Down To Earth Newsletter
Volume 6 – Issue 11 – December, 2007
Join us at – AHWATUKEE HAS HEART – The 2008 Health and Wellness Expo – Saturday, February 16th from 8a-4p at the Ahwatukee Park / Community Center – 4700 E. Warner Rd. There will be a 5k walk and run in the morning, followed by an obstacle course, activities for kids, nutritious food, and health and wellness screenings and information booths. Register for the 5k at Active.com.
Debunking Myths – If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em
Myth: I meet with people all the time who are in relationships with addicts of one sort or another. Perhaps it’s a drinking husband, a shopaholic wife, a gambling brother, or a sex-addicted friend. In any case, the non-addicted person often wants to help the addict, but doesn’t know what to do and feels as if nothing they could do would matter anyhow, so they just throw up their hands and decide to accept the person ‘as they are.’
There is a very common belief that it is helpful to just “love the addict as they are,” as if that gives the addict some form of self-esteem that might help them decide to give up their addictions. It is also very common for people to just join the addict in whatever it is, thinking that the addict is going to do it anyhow, no matter what, so you may as well just keep them company or keep them safe, or supervise them while they do it.
Friends may actually go to the bar or the casino with the addict and engage in the destructive activity with the addict, seriously convinced that they are being a “friend” and that they are a “true friend” whereas others who have turned their backs on the addict are not “true friends.”
Fact: When you help, allow, facilitate, ignore, or condone an addict’s addictive behavior, that is called, “enabling,” and it is not helpful. In fact, it can easily delay an addict’s getting the help and treatment they may desperately need. In that regard, enabling can be harmful, and even deadly.
The addict wants to have everything, the addiction AND your friendship, the addiction AND a relationship with their kids, the addiction AND a high-paying job. They don’t want to give any of it up. Therefore, if they can sit with you, their friend, in the casino, and have their addiction AND their friend, they’ve got things exactly as they want them and there will be absolutely no motivation for them to change.
You can love an addict without enabling them. Just because you will not go to the gas station and get the smoker their cigarettes does not mean you don’t love them. It means you are unwilling to enable their addiction. Just because you will not allow the alcoholic to bring wine to your holiday party does not mean that you don’t love them. It means you welcome them to your holiday party, you want to spend time with them, and you will not condone their addiction in your home. It sends a clear message of love and support to keep the addict in your life, but not facilitate the addiction.
Are they going to drink or smoke a half-hour after they leave your party? Quite likely, but then that’s not on you. You had no part of it. You allowed them to have their relationships, but not at the same time as having their addictions. You showed them that there is a choice to be made and that their addictions have costs. You are teaching them that they cannot have it all and that when they choose addictions, they give up other things.
November Discussion Question: If you could rewind time 5 minutes, once in your life, what would you erase if you could?
Wisconsin reader, Ida S. offers this heart-wrenching response:
I would re-wind to the time my friend was dying of kidney failure, I told her I would be back on the weekend and I’d bring my daughter along with me. My daughter was one of her favorite people in the whole world. We weren’t able to make it back to the hospital for some stupid reason or another. She died near midnight on Sunday night that week.
Thanks for your courageous contribution!!! Your DrMarlo prizes are on their way!
December Discussion Question: What could make 2008 your best year ever?
E-mail answers to: discussion@drmarlo.com and answers will appear next month. Your state of residence, your first name and last initial will be used unless you tell us not to use them. Anyone who responds and also includes a mailing address will receive our fantastic information cards, NEW RECOVERY REMINDERS, and a couple of temporary tattoos, just for fun.
Thought For The Day: You can’t really hear while you’re talking.
PERSONAL GROWTH EXERCISE
To spotlight our E-Coaching services, our newsletter includes a personal growth exercise each month. These exercises illustrate the kinds of activities our clients are asked to complete when they are using our E-Coaching services. The exercises printed here are quite general in nature, but the exercises sent to our E-Coaching clients are individualized to meet each client’s specific needs. We currently offer a package of 10 E-Coaching Sessions for $500.
Be Still
Holiday Season is a great time to become overwhelmed. There is too much to do and never enough time or money to do it. It is incredibly easy to completely lose track of what any of the preparation or celebration is for when we are speeding recklessly from one store to the next, searching for the video game that everyone MUST have this season.
This month’s activity is to be still.
At least 3 times, in the next two weeks, take 10 minutes and just be still. You may park across the street from someone who has a delightful holiday light display and just view it from your car. You can pour yourself a cup of hot tea after everyone has gone to bed and just sit in your own decorated home, quietly. You could pause, on the way to work, pull off the freeway, and simply watch snow fall for 10 minutes, quietly, in your car, if you can afford to be 10 minutes late one day. You could get up before anyone else in the house and sit quietly with the family dog for 10 minutes, just sitting and being still. You can be still in a hot bath, on a cushy couch, or on a bench in the mall. You can watch children at play, hummingbirds bathing, or stare at your own toes. There’s no one way to be still. You’ll know what you need to accomplish the stillness.
During these still moments, we get back in touch with the things that are most important to us, the things that often have nothing to do with addressing another 20 cards or finding some generic gift to give your hair stylist. During these still moments, we can get in touch with the gratitude we have for everything around us. We can hear the messages we have for ourselves when we quiet the rest of the world. You may find when you get in touch with the calm center you have inside yourself, everything just becomes easier to do and you won’t feel so overwhelmed.
For a FREE 5-Session Trial of E-Coaching, send us a report of how this activity worked for you! We may share your report in our next newsletter with your name, last initial, and state of residence (unless you tell us not to). Send to FreeSessions@drmarlo.com. (Offer Expires 1-16-08)
E-Coaching! Try it Now!
Not every problem is a mental illness. Not every issue is a trauma. Not every botherment is an emotional disorder. For life’s daily issues and for personal growth, now there is E-Coaching! Dr. Marlo Archer offers a 10-session consultation package for people who are not diagnosed with any mental illness who would just like some coaching, some guidance, or some personal growth. We are offering the 10-Session package for $500. Begin by using PayPal to send a $500 payment to DrMarlo@drmarlo.com, then send an e-mail to that same e-mail address, expressing your specific area of concern to begin!
Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness – CHANGING DATE AND TIME – Entertainment and Education
In 2008, Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness will enter YEAR FOUR and we will continue our search for a date and time that works well for more people. Beginning in January, we will try Thursday around lunch time. We will continue as always, to show a free movie with a mental health theme. Interested parties can stay after the movie for a discussion about the movie. One credit informal CE is awarded for a $10 fee. Networking 11:15am-11:30am. Movie at 11:30am, Discussion until 2pm. Upcoming Features: Thursday, January 17 – They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? February 28 – October Sky (Suggested relentlessly by Duane Brickner) Suggest movies for March 20th, April 17, or May 15. If your selection is chosen and you have included your mailing address, we will send you a FREE DVD MOVIE from previous years’ Dr. Marlo’s Movie Madness. Sign up for Movie Madness updates by sending a blank e-mail with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line to MovieMadness@drmarlo.com.
Publish Your Work – Promote your Practice – Two ways to publish – for free as a semi-anonymous author (your state of residence, your first name and last initial will be used), or, for $10, as a professional promoting a mental health practice (your full name, with credentials, address, phone number, and e-mail address will be included). We reserve the right to decline to publish any submissions. Current subscribers = 2780. Send creative contributions to: articles@drmarlo.com.
Dr. Marlo in the Media
Corinne Frayer of the Ahwatukee Foothills News wrote a very candid article about Dr. Marlo’s motivation to participate in the P.F. Chang’s Rock and Roll Arizona Marathon, including information about Dr. Marlo’s family history and personal struggles.
We write a monthly column about teenagers for Arizona Together Newspaper, Arizona’s Good News “Newspaper,” Established 1991. Read December’s Article, “Multi-tasking Menaces” online. Arizona Together currently reaches 50,000 readers monthly who are interested in recovery from addictions of all kinds.
The Psychology Session – Internet Radio Show – SEASON THREE IN FULL SWING – Season Three is attracting MORE GUESTS! Our January 22nd show will feature Lisa Jane Vargas from Sierra Tucson Treatment Center. All three seasons of The Psychology Session are available online – and – you don’t have to even download them anymore, you can just play them right out of the webpage! Let’s hear it for Producer Jon! We continue to welcome show suggestions and advertising sales. E-mail suggestions or inquiries to PsychologySession@drmarlo.com. Order SEASON ONE AND TWO ON CD! Only $20. Send requests to PsychologySession@drmarlo.com.
We Wish You a Safe and Sane Holiday Season and a Spectacular New Year! –Marlo J. Archer, Ph.D.
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