Choose not to fear By Ruth M. My Higher Power (MHP) likes to keep me busy with challenges. I have learned through the program that it’s not so healthy to create my own chaos, because the challenges MHP provides are quite enough thank you very much. I have heard over and over again, “God won’t give you more than you can handle”… blah, blah, blah. Are these people nuts? Have these people seen my credit card bill? Have they walked in my shoes and lived with my ADS? Have they met my spouse of 30 … [Read more...]
Complacency and the anatomy of a slip
By John C. In 1974, I was a young physician struggling with alcohol, baffled by my inability to live with it — or without it. One of my patients paid a house call on me — her hung-over doctor — and introduced me to the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. I was so thrilled to find a way out of my struggle that I seized upon the AA program without reservations. My life soon changed completely, and became manageable for the first time in years. As I recovered, I regained the trust of my … [Read more...]
Today ‘Chef Jeff’ Henderson wants to change lives
By David Palmer ‘Chef Jeff’ Henderson is a former crack cocaine dealer who became a millionaire selling drugs on the streets of Los Angeles at age 19 and went to prison on a drug charge at 24 for 11 years. Today, Henderson, 45, is an award-winning chef, television personality (the Chef Jeff Project on the Food Channel in 2008), motivational speaker, and, with two books in circulation, a best selling author. He tells his fascinating story of redemption in “Cooked. My Journey from the Streets to … [Read more...]
Young people carry message, tackle adolescent tobacco addiction
By David Palmer Genine Perez, a dynamic 40-year-old with a big smile, big hair and a very busy Blackberry works on the front lines in the fight against smoking among adolescents and even younger children. If Perez can keep kids beginning as early as first grade and up through high school, from smoking, they may never smoke, and they may never use harder drugs. And if they have started, which is often the case, she’ll do her best to get them to quit. Perez directs one of many initiatives under … [Read more...]
Get out and stay out! Help for prison inmates grows
It’s no secret. Prison inmates have a tough time staying out of prison after they have been released. Estimates vary but one, accepted by many, says about three out of four commit another crime or break parole and end up behind bars again. They call this “recidivism.” Why do they do this? Hector Lozano with the California prison system says the simple fact is that “these men and women ex-prisoners know how to get back into prison. What they don’t know is how to stay out.” True, but actually … [Read more...]
