A very successful and respected attorney, Jim threw [...]

How About a Cost/Benefit Analysis? A normal Cost/Benefit Analysis of your drinking would be four lists: Costs of Drinking, Benefits of Drinking, Costs of Quitting, Benefits of Quitting. We suggest that for all practical purposes you can skip the Costs of Drinking and the Benefits of Quitting parts – not much mystery there for the [...]

Exactly What Is It That We Do? We do spend a fair amount of time on the website and on the phone explaining what we do, how it’s different, and why it works far better than what anyone else is offering. What we did, 8 years ago, was take the best of all of the [...]

A recent New York Times article noted the following: “…some addiction experts now envision a future — possibly no more than a decade away — in which treatment for alcoholism mirrors contemporary approaches to depression: Patients will choose from a range of drugs to find the one that best suits them, then couple it with [...]

Sabotage!  Who doesn’t want you to succeed? When you give up drinking you expect the people around you to be happy about it and supportive. So why do so many spouses and other friends and family members suddenly start doing things to drive you back to drinking? Every relationship in our lives evolves into a [...]

Why Not “Go Off To Rehab”? One of the most pervasive myths “everyone knows” is that you have to “go off to rehab” for 30, 60, or even 90 days in order to leave alcohol problems behind.  With some very rare exceptions, going to residential treatment is a waste of time, money, effort, and reputation, [...]