Nearly a million people have watched Chiara de Blasio describe her journey of recovery on YouTube since the video was released over the holidays last month. Chiara wanted to speak out to help all those who are suffering in silence. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, approximately 3.1 million Americans need …
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We say one picture is worth a thousand words. If that is so, then one video must be worth many more. Out of the Mouths of Babes I encourage you to watch the video below (sent to me by a reader) of a participant at the Barnard College poetry slam. In it, a young woman …
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Lord knows we hear plenty about sexual addiction in the news – most often stories about politicians, actors, athletes, and just plain folks who are systematically ruining their lives with ongoing patterns of problematic sexual activity. Of course, for every scandal that makes the papers, tens of thousands of similar tales go unreported, known only …
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We all love receiving presents. They are tokens of friendship: the cookies you bake and give to neighbors; tokens of caring, such as the book of poetry you give to your boyfriend. In some ways, presents signify our worthiness, as in being the worthy recipient of gifts from others: the locket your husband gives you, …
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Addiction is characterized by an easily recognizable cycle. Essentially, the cycle is: being triggered (feeling emotional or physical discomfort); thinking about using as a way to ease the discomfort; preparing to use; actually using; pretending that using was OK (engaging in denial); and then feeling bad about using. The last stage, feeling bad, is the …
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What Are Girly Thoughts? Your daughter is a girl, so isn’t she supposed to be thinking thoughts like a girl? Yes, but not these thoughts. Girly thoughts is the subtle conditioning that begins in girlhood and continues throughout life that results in women feeling less than. These are the thoughts that tell us how we …
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Who wants to be dark and dreary around the holidays? Everything around us suggests that this is a season of merriment, that holidays are meant to be a time of touching togetherness and affirming bonds of family and friends. But for those whose lives have been affected by living with addiction, this season can also …
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It’s the holidays . . . so be happy Isn’t that what all the songs, the stories, the TV specials tell us? Happy is even the first or second sentiment of all of the messages we receive on everything from our postage stamps to the music in elevators: Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Eid Greetings, Happy …
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I recently gave a luncheon talk to almost 300 business leaders. I was excited. But as many talks are, it was arranged months in advance, and a personal medical concern arose that resulted in some minor surgery and a bandage on my face just in time for this major event. Now I could have entered …
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