Graduation

Wow, what a night! Twelve graduates from the program.

Graduation is a time of both celebration and sadness. We are filled with joy at seeing so many lives turned around and made whole again, yet we are sad in seeing those whom we have had the privilege of working with leave us. I know they will be back for aftercare, but I will miss the day to day interaction we have with them.

Listening to what their program of recovery has brought into their lives is amazing. Improved communication skills with their spouse and kids; learning to handle stress as it comes to us each day; dealing with conflict when it arises; managing anger; learning to deal with emotions as they occur so they don't trigger us to go back where we came from. It is truly a blessing to hear the joy of our graduates as they move on down the pathway of life, filled with new energy, positive energy, trusting in the goodness of their Higher Power and reaching out for those He has put in their lives to help them now.

When one graduate says "for the first time in my life people are proud of me", "I wouldn't have made it through the difficulties I faced just while I was in the program were it not for my counselor." my heart was moved as were so many. So many blessings.

But the room was also filled also with family, husbands, wives, children, parents. Those whose lives have been ripped apart by the disease of addiction. As they choked back the tears, expressing the gratitude they have for their loved one finally "seeing the light", I always think that the program is as much for them as for our patient - both experience a new way of life with the recovery program.

So when all was said and done, when everyone was hugged and congratulated and the room was empty of the 75 or so wellwishers and patients, I stood alone in the room, looking around, filled with a peacefulness I don't know if I have felt so strongly in a long time. Sometimes, in running a treatment program, the drive for numbers, being sure all the "i's are dotted that the "t's" are crossed, being sure that we are in total complicance with all local, county, state and federal requirement, seems to be overwhelming.

But in the empty room it all came back to me that this was the mission with which we were charged - bringing healing to the hearts of so many. This is what it is all about. This is why we are here. How blessed we are.

Blessings Terry, Joel, Tim, Jayna, Brenda, Eric, Mario, Jennie, Jolene, Chris, Karen, Trisha
There is a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place.

Dr. Fred

Things to be Thankful for

This is Sunday, August 17, 2008. It is a great day! For many reasons which I shall list below:

1. One of our friends celebrates her 5^th year sober today! Congratulations!
2. We have cooler weather in Dallas – 15 degrees cooler than normal.
3. Wonderful dogs and cats
4. Freedom to do whatever we choose to do in life
5. Watching the Olympics
6. Having the hope that we can live a life that is happy, joyous and free
7. Being sober and unchained from alcohol and drugs
8. Having access to so many friends and others in recovery who can help us through each day
9. Chili’s Baby Back Ribs
10. Blonde California Girls
11. Red BMW Convertibles
12. The Cowboys
13. The Mavericks
14. The Rangers
15. The Roughriders
16. The Desperados
17. (all for you sports fans)
18. Dozens of great new movies out we can go see
19. Taking a walk around White Rock Lake
20. Walking my dogs around the neighborhood
21. i-Tunes
22. My Laptop
23. Life Management Resources where we get to save lives every day
24. Sobriety Today and Finding Hope which have changed the lives of over 10,000 people already
25. My family, present and departed, who gift(ed) me my entire life.

Please add your own to the list!

Have a blessed day,

Dr. Fred

Having a Sober Father's Day

Good Sunday Morning and Happy Father's Day.....

I realized early this morning that I have spent more years as a father than my father did. Having kids early in life helps.

But in giving thanks for the privilege of being a father to my three wonderful children, I realize that it is just one of the many blessings of life that we seem to commemorate on a special day of the year set aside for such purpose. But the blessings of fatherhood don't just happen once a year, they happen every day of my life. There should never be a day when I don't give thanks for being a father, for the blessings that accrue to me hour by hour each day.

Sobriety is like that. We seem to get preoccupied with the length of sobriety sometimes: got my 60 day, got my 1 yr., got my 5 yr. or 10 yr. chip. Not that marking these milestones is not important, but we derive benefits from staying sober hour by hour. My friend Dan says he puts his wallet and his car keys under his bed before he goes to bed each night. Figures he has to be on his knees the next morning to pick them up, good time to give thanks. Of course that's where he was the night before when he put them there and gave thanks for that day of sobriety.

Don't wait for a special day to give thanks for being a dad, mom, child, sober recovering person. Do it everyday. Be thankful.

To all the Dad's out there - Happy Father's Day!

Dr. Fred

What it takes to be rid of Resentments: Forgiveness!

What it takes to be rid of Resentments: Forgiveness!

Culturally this is a term we often get confused. We seem to think of forgiveness as a process whereby we have been injured by someone and we have built a resentment towards them. In order to be rid of the resentment, we need for them to come to us, apologize profusely, we accept (or reject) their apology, and then we magnanimously forgive them.

The problem with this model is that in way too many cases we don’t want to see the person again. Maybe it was someone who molested you as a child. Maybe it was a cruel person who inflicted great emotional damage upon you. Maybe they are dead! How can we forgive?

Well the answer is simple. We forgive, not for their sake, but for ours. We have been carrying the burden of their offense like a backpack full of rocks for years of decades. It weighs us down. It occupies space in our head. It causes us to find unhealthy ways to rid ourselves of the emotional pain. We turn to alcohol or drugs to find a moment of peace. But the unhealthy solutions don’t last. Forgiveness gives us the chance to be done with the offense forever. When we forgive, we unshackle ourselves from the offender. We loosen the control they have over us. We free ourselves from the fear that keeps us in misery. Feeling the power we have in doing so gives us control over the unhealthy emotional pain we feel and we can be done with it forever.

Forgiveness does all this for us.

Below is a chart I use that helps place forgiveness in the framework that will enable us to avoid the control fear has over us.

No longer needing alcohol, drugs, chemical dependency. We are free to move on with our lives.

WHAT FORGIVENESS IS AND IS NOT………….
FORGIVENESS IS NOT	FORGIVENESS IS
It is NOT forgetting.	It is healing!
You cannot forget, nor should you. Not forgetting keeps us from letting it happen again.	It is the process of letting go.
It is NOT condoning. By forgiving, we do NOT make a statement that what was done was acceptable	It is accepting the truth that it did happen, that it was unacceptable, and that we can live beyond it.
It is NOT hanging on.	It is moving on.
It is not wanting to punish a person forever.	It is choosing to not continue to punish yourself.
It is not hoping they will suffer as much as you.	It is coming to a place of peace.

In a few days I will give you 8 Steps to begin practicing that will help you with forgiveness.

If in the meantime you have comments, please post them. If you need help, if you have sensed you are becoming an alcoholic or addict, or if other compulsive behaviors have overtaken you and you want the insanity to end but have questions about where to start, please go to my website www.sobrietytoday.com. There you can find a magnificent film, Finding Hope, that has helped thousands answer the questions they have about their unhealthy behavior. In addition the website offers links to the National Treatment Locator that will help you find help anywhere in the United States.

I’ll be back on Sunday, June 1, 2008. God Bless.

Dr. Fred

Resentments and Forgiveness

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Today we embarked on a journey to find an answer to perhaps the most troubling issue we confront: the maintenance of resentments. Page 66 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says:

" It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die."

The writer of the statement which has been a source of strength to millions, certainly did not consider the maintenance of resentments to be a minor difficulty. He suggest that a life of carrying resentments leads to “futility”, “unhappiness”, is “infinitely grave” and has been found to be “fatal.” None of these being situations we want to have in our life in recovery.

Lets spend a minute talking about what a resentment is in the first place. To resent means to re-experience a feeling we had about a person or an event in the past, and associated with that “memory” are certain feelings. Some feelings may be positive, others negative and evoke a feeling of anger. So, important to remember is that they are events in the past, not the present. They are feelings experienced by a younger “you” maybe as a child or adolescent, not by you at the age you are today. This will make more sense as we move on.

I always think of carrying resentments as carrying a backpack full of stones. Each one a resentment that should have been put down long ago. Where did they come from? Well, each stone is the burden of an offense that was done to us (or we did to ourselves). Lets say that ten years ago I loaned my friend Bob $500.00. He said he needed the money and I barely had that much be I loaned it to him anyway. He promised he would repay it within the month. Ten years later – not a dime! Boy, every time I think about Bob, hear the name “Bob”, see the number 500, I get angry. That anger I still carry is a rock in my backpack, it burdens me down, it does, as page 66 above suggest, causes me to “squander hours that might have been worth while.” In time, enough of these burdens and I will be “shut off from the sunlight of the Spirit” and my insanity will return.

Do you think that today Bob is worrying about me? Of course not. He probably hasn’t thought of this situation in years. Only me. What did I do? I was the good guy and now I’m the victim. So I continue to carry Bob’s offense in my backpack, letting it weigh me down everyday. I want to be done with this burden. I want to take the backpack off my back and be able to be at peace. I want serenity. I want to move on with life. What do I have to do to be able to achieve those goals?

The answer, my dear readers, is Forgiveness. I love this topic, maybe because I have asked for so much of it in my life I’m really good at it!

Until tomorrow, think about people, institutions, yourself – that have heaped hurt on you over your life and the pain it causes you when you recall that event today. We will soon learn what forgiveness is and how to do it!

Dr. Fred

For more information please visit our website at www.sobrietytoday.com

How did I get here? What is addiction?

Last night in our group we began an important week which I will share with you. The journey for the week is “how did we get where we are?” and secondly, “what do I need to do to get back to a normal life?” Like any other illness, the disease of addiction has symptoms that we need to understand. This is the context of what we studied last night. Tomorrow night we will begin to look at the behaviors we need to identify that we adopted during our drinking and using and how we can begin the process of changing them. The following is an excerpt from our Recovery Video, Finding Hope.

The word “addiction” is not a word we need to fear. It’s a word we need to understood. Understanding leads to the elimination of fear and it is the fear that keeps us from doing something about the problem. If we’re not afraid of what’s wrong with us we will do something about it! You’ve heard of people who have chest pains but are too afraid to go to their doctor to find out what the problem is until it’s too late.

So, let’s improve our understanding of the word Addiction. I have a definition that I use with my patients that may help.

It says:

Addiction is the need to fill your inner emptiness,

By using something outside yourself,

To provide a sense of inner satisfaction.

It will become Desperate, Repetitive, and Automatic

The first phrase of the definition says:

“We need to fill an inner emptiness”

That means we have lost our ability to deal with certain events in life and they have, and continue to, produces pain, hurt, and disappointment. These are real symptoms. We feel them in our heart and our mind. The emotional pain – the inner emptiness - is real and painful.

The second phrase says:

“We find something outside of ourselves”

This is where alcohol and drugs come into the picture. When did we learn to use alcohol or drugs to bring relief to the pain we feel? I believe that we began, perhaps, at an early age, not with any intent to solve a problem, but perhaps as a youth, exposed to peer pressure, we went out and for no reason other than to be “stupid” we drank that first beer or smoked that first joint. Never intending to use again. But our brain did create a memory. It was a memory of relaxation, of euphoria, and a sense that “life was cool”. Maybe the next time we drank or used it was for the same purpose. Not to solve a problem or situation. But again, our brain created the memory of pleasure and euphoria for later use. Then one day perhaps we had an argument with our parents, or were put down by another kid, maybe we lost out on being on a sports team or were rejected by a person we were romantically interested in. Perhaps our family was in turmoil, going through a divorce, a job loss or a death. At that point the emotional pain set in, and we reached deep inside ourselves to find a skill to deal with the hurt – but it wasn’t there. So our brain, our memory, found a solution to the problem for us. In our hurt, in our despair, we found a solution in a can of beer or a joint of marijuana. For a moment the pain was gone and we were at peace. You may have been raised in an abusive or addictive family, or might be living in an abusive relationship now, and, as is the case with many, there is a history of trauma that may include sexual or physical abuse as a child or an adult, or perhaps a member of our armed services returning from battle and suffering from post traumatic stress - and alcohol or drugs serve as a means of mitigating this horror.

Whatever the reason, our brain makes the connection between the pain we are feeling and the pleasurable and euphoric feeling we get from using alcohol or drugs, and it is at this moment that a solution is created that gives us:

“A sense of inner satisfaction”

The solution is, of course, not real. It only provides a “sense” of inner satisfaction. Real solutions produce visible and lasting results.

Finally the definition concludes by saying “this behavior will become”:

“Desperate, repetitive, and automatic”

It becomes desperate because we do it when we know that it is neither healthy nor productive. We do it repetitively because the feelings don’t go away and it is the only solution we know, and finally it becomes automatic because we have done it so many times we just do it without giving much thought to it. We just do it!

So, “addiction” is finding something to solve our problems in life and that “something” we have found is alcohol or drugs. This brings us back to the most important concept we need to understand:

Alcohol or drugs are not the problem!

Alcohol and drugs are the Solution.

They are the solution to the problems we have in life – That’s right, the solution!

And we need a better solution!

Tomorrow we will begin the job of finding better solutions. Tune in, want you to find that which you are hoping for and praying for in your life.

Please give me your thought and feedback, we only heal by the knowledge of our collective experiences.

Dr. FredPublish Post

Why "Finding Hope" was created

For today, I want to let you know the reason I invested two years of my life into making "Finding Hope." Really, it was quite simple when you understand the life of an addiction therapist. This is one of my stories.....

Twelve weeks ago, I received a call from Marcia L., her son had been taken to a local hospital overdosed from heroin. He’ll survive this one, today he’s lucky. Not an uncommon call, sadly I get these frequently. What is troubling is that he, like so many others, had been “flirting” with an overdose for sometime – pushing the limit of how much he used as his brain worked to compensate for the quantities he was ingesting and not allowing him the high he once experienced.

She was, as you can quite image, distraught. Moms and Dads are the worst; wives and husbands are angry. In common, they are all fearful. They fear the loss of someone they love. It’s not just Eric the heroin addict – it’s Matthew, the alcoholic executive of a large local corporation; it’s Sharon, the pharmaceutical representative; it’s Elaine, the head of purchasing of a national department store chain; it’s David, whose wife Lynn, mourns the loss of the relationship she once had with him since he began to stay at the bar after work with his workmates for happy hour after work five days a week – anything but “happy” for Lynn.

I asked Marcia to bring her son Eric over to my office the day he discharged; I like to have the opportunity to visit with them while they are still feeling the physical and psychological effects of what they have done. We had a great visit; I was able to help Eric understand that he did have a problem with drugs (you ask of course why that wouldn’t be obvious). I helped him understand why “denial” kept him from confronting the disease he suffered from. I helped him understand that drugs and alcohol were not the problem – that they were the solution! Yes, drugs and alcohol were the solution to the difficulties he faced each day, the fears of the past he faced, the trauma he perceived he experienced when his mom and dad divorced 8 years ago.

I explained to Eric that for me to ask him to quit drinking and drugging, without giving him the skills, support, and counseling to confront the issues he faces, would be like asking a police officer to take off his Kevlar vest and go out onto the streets without it. Certainly no one in their right mind would do such a thing.

No wonder Eric is so fearful of quitting. No wonder his mother’s admonition to quit, “Eric, if you would just quit using drugs everything would be OK,” doesn’t work. If Eric quit using drugs, he fears he would be totally overwhelmed and probably die from the experience.

Finally I talked to Eric about the tools I could teach him. I helped him understand the way working on his self-esteem would allow him to take a more confident stand against the difficulties he faced. I helped him understand the way learning better communication skills would enable him to ask for and receive more of what he wanted and needed from other people.

I helped him understand the way conflict management and anger management would lessen the emotional swings he experiences that lead him back to a feeling of defeat and ultimately to relapse.

I helped him understand the way a daily stress management program would keep his life better balanced – physically, mentally and spiritually.

I helped him understand that the resentments he carried around with him, the burden of the offenses of other people against him – only served to weigh him down and keep him from becoming the man he could be. I helped him understand what “forgiveness” meant. That forgiving was for him, not for others. That he could learn to forgive and by doing so could learn to live a life that was happy, joyful and free.

I helped his mother understand how some of her behaviors contributed to enabling Eric and that those behaviors would need to change. I helped her understand that the family becomes as sick as the one we call the “identified patient.”

Finally I helped Eric understand the value of the support he could get and would benefit from by participating in a 12-Step program like AA or NA, not to mention the benefit from participating in spiritual activities at his church.

Eric understood. Eric knew it was time. Eric started in the program.

A program of recovery is perhaps the hardest thing a person will ever have to do. It requires changing the way we think, feel and behave. None of which come easy. Yet people do it everyday!

Eric participated in the program for over three months and grew stronger day by day. He graduated a month ago and has three months of sobriety. He is working at Starbucks and starts training at a vocational school in a couple of months. His mother is beginning to feel the peace she deserves. Eric is feeling the peace he worked for.

I am fortunate I had an hour to talk with Eric and his mom. I get to do this several hundred times a year. I am thankful to God for what He allows me to do. I am thankful for the hundreds of lives we get to save each year.

Yet I am just one person, operating one substance abuse treatment program, in one small city, in a huge country where 35,000,000 are suffering from chemical dependency. Only 5-6% of them will ever walk into a drug and alcohol rehab center for help, and so I wondered, “if they won’t come me (or one the other 10,000 or so drug and alcohol treatment programs around our great country) maybe I can go to them!” So I decided to write a book about my counseling sessions with those seeking addiction therapy, which proved to be very effective in getting them to participate in a chemical dependency treatment. But a friend of mine suggested that I make it into a sobriety video about overcoming addiction, so anyone could sit and watch from the comfort and serenity of their own home. I totally agreed (thanks Carol).

• A place where they could listen, think and begin the process of understanding.
• A place where they could come to realize that it is not the quantity of alcohol they drink or the amount of drugs they use that is the problem. But the behaviors they adopt when they use these substances.
• A place where they could begin to understand how learning new coping skills would enable them to confront the difficult and hurtful issues of life.
• A place where they could consider how their life and the lives of those who love and care about them could change and begin to heal.
• A place where they could go to their computer and look at the thousands of treatment programs around the country we have listed on a companion website, many wherever they live, who await their call – arms outstretched, hearts full of hope and filled with the knowledge that they could lead them out of the darkness that overcomes them.

And so, a simple therapist in a small town, with the help and support of dozens of friends and family, began to make such a movie.

A friend once told me to set great goals and then just get started – “don’t try and work out all the details, those will find a way to take care of themselves in time.” Lots of details came up and answers were found as soon as they arose. I live in the knowledge that my life is being directed by the God I serve. I live in the knowledge that whatever my needs are, God will answer. I live in the knowledge that when I devote myself to a life of service, blessings will follow.

And so with the help of my beloved wife Marieta, my friends Martin, Bryan, Randy, Michael, Meagan, Cindy, Kimberly (my daughter and administrator of our program), Trent, Universe, Dan, Randy M., Miss Ann, Frederick, Christy, Mark, and the kids who helped - my grandson Spencer and my little friend Katie in Texarkana, we made a movie.

Finding Hope is wonderful! It is joyful!

It is the conversation I had with Eric and his mom – complete with the testimony of dozens of others who have so successfully overcome addiction.

It is a conversation that will touch your heart, fill your eyes with tears, fill your heart with hope, and lead you to a place of joy.

Finding Hope is “Finding Hope.”

"Finding Hope" may be purchased at Sobriety Today or at Amazon.com.

Fred J. Hansen

Starting a New Life

This is the first of what I hope will be many posts to my new blog. I'm Fred Hansen, Ph.D., and my area of specialization is addiction - helping those who abuse or who have developed a dependency on alcohol, illegal or prescription drugs. I have been working with patients for 24 years and have had a great deal of success in helping people find their way back to a life filled with joy and happiness. I recognize what a struggle overcoming a dependency on alcohol or drugs is and I never minimize or trivialize the difficulty involved. Every day I work with dozens of patients at my outpatient clinic, Life Management Resources, helping them answer the question, "Do I have a problem, and if I do, what can I do about it?"

I know that many of you have had family and friends tell you "if you would just stop drinking or using, everything would be alright." Don't you wish that were the case! What they don't recognize is the fact that alcohol and drugs are not the problem - that's right, they are not the problem! They are the solution for us, the solution to the difficult pain we feel when we remember events in our life, the hurtful memories of childhood or young adulthood. They are the solution to the difficulties we face every day of our life. They are the solution for many of our troops coming home from the middle east who have suffered unspeakable trauma. They are our kevlar vest that protects us from the hurt and the pain of life. The problem, as we know, is that the solution is temporary. We need a better solution, and we need it now.

Over the years I have worked with thousands of people, spending hours in my office getting to know them, listening to their stories, their sufferings, and their pain. I am moved by their sincerity and embrace their difficulties because I know that for them there is a solution. I know that recovery is possible and life can be joyous in a shorter length of time than they ever imagined.

A couple of years ago I began noticing that when I had the opportunity to spend an hour or so with a new patient, and had the chance to explain to them what "help" really meant - how the lessons I could teach them would help them swing the pendelum from a dependency on a substance to a dependence on themselves and their own self-confidence, they embraced a program of education and therapy, they found help, got better, and went on to lead normal lives. So I began the task of putting the essence of that conversation into words - at first to make it into a book, but realizing that too many people don't take the time to read - I put it into a DVD and named it Finding Hope. It is the message I have given to thousands of people over the years who have turned their lives around. It is an explanation of what treatment is all about. It takes them into illustrations of what treatment programs are all about. It takes the fear out of getting help. Thousands have already found the vast resources of this video to be the key to changing their life. That is why I have started this blog. I want to hear back from you about the video.

Secondly, I want to start providing a great deal of information about chemical dependency, what alcoholism is, what drug addiction is, what treatment programs are all about. What it means to make a decision to get help. I invite your comments about your personal successes.

As I present topics in our program each week, I will add these to this post. Hopefully, you may find these useful in your life.

Dr. Fred, May 18, 2008