That's going to depend on a few things.  

First, it's worth noting that our culture is saturated with messages about alcohol.  Have you ever stopped to consider how many Super Bowl commercials are about alcohol?

I would bet about half.

We also live in Massachusetts.  Have you ever noticed how many package stores there are around here?  Several of my clients over the years have commented that you can't drive 3 miles without passing one.

Never mind how much drinking goes on at college campuses.  It's also worth acknowledging that approximately 50% of all sexual assaults on campus involve alcohol.  So, solve the drinking on campus and you help protect people from assault.  But just because drinking is common or "normal" doesn't mean it isn't a problem.  But it is how we tend to justify a potentially problematic behavior.

A problem becomes a problem when it begins to interfere with other things, when it begins to overflow the boundaries we put on it.

Is your drinking causes problems with family members or your spouse?
Is it interfering with sleep, work, or your ability to keep your commitments?
Or do you find you like or need to use alcohol in order to keep your commitments and endure your family?
Do you find it difficult to not drink if it is available?  Or find it difficult to stop once you have started?
Is it impacting your physical health?  Alcohol can damage any and every system in the body.
Do you need to drink more in order to achieve the same effect?
Are you chasing the feeling of being intoxicated?

All of these might indicate that alcohol is becoming a problem or is one already.  Don't let shame, guilt or embarrassment keep you from the help you might need.  This isn't a matter of willpower; it's a matter of pain.

​"Addiction isn't about genetics, or about choices, it's about pain." - Dr. Gabor Mate.

Yes.

It is worth acknowledging that pornography addiction is not a specific diagnosis in the DSM-V.  However, there is certainly a pattern of behavior that people consistently call "pornography addiction" that is troubling, distressing and disruptive over a span of time.  I have heard some neurologists comment that pornography use activates the same parts of the brain as other known addictive behaviors and that it prompts the approximate release of dopamine (a feel-good neurochemical) equal to cocaine use.

The reason it is not a diagnosis appears to be that the determining psychologists are often loathe to risk stigmatizing people's sexual behavior and preferences, which is fine.  

Pornography use can also lead to tolerance, needing to look at "harder" material to achieve the same effect, and some element of withdrawal.  Now the withdrawal will not be physical in my experience, but it can take the form of anxiety, depression, irritability.  Over time, pornography can also undermine romantic relationships and contribute to the dissolving of marriages and families.  

The good news is that help is possible.  This problem is way more common than you might think.  Don't be afraid of reaching out for the help you might need.

Not all substances are equally destructive or dangerous.  People often say marijuana is not harmful or not addictive.  Both claims are not true.

Marijuana is a psychoactive substance, meaning it passes the blood-brain barrier and has an impact on the brain.  When I was a kid, we made fun of the idea of "reefer madness," which was this idea that pot would make you "nuts."  Back then, the "good stuff" pot-wise was 3 to 5% pure.

Today, marijuana is easily at least 80% pure and much more than that.  This means that it is way more potent and has potentially greater effect on the brain.  Marijuana used to cope with anxiety will likely make anxiety worse in the long run by numbing out the initial anxiety and compounding it with more anxiety when marijuana is removed.  A recipe for psychological dependence.

Vaping is a more potent way to take in a more potent substance.  The body gets used to its presence and this method of absorbing it.  I have worked with people who have fallen into marijuana withdrawal due to suddenly stopping vaping the substance.  

I am also seeing significantly more people presenting for help with cannabis-induced psychosis with diagnosis like schizo-effective disorder.

​Marijuana is not harmless.  Physically speaking, it is much less dangerous than other substances.  Psychiatrically speaking, it is not to be taken lightly.

The reasons why we use substances can be simple or complex.  At their most basic, substances flood us with dopamine (a feel-good neurotransmitter) which can be seductive enough.  As a result, they also help to "block out" or otherwise ignore stressors, challenging relationships, back-breaking work or past trauma.  So not only do we feel good, but we get to avoid some things, if only for a little while.

The problem is that anything we ignore, that is significant, tends to boomerang back at us.  Challenging relationships grow more challenging because we haven't been attending to them.  Work takes a greater toll on us physically because we are numb to the damage we are incurring to our bodies.  We don't change the stressors because we are numb to them and are therefore forgetting about them.  

The more those problems deteriorate, the more likely we are to continue to drink or use in order to forget them.  Now we are in a cycle.  Breaking out is possible, but it will likely require identifying the cycle and disassembling it a piece at a time.  I've been doing this work for almost twenty years now.  Change is possible.  Willingness is all that is required.

It's been a while since I have posted.  My time meeting with clients is keeping me rather busy these days, with less time to devote to blogging.  However, someone recently forwarded me a link to an article concerning PTSD and automobile accidents that I thought would be worth sharing.  A few individuals I have worked with over the years have experienced PTSD-like symptoms following a car crash.  I think we often associate trauma with things other people do to us, especially as children or during war, but natural disasters and accidents can also provoke a PTSD response.

PTSD and Car Accidents: Signs, Symptoms & Finding Help (nstlaw.com)

I hope this article provides some additional and useful information on your recovery journey.

In keeping with the last few blog posts, one of the most (usually) misleading responses to "How are you?" is "I'm fine."

90% of the time when we say "I'm fine" we really mean we are anything but fine and we don't want to talk about it.  I heard a song on the radio about a month or so ago that, strangely, touched on just that.  It is a song by a Christian artist, but it still seems very relevant to not only many of the people I have worked with over the last several years but to people in general, sometimes myself too.

AA and other recovery group like their sayings.  In AA, fine stands for Fouled-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional - meaning that is how we feel when we say we're fine.  Also, I have heard many recovering people encourage others "Don't 'fine' yourself to death."  We think our feelings are going to kill us sometimes but they won't; using substances just might.

The link to the song's music video is here.  There is tremendous power in the truth.  

Matthew West - Truth Be Told (Official Music Video) - YouTube

Evidently, I have been nominated for My FM Quest for the Best in the category of Counselor in the Milford region.  The contest is run by local Milford radio station WMRC.  I am honored and humbled by this nomination and am very grateful for it.  I guess at some point there will be an actual vote which begins on June 2nd and ends on June 16th.

There is info about the contest here:  MyFM Quest for the Best

​I am very appreciative of the nomination and am glad that people are finding this a worthwhile place to invest their time to get more out of their recovery.  

Another feeling we often find ourselves experiencing especially in the earlier stages of recovery is sadness.  While unpleasant, sadness often informs us when we have been hurt, wounded or wronged.  If we sprain an ankle and keep trying to walk normally on it without support we only risk further injury.  Sometimes it may seem there is nothing we can do; the hurt has been incurred and what can be done now?

Someone who works in this field once told me that there are toxins in tears that we cry when we are hurting that are not present when we cry, say, from laughter.  So while it may sound strange, something we can do is simply to cry.  We allow the hurt to surface and we cry it out, either for a time or until we are done.  This can help facilitate the grieving process.

Sadness may also tell us where we need recovery: in certain relationships, pertaining to certain memories.  These things tell us where we have been hurt.  We talk a fair amount about PTSD: post traumatic stress disorder.  There is also such a thing as post traumatic growth.  Often it happens when we reach out to help others who have been wounded similarly to how we have been.  This is a big reason why many people recovering from addiction become AA or NA sponsors or become professional addiction counselors. 

Helping others redeems our pain into something useful, maybe even something beautiful, which tells us that our pain is meaningful and that good can come out of it.

During my conversations with clients over the years, a common refrain keeps happening.  If we bottle our feelings, we reach for a bottle.  By which we mean that when we stuff, ignore, or hide from our emotions it prompts us to drink, use substances or engage in our compulsive behaviors of choice.  But as someone I worked with several years ago said, "My feelings won't kill me, but using heroin might."

So why do we hide form our feelings?
We aren't sure if they are normal.  They frighten us.  We were raised to ignore or dismiss them, often by our parents, guardians, teachers or peers treating us in such a fashion where our feelings didn't matter.  This doesn't mean we should decide everything based on feelings, that would be an error towards an opposite extreme.  Feelings are like the check engine light, they tell us something is going on under the hood.  If you value going to the doctor for regular physicals then checking in with our feelings regularly serves the same purpose psychologically.

Ultimately, few things that bother us simply get better on their own.  Feelings and emotions can be learned from and, when we do, we find that we don't need our alcohol, drugs or behaviors nearly as much anymore.  Those things are often duct tape to keep the car together; they work, but only for a while.  Eventually we need more tape and eventually there may not be enough or we may use too much.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is sit with our feelings for just five minutes.  Sometimes crying is the only thing that holds us back from a drink or a drug.  That's ok.  I daresay it can even be very healthy.  

​What a year it has been.  Between covid and quarantine, debates and elections, Black Lives and Blue Lives Matter, Defending and Defunding the Police, we have witnessed a lot of hurt, shock and rage.  I think one of the things that bothers me most about this year hasn't been the hardships but the conflict.  Our relationships with coworkers, friends and family are now jeopardized by where we stand on these issues.  Enough, we are told, is enough.  In doing so, we have made one another our mutual enemies.


I have little to no control over politics, presidents or opinions but I do have control over myself.  I may not be able to make the world into the kind of place I think it should be but I can be kind to other people.  In so doing I can sow peace where there has been strife.

I can assume that people who voted for Trump are not deplorables but people who want a better future for this country.  I can assume that people who voted for Biden want the same and both are to be commended for their passion, not derided for their politics.

I can assume that just because someone says "all lives matter" doesn't mean that they are minimizing anyone else's struggle and I can also assume that people who say"Black lives matter" don't mean that only blakc lives matter.

My training and experience as a psychotherapist has taught me to have "unconditional positive regard;" that people are generally doing the best they can with what they have in any given moment.  Jesus taught something similar thousands of years ago, he called it "grace."

I will listen before I speak, practice acceptance before I criticize and refrain from assuming the worst about people.  I will communicate in word and deed that people matter to me more than ideas.  That is how I want to be treated.  That is how I can begin to change the world.  That is how we can have peace with one another in the face of an unpeaceful world.  Grace and peace to you this coming year.