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Monday, May 4, 2009

monday quotes





A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
- Joseph Addison

Life brings simple pleasures to us every day. It is up to us to make them wonderful memories.
- Cathy Allen


Every truth has two sides. It is well to look at both before we commit ourselves to either side.


Never place a period where God has placed a comma.
- Gracie Allen


Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
- Muhammad Ali

Life is a series of experiences...of beginnings. You are always in training for a time yet to come.
- Wally Amos

Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.
- Walter Anderson

I am responsible for my own well being, my own happiness. The choices and decisions I make regarding my life directly influences the quality of my days.
- Kathleen Andrus

Keep spiritually sound and be persistent. Persistence is the key. Just never stop believing in your dream.
- Deborah Aquila

One reason why I don't drink is because I wish to know when I am having a good time.
- Nancy Astor

Every problem has a gift for you in its hands.
- Richard Bach

There is a way to look at the past. Don't hide from it. It will not catch you - if you don't repeat it.
- Pearl Bailey

In the time we have it is surely our duty to do all the good we can to all the people we can in all the ways we can.
- William Barclay

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
- Carl Bard

What is the difference between an obstacle and an opportunity? Our attitude toward it. Every opportunity has a difficulty, and every difficulty has an opportunity.
- J. Sidlow Baxter

Life consists not in holding good cards, but in playing well those you do hold.
- Josh Billings, pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw





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3 comments:

Shadow said...

you post the best quotes...

Unknown said...

ALCOHOLISM IS NOT A DISEASE

By Gerald Brown, Baldwin Research Institute, Inc.

The “recovery” community’s adoption of the disease concept began with an early AA member named Marty Mann. Her efforts, combined with a somewhat dubious scientist named E.M. Jellinek, began national acceptance of the disease concept.

It was Jellinek’s “scientific” study that opened the door for the medical communities’ support. E.M. Jellinek’s study was funded by the efforts of Marty Mann. And, like so many other circumstances involving Jellinek and Marty Mann, the study was bogus if not outright fraudulent.

The surveys he based his conclusions on were from a hand picked group of alcoholics.
There were 158 questionnaires handed out and 60 of them were suspiciously not included. His conclusion was based on less than 100 hand picked alcoholics chosen by Marty Mann.

Mrs. Mann, of course, had a personal agenda to remove the stigma about the homeless and dirty alcoholic or “bowery drunk” in order to gain financial support from the wealthy. By removing the stigma, the problem becomes one of the general population, which would then include the wealthy.

The first step was Jellinek publishing his findings in his book "The Stages of Alcoholism.” Later, E.M. Jellinek was asked by Yale University to refute his own findings. He complied. E.M. Jellinek’s Stages of Alcoholism did not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

Earlier in this century, the validity of the disease concept was often debated in medical circles. However, in 1956 the American Medical Association (AMA) proclaimed alcoholism an "illness."

Then, in 1966, the AMA proclaimed alcoholism a disease. The decision was wrapped in controversy. Historically, Marty Mann had her hand in much of this and manipulated information and doctors into agreeing with the disease concept.

Marty Mann used her position as founder of the NCA (National Counsel for Alcoholism) to promote the disease concept through Jellinek and a somewhat clandestine relationship with the founder of the NIAAA (National Institute for Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse) whose founder worked with Marty Mann during the institute’s early development.

The founder of NIAAA (Smithers) was a major contributor to and promoter of the disease concept. It was his money that funded Jellinek’s work at Yale. Smithers was also responsible for gaining insurance coverage for patients in treatment (hence the 28 day program).

Smithers was certainly not altruistic in his efforts. At that time he had already launched a treatment program for which he was lobbying for insurance payments.
Acceptance by the medical community was the only way this could happen; alcoholism had to be a medical problem in order for medical insurance to pay for programs.We can see the influence of these “advances” everyday in treatment programs. Today the treatment industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, with insurance paying the lion’s share of the costs.

Unknown said...

THE MISABELING OF BEHAVIOURAL PROBLEMS

By Ron Rhodes

Critics have argued -- correctly, in my view -- that it is illegitimate to apply labels such as "addiction" to behaviours. Dr. John Temerin at Cornell Medical School has commented that "the whole concept of addiction is in danger of becoming meaningless."

He also notes that "calling any kind of compulsive habit people have trouble managing an addiction moves addiction far away from the basic meaning, which is a biological dependence."[14]

Along these same lines, an article on recovery in the New York Times cited the Psychiatric News, which said: "Addiction medicine is at risk of becoming the laughing stock of the medical community by forcing everything into a Procrustean model of addiction."[15]

Procrustes was a giant in Greek mythology that seized travellers and made them all fit in a bed, either by stretching them or cutting off their legs.

Another example of mislabelling is the practice of calling behavioural problems "diseases." Now, of course, there are some mental disorders that can affect behaviour -- schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, and some forms of depression -- that are associated with physical diseases.

But does this mean that behaviour can be diseased?

It is critical to recognize that there is an element of volition in behaviour that is not present in real, biological diseases.

People do not succumb to apoplexy the way they succumb to adultery. Stanton Peele, in his book Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control, says that "disease definitions undermine the individual's obligation to control behaviour and to answer for misconduct. They legitimatize, reinforce, and excuse the behaviours in question -- convincing people, contrary to all evidence, that their behaviour is not their own." [16]

Critics thus emphasize that a "disease" is something one has; "behaviour" has to do with what one does. Addressing this issue, anthropologist Melvin Konner said:

"We would all like to point at an illness -- a psychiatric label -- and say of our weak or bad actions, 'That thing, the illness, did it, not me. It.'

But at some point we must draw ourselves up to our full height, and say in a clear voice what we have done and why it was wrong. And we must use the word 'I' not 'it' or 'illness.' I did it. I. I."
[17]

14 Daniel Goleman, "As Addiction Medicine Gains, Experts Debate What It Should Cover," New York Times, 31 March 1992, B6.
15 Ibid.
16 Stanton Peele, Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co., 1989), 27-28.17 Melvin Konner, "The I of the Storm," Los Angeles Times Magazine, 8 October 1989,
17 Melvin Konner, "The I of the Storm," Los Angeles Times Magazine, 8 October 1989, 17.

 
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