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Monday, August 31, 2009

Monday quotes



The people who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than those who try to do nothing and succeed.
- Lloyd James

There are only two emotions: love - our natural inheritance, and fear - an invention of our minds which is illusory. Each instant of the day we choose between these two, and our choice determines the kind of day we have and how we will perceive the world.
- Gerald G. Jampolsky

Fall seven times, stand up eight.
- Japanese proverb

We can only teach that which we are.
- Jean Jaurès

We always have enough to be happy if we are enjoying what we do have - and not worrying about what we don't have.
- Ken Keyes Jr.

Life can only be understood backward, yet, it has to be lived forward.
- Søren Kierkegaard

Never, if possible, lie down at night without being able to say: I have made one human being, at least, a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this day.
- Charles Kingsley

The basic principle of spiritual life is that our problems become the very place to discover wisdom and love.
- Jack Kornfield

Meditation is not a means to an end. It is both the means and the end.
- J. Krishnamurti

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.
- Michelangelo

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
- Molière

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Friday, August 28, 2009

friday questions



have you ever made any promises
you failed to keep while in recovery?

what is your idea of the perfect vacation?

are you comfortable around family or
friends who drink?

do people still ask "why can't you
just have one drink?"

when angered, what coping skills do
you use to deal with it?

who understands your addiction the
most and least in your life?

how would you rate your progress
thus far in sobriety, on a scale from
one to ten?


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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

a little humor











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Tuesday, August 25, 2009

anger & resentments...


...we are told are dangerous and emotions
we cannot afford.

these are also normal human reactions
we cannot avoid.

the major factor for us in recovery,
is how we handle these situations.

when angered, we can pause without
lashing out. decide how important
is the person or event that ticks us off.

as for resentments, it helps to look
at our part, realize it serves no purpose
to hold on to the negative thoughts.

it's like setting yourself on fire and
hoping the other person chokes on the smoke.


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Monday, August 24, 2009

monday quotes



Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.
- Emory Austin


God provides the wind, but man must raise the sails.
- Saint Augustine
I am responsible for my own wellbeing, my own happiness. The choices and decisions I make regarding my life directly influences the quality of my days.
- Kathleen Andrus


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


Dream big dreams, then put on your overalls and go out and make the dreams come true.
- Fred Van Amburgh


You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.
- James Allen


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


You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.
- Leo Aikma


Star If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
- Maya Angelou


I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
- Susan B. Anthony
One reason why I don't drink is because I wish to know when I am having a good time.
- Nancy Astor


A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view.
- Wilma Askinas


You have to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, and latch on to the affirmative. Don't mess with "Mr. In-between".
- Louis Armstrong


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





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Sunday, August 16, 2009

monday quotes



Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
- Lauren Bacall


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


One must always maintain one's connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it.
- Gaston Bachelard


Star You don't get to choose how you're going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.
- Joan Baez


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


Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
- Lucille Ball


Star If you wait until you can do everything for everybody, instead of something for somebody, you'll end up not doing anything for anybody.
- Malcolm Bane


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 Women Want: To be loved, to be listened to, to be desired, to be respected, to be needed, to be trusted, and sometimes, just to be held. What Men Want: Tickets for the world series.
- Dave Barry


An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.
- Orlando A. Battista


Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.
- Samuel Beckett


When one door closes another door opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.
- Alexander Graham Bell


How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.
- Edward F. Benson


If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.
- Milton Berle


It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
- Jim Bishop














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Friday, August 14, 2009

friday questions


what's your opinion about mothers
who also have jobs outside the home?

how important is exercise in your
recovery?

do you use music for meditation?

why is long term sobriety so elusive?



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Wednesday, August 12, 2009

antidepressants

Stanton Peele writes;

I know, some qvetches will claim that antidepressant use will continue to grow since drugs don't get to the core discontents of our era - especially considering that the fastest growing consumers of these and other psychiatrics meds are young Americans, and people don't easily ?stop taking these drugs. Why can't these stupid people absorb the reality that depression is simply a lifetime disease, and the more people we get on drugs, and the more quickly, the happier we will all be? (The same issue of the Archives had an article focussing on depression among preschoolers.)


my question to Mr. Peele is "what alternatives do you suggest for these "lifetime disease" sufferers of depression?


we all know anti-depressants don't work for everyone;
but there are numerous cases of people who's lives
have been saved by SSRI's.

clinical depression is not just a case of the blues

the complexity of the interaction between neurotransmitters
serotonin and
norepinephrine is not manageable with
diet, exercise, prayer or 12 step programs .

I challenge anyone to tell me how I feel without
the use of antidepressants.

it is a black hole and a feeling of hopelessness
that cannot be alleviated by meetings, prayer,
sponsors or mere abstinence








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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

tuesday posters








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Monday, August 10, 2009

monday quotes



Possession of material riches, without inner peace, is like dying of thirst while bathing in a lake.
- Paramahansa Yogananda

A half truth is a whole lie.
- Yiddish proverb


When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
- Henny Youngman


The greatness of a man can nearly always be measured by his willingness to be kind.
- G. Young

Such is human psychology that if we don't express our joy, we soon cease to feel it.
- Lin Yü-tang


It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.
- Zig Ziglar


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




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Sunday, August 9, 2009

The Five Stages of Grief over Obama's Drug Policies

it's a bit long, but a must read
for any American who has had
personal or familial experience with drugs

from Stanton Peele;

Like the stages people who experience grief due to a personal tragedy pass through, people concerned about modifying American drug policies have dialed through these five stages since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States:

1. Unbounded enthusiasm. Drug reform advocates, along with other progressives, were wild with anticipation when Barack Obama was elected President. Aside from his remarkable background and intelligence, he was extremely well-informed about drug reform initiatives -- including clean needle programs, discrepancies in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine (which punish minorities disproportionately), and noninterference with states that have enacted medical marijuana (MM) statutes. Moreover, he called the war on drugs an "utter failure."

2. Anxiety. During the run-up to Obama's selection of a Drug Czar, a name often mentioned was Jim Ramstad, former Congressman and a recovering alcoholic who opposed all major drug reforms (e.g., needle exchange, methadone maintenance). Why would Obama even consider such a Neanderthal, his supporters wondered. Where was he coming from in all of this, they asked themselves through sleepless nights.

3. Cautious optimism. Instead, the President selected Gil Kerlikowske, who was not known for being out front in reforming drug policies as Seattle Police Chief, but who also didn't fight the city's needle exchange program and low priority on marijuana possession enforcement, nor Washington state's MM laws. Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance and the country's leading reform advocate, declared himself "cautiously optimistic" due to Kerlikowske's middle-of-the-road stance, even as he was disappointed that Obama had chosen a law enforcement officer rather than a public health advocate to be Drug Czar.

4. Euphoria. Not all drug policy change originates in the Office of National Drug Control Policy. And a number of local and state initiatives came to the fore, including continuing support by states for MM, some harm reduction measures, and - as the economic downturn hit hard - active contemplation of legalizing marijuana in order to tax revenues from its massive sales in California and around the country. Furthermore, the House Judiciary Committee eliminated the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity. Although he pushed none of them, these actions were all consistent with Obama's enunciated positions on drugs.

5. Disillusionment. But, from the start, Kerlikowske sounded like anything but a drug reformer. Shortly after his installment as Drug Czar, he brashly announced that any type of drug decriminalization would be "waving the white flag" and that the "legalization vocabulary doesn't exist for me and it was made clear that it doesn't exist in President Obama's vocabulary." Since then, belying his own state's policy and Obama's and Attorney General Eric Holder's statements, Kerlikowske has consistently maintained that marijuana has no medical value. All in all, Kerlikowske's orientation towards drug policy seems like, well, a cop's. And yet he seems to reflect Obama's position on reform.

Where oh where are you Mr. President? Hoping against hope that Kerlikowske is going rogue, the Drug Policy Alliance has started a letter-writing campaign to the President asking him to reassert the progressive views he had previously endorsed, and to rein in his recalcitrant Drug Czar. Of course, it seems unlikely that a control maven like Obama would really allow his Drug Czar to repeatedly defy the President's own inclinations in this area.

A more realistic scenario is that the President - facing opposition to his key policies from not only red states and hard core Republicans, but increasingly also independent voters and moderate Democrats - is unwilling to forge ahead on drug reform. Liberalizing policies towards currently illicit drugs would strike Americans as intensely alien - even as young and old Americans are turning more and more to prescription pharmaceuticals for their highs (and lows), so that there is increasingly little space between substances deemed "illicit" and "legal."

But Obama is not committed enough to drug policy reform to incur the symbolism taking any steps towards liberalization would send. Can you imagine what the Congressional hearings, town hall conflagrations, and shrieking of people calling "I want my country back" would be like if he tried? American prudery about drugs, alcohol and whatever else will not be reversed any time soon.




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Saturday, August 8, 2009

Arizona


this is my first time in Arizona
in the summer.

i figured how hot can it be?

there's no humidity, i've been
through 90 degree days with
80% humidity in Connecticut

though the air may be dry,
when it hits 115 degrees
it's like walking into a blanket
right out of the clothes dryer.

the sun is ever-present; it
rarely rains and it reminds me
of the movie "ground hog day",
where it's the same scene daily

there are only 3 weather reports
here...
hot, hotter and hottest.


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Friday, August 7, 2009

friday questions



who inspires you to continue,
when things get difficult?

what do you enjoy the most
and least about the readings
before a meeting?

where do you go to just,"get
away from it all"?

when did you first become
comfortable at social gatherings
where liquor was served.?

how do you deal with a partner
who can drink socially; does it
ever stir up any envy?

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Thursday, August 6, 2009

life


why is it i love and hate my life
at the same time?

I've been blessed with good
health, a close family, a career
that was exiting, rewarding
and never boring.

my job allowed me the time
to open a fitness center, and
coach college volleyball.

all those things that made me
who i was, are gone now.

perhaps it wouldn't be as bad
if i was 15 years older;
and could survive on the memories.

it is just hard to feel productive
at this stage of my life, when
there is so little to challenge me today




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Wednesday, August 5, 2009

riddle for the day...




...the thermos bottle---

you put hot stuff in, it stays hot;

you put cold stuff in, it stays cold.

how does it know?

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Tuesday, August 4, 2009

fun for tuesday








All photos courtesy of Motifake.com;




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Monday, August 3, 2009

monday quotes




Realize that now, in this moment of time, you are creating. You are creating your next moment. That is what's real.
- Sara Paddison



If I have inside of me the stuff to make cocoons, maybe the stuff of butterflies is there, too.
- Trina Paulus


Until you value yourself you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
- M. Scott Peck


Not what we have, but what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.
- John Petit-Senn


Anything you strive to hold captive will hold you captive and if you desire freedom you must give freedom.
- Peace Pilgrim


The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.


You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.


Only as high as I reach can I grow,
Only as far as I seek can I go,
Only as deep as I look can I see,
Only as much as I dream can I be.
- Karen Ravn






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Sunday, August 2, 2009

home medicine cabinet...

...the current drug provider for many teens;


The misuse of prescription medications by adolescents is surpassed only by illicit use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. A study to be published in the August 2009 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) shows that how an adolescent obtains these prescription drugs may signal the likelihood that an adolescent will be concurrently abusing another substance and the severity of substance abuse and prescription misuse.

Drs. Ty Schepis and Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin at the Yale University School of Medicine used data from the 2005 and 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), to show that across all classes of medications (opioids, stimulants, tranquilizers, and sedatives) nearly 50 percent were obtained from friends or families for free. With the exception of opioids, the second most common source was by purchasing the drug from friends or relatives (13.1% - 29.7%) or from a drug dealer (4.6% - 12.0%). For opioids, the second most common source was from a physician. The misuse of opioids, stimulants, tranquilizers, and sedatives poses significant risk for physical and/or psychological dependence as well as overdose.

this is a serious problem, that requires no legal action;
merely some responsibility and accountability by parents
to secure their medications and not provide a convenient
source for their children to get high from the home
medicine cabinet

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