By David Palmer On the face of it, Ashleigh Smith, a single mom and newly recovering meth addict with, at best, a fragile grip on sobriety was an unlikely role model, but on March 12, 2005, she proved herself worthy by helping to bring multiple killer, Brian Nichols, to justice. On that day, Nichols took Smith hostage in her own home, but in seven harrowing hours with help from Saddleback church Pastor Rick Warren’s best selling book, “The Purpose Driven Life” she persuaded him to let her … [Read more...]
Overcoming Addictions – The Power of our Hometowns and Local Neighborhoods
When World War II began in 1941, my father gave up his high paying public relations job on New York’s Madison Avenue, bought the local newspaper, the Summit Herald, in our home town of Summit, N.J. and went to work. He was forty, had a wife and kids, and was therefore exempt from military service, but he wanted to be closer to home in uncertain times and to contribute to the war effort. What he did was modest, certainly when compared to the heroic achievements of members of the armed … [Read more...]
For the alcoholic in your life, how about an intervention?
By David Palmer Interventions are a valuable tool in helping alcoholics and other drug addicts get well. And they come in various sizes and shapes. In my own case, a psychiatrist I was seeing in Denver about my acute anxiety realized after a couple of sessions that I was an alcoholic and directed me to my nearest Alcoholics Anonymous meeting forthwith. He knew that our talks would come to nothing if I did not deal with the alcohol issue first, and he “intervened”. I went to my first AA … [Read more...]
Alcoholism Doesn’t Know Your Birthday (and doesn’t care)
Beware of alcohol, seniors. Your defenses are down. Nobody seems to have noticed, but the old folks are having trouble with alcohol, and it’s time we did something about it. That was the word I got when I interviewed Dr. David Lipschitz, author and one time chairman of the geriatrics department at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine five or six years ago. I thought he was on to something then, and I still think so. “Substance-related disorders of all … [Read more...]
A wild, insightful, often hilarious trip to sobriety – Mary Karr story
Mary Karr, author of Liar’s Club, Cherry and LIT, a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry; and a Peck professor of literature at Syracuse University, was asked once by her four year old son, Dev, to take him to church. At best an agnostic at the time, Mary asked “why?” and Dev answered, “Because I want to see if God is there.” Turns out He was. Reflecting on the moment, Mary said, “If you’d told me even a year before I start taking my son to church regular that I’d wind up whispering my sins in … [Read more...]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »
