The "World come of Age"

<p><h1 class="entry-title" style="margin: 0px; position: relative; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 36px; font-style: inherit; outline: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0.3em; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: #000000; line-height: 48px;"> The "World come of Age"</h1><div class="entry-meta" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #666666; clear: both; line-height: 18px; position: absolute; top: 0px; left: 0px;"><span class="sep" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Posted on </span><a href="http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/letters-from-cell-92-part-3-world-come.html" rel="bookmark" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;" title="2010-12-08T02:16:00-06:00">12.08.2010</a></div><div id="post-body-469622228059826634" class="post-body entry-content" style="border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px auto; outline: 0px; padding: 1.625em 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 584.2666625976563px; color: #373737; line-height: 21px; background-color: #ffffff;"><p style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 1.625em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66sLZc06DPt40cFA12XzexsJ0eDs8uv1Kad3TUWSEtuYelf173HVa5P9nNQH23XE_mSDMrJr3QBjakOWrmanDeC7AZSvdE-eg1MwhhGYd5XtsMASJct2eHS0timUE2uL27bHRW_Yiksg/s1600/dietrich-bonhoeffer.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548059862045850578" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi66sLZc06DPt40cFA12XzexsJ0eDs8uv1Kad3TUWSEtuYelf173HVa5P9nNQH23XE_mSDMrJr3QBjakOWrmanDeC7AZSvdE-eg1MwhhGYd5XtsMASJct2eHS0timUE2uL27bHRW_Yiksg/s320/dietrich-bonhoeffer.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; max-width: 97.5%; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 319px;" /></a>To understand Bonhoeffer's "religionless Christianity" we need to come to grips with Bonhoeffer's understanding of a "world come of age." Specifically, if a "nonreligious interpretation" is a part of the "solution" we need to understand what the "problem" or "diagnosis" might be.<br /><br />In his theological letters, which began on April 30, 1944, Bohoeffer's first mention of the "world come of age" appears in a letter dated June 8 (LPP pp. 324-329):</p><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">June 8, 1944<br /><br />To Eberhard Bethge:<br /><br />...I'll try to define my position from the historical angle.<br /><br />The movement that began about the thirteenth century (I'm not going to get involved in any argument about the exact date) towards the autonomy of man (in which I should include the discovery of laws by which the world lives and deals with itself in science, social and political matters, art, ethics, and religion) has in our time reached an undoubted completion. Man has learnt to deal with himself in all questions of importance without recourse to the "working hypothesis" called "God." In questions of science, art, and ethics this has become an understood thing at which one now hardly dares to tilt. But for the last hundred years or so it has also become increasingly true of religious questions; it is becoming evident that everything gets along without "God"--and, in fact, just as well as before. As in the scientific field, so in human affairs generally, "God" is being pushed more and more out of life, losing more and more ground.<a name="more" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1;"></a><br /><br />...Christian apologetics has taken the most varied forms of opposition to this self-assurance. Efforts are made to prove to a world thus come of age that it cannot live without the tutelage of "God." Even though there has been surrender of all secular problems, there still remain the so-called "ultimate questions"--death, guilt--to which only "God" can give an answer, and because of which we need God and the church and the pastor. So we live, in some degree, on these so-called ultimate question of humanity. But what if one day they no longer exist as such, if they too can be answered "without God"?...The attack by Christian apologetic on the adulthood of the world I consider to be in the first place pointless, in the second place ignoble, and in the third place unchristian. Pointless, because it seems to me like an attempt to put a grown-up man back into adolescence, i.e. to make him dependent on things on which he is, in fact, on longer dependent, and thrusting him into problems that are, in fact, no longer problems for him. Ignoble, because it amounts to an attempt to exploit man's weakness for purposes that are alien to him and to which he has not freely assented. Unchristian, because it confuses Christ with one particular stage in man's religiousness, i.e. with a human law. More about this later.<br /><br />But first, a little more about the historical position. The question is: Christ and the world that has come of age...<br /></blockquote>So here, in the June 8 letter, we find the first wrestling with the "world come of age." According to Bonhoeffer the world come of age has achieved "autonomy" from God because, on a day to day basis, the "working hypothesis of God" is no longer needed. Man is, pragmatically speaking, on her own. God is "pushed more and more out of life." Bonhoeffer also describes this as leaving the "tutelage" or "guardianship" of God<h1 class="entry-title" style="font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; position: relative; border: 0px; font-size: 36px; outline: 0px; padding: 15px 0px 0.3em; vertical-align: baseline; clear: both; color: #000000; line-height: 48px;">The "World come of Age"</h1>Having left our Cosmic Nanny behind we enter the "adulthood of the world."<br /><br />Now, we all know what this looks like. The would is becoming more and more secular and atheistic. And, generally speaking, Christians tend to see this as a bad thing. God is being chased out of the world. <a href="http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/12/war-on-christmas.html" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;">There is a War on Christmas!<br /></a><br />Now Bonhoeffer makes a really surprising move at this point. For Bonhoeffer, the "world come of age" is actually a really good thing. More, Christianity, to be Christian, <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">needs</span> the world to come of age. For only in the world come of age can Christians fully understand both God and the gospel.<br /><br />We get a hint of this move in the June 8 letter. Bethge has us note how Bonhoeffer keeps placing "God" in parentheses. That is, what is being "pushed out of the world" is a false view of God. A religious (i.e., human) view of God. This is why Bonhoeffer is so frustrated in the June 8 letter (and elsewhere) with Christian apologetics. Such an apologetics is trying to protect and prop up a misconception about who God really is in the world today. Resisting the adulthood of the world Christianity has clung to a heretical notion of God. Thus, it is only in embracing the world come of age where Christianity can fully discover the true nature God. In all this, the world come of age becomes a sort of <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">midwife</span> to the gospel.<br /><br />So how are we to embrace the world come of age? Bonhoeffer describes what this looks like in one of his most famous (and controversial) letters:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">July 16, 1944<br /><br />To Eberhard Bethge:<br /><br />...And we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in the world <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">etsi deus non daretur</span> [translation: "as if there were no God"]. And this is just what we do recognize--before God! God himself compels us to recognize it. So our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of our situation before God. God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.</blockquote>The phrase <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">etsi deus non daretur,</span> living as if there were no God, is startling. More, Bonhoeffer asks for something rather strange: Before God and with God we live without God. What could this possibly mean?<br /><br />What we are encountering here is the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span> of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Theologia crucis</span> is a term coined by Martin Luther to suggest that the true nature of God can only be ascertained in the crucifixion of Jesus. That is, if you ask the questions "Who is God?" or "Where is God?" or "What is God like?" the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span> answers in every case: Look at Jesus on the cross. The cross is who God <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span>, where God is <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">found</span>, and what God <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">like</span>. Recall the main question of the theological letters: Who is Christ for us today? Bonhoeffer answers with the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span>. We see this very clearly in the July 16th letter. Right after the shocking "Before God and with God we live without God" the very next sentence picks up the theme of <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span>:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross. He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear that Christ helps us, not by virtue of his omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering.</blockquote>God is "weak" and "powerless." God "lets himself be pushed out of the world" and "on to the cross." God helps us in the world not through power ("omnipotence") but by "his weakness and suffering." In this we see how the world come of age is functioning as a midwife to the gospel. By pushing the false "Powerful God" out of the world the way becomes clear for the God revealed in the cross of Jesus. Thus, the July 16 letter continues:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">...Man's religiosity makes him look in his distress to the power of God in the world: God is the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">deus ex machina</span>. The Bible directs man to God's powerlessness and suffering; only the suffering God can help. To that extent we may say that the development towards the world's coming of age outlined above, which has done away with a false conception of God, opens up a way to seeing the God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness.<br /></blockquote>The world come of age kills off a "false conception of God" and this allows us to see the "God of the Bible, who wins power and space in the world by his weakness." This is how the world come of age acts as a midwife to the gospel. The "adulthood" of humanity has allowed us to dispose of a false conception of God, the Big Guy in the Sky, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">deus ex machina</span></a>, who swoops down to solve our problems or answer all mystery. This God has been kicked to the margins in the world come of age. And, for Bonhoeffer, this is a very good thing. For it allows us to see the God of the cross, the weak and powerless God here in the midst of us.<br /><br />Let me try to summarize all this in a few pictures. Because you know how I love schematic, visual summaries!<br /><br />First, we have the situation before the world come of age, when humanity was under the "guardianship" of the Big Guy in the Sky:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaeFUR6ZPLvs7IISd3-OM-qKX_LhqMb8YlF9vtSN9zhqowQynfvY3gFqUusmV4dzeWp2mWX1Rl3vHgGqLsB3ad79Y44yS4eAoUs6mmXPLjQ-OKy6bXsW2jsU-JcEEifn81PExkBYHb1U/s1600/Slide1.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548056048719128162" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiaeFUR6ZPLvs7IISd3-OM-qKX_LhqMb8YlF9vtSN9zhqowQynfvY3gFqUusmV4dzeWp2mWX1Rl3vHgGqLsB3ad79Y44yS4eAoUs6mmXPLjQ-OKy6bXsW2jsU-JcEEifn81PExkBYHb1U/s400/Slide1.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; max-width: 97.5%; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>What happens in this situation, as I try to represent in the diagram, is that religion becomes other-worldly. God is found "outside of" or "beyond" this world. It's this other-worldliness that Bonhoeffer is trying to combat.<br /><br />So what happens when the world comes of age? Well, we have the negation of "God." We, as Christians, live, before God (!), <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">etsi deus non daretur</span>. No longer looking for a God "out there" we are forced back into the world. We replace other-worldliness with the "secular" "this-worldliness" that Bonhoeffer speaks of over and over again in his letters. We find Christ in the "midst of life":<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkTRbClmV_gTW0xaQFJe01c8NIZr7GkAL_50C44w1ltg7JVBkPGCpQXXvBdCeNUWS8hZBxYH0mABsX3S-OFOfDSHbhLuhk7xrigVUhlw6Fm8p22kxARHASC_l12fK2W22xsmarE_PsdA/s1600/Slide2.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548056829151051490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidkTRbClmV_gTW0xaQFJe01c8NIZr7GkAL_50C44w1ltg7JVBkPGCpQXXvBdCeNUWS8hZBxYH0mABsX3S-OFOfDSHbhLuhk7xrigVUhlw6Fm8p22kxARHASC_l12fK2W22xsmarE_PsdA/s400/Slide2.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; max-width: 97.5%; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>So Christians follow God into the world where, as Bonhoeffer writes on July 18, we are "summoned to share in God's sufferings at the hands of the world." As God become radically available to the world (and suffers for it), so the church becomes radically available to the world (and suffers for it). As William Stringfellow describes it:<br /><blockquote style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 1.625em 3em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; quotes: '';">The Church exists for the sake of the world into which God enters and in which He acts and for which He expends His own life.</blockquote>And that's the crucial point. The dynamic we see in the world come of age is the same movement of the <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">theologia crucis</span>:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8GOEJF4AS27oQRZo_xhwGp2BjHtElu4GlO8KOQmZ3-Xf1X9IOv1B1h4E6E76EKT-oMJDjACI23Hlgg3POieHIU8iJWT_Q5Jgvwwgq20G97iW9jbWGyOBcuTEah4M8_gwarV-2SAy3GI/s1600/Slide3.jpg" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; color: #1982d1; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5548058747735871682" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8GOEJF4AS27oQRZo_xhwGp2BjHtElu4GlO8KOQmZ3-Xf1X9IOv1B1h4E6E76EKT-oMJDjACI23Hlgg3POieHIU8iJWT_Q5Jgvwwgq20G97iW9jbWGyOBcuTEah4M8_gwarV-2SAy3GI/s400/Slide3.jpg" style="border: 0px; position: relative; max-width: 97.5%; margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>The point in all this is that, yes, there is a "death of God" being spoken of in Bonhoeffer's theological letters. And there is a sense in which the secular world has marginalized God and made God irrelevant. But all this is, Bonhoeffer contends, some very good news. Because it clears the ground and positions us to envision the true shape of the answer to the question: "Who is Christ for us today?"</div></p>

The "World come of Age"

 The "World come of Age" Posted on  12.08.2010 To understand Bonhoeffer's "religionless Christianity" we need to com...

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experts believe we can actually become "addicted" to stress.

<p>Stress can be physical,And then there’s the kind that’s in our heads — that OMG I’m so overwhelmed right now feeling. While psychological stress has some definite downsides (chronic freak-outs may increase our risk for cancer and other diseases), take a moment to exhale. In moderate amounts, stress can boost our focus, energy, and even our powers of intuition.</p><p>Still, in some cases, stress does more than light a productivity-boosting fire under our butts. Both emotional and physical stress activate our central nervous system, causing a “natural high,” says Concordia University neuroscientist and addiction specialist Jim Pfaus. “By activating our arousal and attention systems,” Pfaus says, “stressors can also wake up the neural circuitry underlying wanting and craving — just like drugs do.”</p><p>This may be why, experts believe, some of us come to like stress a little too much.</p><p>Type A and Type D personalities — or people prone to competitiveness, anxiety, and depression — may be most likely to get a high from stressful situations, says stress management specialist Debbie Mandel. Stress “addicts,” Mandel says, “may also be using endless to-do lists to avoid less-easy-to-itemize problems — feelings of inadequacy, family conflicts, or other unresolved personal issues.”</p><p>Some stress junkies have difficulty listening to others, concentrating, and even sleeping because they can’t put tomorrow’s agenda out of their minds, explains Mandel. Others tend to use exaggerated vocabulary — craaazy busy right now, workload’s insane!! And some begin to feel anxious at the mere thought of slowing down their schedule.</p><p>But psychologist and addiction researcher Stanton Peele cautions against labeling anyone a stress addict. “Only when that pursuit of stress has a significant negative impact on your life could it qualify as addiction,” he said, adding that many people are able to effectively manage — and in fact thrive under — high stress conditions. (Think: Olympic athletes or President Obama.)</p><p> Study: Stress Shrinks the Brain and Lowers Our Ability to Cope with Adversity</p><p>For budding stress “addicts” or for those who just, well, feel overwhelmed, here are some tips to dial down that anxiety:</p><ul><li>Seek professional help if you’re verging on burnout. (Not only can hashing it out with a therapist take a load off your mind. Some studies suggest it also boosts physical fitness.)</li><li>Do something creative. Mandel recommends carving out a once-weekly time not to think about tomorrow’s agenda by painting, cooking, writing, dancing, or anything else that’ll take you off the clock temporarily.</li><li>Take it outside. Numerous studies show spending time in nature improves general well-being, lowers anxiety, stress and depression, and even boosts self-confidence. Especially for women. (As it turns out, most addiction recovery centers offer outdoor-immersion programs.)</li><li>Calm down quickly. If you really don’t have time for any of the above, these 40 tricks to chill take five minutes or less.</li></ul><p>Some of us may seek out stress a bit more excessively than others and struggle to just relax. It takes skill to handle hectic agendas and long lists of responsibilities — without losing sleep or feeling frazzled. So try these tips and try not to freak out.</p><p>Worried that you or someone you know seeks out stress a little too much? Think stress addiction is a myth? Tell us about it in the comments section below.</p><p><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: 22px;"><br /><br /><br /></span></p>

experts believe we can actually become "addicted" to stress.

Stress can be physical,And then there’s the kind that’s in our heads — that OMG I’m so overwhelmed right now feeling. While psychological st...

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For those red wine drinkers who’ve been feeling morally superior about all the health benefits of the relaxing glass or two sipped during dinner, there’s some bad news on the horizon.

<p> Turns out, those glasses of wine would be a lot healthier if they were non-alcoholic, a new study shows.  Spanish researchers led by Gemma Chiva-Blanch of the University of Barcelona found that non-alcoholic red wine reduced blood pressure in men at high risk for heart disease better than standard red wine or gin, according to the study published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation Research. Although the reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure was modest, decreases of just 4 and 2 mm Hg have been associated with a 14 to 20 percent reduction in heart disease and stroke, the researchers pointed out. “The daily consumption of dealcoholized red wine could be useful for the prevention of low to moderate hypertension,” they concluded.  Although there have been many studies on the impact of moderate drinking on health, the findings have been mixed, with some studies showing a benefit and others suggesting none. The new study found that 3 ounces of gin a day had no impact on blood pressure, while consumption of regular red wine led to a small, but not statistically significant, improvement. The new study suggests that if you’re going to have a drink, red wine would be the healthiest choice, said Dr. Kelly Anne Spratt, a heart disease prevention specialist and a clinical associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, Spratt said, “while there are those of us in cardiology who believe in the benefits of red wine, we want to be wary. We’re not going like gangbusters recommending people go out and start drinking. There are a lot of problems associated with drinking, like weight gain, cardiomyopathy, alcoholism, an increased breast cancer risk in women who consume two or more drinks a day.” Chiva-Blanch and her colleagues suspect that blood pressure improvements were due to the impact of polyphenols, a red wine component, on nitric oxide. The theory is that nitric oxide molecules help blood vessels relax, which allows better flow and more blood to reach the heart and other organs. For the new study, Chiva-Blanch and her colleagues followed 67 men with diabetes or three or more cardiovascular risk factors. During the study, the men were all required to consume the same foods along with one of three drinks: 10 ounces of red wine, 10 ounces of non-alcoholic red wine or 3 ounces of gin. During the 12 week study, the men tried each diet/beverage combination for four weeks at a time. The researchers determined that the standard red wine and its nonalcoholic counterpart contained equal amounts of polyphenols, an antioxidant which has been shown to decrease blood pressure. Men who drank regular red wine saw minor reductions in blood pressure – too small, in fact, to be statistically significant. Those who drank gin with their meals saw no change in blood pressure. But men who drank non-alcoholic red wine saw a blood pressure decrease of about 6 mm Hg in systolic and 2 mm Hg in diastolic blood pressure. Chiva-Blanch and her colleagues concluded that their findings show that the alcohol in red wine actually weakens its ability to lower blood pressure.</p>

For those red wine drinkers who’ve been feeling morally superior about all the health benefits of the relaxing glass or two sipped during dinner, there’s some bad news on the horizon.

 Turns out, those glasses of wine would be a lot healthier if they were non-alcoholic, a new study shows.  Spanish researchers led by Gemma ...

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Dream Warriors Testament: PART 1 ROCK BOTTOM Flash News best selling new addiction book

<p><div class="article-header" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; display: table; text-align: center; width: 750px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><h1 class="title entry-title" style="margin: 0px; position: relative; font-size: 20px; font-weight: normal; padding: 0px 40px 0px 0px; color: #00b2b4; width: 670px; display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle;"><a href="http://galatictours.blogspot.com/2012/09/blackout-oblivion-was-where-my-advanced.html" rel="bookmark" style="color: #00b2b4; outline-style: none; text-decoration: none;">Dream Warriors Testament:PART 1 ROCK BOTTOM</a> <span class="blog-admin" style="display: inline;"><a class="edit" href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3922196140932006510&postID=8579897959452871652&from=pencil" style="color: #00b2b4; outline-style: none; text-decoration: none; background-image: url(data; cursor: pointer; display: inline-block; height: 21px; opacity: 0.8; position: relative; top: 3px; width: 21px; background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;" target="_self" title="Edit"></a></span></h1></div><div class="article-content entry-content" style="margin: 10px auto 5px; outline: none; padding: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; line-height: 1.4; text-align: justify; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;"><div style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" dir="ltr">Dream Warriors testament, Arriving at a time in my life after thirty years of not drinking to leave an honest account of what it was like, my experience the good and the bad, the addictions of which alcohol was but one, the <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_experience" rel="wikipedia" style="color: #00b2b4; outline-style: none; text-decoration: none; display: inline;" target="_blank" title="Religious experience">spiritual experiences</a> and the formation of my personal program.The founding of <a class="zem_slink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcotics_Anonymous" rel="wikipedia" style="color: #00b2b4; outline-style: none; text-decoration: none; display: inline;" target="_blank" title="Narcotics Anonymous">Narcotics Anonymous</a> in <a class="zem_slink" href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=40.4333333333,-3.7&spn=10.0,10.0&q=40.4333333333,-3.7%20(Spain)&t=h" rel="geolocation" style="color: #00b2b4; outline-style: none; text-decoration: none; display: inline;" target="_blank" title="Spain">Spain</a>.The trails and tribulations of the battles and failures with the ego.Many people need to remain anonymous within my journal and many may see there rolls differently.The writing is by a dyslexic this is not an excuse but a fact.Without the help of AA,NA,CA,ALANON,OA,SA and CODA this story would have not been possible.Many Angels have appeared in my life and I acknowledge you all.My sponsor and authentic founder of NA Spain remains my confident and long term friend.This person without any thought of reward spent endless time supporting me threw the early years of recovery  and whom I will be eternally grateful.<br /><br />PART 1 ROCK BOTTOM<br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Now cast your mind back thirty years.A hopeless drunk is staggering our of a nightclub set in an area known as over the border in a North East English town. The street lights  shimmering off the tarmac rushed towards me as I crumpled into unconsciosness My semicomatse head bouncing off the granite curbstones feeling like a gentle caress. Blackout, oblivion was where my advanced alcoholism always took me. The promise of a wonderous adventure filled illusions had long since disappeared.The idea that I could handle alcohol or drugs had seemed irrelevant the inevitability of my condition overcame me I dimmely felt hands rifleing threw my pockets. Hopelessly drunk I was incapable of doing anything even my bodily functions now took care of themselves. Death, whatever that was, would have been welcomed as yet another phase of insane bingeing ran its course.By know I was starting to understand that once I drank I had no control over the outcome.All the excuses had been used up and I was in utter bewilderment as to why my longtime friend alcohol had turned on me.Where had my friends disappeared to and the conviviality of there happy company.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The answer crashed into my befuddled brain I had used up all there excuses as well as mine and had become the unfunny court jester who continuosly embarrassed them with drunken brawling heaping abuse onto those closest to me as the full reality of my condition became apparent to them all.The witty raconteaur had become the stinking drunk,bloated vomiting and unfunny.In reality I sorted out dark places where people like me sort the company of like minded others.The illegal blues clubs and shebeens the drinking dens for prostitutes and criminals.I could not resist the call to visit once I had, had that first drink.It did not matter what it was for I had long since recognised that if it was a weak shandy or a double whisky the results would be exactly the same.It came as no surprise to be lying in the gutter blacked out.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What did come as a surprise was to be sitting in the back of a taxicab.What had happened had I met with a good Samaritan for they where a rareity in this area of dockland.I was over the years after this to try many times to attempt to rationalise this answer out. Had some golden lady of the night rescued me doubtful but possible or a kindly taxi driver even more improbable.Yet here I was being dropped off outside my front door in a small suburban village.My eyes fearfully scanned the street for what had become the inevitable results of my binges a police car.I thanked the taxi driver and searched for my keys.No police car but now the guilt and remorse the terrible psychical withdrawal from alcohol gripped my being. I must have another drink as my skin started crawling and the stomach wrenching vomit reflex took hold.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">It was at this time I recognised that all the lights were on yet there was no one in the house.I stopped I glanced at the red flock wallpaper with the glistening remains of the whisky glass catching the evidential reflection of the lights.Yes this was the right house.There was the drinks cupboard it was open nothing remained. Panic,fear my head whirled a neon red sign shown in my head NO DRINK.No drink nothing.I heard a car drive up my car, my wife.I needed to get what was left of the brain into gear.I wracked my brain for a solution something that would work something that would give one more drink anything.She was on the path give me an idea any idea nothing. The withdrawls were kicking in the shakeing was starting with the first tremors my fingers twitched as the withdrawls started.Its just a hangover.You used the magic word that would start the withdrawl HANGOVER. I didn’t do hangovers anymore I just got sick very sick very quickly.How the hell was I to get a drink I must have a drink.I needed a solution fast any solution.</span></span></div></div></div></p>

Dream Warriors Testament: PART 1 ROCK BOTTOM Flash News best selling new addiction book

Dream Warriors Testament:PART 1 ROCK BOTTOM   Dream Warriors testament, Arriving at a time in my life after thirty years of not drinking to ...

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The Real "Power" Behind Alcoholics Anonymous

<blockquote><br />the original A.A. idea--that a vital religious experience brings about the solution described in the Big Book and emanating from Bill Wilson’s own story--has been removed and watered down from a spiritual experience to a spiritual awakening to an “awareness” to a personality change.</blockquote>

The Real "Power" Behind Alcoholics Anonymous

the original A.A. idea--that a vital religious experience brings about the solution described in the Big Book and emanating from Bill Wilson...

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Evidence for the Resurrection

<blockquote><br />"Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and trust You as my Savior. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Make me the kind of person You want me to be. Thank You that I can trust You."</blockquote>

Evidence for the Resurrection

"Lord Jesus, I need You. Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and trust You as my Savior. Thank You...

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Artist Draws 8,628 Self-Portraits Under the Influence of Love and Other Drugs

<p><div id="gallery-658"><div id="blog_slideshow_previous_next"><div><img alt="Normal Face" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Normal-face.jpg" title="Normal Face" /></div></div><br /><div><p>This self-portrait by Bryan Lewis Saunders shows his "normal face," but the other 8,000-plus images he's created over the past 16 years go into some pretty strange territory.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Drugs: Psilocybin Mushrooms" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Drugs-1-Psilocybin-Mushrooms.jpg" title="Drugs: Psilocybin Mushrooms" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Drugs: Psilocybin Mushrooms</h2><p> </p><p>"I wanted to see how drugs changed my self-perception," Saunders said. "So I drew myself under the influence of a wide variety of them."</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Drugs: Bath Salts" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Drugs-2-Bath-Salts.jpg" title="Drugs: Bath Salts" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Drugs: Bath Salts</h2><p> </p><p>A self-portrait of Saunders after taking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_salts_(drug)">bath salts</a>.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Third Ear Experiment 2" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Third-Ear-Experiment-2.jpg" title="Third Ear Experiment 2" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Third Ear Experiment, No. 2</h2><p> </p><p>Another self-portrait from the Third Ear Experiment series.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Third Ear Experiment 1" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Third-Ear-Experiment-1.jpg" title="Third Ear Experiment 1" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Third Ear Experiment, No. 1</h2><p> </p><p>"For 28 days I blocked up my external ears and attached a copper funnel to my mouth in an effort to connect my Eustachian tubes to my pineal gland by physically rerouting the way in which sound entered my body," Saunders said of the Third Ear Experiment series.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="I'm All Out Of Hair I'm So Lost Without You 1" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Im-All-Out-Of-Hair-Im-So-Lost-Without-You-1.jpg" title="I'm All Out Of Hair I'm So Lost Without You 1" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>I'm All Out Of Hair, I'm So Lost Without You, No. 1</h2><p> </p><p>"I shaved my body hair and used it in my self-portraits to make e-cards letting people know how much I missed them." Saunders said.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="I'm All Out Of Hair I'm So Lost Without You" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Im-All-Out-Of-Hair-Im-So-Lost-Without-You-2.jpg" title="I'm All Out Of Hair I'm So Lost Without You" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>I'm All Out Of Hair, I'm So Lost Without You, No. 2</h2><p> </p><p>Another body-hair-inspired piece.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Died: Great Aunt" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Died-Great-Aunt-2.jpg" title="Died: Great Aunt" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Died: Great Aunt</h2><p> </p><p>Saunders describes his Died series as capturing "the difference between when a stranger or family member dies." This image was inspired by the death of his great aunt.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Died: Neighbor" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Died-Neighbor-1.jpg" title="Died: Neighbor" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Died: Neighbor</h2><p> </p><p>Another self-portrait in theDied series, this time inspired by a deceased neighbor.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Naked Yoga: Casa Setu Bandha Sarvangasana" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Naked-Yoga-1-Casa-Setu-Bandha-Sarvangasana.jpg" title="Naked Yoga: Casa Setu Bandha Sarvangasana" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Naked Yoga: Casa Setu Bandha Sarvangasana</h2><p> </p><p>"I tried to do yoga and was using art as an incentive, but I think I waited too late in life to start," Saunders said of his Naked Yoga series.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Imperfect Face 1" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Imperfect-Face-1.jpg" title="Imperfect Face 1" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>My Drawings Aren't Messed Up, It's the Symmetry of My Face, No. 1</h2><p> </p><p>"Using the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio">golden ratio</a> and other ideas from geometry, I was trying to locate the precise imperfections of my face," Saunders said.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Imperfect Face 2" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Imperfect-Face-2.jpg" title="Imperfect Face 2" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>My Drawings Aren't Messed Up, It's the Symmetry of My Face, No. 2</h2><p> </p><p>Another self-portrait Saunders did based on the proportions of his face.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Facing Fear: Heights" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Facing-Fear-2-heights.jpg" title="Facing Fear: Heights" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Facing Fear: Heights</h2><p> </p><p>"I wanted to use art to overcome some of my fears, so I drew myself while facing them," Saunders said of the portraits he did about confronting his fears. "A sort of 'exposure therapy.'"</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Facing Fears: Trains" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Facing-Fears-1-trains.jpg" title="Facing Fears: Trains" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Facing Fear: Trains</h2><p> </p><p>Saunders facing his fear of trains.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Popular Toys 1" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Popular-Toys-1.jpg" title="Popular Toys 1" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Popular Toys, No. 1</h2><p> </p><p>"From time to time I use art to revitalize myself," said Saunders of his Popular Toys series, in which he uses iconic playthings "to help bring out my inner child." This one is the artist as Mr. Potato Head.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Popular Toys 2" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Popular-Toys-2.jpg" title="Popular Toys 2" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Popular Toys, No. 2</h2><p> </p><p>This image in the Popular Toys series depicts a My Little Pony toy.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Psycho-Anatomy 1" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Psycho-Anatomie-1.jpg" title="Psycho-Anatomy 1" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Psycho-Anatomy, No. 1</h2><p> </p><p>"Finding and connecting the similarities between different organs in the body," Saunders said of hisPsycho-Anatomy series. This image depicts the digestive system.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Psycho-Anatomy 2" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Psycho-Anatomie-2.jpg" title="Psycho-Anatomy 2" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Psycho-Anatomy, No. 2</h2><p> </p><p>This image in Saunders' Psycho-Anatomy series depicts the brain.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Quitting Smoking 1" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Quitting-Smoking-1.jpg" title="Quitting Smoking 1" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Quitting Smoking, No. 1</h2><p> </p><p>"I wanted to see how quitting smoking changed my self-perception," Saunders said of the Quitting Smoking series. "I think I lasted a month before I started again."</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Quitting Smoking 2" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Quitting-Smoking-2.jpg" title="Quitting Smoking 2" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Quitting Smoking, No. 2</h2><p> </p><p>Another self-portrait from the Quitting Smoking series.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Sensation: Ear Nibbles" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Sensation-1-Ear-Nibbles.jpg" title="Sensation: Ear Nibbles" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Sensation Drawings: Ear Nibbles</h2><p> </p><p>"[This is] A project I did with my girlfriend to see how different and similar we felt the same physical sensations in or on our bodies," Saunders said of his Sensation Drawings series.</p></div><br /><div><img alt="Sensation: Tummy Caresses" src="http://www.wired.com/underwire/wp-content/gallery/self-portrait-series-resized/Sensation-2-Tummy-Caresses.jpg" title="Sensation: Tummy Caresses" /></div><br /><div><p> </p><h2>Sensation Drawings: Tummy Caresses</h2><p> </p><p>A self-portrait from Saunders' Sensation Drawings series based on the feeling of a stomach caress.</p></div><br /><div id="blog_slideshow_previous_next"><div>View as gallery</div></div></div><p> </p><p>As of this moment, Bryan Lewis Saunders has drawn 8,628 self-portraits. By the end of the day, he’ll have completed 8,629. And although he’s recently become known as the guy who draws under the influence of drugs, his creations have been inspired by everything from death to body hair over the years.</p><p>“All day every day, images and feelings of the world come into me and it’s inescapable,” said Saunders in an e-mail to Wired. “So I thought if I did a self-portrait every day for the rest of my life, with no rules, the world and I could be more linked to my nervous system. And I could die knowing that I tried to experience as much as possible while I was alive.”</p><p>Saunders, a 43-year-old Virginia native who currently lives in Tennessee, comes off looking like the art world’s Louis C.K. in his wildly diverse images. He began his self-portrait experiment on March 30, 1995, after an art-history class discussion about the prevalence of artists who put themselves into images of the world around them. He didn’t entirely agree with that tack, so he flipped the concept on its head. (See his “normal face” self-portrait, which is the first image in the gallery above.)</p><p><span id="more-118648"> </span></p><p>Over the years, he’s created self-portraits based on love, the loss of family members and neighbors, his attempts at quitting smoking and the time he shaved off his body hair. And even though he’s not a “brony,” he once drew inspiration from My Little Pony. In the process, the amazingly prolific artist has opened a weird little window into life in modern America.</p><p>For the series based on his experiments with recreational and prescription drugs, he took everything from cocaine and Abilify to cough syrup and computer duster, then drew while under the influence. The resulting self-portraits range from intricately beautiful (psychedelic mushrooms) to insanely brutal (bath salts).</p><p>He’s undertaken other strange adventures as well, using the unusual experiences to generate unique imagery. “For 28 days I blocked up my external ears and attached a copper funnel to my mouth in an effort to connect my Eustachian tubes to my pineal gland by physically rerouting the way in which sound entered my body,” he said of his Third Ear Experiment.</p><div>“Only a severe stroke or coma could stop me from completing the self-portrait-a-day work.”</div><p>To date, Saunders has filled stacks of sketchbooks with his drawings — some days he does as many as nine of them. For the first decade of the project, the self-portraits were his primary artistic outlet. (In addition to drawing, Saunders now also does spoken word and performance art, and collaborates with musicians).</p><p>He doesn’t have any plans to stop cranking out the creative images. “Only a severe stroke or coma could stop me from completing the self-portrait-a-day work,” Saunders said.</p><p>Even though he’s had offers over the years to show his self-portraits at galleries, he’s been wary to hand them all over for fear of losing his life’s work. (He once had an entire exhibition stolen and had another sculpture vandalized during a show.) However, a collection of his drug-influenced self-portraits will be on display early next year at La Maison Rouge in Paris.</p></p>

Artist Draws 8,628 Self-Portraits Under the Influence of Love and Other Drugs

This self-portrait by Bryan Lewis Saunders shows his "normal face," but the other 8,000-plus images he's created over the past...

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Addiction Books For relaxation When 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t cut it.

<p><h3></h3><div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; background-color: #ffffff;"><div><img alt="" border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6Qq1AJzcmYiVyeP7dfqxX7F9GRn2X9RBt9uaCgk-IhCXYaOJKA3OyrxGbdJihFH0Y-4uqdkgDjYtGZJlVFJtBtB-526FfMzb8VGGqypDC85wUWarkERRsLyIfz18q3lHGcBYpJrsHdVIr/s400/reading+on+beach+03.jpg" width="400" /></div><br /><br />The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment <br /><br />Carlton K. Erickson<br />312 pages <br />Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company (2007)<br /><br />Amazon Overview: Neuroscience is clarifying the causes of compulsive alcohol and drug use––while also shedding light on what addiction is, what it is not, and how it can best be treated––in exciting and innovative ways. Current neurobiological research complements and enhances the approaches to addiction traditionally taken in social work and psychology. However, this important research is generally not presented in a forthright, jargon-free way that clearly illustrates its relevance to addiction professionals. In The Science of Addiction, Carlton K. Erickson presents a comprehensive overview of the roles that brain function and genetics play in addiction.<br /><br /><br />The Addiction Solution: Unraveling the Mysteries of Addiction through Cutting-Edge Brain Science<br /><br />David Kipper and Steven Whitney<br />304 pages<br />Publisher: Rodale Books (2010)<br /><br />For decades addiction has been viewed and treated as a social and behavioral illness, afflicting people of “weak” character and “bad” moral fiber. However, recent breakthroughs in genetic technology have enabled doctors, for the first time, to correctly diagnose the disease and prove that addiction is an inherited, neuro-chemical disease originating in brain chemistry, determined by genetics, and triggered by stress. In their groundbreaking Addiction Breakthrough, David Kipper, MD, and Steven Whitney distill these exciting findings into a guide for the millions of adults who want to be free from the cycle of addiction, and for their loved ones who want to better understand it and to help.<br /><br /><br />In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction<br /><br />Gabor Maté<br />520 pages <br />Publisher: North Atlantic Books (2010) <br /><br />Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical "condition" distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. <br /><br /><br />Memoirs of an Addicted Brain: A Neuroscientist Examines his Former Life on Drugs <br /><br />Marc Lewis<br />336 pages <br />Publisher: PublicAffairs (2012)<br /><br />Marc Lewis’s relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, in its hippie heyday, he found methamphetamine and LSD and heroin. He sniffed nitrous oxide in Malaysia and frequented Calcutta’s opium dens. Ultimately, though, his journey took him where it takes most addicts: into a life of addiction, desperation, deception, and crime. But unlike most addicts, Lewis recovered and became a developmental psychologist and researcher in neuroscience. In Memoirs of an Addicted Brain, he applies his professional expertise to a study of his former self, using the story of his own journey through addiction to tell the universal story of addictions of every kind.<br /><br /><br />The Chemical Carousel: What Science Tells Us About Beating Addiction<br /><br />Dirk Hanson<br />472 pages <br />Publisher: BookSurge (2009)<br /><br />A book for anyone concerned with the care and healing of addiction, substance abuse, and the latest advances in the area of addiction science. In The Chemical Carousel, science writer Hanson takes the reader on a voyage through the heady world of addiction science, from the lab to the clinic to the junky on the street. Hanson explains the workings of common neurotransmitters and documents the direct effect drugs and alcohol produce on the reward pathways of the brain. He shows how scientists and treatment professionals have finally given us an answer to the perennial question about addiction: Why can't those people just say no?<br /><br /><br />An Anatomy of Addiction: Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle Drug, Cocaine<br /><br />Howard Markel<br />336 pages <br />Publisher: Vintage (2012)<br /><br />Acclaimed medical historian Howard Markel traces the careers of two brilliant young doctors--Sigmund Freud, neurologist, and William Halsted, surgeon--showing how their powerful addictions to cocaine shaped their enormous contributions to psychology and medicine. When Freud and Halsted began their experiments with cocaine in the 1880s, neither they, nor their colleagues, had any idea of the drug's potential to dominate and endanger their lives. An Anatomy of Addiction tells the tragic and heroic story of each man, accidentally struck down in his prime by an insidious malady: tragic because of the time, relationships, and health cocaine forced each to squander; heroic in the intense battle each man waged to overcome his affliction.<br /><br /><br />How to Change Your Drinking: a Harm Reduction Guide to Alcohol<br /><br />Kenneth Anderson<br />86 pages <br />Publisher: CreateSpace (2010)<br /><br />This book is the first comprehensive compilation of harm reduction strategies aimed specifically at people who drink alcohol. Whether your goal is safer drinking, reduced drinking, or quitting alcohol altogether, this is the book for you. It contains a large and detailed selection of harm reduction tools and strategies which you can choose from to build your own individualized alcohol harm reduction program. There are many practical exercises to help people change their behaviors, including risk-ranking worksheets, drinking charts, goal choice worksheets, and many more. There are also innumerable practical tips from folks who "have been there" and have turned their drinking habits around for the better. <br /><br /><br />Rethinking Substance Abuse: What the Science Shows, and What We Should Do about It<br /><br />William R. Miller and Kathleen M. Carroll<br />320 pages <br />Publisher: Guilford Press (2010) <br /><br />While knowledge on substance abuse and addictions is expanding rapidly, clinical practice still lags behind. This state-of-the-art book brings together leading experts to describe what treatment and prevention would look like if it were based on the best science available. The volume incorporates developmental, neurobiological, genetic, behavioral, and social–environmental perspectives. Tightly edited chapters summarize current thinking on the nature and causes of alcohol and other drug problems; discuss what works at the individual, family, and societal levels; and offer robust principles for developing more effective treatments and services.<br /><br /><h3>Writers On The Edge: 22 Writers Speak About Addiction and Dependency</h3>Diana Raab and James Brown<br />204 pages<br />Publisher: Modern History Press (2012)<br /><br />Writers On The Edge offers a range of essays, memoirs and poetry written by major contemporary authors who bring fresh insight into the dark world of addiction, from drugs and alcohol, to sex, gambling and food. Editors Diana M. Raab and James Brown have assembled an array of talented and courageous writers who share their stories with heartbreaking honesty as they share their obsessions as well as the awe-inspiring power of hope and redemption. Frederick & Steven Barthelme, Kera Bolonik, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Maud Casey, Anna David, Denise Duhamel, B.H. Fairchild, Ruth Fowler, David Huddle Perie Longo, Gregory Orr, Victoria Patterson, Molly Peacock, Scott Russell Sanders, Stephen Jay Schwartz, Linda Gray Sexton, Sue William Silverman, Chase Twichell, and Rachel Yoder<br /><br /><br /></div></p>

Addiction Books For relaxation When 50 Shades of Grey doesn’t cut it.

The Science of Addiction: From Neurobiology to Treatment  Carlton K. Erickson 312 pages  Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company (2007) Amazon O...

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WHEN YOUR HIGHER POWER FAILS YOU

<p>It happens every time. Without fail. Without exception. I bet it's happened to you also. Just think about it. How often has your god failed you? Every single time. Every single time I have turned a human being into a god, or turned something man-made into an idol, or placed my trust, expectation, hope, and confidence in anything else but the one true God, my god has failed me. Some people are slow learners. I am one of them. I have made the same mistake countless times. And every single time, that's right, you've got it. It happens every time. Maybe I should be more careful when I place my trust, expectation, hope, and confidence in a human being. Maybe I should be more choosy with the human I choose. Not so. No matter the human, the same outcome will arise. My god will fail me. I did it again recently. I made the same mistake. But my mistake wasn't the human I chose. My mistake was the choice I made to pick a human. And guess what happened? You guessed it. My god failed me. But how can this happen, time and again? Easily. First, it happens when I fail to remember when I need not to forget. Never, ever, place what belongs to God in heaven in the hands of a human. My love and trust, my loyalty and faithfulness, my belief and confidence, my hope and expectation, must be placed in the Lord first and foremost, above all and everyone else - whether it be someone or something else, or whether it be myself. Second, it happens not because I forget, but because I don't realize and recognize what I have done. Hard habits sometimes die slowly, don't they? And slow habits die hard. It has been a hard lesson for me, and I have to be vigilant to ensure I don't unconsciously do what I have so often done. So what is the outcome of this all? My gods fail me. Every human I have ever made into a god, every person or thing I have ever turned into an idol, the result has always been the same. My false gods have failed me, hurt me, let me down, forsaken me, abandoned me, rejected me, broken me, fallen short, messed up, and a zillion other things. Seriously? Yes. Will the real God please stand up?</p>

WHEN YOUR HIGHER POWER FAILS YOU

It happens every time. Without fail. Without exception. I bet it's happened to you also. Just think about it. How often has your god fai...

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Researchers completing a new study on alcohol consumption have discovered that college-age students who binge drink are happier than those who don't.

<p><p id="yui_3_5_1_21_1345507711715_348"> </p><p id="yui_3_5_1_21_1345507711715_343">Those who engaged in binge drinking tend to belong to so-called high-status groups: wealthy, white, male and active in fraternity life. And those who did not belong to the high-status groups could achieve similar levels of social acceptance through the act of binge drinking. In fact, the study results suggest that students engaged in the heavy drinking practice to elevate their social status amongst peers rather than to alleviate depression or anxiety.</p><p id="yui_3_5_1_21_1345507711715_349">"The present study offers another insight into the nature of a seemingly intractable social problem," the study released on Monday reads. "It is our hope that by drawing attention to the important social motivations underlying binge drinking, institutional administrators and public health professionals will be able to design and implement programs for students that take into account the full range of reasons that students binge drink."</p><p id="yui_3_5_1_21_1345507711715_350">The Washington Post reports that the study's co-author and Colgate University associate professor Carolyn Hsu presented some of the findings during the American Sociological Association gathering in Denver last week.</p><p id="yui_3_5_1_21_1345507711715_351">Interestingly, the study results compiled from surveying 1,600 college students also continues to support past evidence suggesting that binge drinking leads to a number of problems affecting the mind and body, including alcoholism, violence, poor grades and risky sexual behavior.</p><p>"I would guess it has to do with feeling like you belong and whether or not you're doing what a 'real' college student does," Hsu told LiveScience. "It seems to be more about certain groups getting to define what that looks like."</p><p>Binge drinking was defined as consuming more than four drinks in one occasion for women and more than five drinks for men. Sixty-four percent of respondents said they had engaged in the practice, compared with 36 percent who said they had not.</p><p id="yui_3_5_1_21_1345507711715_374">Those statistics differ from similar evidence gathered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC's statistics measure binge drinking in the same quantity but limit the consumption period to two hours or fewer. Its results also found that the majority of binge drinkers (70 percent) were over the age of 26. The CDC has also found that 90 percent of alcohol consumed by people under the age of 21 is done in the form of binge drinking, compared with 75 percent among all U.S. adults.</p></p>

Researchers completing a new study on alcohol consumption have discovered that college-age students who binge drink are happier than those who don't.

  Those who engaged in binge drinking tend to belong to so-called high-status groups: wealthy, white, male and active in fraternity life. An...

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The Five Keys to Mindful Communication

<p>The first key of mindful communication, according to Chapman (2012), is having amindful presence. This means having an open mind, awake body and a tender heart. When you have a mindful presence, you give up expectations, stories about yourself and others, and acting on emotions.</p><p>You are fully in the present moment; your communication isn’t focused on the “me” and what the “me” needs, but the we.</p><p>Mindful listening is the second key to mindful communication. Mindful listening is about encouraging the other person. This means looking through the masks and pretense and seeing the value in the person and the strengths he or she possesses. It’s looking past the human frailties and flaws that we all have to see the authentic person and the truth in what that person is attempting to say.</p><p>Mindful speech, the third key, is about gentleness. Speaking gently means being effective in what you say. It’s about speaking in a way that you can be hard. To be gentle with our speech means being aware of when our own insecurities and fears are aroused to the point we are acting out of fear rather than acceptance.</p><p>Practicing self-compassion for our fear, envy, jealousy and self-doubts is more effective than focusing on others as being a threat or attempting to change them. When you use gentle speech, you are communicating acceptance to the other person and saying what is true, not an interpretation or an exaggeration or a minimization.</p><p>The key to mindful relationships is unconditional friendliness. Unconditional friendliness means accepting the ebb and flow of relationships. Sometimes you meet new friends, sometimes friends move on, sometimes there is joy and sometimes there is pain. Sometimes you’ll feel lonely, sometimes you’ll feel cherished and connected, and then you’ll feel lonely again.</p><p>Unconditional friendliness means that your acceptance of others is not dependent on them staying with you or agreeing with you. You don’t cling to relationships to avoid loss.</p><p>Mindful responsiveness is like playfulness.  Playfulness is the openness that you can have when you let go of preconceived ideas and strategies. It’s like creating something new. Imagine two skilled dancers who alternatively lead each other in creating a new dance in every interaction, never doing the same complete dance over and over. They respond in the moment to the message sent by the other. There are no rules or expectations and yet they both bring skillful behavior.</p><p>Mindful communication requires practice. If you choose to practice the keys, you might choose to focus on one at a time. Being willing to regulate your emotions is a prerequisite to mindful communication and mindfulness of your emotions is necessary for emotion regulation.</p><p>Mindfulness is a core skill for the emotionally sensitive.</p><p> </p><p>References</p><p><iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=dreawarrreco-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1590309413" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p>Chapman, Susan Gillis. The Five Keys to Mindful Communication:  Using Deep Listening and Mindful Speech to Strengthen Relationships, Heal Conflicts and Acceomplish Your Goals. Boston: Shambhala, 2012.</p>

The Five Keys to Mindful Communication

The first key of mindful communication, according to Chapman (2012), is having amindful presence. This means having an open mind, awake body...

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ADDICTION charity Focus12 has received a huge financial boost after a codumentary about Russell Brand was shown last night.

<p><p>The documentary Russell Brand: Addiction to Recovery resulted in an immediate boost in donations and inspired the managing director of Bury St Edmunds based Chevington Finance and Leasing to offer the charity £106,000 over three years.</p><div><p>Russell Brand attended Focus12, the Bury St Edmunds abstinence-based alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre, in 2003 and is now a patron of the charity, describing it as ‘a really excellent example of a small cost effective rehab that can help people change in dramatic ways’.</p><p>Chip Somers, Focus12’s chief executive, said: “Russell’s documentary and his work this year to raise the profile of abstinence based recovery has got people talking about addiction in a different way, and made them realise that there is a viable alternative to simply giving up on addicts, or parking them on methadone.</p><p>“We are blown away by the generosity of Chevington — this financial support will make a huge difference to us as a charity and will certainly mean we can continue to stay open and help those who need us for longer. Raising funds for a recovery charity has never been harder than it is at present, every day is literally a struggle to keep afloat and we are very grateful.”</p><p>Clive Morris, Managing Director of Chevington Finance and Leasing said: “My wife and I were incredibly touched by last night’s documentary, which inspired us to endorse the local treatment centre Focus12, and we have today agreed funding assistance for the charity of £106,000 over the next 4 years.</p><p>“We believe that as a successful, responsible and reliable company we have a duty to help local charities survive this recession and the work that Chip Somers and his team do is fantastic and we fully endorse their abstinence based programme and have seen what a difference it makes to people’s lives.”</p></div></p>

ADDICTION charity Focus12 has received a huge financial boost after a codumentary about Russell Brand was shown last night.

The documentary Russell Brand: Addiction to Recovery resulted in an immediate boost in donations and inspired the managing director of Bury ...

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London's secret music venue and their livestream act

<div><h3></h3></div><div id="15745"><img alt="boiler-room-ch1.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch1-thumb-800x533-45065.jpg" width="620" /><p>With an invite-only door policy and super secret location, <a href="http://boilerroom.tv/" target="_blank">Boiler Room</a> is London's most exclusive music venue. But elitism isn't the premise for its clandestine nature—in fact, anyone with an Internet connection can easily join in the fun. Using a simple webcam, the crew behind Boiler Room livestreams each set for the world to see free of charge, and each month more than a million viewers tune in to see performances by artists like James Blake, The xx, Roots Manuva, Neon Indian, Juan Maclean and more.</p><img alt="boiler-room-ch2.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch2-thumb-800x533-45066.jpg" width="620" /><p>We recently chilled out to the smooth sounds of Brooklyn's <a href="http://howtodresswell.com/" target="_blank">How To Dress Well</a> before rocking out to revered musician <a href="http://boilerroom.tv/matthew-dear-40-min-mix/" target="_blank">Matthew Dear</a>, who brought down the house with an intense 40-minute DJ set. Keep an eye out for our interview with Dear, but for now you can get a little more insight into the underground music scene's most talked about livestream show by checking out our interview with assistant musical programmer and Boiler Room host Nic Tasker.</p><img alt="boiler-room-ch3.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch3-thumb-800x533-45067.jpg" width="620" /><h5>How important is it for Boiler Room to remain secret, at least in its location?</h5><p>That is quite an important aspect of it, purely because it means when you do shows you don't get a lot of groupies, pretty much everyone in the room is either a friend of ours or one of the artist's. It helps to create a more relaxed atmosphere for the artist and I think they feel less pressure. They're also just able to chill out and be themselves more rather than having people being like, "Hi can I get your autograph?" If the artists are relaxed usually you get the best music.</p><h5>It seems like there is more interaction among the crowd than at a typical venue, is that intentional?</h5><p>It's definitely a social place. All the people that come down, most of them we know and they're all our friends. So they come down, hang, have a drink and just chill out, basically. From our very set-up, we do it with a webcam, we're not a highly professional organization but I think that's kind of the charm of it. The main thing is people come down with the right attitude.</p><img alt="boiler-room-ch4.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch4-thumb-800x533-45068.jpg" width="620" /><h5>How much of the show is prescribed?</h5><p>I guess that depends on the artist. We never say anything. Literally, whatever they want to do—we're kind of the platform for them to do whatever they want, so if Matthew Dear wants to come and play an hour of noise with no beats, he can do that. That's fine with us, and I think that's why artists like coming to play for us. We're not like a club where you have to make people dance, we don't give a shit if people dance. It's nice if they do and it makes it more fun, but some nights you just get people appreciating the music, which is equally fun.</p><img alt="boiler-room-ch5.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch5-thumb-800x533-45069.jpg" width="620" /><h5>Is there a particular kind of artist you guys look for and ask to come perform?</h5><p>No, not particularly, it's just whatever we're feeling. Thristian [Boiler Room's co-founder] has the main say on musical direction, but it's a massive team effort. In London there's five of us, New York there's two, LA there's one and Berlin there's two.</p><h5>Tonight you had different set-ups for each artist, do you tailor their positioning in the room to their style?</h5><p>It definitely depends on the act and what kind of music they do. With live bands we found what works nicely is having them opposite each other because it's like they're in rehearsal, like they're just jamming. Which is again trying to give them that chilled out feel that they're just at home jamming and there happens to be a camera there. For some of our shows we've had over 100,000 viewers. When you think of those numbers it's quite scary, but when you're in the room and it's all friends it creates that vibe that people don't mind. You can imagine if you had all those people in front of you it would be a very different situation.</p><img alt="boiler-room-ch7.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch7-thumb-800x533-45072.jpg" width="620" /><h5>Have you ever thought of Boiler Room as an East London version of Soul Train?</h5><p>It's never crossed my mind like that, but I can see why you think that. I like to think of us as the new music broadcaster, kind of the new MTV, but obviously we operate in the underground scene mainly. But I like to think that what we do is as revolutionary as what they were doing. We're always growing into something new.</p><img alt="boiler-room-ch6.jpg" height="413" src="http://www.coolhunting.com/assets_c/2012/08/boiler-room-ch6-thumb-800x533-45070.jpg" width="620" /><h5>What's up next for Boiler Room?</h5><p>We have had visual people in doing 3D mapping, and that's something we're looking forward to progressing—doing more with the visuals. We've got the upstairs as well, we're starting to do breakfast shows with some high profile DJs, we're going to be doing that regularly. Each will have an individual format. The next step is progressing the US shows, we're alternating weekly between New York and LA, so the next step is to take Boiler Room to America</p></div>

London's secret music venue and their livestream act

With an invite-only door policy and super secret location,  Boiler Room  is London's most exclusive music venue. But elitism isn't t...

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Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.

<p>Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.UK Citizens<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=cosdelcri-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1577316142&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p>This is the book that offers a different perspective on codependency and is strongly recommended by Dream Warrior Recovery as part of a solution based recovery. This bestselling book, now in a revised edition, radically challenges the prevailing medical definition of co-dependency as a permanent, progressive, and incurable addiction. Rather, the authors identify it as the result of developmental traumas that interfered with the infant-parent bonding relationship during the first year of life.US Citizens<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=FFFFFF&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=dreawarrreco-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1577316142" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><p>Drawing on decades of clinical experience, Barry and Janae Weinhold correlate the developmental causes of co-dependency with relationship problems later in life, such as establishing and maintaining boundaries, clinging and dependent behaviors, people pleasing, and difficulty achieving success in the world. Then they focus on healing co-dependency, providing compelling case histories and practical activities to help readers heal early trauma and transform themselves and their primary relationships.</p>

Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behaviors and toward a life of wholeness and fulfillment.

Breaking Free of the Co-dependency Trap presents a groundbreaking developmental road map to guide readers away from their co-dependent behav...

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Pigs worship God of Materialism

<div><h1>If ever there was a god to prevent you from worshiping material things, it would be this one.</h1><div><dl><dt><br /></dt></dl></div><p>The hideous pig-like thing is the masterpiece by Chinese artist Chen Wenling called God Of Materialism.</p><div><img alt="godmaterialism" height="300" src="http://img.metro.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/godmaterialism2EPA_450x300.jpg" width="450" />Ugly pig with green eye darting at thier master</div><p>Looking chuffed, the huge greedy pig has minions of other tiny, and just as unattractive and scary, pigs worshiping in awe at its heels.</p><p>The group stare up at their master, adorned with a plethora of jewels and necklaces representing the grotesque love of material things.</p><p>The sculpture, which looks like a bad dream, can be found at the Asia Art Centre in Beijing.</p></div><div class="clrd" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 10px; vertical-align: baseline; min-height: 1px; zoom: 1; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><div class="art-lft" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; float: right; width: 480px;"><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And if you're brave enough to go and see it, it will be there till October 18th 2008.</p></div></div><p><span style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; outline: 0px; font-size: 10px; vertical-align: baseline; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><br /></span></p>

Pigs worship God of Materialism

If ever there was a god to prevent you from worshiping material things, it would be this one. The hideous pig-like thing is the masterpiece ...

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True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. Moderate feelings of guilt are beneficial because they encourage the individual to do the right thing

<p>The Scottish psychologist R.D. Laing once said: True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. Moderate feelings of guilt are beneficial because they encourage the individual to do the right thing. If nobody felt guilty about anything it would likely lead to a fearful world and it could even threaten the survival of the human species. There is also a more negative form of guilt which is excessive and harmful. This refers to a situation where the individual carries a sense of guilt around with them most of the time. The reasons for why the individual may become a victim of excessive guilt include: They have a poor self image. It can be a sign of mental health difficulties. Some people fall into negative thinking and this tends to include guilt. The individual has been a victim of physical or sexual abuse. Unhealthy relationships can leave people with feelings of guilt. Excessive stress. Alcohol or drug abuse.</p>

True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. Moderate feelings of guilt are beneficial because they encourage the individual to do the right thing

The Scottish psychologist R.D. Laing once said: True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is gui...

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A million Britons live with the hell of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

<p>Nadine Stewart was convinced she was going to die. Just ten minutes after setting off for a pop concert with her sister, she felt a tingling sensation in her arms and pain in her chest.</p><p>‘I knew I was having a heart attack,’ says Nadine, 41, a customer services adviser from Morecambe, Lancashire. ‘I begged my sister to take me to A&E: I ran in and screamed that I was having a heart attack.</p><p>‘They put me on a monitor and my heart was fine — what I had suffered was a panic attack. I have no idea to this day what caused it, but it terrified the life out of me.’ </p><div><img alt="Nadine Stewart has to do everything nine times or fears her husband will die" height="565" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/25/article-2178978-13FDCCA8000005DC-228_634x565.jpg" width="634" /><p>Nadine Stewart has to do everything nine times or fears her husband will die</p></div><p>But worse was to come. ‘Afterwards, I developed a fear that if I didn’t do something nine times, something terrible would happen to me, my husband Paul or a member of my family.’ says Nadine. </p><p>‘If I made a drink I had to stir it nine times. If I locked the door I had to check it nine times and if I used a cloth to wipe a surface I’d have to wipe it nine times. I don’t know why it was nine. I realised I was being utterly irrational. But every time I tried to curb it — such as only stirring my drink three times — I’d begin to panic.'</p><div> ‘If I didn’t do these things nine times, I’d imagine Paul and me veering off the motorway in our car and see his injured face in the aftermath.’</div><p>Nadine had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), recognised by the World Health Organisation as one of the top ten most disabling disorders in terms of its effect on quality of life. </p><p>Last month both the British actress Emily Blunt and the MP Charles Walker revealed they suffered from it, with Walker admitting he had to do everything in multiples of four — and felt the need to wash his hands hundreds of times a day. </p><div> Who knew?<br />Surveys estimate that fewer than<br />10 per cent of those suffering OCD are currently receiving treatment.</div><p>They are not alone. Around a million people in the UK are thought to be undergoing treatment for OCD, the majority of them women. Women are twice as likely as men to develop anxiety disorders such as OCD — and high-achieving perfectionists are particularly at risk. </p><p>‘There are two parts to OCD, the obsession and the compulsion,’ explains Joel Rose, of charity OCD Action. ‘The obsession is a thought that pops into your head, about harm coming to someone you love or you causing harm to someone.'</p><p>‘Everyone has these thoughts but most of us ignore them and get on with our lives. Someone with OCD will develop a compulsive ritual as a reaction to them. It can be continually washing their hands or something invisible like repeating the same phrase over and over in their heads.'</p><p>‘The time spent on these compulsions lengthens with time. A severe OCD sufferer might spend six or seven hours a day washing their hands in the hope nothing terrible happens to their children.’</p><p>The cause of the condition is not known, though a stressful event in someone’s life may trigger an underlying problem. </p><p>Nadine has never pinpointed the root of her troubles — though they began in the year she started a new job, moved house and got engaged. ‘I had no reason to feel anxious,’ she said, ‘though I suppose there was a lot of change.</p><p>‘I became scared of choking to death so I stopped eating and lost three stone in less than three months. I couldn’t leave the house without Paul, and even then it would take me three hours to pluck up the courage.’</p><p>Someone who can empathise with Nadine is Jeni Scott, 31, who’s had OCD for three years. <br />It began when her father had a heart attack and her mother was diagnosed with cancer, soon after Jeni left university. </p><p>‘I became obsessed with doing things in order,’ says Jeni, a tutor from Newport, Wales. ‘I started making lists but it had everything on it such as “get up, have shower, make a cup of tea” and if I didn’t stick to it I would punish myself by denying myself a treat.</p><div><img alt="Actress Emily Blunt, star of Five Year Engagement, has revealed she suffers from OCD" height="1060" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/25/article-2178978-139B6B4A000005DC-908_306x1060.jpg" width="306" /><p>Actress Emily Blunt, star of Five Year Engagement, has revealed she suffers from OCD</p></div><p>‘I developed a phobia of being in the rain in the wrong clothes and had to take a backpack with spare bra, pants, coat, shoes and umbrella everywhere with me. I’d carry antibacterial gel in my bag and use it every ten minutes. I’ve still no idea why I did it, I just found it helped me.’ </p><p>Aisha Faisal, from Reading, Berkshire, also suffers from OCD — and it’s getting worse. ‘I developed it in my teens when my mother fell ill and I had to clean the house,’ the 26-year-old says. ‘Now I’m obsessed with everything being super-clean. I wash my hands 14 or 15 times a day, I shower for an hour at a time and wash the shower head and bath thoroughly before I step in. </p><p>‘If someone touches me, I cringe. My neighbour touched my scarf to tell me it was pretty and I had to have a shower and put all my clothes in the wash.’ Aisha, who has three children under four, admits her obsession extended to giving birth. </p><p>‘Each time I had Caesarean sections — the thought of having a natural birth makes me feel physically sick.’ She made the surgeons assure her everything had been scrubbed thoroughly before each operation. Understandably, her OCD worries the rest of her family. ‘My husband Ali finds it very hard to see me like this. I won’t let him touch me when he comes in from work: he has to shower and put on clean clothes before he can hug me.'</p><p>‘With three young children, being clean is impossible and I bathe them twice a day in the winter and sometimes four times a day in the summer if they’re hot and sticky.’</p><p>As a result of her obsession her own hands are red raw and she suffers from eczema. ‘I have been to the GP but it’s very difficult to treat. I know I must do something soon, because my eldest daughter, who is four, is picking up on my behaviour and I feel very guilty about that.'</p><p>‘The other day she came in from the garden and said she was dirty so needed to get out of her clothes and I washed her and cleaned her thoroughly. My husband can’t believe our electricity bill because the washing machine is on constantly.’</p><p>While Aisha is still in the grip of OCD, Jeni and Nadine have overcome the condition. According to the NHS, the two recognised forms of treatment are Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), which helped Jeni, and anti-depressants. </p><p>But Nadine used another therapy called The Linden Method — a two-day workshop costs £995 — when she reached her lowest point early last year.</p><p>‘I was unable to work, leave the house or answer the phone,’ she says. ‘My vision became blurry, my hands would spasm and I’d get pains like rheumatism. I began to think: “What’s the point in living?” yet I was too scared to kill myself.’</p><p>The Linden Method — which has also helped OCD sufferers Jemma and Jodie Kidd — works by convincing the sufferer’s sub-conscious that they are safe. </p><p>‘I’m a different person,’ says Nadine. ‘I can leave the house, I’m applying for jobs, taking up hobbies and it’s transformed my relationship with Paul. </p><p>‘He says it’s like having a wife in a wheelchair who can walk again. Except I feel I can not only walk, I can fly.’</p><p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; text-align: left;"><br /><br /><br /></span></p>

A million Britons live with the hell of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Nadine Stewart was convinced she was going to die. Just ten minutes after setting off for a pop concert with her sister, she felt a tingling...

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White Light

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" frameborder="0" height="266" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SRAOG-BpNOw?feature=player_embedded" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" width="320"></iframe><strong style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">George Michael is set to make his big comeback with new single 'White Light', however it seems that the star is not only coming back with a new song, but he's a changed man as well, vowing 'never to smoke cannabis again.'</strong></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">The 'Faith' star has reportedly told his pals that he's 'determined to stay on the straight and narrow' from now on and 'never wants to touch the stuff again', according to the <em style="margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Sunday Mirror </em>after his brush with death last year.</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">"George hasn’t touched pot since his illness,”' a friend told the newspaper.</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Those days for him are definitely over and he’s clear-headed, working hard and says he’s never felt better for it.</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">"He never wants to be that ill again and knows just how close he was to losing his life. He’s treating every day as a gift and he isn’t going to slip back into his old ways."</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">"He’s a whole new George,' the friend added. 'He’s putting the finishing touches to an album which will be all dance...there’s no doom and gloom in his life now."</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">Meanwhile, George Michael has revealed that he wrote a song for his upcoming album, intending it <span class="GRcorrect" grphrase="afbe5c00237c45bdce93a84e4c9acc3895e36784" grtype="null" id="GRmark_afbe5c00237c45bdce93a84e4c9acc3895e36784_be:0">be</span> a duet with late soul singer Amy Winehouse before she passed away.</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">George told <em style="margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px;">Magic 105.4</em>: "There is one I wrote, I was hoping to sing with Amy Winehouse," he said of a ballad on the album.</span></div><div style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; margin-bottom: 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: white;">"I was so in awe of her talent, bless her heart I never got to offer it as a duet."</span></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.2em; text-align: left;">The star also added that his upcoming album is "the most direct record that I have made since [1987 solo debut] Faith."</span>DISCLAIMER<span class="GRcorrect" grphrase="adfe5c157e0e94c7f33428fa520041723be91570" grtype="null" id="GRmark_adfe5c157e0e94c7f33428fa520041723be91570_::0">:</span>Text may be subject to copyright<span class="GRcorrect" grphrase="adfe5c157e0e94c7f33428fa520041723be91570" grtype="null" id="GRmark_adfe5c157e0e94c7f33428fa520041723be91570_.:1">.</span>This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder. <span class="GingerNoCheckEnd"></span>

White Light

George Michael is set to make his big comeback with new single 'White Light', however it seems that the star is not only coming back...

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DEA Bans Bath Salts

<p>Bath Salts – a Not-So-Legal High Bath salts are a new form of synthetic drugs that have been sold legally via the Internet and head shops throughout the USA and other parts of the world. Bath salts are typically a pure mix of mephedrone or a combination of mephedrone, MDVP and other substances. These types of drugs are known as research chemicals, because they are made by researching chemicals that will cause similar effects to known psychoactive substances. The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced a ban on the manufacture, possession, use and sale of these potentially harmful and illegal substances in October 2011. The DEA had increasing concerns about the use of these drugs, which recently surged in popularity. Users reported to have effects that included impaired perception, reduction of motor control, paranoia, disorientation, hallucinations and euphoria. The DEA raised concerns about the safety of these drugs and the unknown long-term effects that the drugs may have on a person. Additionally, these drugs were being sold through shops and vendors under the guise of plant food or bath salts and did not have FDA approval for human consumption.</p>

DEA Bans Bath Salts

Bath Salts – a Not-So-Legal High Bath salts are a new form of synthetic drugs that have been sold legally via the Internet and head shops th...

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Trust God, Clean House, Help Others

<h3></h3><div></div><div id="post-body-7892868208198798717"><div dir="ltr"><div><img alt="" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqdH2S0oEAP-Uhpqbjkxpp3lpp_wdva6ZsfgPPWQeJsWaBzCyjYh7YBmLcyefeYuOtDqwlYcnVqh41aydPXY3uhJClwCEYxK8l8QJXIFIIdRD5pfpZgpahiNnia9VWmM6qdjX2g0pjnvc/s200/doubleminded.png" width="200" /></div><blockquote>"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8)<br /><br />"Draw near to God and God will draw near to you. Wash clean your hands, ye sinners. Purify your hearts ye double-minded." (James 4:8)</blockquote><br />Dr. Bob, in the "Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous" pamphlet, notes that in the earliest days of A.A. he and Bill found the Book of James (together with the Beatitudes and 1 Corinthians: 13) to be "absolutely essential." "Absolutely essential," no doubt, as all these passages speak to the spiritual malady that is at the root of the alcoholic addict's suffering. This is particularly so of the Book of James, where one finds such maxims as "Faith without works is dead."<br /><br />Keeping in mind the description of  "the actor" on pages 60-62 of the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous, and the ultimate conclusion that "the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run wild," the above -quoted passages from the Book of James seem to me to be particularly relevant. They recognize that the vast, vast majority of us - alcoholic and non-alcoholic alike - are "double minded." And, I would put it to you, that such double-mindedness consist of the small ego-self and one's authentic Being. Such an observation accounts for Bill's observation that "our actor is self-centered - ego-centric, as people like to call it nowadays." The self-reliant "actor" erratically tries to manage everything, not realizing that no one person can manage life; not realizing, indeed, that life isinherently unmanageable.<br /><br /><div><img alt="" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdS4k4iHaO-g77rrDrYhIERKJjoRdNGfCPINNYO1myt1mm2QJpH_0IAC4UyqHpIaP-ovh_RftdghQzMCM5tnXwPbF0w9fOy3-intd-qulpK-JmrXK6P2DThliCBtywIu-CzmKd6XFE7rI/s200/DrBob.png" width="125" /></div>And what was Dr. Bob's famed summary of the A.A. program and way of life? "Trust God. Clean house. Help others." Notice how closely this mirrors the above passage from James 4:8. ("Draw near to God and God will draw near to you. Wash clean your hands, ye sinners. Purify your hearts ye double minded.")<br /><br />This is not to suggest that Alcoholics Anonymous (or any of its sister organizations) is anything but a spiritual program, or that it is exclusively Christian-based  - a fact recognized in our Traditions and experience from the beginning of A.A. - but, rather, it is a recognition of how A.A.'s spiritual principles accord with spiritual principles recognized elsewhere. (Personally, I do not care whether "truth" comes from the Buddha, the Bible or Bambi's mother in the Walt Disney film - the truth is the truth, is the truth.)<br /><br />The truths reflected in the above-passages form the Book of James reflect what we learn in A.A. That there is within each of us an at-first predominant ego (or small "self") and a higher, God-consciousness which is the essence of all spiritual experience. The point of the Twelve Steps is not so much to arrest one's drinking (which is more of a prerequisite), but to enable one to effect an ever clearer and more consistent conscious contact with this highest portion of one's being. <br /><br />To the extent that one wavers between self-consciousness and God-consciousness, one's thoughts, words, and actions are bound to fluctuate, waver, and to become "unstable in every way." To the extent that one draws near to God, clears away the wreckage of one's past, and purifies one's heart in order that he or she may help others, however, one becomes increasingly single-minded, and fixed ever more steadily in a conscious contact with one's Higher Power.<br /><br />The goal of A.A. is thus "ego deflation at depth" so that altruistic and compassionate action based on God-consciousness may increasingly predominate in our lives.</div></div>

Trust God, Clean House, Help Others

"A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." (James 1:8) "Draw near to God and God will draw near to you. Wash clean yo...

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The Spiritual Life Is NOT a Theory!

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span class="zemanta-img separator" style="clear: left;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Steps-Traditions-AA-Services/dp/0916856291%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Ddreawarreco-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0916856291" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Cover of "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditi..." height="300" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pi-l7TsHL._SL300_.jpg" style="border: none; font-size: 0.8em;" width="186" /></a><span class="zemanta-img-attribution" style="clear: both; float: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; width: 186px;">Cover of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Steps-Traditions-AA-Services/dp/0916856291%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Ddreawarreco-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0916856291" target="_blank">Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions</a></span></span><h3><br /> </h3><div></div><div id="post-body-5115620389101523351"><div dir="ltr"><div></div><span class="GingerNoCheckStart"></span>"The spiritual life is not a theory," we read in the 'Big Book'. "We have to live it." Why this exhortation? At one level it is a recognition that we must have a spiritual awakening and live a spiritually awakened life if we are to remain clean and sober. At a deeper level, it is an affirmation that - whether we like it or not, and irrespective of whether we believe it or not - we are living a spiritual life, that life itself is inherently spiritual. The  question then becomes: are we living this spiritual life consciously?<br /> <br /> Living a spiritually conscious life is no mean feat. It must be lived consciously, and our self-consciousness is a pernicious and relentless adversary. Can our self-centered consciousness truly be overcome. In the St. Francis prayer (the Step 11 prayer at page 99 ofThe <a class="zem_slink" href="http://www.amazon.com/Twelve-Steps-Traditions-AA-Services/dp/0916856291%3FSubscriptionId%3D0G81C5DAZ03ZR9WH9X82%26tag%3Ddreawarreco-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3D0916856291" rel="amazon" target="_blank" title="Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions">Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions</a>) we are assured this is possible. "It is by self-forgetting that we find," we read. "It is by dying (to self, or the ego) that we awaken to eternal life." If we awaken to eternal life, is this eternity not inclusive of our whole lives? Are we not living in an eternal life, irrespective of whether we know or accept that fact. "The spiritual life is not a theory." We are living it - right now!<br /> <br /> <div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIFvmiQw9Lt7LNAt6wCue78pZ6NEcN2h9AN0CCgpRF0KUE3V0OQ75o6_-zzvfDshy6f501phBxzE3prAzD6qqQ8fVj3HjwWvjQlgS42oT2_c8KqsTwm3bVQ6ksd0CUaxs0vpHtZX5tjsk/s1600/meditation2.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIFvmiQw9Lt7LNAt6wCue78pZ6NEcN2h9AN0CCgpRF0KUE3V0OQ75o6_-zzvfDshy6f501phBxzE3prAzD6qqQ8fVj3HjwWvjQlgS42oT2_c8KqsTwm3bVQ6ksd0CUaxs0vpHtZX5tjsk/s200/meditation2.png" width="191" /></a></div>How then do we attune ourselves to this hidden reality? In theTwelve and Twelve (at page 98), the author suggests a richly interwoven process of self-examination, meditation and prayer - a process and practice that is reflective of the entire 12 Step program.<br /> <blockquote>"There is a direct linkage among self-examination, meditation and prayer," we read. "Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit. But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakeable foundation for life. Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality that is God's kingdom. And we will be comforted and assured that our own destiny in that realm will be secure for so long as we try, however falteringly, to find and do the will or our own Creator."</blockquote>"Selfishness - self-centeredness! That we think is the root of our problem. Driven by a hundred different forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate." (Alcoholics Anonymous, page 62.)<br /> <br /> <div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimRnV7emA7b-qThDYGyw2nJ-XrcyZRFFDGiRnXIZsG-7NWsGvmZHi3GQyMxrB2r3GOFSonQPD4xaz9Nf_xY4eIcOlVLkcbOJbGRGHJrKm5YPzazj-5uERw6iF39QMqHulC4JS_2L4idVk/s1600/spiritualPath.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimRnV7emA7b-qThDYGyw2nJ-XrcyZRFFDGiRnXIZsG-7NWsGvmZHi3GQyMxrB2r3GOFSonQPD4xaz9Nf_xY4eIcOlVLkcbOJbGRGHJrKm5YPzazj-5uERw6iF39QMqHulC4JS_2L4idVk/s200/spiritualPath.png" width="133" /></a></div>A life of conscious spirituality requires constant vigilance, or self examination. When we find ourselves thinking once more without awareness, we can be assured that this our ordinary self-consciousness trying to reassert itself. Just a snippet of the Step 3 prayer - "Relieve me of the bondage of self!" - may be enough to re-center ourselves in the God-consciousness of pure being. At other times, when in the throes of a full-blown ego attack characterized by emotional intensity and acute indecisiveness, the Serenity Prayer helps. In either instance the goal is to re-establish ourselves in the security of our newfound sense of consciousness and being, assured that it is there for the seeking.<br /> <br /> Self-examination, in turn, requires that we set aside time for prayer and meditation. Just a few minutes of silent recurrence to the realm of pure Spirit each day is enough for us to begin the path of living this spiritual life consciously. This is not a theory. It is the practical lesson learned by millions of alcoholic addicts in recovery. It works if we work it.</div></div><span class="GingerNoCheckEnd"></span> <div class="zemanta-pixie" style="height: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><a class="zemanta-pixie-a" href="http://www.zemanta.com/?px" title="Enhanced by Zemanta"><img alt="Enhanced by Zemanta" class="zemanta-pixie-img" src="http://img.zemanta.com/zemified_h.png?x-id=696ec997-6644-4905-9328-2c1cc48a880c" style="border: none; float: right;" /></a></div></div>

The Spiritual Life Is NOT a Theory!

Cover of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions "The spiritual life is not a theory," we read in the 'Big Book'. "We hav...

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Eckhart Tolle: On Resentments

<h3><a href="http://recoverytable.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/eckhart-tolle-on-resentments.html"><br /></a></h3><div></div><div id="post-body-1282980663123256824"><div dir="ltr"><blockquote><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJ30nmg-j4aLnybLU-L1rmZr08zmW5e_jakwRPxw_HonC7nEcWKvoPuUK1bb5zRDVD6yorwh1__3WLMthP_vKnl3HdEz_AyBhh79Q2BpkZCKjXYc1beFwKy8KIJHx7oUkizdUSpbkTo8/s1600/baggage.png"><img alt="" border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVJ30nmg-j4aLnybLU-L1rmZr08zmW5e_jakwRPxw_HonC7nEcWKvoPuUK1bb5zRDVD6yorwh1__3WLMthP_vKnl3HdEz_AyBhh79Q2BpkZCKjXYc1beFwKy8KIJHx7oUkizdUSpbkTo8/s200/baggage.png" width="200" /></a></div>"The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion."</blockquote><div><blockquote>-- Eckhart Tolle -- <br />("A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose")</blockquote></div><br />The Twelve Steps are designed to bring about "<a href="http://recoverytable.blogspot.com/2011/08/ego-humility-and-grace.html">ego deflation at depth</a>" and, thereby, a spiritual awakening which will solve the alcoholic addict's problem - "self" - in all its manifestations, selfishness, self-centeredness, egocentrism etc. One of the first concrete steps we take in this process of ego deflation is to list all of our lingering resentments, the lingering anger that we hold against people, ideas and even circumstances.<br /><br />Why the importance in reconciling our <a href="http://recoverytable.blogspot.com/2011/09/on-resentment-and-forgiveness.html">resentments</a>? The answer is that unless we do so they fester as an underlying anger that blocks us off from the spiritual resources that are buried within us. It is impossible for us to be honest, patient, understanding and loving while we harbour the lingering coals of the grievances we have towards others.<br /><br />"Resentment is the emotion that goes with complaining and the mental labeling of people and adds even more energy to the ego," notes <a href="http://recoverytable.blogspot.com/2011/05/self-esteem-and-realizing-objectivity.html">Eckhart Tolle</a>, a renowned spiritual teacher. "Resentment," he observes, "means to feel bitter, indignant, aggrieved or offended. You resent other people's greed, their dishonesty, their lack of integrity, what they are doing, what they did in the past, what they said, what they failed to do, what they should or shouldn't have done."<br /><br />"The ego loves it," he points out. "Instead of overlooking unconsciousness in others, you make it into their identity. Who," he asks rhetorically, "is doing that?" <br /><br />"The unconscious in you," he answers, "the ego."<br /><br />"Sometimes the "fault" that you perceive in another isn't even there," he notes. "It is a total misinterpretation, a projection by a mind conditioned to see enemies and to make itself right or superior. At ohter time, the fault may be there, but by focusing on it, sometines to the exclusion of everything else, you amplify it, and what you react to in another, he cautions, you strengthen in yourself."<br /><div>[Tolle, "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0452289963/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=trazendenthep-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399377&creativeASIN=0452289963">A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose</a>," p. 62.]<br /><br /><br /><div><iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/JOuOUV7h2-o" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div></div>

Eckhart Tolle: On Resentments

"The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. And what is a grievance? The...

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Discerning God's Will For Us

<p><h3 class="post-title entry-title" style="margin: 0px; position: relative; font-weight: normal; font-size: 26px; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; color: #d52a33; background-color: #ffffff;"></h3><div class="post-header" style="line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1em; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: #ffffff;"></div><div id="post-body-9144700933189079024"><div dir="ltr">Having made the decision to turn one's will and one's life over to the care of the God of one's understanding, how then does one make decisions and act in accordance with such a seemingly inscrutable will? How does one distinguish, in short, one's own will from God's will? And just how does one become able to bring his or actions into conformity with what God would have for us?<br /><br />As a starting point, consider the probability that it is only in establishing a "conscious contact" - that is, in establishing a connection with a deeper part of one's consciousness, i.e., the higher consciousness of God, or simply, God-consciousness - that one will be able to act in accordance with God's will. In doing so, one embodies the sage advice to "hesitate and meditate" before acting, remembering that we remain alcoholic, that our lives are unmanageable, but that God can and will relieve us from our alcoholism if He is sought.<br /><br />("The disciplining of the will must have as its accompaniment a no less thorough disciplining of the consciousness," observed Aldous Huxley, a non-alcoholic friend of Bill Wilson's. "There has to be a conversion, sudden or otherwise, not merely of the heart, but also of the senses and of the perceiving mind." -- "The Perennial Philosophy," p. 72)<br /><br />Thus, above all, one needs to quiet the raucous consciousness of the ego-self in order that one may attain to the state of God-consciousness described by many of the initial old-timers. In the Spiritual Experience appendix, we read that such "God-consciousness" was seen as "the essence of spiritual experience." It is, thus, only in the quietude of our higher consciousness that we may experience the grace of God and the silence of our own humility. It is there that we can come to the silent acceptance of life as it has unfolded, and it is there where we can intuit what, if anything, God would have us do in any particular instance.<br /><br />There is, however, a considerable danger, rooted in the persistence of self and in the subtlety of the ego, that we may be all too readily fooled by what we think we should do under the circumstances and that our thinking is a product of God-consciousness rather than the mundane self-consciousness of our ordinary waking life. <br /><br />Recognizing this danger, Dr. Bob, Bill W., and many of "the good old-timers" relied heavily on the Four Absolutes that were developed and utlized by the Oxford Group; a set of useful metaphysical tools that were never formally adopted by A.A. as their then-notoriety would have publicly identified the then-fledgling A.A. movement with the Oxford Group.<br /><br />To apply the Four Absoutes - honesty, purity, unselfishness and love - it is necessary only to gain the quietude of our own innate God-consciousness, and then to contemplate the four following questions about our proposed response to circumstances:<br /><ol><li>Absolute Honesty - Is it true or false?</li><li>Absolute Purity - Is it good or bad?</li><li>Absolute Unselfishness - Disregarding ourselves entirely, how will this affect others?</li><li>Absolute Love - Is it beautiful or ugly?</li></ol>In the "Co-Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous" pamphlet, Dr. Bob notes: "Almost always, if I measure my decision carefully by the yardsticks of absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute love, and it checks up pretty well with those four, then my answer can't be very far out of the way. If, however, I do that and I'm still not satisfied with the answer, I usually consult with some friend whose judgment, in this particular case, would be very much better than mine. But," he notes, "usually the absolutes can help you to reach your own personal decision without bothering your friends."<br /><br />Thus, persistence in meditation and prayer, quietude, and clarity of mind - together with the absolutes of honesty, purity, unselfishness and love - can allow us to discern God's will for us and to align our actions with both the totality of life and the will of our Higher Power, if He is sought.</div></div></p>

Discerning God's Will For Us

Having made the decision to turn one's will and one's life over to the care of the God of one's understanding, how then does one...

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Higher Consciousness, the Perennial Philosophy, and the Divine Ground of Being

<h3>It was the writer and pioneering New Age philosopher, Aldous Huxley, who called Bill W. "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century," in recognition of the unique A.A. service structure that Bill worked so tirelessly to forge: ("Pass It On," pp. 368-369). Yet, Bill's affinity for, and friendship with, Huxley was based on their mutual dedication to exploring matters of spirituality, metaphysics, mysticism and higher consciousness. One wonders, in light of this, whether Huxley was not as much (or even moreso) impressed by the wholesale awakenings to a greater consciousness beyond the ego which were occurring among the early membership of Alcoholics Anonymous.</h3><div id="post-body-7944401173557344799"><div dir="ltr"><br />Like Gerald Heard, the polymath philosopher who brought Huxley and Bill together, Huxley viewed humankind's awakening to higher consciousness as an evolutionary imperative. In the same time frame in which he met Bill, Huxley wrote extensively on what he called the "perennial philosophy" underlying the world's sundry religions and wisdom traditions. In his introduction to a translation of the Bhagavad Gita by Christopher Isherwood and Swami Prabhavananda (titled "Song of God"), Huxley wrote:<br /><blockquote>"At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines."<br /><br />"First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness - the world of things and animals and men and even gods - is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent."<br /><br />"Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower and the known."<br /><br />"Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit."<br /><br />"Fourth: man's life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground."</blockquote> Reading over these points, it is easy to see why there was such an affinity between Huxley and Wilson. By dint of his remarkable spiritual awakening at Townes Hospital - an awakening that left him initially questioning his very sanity - Bill had attained (albeit for a limited time) what Huxley would call "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground" that lies within and yet surrounds each of us: that Divine Ground in which "we live, and move, and have our being."<br /><br />Bill was obviously acutely aware of the very specific and non-dualistic "unitive knowledge" at the heart of true religious/mystic/spiritual experience, an awareness confirmed both by his personal experience and from his reading of William James' Varieties of Religious Experience, which is repeatedly cited in the 'Big Book' of Alcoholics Anonymous. "When we became alcoholics," he wrote, "crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or else He is nothing. God either is, or He isn't. What," he asked, "was our choice to be?" ('Big Book,' page 53.)<br /><br />In retrospect, it seems eminently clear that Bill indeed experienced God as "everything" in his flash of spiritual insight, and it was this experience alone that arrested his slide into drunken oblivion and insanity. "The thing Bill had was a perfectly clear case of satori or somate," noted his friend Tom P. "You know by the fruits. The guy goes out and starts to act like an enlightened man. No one ever went further to prove it than that man did - he led a life of total service." ("Pass It On," page 302.)<br /><br />The effectiveness of such a non-dualistic unitive experience in overcoming chronic alcoholism was confirmed by Carl Jung in his later correspondence with Bill. "(The) craving for alcohol," Jung observed, "(is) on a low level the thirst of our being for wholeness, expressed in medieval language: union with God."<br /><br />"The only right and legitimate way to such an experience," Jung pointed out, "is that it happen to you in reality and it can only happen to you when you walk on a path which leads you to higher understanding. You may be led to that goal," he observed, "by an act of grace, or through a personal and honest contact with friends, or through a higher education of the mind beyond mere rationalism."<br /><br />It was Bill's good fortune (and ours) - although Jung might call it a series of synchronicities - that he was introduced to the Oxford Group's methodology and was shown by Ebby (who was remarkably sober at that time) its effectiveness in overcoming acute alcoholism. The Oxford Group's "program" (from which Bill would derive A.A.'s Twelve Steps) was clearly "a path that leads . . . to higher understanding" beyond the confines of the limited and self-conscious duality of the human ego, a path that led Bill, Dr. Bob, and now millions of other sufferers, to a "unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground." <br /><br />That a path to "a higher understanding of the mind beyond mere rationality" had been established, a path that had already brought about wholesale spiritual awakenings for tens of thousands of individuals, was undoubtedly a matter of the greatest interest to non-alcoholic spiritual seekers such as Huxley and Heard. In the 1940's and 1950's, these men (and their associates) were busy exploring the various means by which individuals could move from shallow, self-conscious, ego-centricity to higher consciousness, an exploration that would lay the foundations for widespread explorations of higher consciousness that would occur in the 1960's. It was this spiritual  "discovery" more so than the development of A.A.'s traditional service structure, one suspects, that led Huxley to call Bill "the greatest social architect of the twentieth century."</div></div>

Higher Consciousness, the Perennial Philosophy, and the Divine Ground of Being

It was the writer and pioneering New Age philosopher, Aldous Huxley, who called Bill W. "the greatest social architect of the twentieth...

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