Addiction

We are all vulnerable to becoming addicted to any activity or substance that gives us pleasure.  For example: drug of addiction, alcohol addiction, gambling addiction, or food addiction to name a few.  So many activities and substances which many of us enjoy and that have no negative impact on our lives can easily take over our life and destroy us and our relationships if not managed sensibily.

Do I Have an Addiction?

Answer the following questions and decide for yourself if you could have an addiction:

• Do I spend a lot of time thinking about my problem activity?
• How often do I overdo it, intentionally or un-intentionally?
• Do I need to indulge in the activity more frequently, to get any satisfaction?
• If I try to give up my activity do I experience withdrawal symptoms?
• If I manage to stop one activity do you replace it with another addictive activity?
• Have you attempted to quit a few times?  And
• Does the activity badly affect other areas of your life?

Drug of Addiction

The most common drug of addictions are the legal substances such as: Caffeine (coffee), Nicotine (cigarettes), and alcohol which cause the most problems to your health and are a major contributor to many of our social problems.

However, any activity or substance that becomes addictive eventually decreases our ability to function well in life and to have rewarding relationships with the special people in our lives.

Addiction doesn't want to let go until it has bled us dry, destroyed our psychological and physical health and collapsed our confidence and self-esteem.  Addiction often is not satisfied with destroying just us but will seek to destroy our most important relationships as well.

Alcohol Addiction

Alcohol is widely used and enjoyed in Australia.  It forms part of most of our social life and interaction with people.  Alcohol is a depressive drug and in low quantities it causes people to become less inhibitive.  However, in high quantities it damages our health and can even cause death.  There is some supportive research that says that alcohol consumption at a low to moderate level offer some health benefits.

This is not the case with high alcohol consumption.  High alcohol consumption increases the risk of heart, stroke and vascular diseases, liver cirrhosis and some cancers.  It also contributes to disability and death through accidents, violence, suicide and homicide.  High risk consumption has increased from 8.2% in 1995 to 10.8% in 2001 and 13.4% in 2004-5.

Binge drinking is a popular pastime in Australia.  Research shows that among people aged 18 years and over, 48% of males and 30% of females consumed alcohol at risky/high risk levels in the short term on at least one occasion in the last 12 months.  Short-term risky/high risk consumption of alcohol equates to seven or more standard drinks for males and five or more standard drinks for females on any single occasion.

Alcohol is the second largest cause of drug-related deaths and hospitalisations in Australia (after tobacco).  Additionally, alcohol is the main cause of deaths on Australian roads.  In 1998, over 2,000 deaths of the total 7,000 deaths of persons under 65 years, were related to alcohol.

Gambling Adiction

There are over 290,000 people in Australia who have a gambling problem.  More than half of these people say they have borrowed money to aid their addiction, nearly half have chosen their addiction over food and 25% have suffered separation or divorce as a result of their addiction.  Additionally, one in eight have admitted they thought about committing suicide.

These are just statistics, cold hard facts.  However, the reality is that addicts are people who are hurting because of addiction problems and this addiction is probably having a huge impact on their family, children, and others close t them.

Unfortunately only about 15% of addicts actually seek assistance.  Most try to solve their problem on their own and in some cases succeed.

Addiction Help

Removing alcohol, drugs, and gambling from our society would not necessarily solve this problem addiction.  Many would just transfer their addiction to another form of addiction.

If you are experiencing difficulty with an addictive behaviour or activity then proper rehabilitation can be achieved with effective counselling.

Counselling

Counselling will help you understand what addiction is and why addiction hijacks your brain and sucks you in.  Counselling will suppy you with information and skills that will help beat your addiction such as: why withdrawal doesn't have to be painful or difficult, how addiction stops us getting our needs met, see through the illusions addiction offers us, and how to protect yourself in the future and avoid switching from one addiction to another.  Visit here to find help for yourself.

How to Select a Long-term Partner?

No matter how strong the physical attraction is.  No matter how wonderful the attraction feels, it is only one aspect of the decision making process in selecting a mate for a long-term relationship.  The more highly aroused you feel the less likely you will be in the right state of mind to make good choices.

 What Does Intimacy Mean?

Intimacy means letting down you barriers, becoming vulnerable, and sharing emotional experiences.  These experiences can be anything really, but you are not protecting yourself against teh other, you feel safe to truly be yourself in the knowledge that the other will not intentionally harm you, either physically or emotionally.

Not only do we expect our partner will not intentionally harm us, we demand it.  That is why we can get so upset when that happens, even if the harm was not intended.  If trust is low or if there has been any hurt in the relationship our brain makes it impossible for us to be intimate.

The Intimacy Test

• Do you want to accept that your partner has thoughts, beliefs, preferences, and feelings that differ from yours?  Can you respect those differences?  Can you cherish you partner despite them?  Can you accept them without trying to change them?

I suspect that after a while most people try to change their partner to be more how they would like them to be.

You may have noticed that this does not work.  People feel loved when they can be accepted just the way they are.  This does not mean that anyone should accept abuse of any kind.  All forms of abuse are totally unacceptable in any relationship.

• Can you disclose anything about yourself, including your deepest thoughts and feelings, without fear of rejection or misunderstanding?

If someone doesn't feel they can disclose without being judged in some way, then they are only going to disclose to you what they think you want to hear.

• Is the message of your relationship, "grow, expand, create, disclose, reveal?"  Or is it, "hide, conceal, think only in certain ways, behave in certain ways, feel only certain things?"  Do you feel like you are walking on eggshells?
• Does this relationship offer both parties optimal growth?  Can you both develop into the greatest persons you can be?

Sign of a Potential Abuser

The red flag of potential abuse: A blamer.  Someone who blames their emotional states or behaviour on someone or something else in dating will eventually turn the blame to you.  It won't happen in the beginning, during the courtship phase, but if your partner is blaming someone, or something for any little thing that goes wrong with them, then they will turn on you.  So blame is a red flag for abuse.

If you were to apply this test initially, then you will have a much better chance of getting into a rewarding long-term relationship.  It is a test that you need to apply to your ongoing relationship, as you are repairing it; it has to pass these tests.

Of course every relationship that you have had and no longer in, has failed this test, unless of cousre they have died, so this test can keep you out of trouble and help you make a better choice as to who will be your long-term partner.

Anger Management In ...

If you have been looking for anger management classes somewhere close to where you live and finding there is not much choice of an effective program, getting to and from classes is inconvenient, there are no classes available to attend, or the times available do not fit with you, then doing anger management online is an excellent choice.

Why is this online anger management class a superior way of completing your anger management needs?

1. Online education has become one of the most acceptable ways of completing educational requirements as evidenced through almost all major universities offering online classes.
2. There are several advantages of taking this online anger management class V's a face-to-face class.  Some of these advantages to you include:

• A reduction of cost to you V's a face-to-face program.  This program is about half the cost of a live program.
• This program is self-paced and can be worked on any time of the day or night.
• You do not have the excuse that you couldn't find a class close to work or home.
• You do not lose wages from work because sessions can be worked on in your own available time.
• Interaction with you is much easier because it is not in a group setting; therefore your individual questions and requests can be answered on a one-to-one basis.

Anger Management Anywhere

Anger management in any town or city of Australia is available online so you can learn skills to get your life back on track, enhance all your relationships, and be in charge of your emotions.

 

Online Anger Management Classes

I read recently that the overseas experience is that individuals and corporations are finding quality online anger management classes a valuable resource.  Participating in online anger management classes avoids loss of wages and other time commitments.  Distance learning is growing in popularity and naturally meets the need for quality online anger management classes is suitable for clients from all areas of Australia, in particular remote regions that do not have access to such programs.

The online anger management program I offer should meet the needs of court ordered persons as well as those looking to enhance their sense of self and their relationships.  The program is ideal for employees and corporations as it meets the need of accessibility to a quality, cost effective, and reputable program.  Most universities are now offering high quality distance learning.

Holistic Approach to Anger Management

This program has a holistic approach and teaches skills in emotional regulation, parenting, relationship enhancement, and establishing new relationships that will minimise making the same mistakes over again. 

The Dark Side of Dad

I was contacted a few weeks ago by Calvin Sandborn and asked if I would distribute this article.  I found it very moving and I believe many men could relate to what he has to say.

I think this story will bring tears to your eyes...

'I wished he would die. And then he did'

Calvin Sandborn,  Weekend Post  Published: Saturday, June 14, 2008

VICTORIA -Tomorrow I'll think fondly of Dad. Which is odd, because I hated him when he was alive.

Dad was an angry, hard-swearing, tattooed man's man. He'd been an Alaska bush pilot, but by the time I came along, he was a California travelling salesman, drinking himself to death. When I was two he got drunk and threw my empty crib across the bedroom. When I was 12, he challenged my brother to a fist fight. He routinely shouted at us in front of our friends. By the time I was 13, I wished he would die.

And then he did. I thought that my wish had killed him, and for the longest time I couldn't forgive myself. I was scared to death I would damage someone else.

But four decades on, I've forgiven myself for hating him. More difficult, I've somehow forgiven myself for the Dad-like fury I inflicted on my own family.

To my surprise, as I became kinder to myself, I formed a more rounded picture of Dad. His anger had its reasons. His father died young, leaving him with a stepfather who favoured his own kids. When Dad was 14, his preacher grandfather hauled him in front of the congregation and viciously denounced him for teaching other kids the Charleston.

Humiliated, Dad ran away from home and joined the carnival, growing up on the road with hardened carnies. In middle age, his sales job was crushing. He was a brilliant man with a Grade 8 education, reduced to knocking on doors and imploring merchants to buy advertising promotions like imprinted pens and squeeze coin purses.

But Dad's biggest problem was that he never got in touch with his own pain, never learned how to process his feelings. Like many men, he believed the lie that "Big boys don't cry," so he refused to seek out friends and instead turned his pain into anger.

The anger kept shameful sorrow at bay. Swigging vodka straight from the bottle, he forced us to cry his tears.

This was the Dad I hated. But a funny thing happened after I forgave him. A different Dad returned from the shadows, borne by a flood of memory. I found myself recalling the times when he didn't drink:

It was evening at the river. I was five, and Dad was still young and strong. We were camping in the California Coast Range. Although I couldn't swim, I had wandered down to the river after dinner and paddled an inner tube out to the middle of the big dark pool. I lay back in the inner tube, gazing at the cliff that loomed above on the other side of the water.

Suddenly I slipped through the middle of the tube, and I was in the water, struggling. I sank into the cold dark water. As I resurfaced, I could see Dad running down the beach, tearing off his shoes and plunging powerfully into the river. Then I was under again, swallowing cold water, sinking into blackness ...

Then I felt myself being pushed powerfully to the surface, as Dad rose like a sea lion below me. I gasped the air, and was saved.

But he had swallowed water, too, and began to cough and struggle himself. "Dad!" I cried in a panic. He sank below me, and I again fell back into the black waters, gulping and sputtering, stepping on his head. As we sank, the murky yellow light of the world receded into darkness, with no sound but my thundering heartbeat.

I felt his hands grip my calves and place my feet firmly on his shoulders. Then, as in the game we'd often played, he drifted down and bounced back up from the river bottom, thrusting me to the surface. And then his tattooed arm was around my chest, towing me to safety. Keeping my face above the water, he coughed, then murmured, "It's OK, Cal. It's OK."

Finally we staggered on to the sandy beach. As I stood gasping, shivering and crying, he hugged me to his heaving chest. Then he went to the trailer to get a towel and wrapped it around me.

Later, as he heated hot chocolate on the Coleman stove he did the unusual -- he sat me on his lap. After a while, he turned the Giants game on the radio, and we sipped hot chocolate while the sun sank behind the cliff.

At the end of his life, I think Dad, like me, had forgotten that day. He forgot his goodness. I wish that, when he ruminated on his failures, he had been able to remember the good things. I wish that, when he thought of his years of unemployment, his bankruptcy, the jalopies he drove, his failed marriages, his destructive anger, that he had been able to recall that day on the river. Most of all, I wish he'd had a kind father to remind him of the good things about himself -- his sense of humour, his charm, his ability to spin a story for a crowd, his compassion for the unfortunate, his intelligence, his ability to make a day's outing with a young boy into an exciting adventure.

I wish someone had told him that he did not have to be a Man of Steel, that it was OK to be sad. I wish he had understood that he was no different from any of us, a mixture of good and bad. I wish he had realized that he could be forgiven, and that he could forgive.

The fact was, he didn't have to die alone in the Country of Resentment. There was room for him in the Country of Love. - Calvin Sandborn is a professor of environmental law and the legal director of the University of Victoria Environmental Law Clinic. He is the author of Becoming the Kind Father: A Son's Journey (New Society, 2007).

Copyright © 2007 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest MediaWorks Publications, Inc.. All rights reserved.

Domestic Violence:  Four Corners Program On Changing Men

Affectiveness of Anger Management Programs

In preparing my thesis at the end of my Master of Counselling degree I found that research shows that sometimes (most) anger management programs produce short-term gains and when follow-up is done a year or so later these gains have all but disappeared.

Is Anger About Power and Control?

Most programs teach that men abuse because of power and control issues, that it is part of our patriarchal culture that supports the domination and oppression of women.  Abuser programs fail because they focus on negative attitudes, rather the core hurts that cause them.  What is needed is to put men (and women) in touch with their compassion.

Traditional Abuser Programs

Another failure of traditional abuser programs is the shaming approach and there ignorance of how people change.  Doing this can make core hurts worse and increase the likelihood that anger will escalate putting partners in greater danger.  Confronting people with your superior values does not change them.  People are changed by appealing to their deeper values.  This is the core value approach of the Anger Management & Domestic Violence (Compassion) Program.

Change Comes From Within

What you need to understand is that meaningful change comes from within you.  You can tap into your great inner resources by re-integrating your deepest values into your sense of self.  This will make you feel more powerful than you ever felt before, and make you feel more valuable, loving, and compassionate to yourself and loved ones. 

Anger Management: Will It Work For Me?

Anger management skills are not rocket science and will work exceptionally well.  However, for them to work exceptionally well requires participants to be motivated to change.  Motivation to change is a vital requirement in learning any new skill, particularly for anger management. If your motivation is low or non-existent then it is very unlikely any new skills will be learned, no matter how good the information is or how well it is presented.

Gaining Skills in Anger Management

The skills taught in the Anger Management (Compassion) Program require motivation to learn the
new skills and, equally importantly, putting those skills into action in your daily life.  Knowledge without action is useless.

Additionally, recognising that there are behaviours that are not working well in your life and relationships and a desire to learn new and improved behaviours that do work well and will enhance all aspects of your life is the start to change.

Emotional Intelligence

One key skill taught in the Anger Management (Compassion) Program is emotional intelligence (EQ) which is a predictor of how well you will do in life, even more so than Intellectual Intelligence (IQ).

Smart emotions make you in charge of your emotions instead of being controlled by them.  You become an actor in your life instead of a reactor.  If you allow your emotions to be in control instead of you, they will ruin your life.  Smart emotions are a vital part of anger management.

Deciding How Your Day Will Be?

When you learn the skills of how to regulate your own emotions you can decide how your day is going to be in advance.  If you don't have the skills to regulate your emotions, you do not know how your day is going to be until you start to interact with your environment. 

If everything and everyone is how you want them to be, your day will be okay, however, if everything and other people are not how you want them to be, your day will be stressful and full of anger and resentment.

If anger and resentment are frequent or daily experiences for you then it is very likely that this will lead to severe health problems and relationship difficulties and often relationship failure.

Is Anger Creating Havoc For You

If problem anger and domestic violence is creating havoc in yours and your families life, you owe it to yourself and your family to check out The Compassionate Approach to anger management and domestic violence and see how others have successfully changed their behaviour so that they act in their long-term best interest and in the long-term best interest of their families.

Medicare Allied Health System: Negative Consequences

There are possible negative consequences for clients who receive counselling under the Medicare Allied Health System.

Before anyone can receive counselling from a Psychologist under this system they have to be referred by a GP and be diagnosed with a "Mental Illness".  Once someone has been diagnosed as mentally ill this is kept on their medical record until they die, even if the emotional problem, diagnosed as a "Mental Illness" was just a brief event.

Possible Impact of Discrimination

Frequently people with a Mental Illness are stigmatised and experience discrimination.  This discrimination could impact on their ability to get work, and any possible Work Cover claims could be blamed on their "mental illness".  Insurance claims could be compromised, or their ability to get insurance in the first place could be denied or be more expensive.

It is my experience that people seek counselling for personal, interpersonal or social reasons.  If they do have a mental illness that illness is usually managed by their Psychiatrist.  I do not believe that a person needs to be diagnosed with anything to receive and benefit from counselling.  A diagnosis does not help in any way with their counselling issues.

What The Research Says About Change

Research says that the factors accounting for change in counselling are: Client Factors 40%, Relationship Factors 30% (between the counsellor and client), Hope & Expectancy 15%, Model & Technique used 15%.  Diagnosis does not contribute to a successful outcome in counselling.

Cost Difference Receiving Counselling

It may or may not be less expensive to see a Psychologist rather then a Professional Counsellor under this system (unless the Psychologist is bulk billing, a client still has to pay the difference between the Medicare rebate and the Psychologist fee), but there could be a high price to pay in the future if this diagnosis is used against them.

An article in today's Courier Mail newspaper says that "Mental Illness remains a taboo subject for many people, although it touches the lives of most Australians,"...... "there is still a clear reluctance in the community to trust individuals with a mental illness in decision-making roles or in roles where reliability is paramount."  To read article click here.  

The Danger With Male Anger

The danger with male anger is that when you have no way to express vulnerable emotions, anger is going to come out as aggression a lot more.  Being able to deal with negative/vulnerable emotions without anger is a valuable skill. 

Most women have at least a girlfriend they can call up and say “I’m feeling really bad about myself, everything I touch turns to crap” and the girlfriend will understand.  So just talking to her friend makes her feel better.

Now how many men have a male friend they can call and say “I feel really bad about myself” and then feel better?  You might do it but you’re not generally going to feel better if you do.  Men don’t even know how to respond to that. 

How Men Deal With Difficulties

Men generally have three ways of dealing with difficulties in their lives.  They get drunk, get laid, or they watch football.  Now all these activities can certainly distract men from the difficulties they are experiencing in the short term, but do nothing to relieve the underlying issues in the long term if they are feeling really bad about themselves.

A lot of men cannot even talk about their vulnerable feelings with a girlfriend, so if you can’t do it with anyone, you are probably going to have an anger problem, which will show up as either anger or depression.

Expressing Feelings

Vulnerable feelings have to be expressed and communicated, and someone has to understand.  There used to be a myth that you had to express anger, in fact, expressing anger just makes you angrier because you are reinforcing the anger.  All those vulnerable emotions are coming out in anger, and you’re just making it more likely to occur.

However, you do need to express the core hurts underlying the anger, self-regulate them, and tell them to someone important to you.  That is how human beings are; we have to have an internal way to regulate anger and a social way also, because we are social animals.

Core hurts are feeling disregarded, unimportant, accused, guilty, distrusted, devalued, rejected, powerless, and unlovable.  When these happen you need the skills to re-connect to your Core Value.  Core Value is a deep sense of how important, valuable, and worthy you are.

How You Determine Your Sense of Self-worth

You do not determine how valuable you are by how many people love you, or value you because that is going to depend on how good these people are at loving.  When you judge how lovable you are by how somebody else loves you, it is like judging yourself by a mirror.  What determines how accurate the mirror is how much love that person got as a child.  Something you have no control over.

It is only your own behaviour that reflects your Core Value, and especially your compassionate behaviour.  So if your Core Value is low, it is not other people’s behaviour that is going to bring it up, it is your own compassion that is going to bring it up.  Your sense of security, wellbeing, self-esteem, competence, creativity, and personal power comes from your Core Value.

When your Core Value is low, you will do things that are not in your best interest.  You are likely to hurt yourself, or hurt other people.

When your Core Value is high, you will only act in your best interest, and it is impossible to hurt yourself, or hurt other people.  You cannot be abusive, and it is very hard to be abused when your Core Value is high.  It can only occur during a temporary disconnection from Core Value.

When you let your Core Hurts rule your life, your sense of self becomes a monument to that other person’s abuse, or carelessness, or thoughtlessness.

Your sense of self is far too important, and too valuable to be a monument to somebody else’s mistakes.  You have to take control of your sense of self, and heal the hurt that has been inflicted on you.