"Aversive Prevention"

I was recently asked for the treatment protocol for “Hangovers”. I guess during the holiday season people need to know how to combat this ancient malady. It has been many years, decades in fact that I have considered returning to drunkeness. The cure for the hangover was clear very early on in my recovery, abstinence.

However, when the thought emerged to drink hee is what I would do; I would drive to the ATM take out as much cash as I could from the machine, write a check for more, and then return to my home. I would crumble all of my money and toss it into the toilet and flush! Then I would gorge my self with the food I hated the most usually fish sticks till I would vomit all over myself. Defecate and urinate in my pants, lay on the bathroom floor with the heat at the highest levels possible after slamming my head on the floor to replicate the wonderful feeling of solace I would have the morning after...

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!

Dan :)

The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/tlrpa

Death of a Drama Queen, Jo Latino

I asked Jo to send me this Blog for all to read. It is a bit long so I have it linked to our main Blog. Hope you enjoy!

Dan :)

This month it seems everyone close to me has been going through life changing situations. Nearly everyone I communicate with these days seems to be facing recurring situations. When I say recurring situations I mean that feeling of "Ok”. I have been here before and I need to respond differently this time. Something about this challenge I am facing NEEDS to change and HAS to change…but how do I get there?” During these recent conversations I have thought over and over again about the "Serenity Prayer” I decided to include another part of my book in this blog because it speaks to acceptance. This portion is taken from the last part of my book “Death of a Drama Queen” The first part of my book deals with how I recognized and unraveled the drama in my life. The second part of my book I share the many ways I began to live a new a more productive life by choosing to respond differently. I realized I could not rewrite history but I had the power to edit the script:) “IT’S IN THE BOX” After the first of the year 2007 I was invited to speak to a group of women who were in a recovery center. When invited to speak to any group I make it a practice NOT to ask too much specific information about the group. I really rely on my intuition to inspire me with the exact topic or information the group might need. If I know too much about the group then my logical thinking gets in the way of inspiration. When preparing for the group I was inspired to write out the “Serenity Prayer” because I know from attending Alanon meetings the prayer is a foundational piece for people in recovery. I then felt inspired to break down the prayer into 3 parts as follows: 1. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change 2. The courage to change the things I can change 3. The wisdom to know the difference Click and Read More

My Purpose

The first word that we internalize in life is “NO”. Throughout our developmental years we learn to be objective. Challenge what we see, hear, are taught, told, and anything in between. What that eventually does is close our minds to the possibilities. We have all been told about the difference between a pessimist and an optimist; the pessimist sees the glass as half empty and the optimist sees it half full.

In reality most of us are raised to think the worst. We say things like, “When it comes to me, if it could go wrong it will go wrong!” For me that was the case up until 1998. In 1998 I took a look at my life and challenged the negative self-talk. I had been listening to two audio sets one by Tony Robbins and the other by Earl Nightingale.

I began to look back at the accomplishments in my life. Here was a kid that was thrown out of high school in March of his senior year that went on to not only go to college but to attain a Masters Degree from a prestigious New York City University! The results did not match the talk within. From the outside people would see an accomplished success story, from zero to hero! But the thoughts between my two ears said otherwise.

Over the past ten years the self-talk has changed from negative to positive. Occasionally a relapse in to negative thinking brings some worry. But the tools I have developed over the years quickly extinguish that doubt. I have learned not to worry, worry only brings fear and fear paralyzes me.

It is this experience that has helped me to refine my purpose. At first glance from the outside in one may think that my purpose is to assist people that struggle with addiction to recover. If that is what you think you are only partially correct. It is a deeper commitment to help people in all phases of recovery to adapt an attitude of gratitude. To be conscious of the way they think. The intention is to assist recovered people to develop into positive mental thinkers.

The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.recoveryforum.ning.com

Are You a Survivor or a Thriver?

When it comes to your recovery what is it that you focus on? Simply not drinking and drugging or is there more? Most people that are in recovery entered the process due to the pain that using drugs or alcohol attracted to their lives. But once the cork is put back into the jug what is it that keeps the pain away or the pleasure within?

Tony Robbins says we are all motivated by two forces. We are either running from pain or towards pleasure. Often folks in recovery change due to pain, in other words they get pushed into it. Either way once you settle in to a new life without alcohol or drugs it is necessary to stay focused on what you want.

The Law of Attraction is a spiritual law that says what ever it is we focus on we will attract to us. That law does not discriminate between alcoholic/addicts and non-users! It is a law for everyone. Whether you think it is true or not! Therefore it is absolutely essential to guard our thoughts. Of course trying to censor everything that goes into our head is impossible. However, some simple adjustments can make a world of difference in our happiness.

There are two ways to live a recovered life. As a Survivor or a Thriver. A Survivor lives life by taking what life dishes out. Survivors blame their situations on circumstances things that happen to them. Survivors focus on just getting by. They “try” to get well. They blame outside sources, people, and situations for their challenges.

Thrivers are focused on living life to the fullest. Thrivers do not believe in circumstances, they make their circumstances. They look for the opportunity in the challenge. They focus on “Gratitude”. They have an “Attitude of Gratitude”. Thrivers focus on the outcome and not the challenge. Thrivers focus on their strengths and get better at what they want and enjoy.

Here are some examples:

A Survivor says, “I do not want to drink or drug” a Thriver says, “I am living a happy, clean and sober life!” A Survivor says, “I don’t want to be angry”, a Thriver, says, “I am happy joyous and free!”
A Survivor says, “If I can just get through this”, a Thriver asks, “Where does the opportunity loom in this cloud?”

It is simple to change your focus. Start with a 30-day test. For 30 days focus on the positive. Take some time to write out a gratitude list. Jot down a list of 15 people, places or things that you are grateful for. Every day add one more item to your list. Wear a rubber band on your wrist or pick up a nice clean stone from you travels for your pocket. Throughout the day when you put your hand in your pocket or notice your rubber band remind yourself that you are Happy, Joyous and Free!

At the end of 30-days if you like what you are becoming do it again. Rome was not built in a day. Yet being happy and positive is a choice. Start reading self-improvement books like “The Success Principles” by Jack Canfield. Listen to audio books or sets on self-improvement like “The Strangest Secret” by Earl Nightingale, “Awaken the Giant Within” by Tony Robbins. Watch self-improvement videos like “The Secret”, “The Opus”, and “You Can Heal Your Life” there are plenty to choose from.

Begin to change the way you think for the better. Stay away from dull, disillusioned crybabies. Anyone can complain and point out what is wrong with the world. There is enough of that going around. Stay away from the news. Limit your TV consumption at least for now. Focus on the positive and your life will become better than your wildest dreams!

The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.recoveryforum.ning.com

More Sad News

I am sad today again. A week or so ago I told you about a gentleman that disappeared to Atlantic City. Today I received the following emails. We had a referral about a month ago for a young lady struggling with opiate addiction. We did all we could on our end. When she chose to continue in her addiction and not come to our center we referred her to a recovered addict for help.

Life is but a flicker. Death awaits us all, it is a fact. For the alcoholic/addict there are three deaths; the walking slow death of addiction, dying tragically due to addiction and of course the death that we all will one day encounter. Personally, I chose dying with dignity with no regrets.

Unfortunately what you will read is sad. If you know someone struggling, tell them you love them and tell them there is hope. There is a better way.

Much Love,

Dan :(



Dan,
I just opened my mail and this is what I woke up to this morning:

"Hey, I'm not sure if you know this or not..... :( oooo boy!

You know that girl Lindsay you were talking to about a month ago. You asked me to talk to her. Well I'm really sad to say that she od'ed (Overdosed) and died last week. I can't believe it. I don't know much about it, but i do know she died due to heroin.

Jp"

I talked to Lindsay for hours one night then passed her to another addict
who lived close to her. This disease is so insidious and cruel. It takes the lives of people with
such good hearts. It takes people away from us who make the world a brighter, better place to live.

Addiction smothers and kills people who have so much potential for love
and giving to others, so sad. I've been helping addicts for a long time and I still feel the loss when one falls on the front line of our battle against a common enemy.

The only thing worse than being wrong is being right.

Liam


The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.recoveryforum.ning.com

"The Promise" by Sandy Brewer

This is a wonderful piece written by my friend Sandy Brewer, author of "Pursuit of Light" a must read. Please enjoy and Happy Holidays.... Dan :)

THE PROMISE
By Sandy Brewer


There is something universal and transcendent about Christmas, an underlying harmonic that draws people together, sparking the potential for uplifting the human spirit. It’s not limited to a religious point of view. It’s broader than that and mystically amorphous – this possibility, this feeling, that all is well in spite of what might be going on. It’s an emotion that can be triggered by the colors of the season, the lights, the music – even the pathos – spreading from the ice skaters in Rockefeller Center to the pristine wilderness of western Canada to the beaches of Tahiti. Peace on earth, good will toward men. Women, too.

For me, it’s always been the music...

So, not surprisingly, last December I found myself seated front and center in the McCallum Theater in Palm Desert, listening to it’s annual musical presentation, “Colors of Christmas.” Love Peabo Bryson! Later in the program Deniece Williams took the stage. Strobe lights danced colorfully all around her as she began her solo. “Oh Holy Night.” Her rendition was stirring.

Unexpectedly, awesomely, I was drawn into the landscape of my life…

~~~~~~~~~

It was a long time ago, over half a century to be exact, when I sang “Oh Holy Night” for the last time in the Christmas Eve service as a member of the children’s choir of my church. I was in the eighth grade, and when I graduated in the spring, the powers that be were going to kick me and all my aging classmates out. Too big for the choir robes, I guess.

But for one last time, this was my moment. I walked solemnly down the side aisles of the darkened church with the other members of the choir, penlights held waist high shining up at the towering cathedral ceiling, as we marched around the back of the church and up the broad center aisle, forming a two-by-two processional making our way up to the altar. The organ blared with a strange sonorous triumph, as only an organ can do, and the packed congregation belted out “Joy to the World.” Garbed in long, sleeveless black robes covered with white, cherubic tops, we quietly shuffled ourselves into the form of a cross on the elevated altar. It was a big church, a big altar, and with penlights aglow we made quite a fine religious symbol, if I do say so myself.

The congregation completed their song. Miss Miller, baton in hand, stepped out to the center of the aisle, faced us kids, and with a mighty down-stroke of her right hand, we began my favorite Christmas carol of all time. “Oh, Holy Night.”

To the world of the fifties, I was just another kid singing her heart out at a Christmas Eve pageant on a blustery winter evening in the toddling town of Chicago. To my school I was an “A” student and president of my class. And in what I came to know as my “away from home world,” these were all true things. But there was a darker, sinister, totally secret world in which I was also forced to live. In my “at home world” I co-existed in the brutal underbelly of humanity with a sadistic, rapist father and a venomous, all controlling mother. Not that they looked that way to others. My father was a deacon of the church, and my mother, well, in truth, she was always a little crazy. Wall-papered kitchen, fluffy curtains, and pillbox hats notwithstanding, when the doors to my house closed every night, I was entrapped in a life-threatening, hidden world, dangerous and terrifying, like the catacombs of the sewers.

It was traumatic and cruel beyond words, but I survived as a child by being able to compartmentalize into my separate worlds. Yet sometimes these “compartments” came much too close to each other, and on rare occasions, like the Christmas Eve of my thirteenth year, they almost collided. As I stood at the altar, chiming in with gusto on the alto harmony of “Oh, Holy Night,” I quietly hallucinated. Right there, in that darkened church, in front of God and everybody. Although, at the time I didn’t know that was what was happening to me. I would sing a few bars and then suddenly I would be somewhere else. A few more bars, and, once again, this altered reality – a reality in which I had just given birth to a son. In a flash, I popped back to the altar, still singing.

Fall on your knees
Oh hear the angels’ voices
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth.

Less than six weeks later, denial could no longer hold the physical forces within my body at bay, and I gave birth to a little boy, my father’s son. He died in my arms a short time later…

~~~~~~~~~~

I sat there in the darkened theater listening to Deniece, witnessing the dancing strobes, and watching from within a panorama of my life. There was no sorrow or regret, the healing had happened for me years before. Yet, except for when I wrote my memoir, PURSUIT OF LIGHT: An Extraordinary Journey, it was so rare for me to reference my current life with any part of my past. Yesterday had become like a past life – irrelevant compared to today.

And that’s when it struck me. It had been exactly fifty years (minus twelve days) since I had last sung that carol in the choir. In those fifty years I had gone through hell, and then rose above it to find the depth of my own being. Fifty years, during which I had journeyed from a child whose parents had literally tried to kill her to a woman who became a successful therapist, speaker, author, and advocate. A woman who is known for her laughter and passion for life. I looked at my husband, the man of my dreams seated on my left, and thought about my three adult children and outrageous grandchildren. I was filled with wonder! Fifty years ago I didn’t think I’d live to be eighteen, then I didn’t think I would live to be thirty. Yet here I was, a happy, prospering, fulfilled woman. I was stunned by the wonder of it! How a child, in the midst of horror, found a way to hold on to a spark of light of what she might be and keep that spark alive. How children and adults all over the world today in the direst of circumstances manage to breathe life into the possibility of themselves and a better tomorrow. The magnificence, the dominance, the power of the human spirit! My heart was filled with awe of what my journey had been and what possibilities still lay in front of me. Awe for others and what their journeys have been. What a privilege to have a life, and to be a part of a life force that will not quit, that perseveres for the promise of all that we can be both individually and as a collective.

It’s winter once again. Even in California you can tell. No snow, but there’s a chill in the air. Another Christmas rolls around. If this season finds you in difficult times, may you know grace greater than your pain, and love greater than your sorrow. For whatever our personal challenges are, the greatest aspect of our truest nature as human beings is love.

Peace on earth, good will to all of us whether we are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or like me, none of the above. Peace on earth and good will in our hearts for all that we might be or might choose to become, no matter where we have been or what we have experienced.



Sandy Brewer is author of Pursuit of Light, An Extraordinary Journey, a rave triumph of the human spirit. An authentic, true-life page turner, horrific and inspirational, brilliant and compelling, filled with practical teachings of empowerment and compassion. Beautifully blending wisdom, humor and pathos, it profoundly demonstrates an uplifting pathway out of darkness into light.

www.PursuitOfLight.com
e-mail SandyBrewer@PursuitOfLight.com


USA BOOK NEWS selected Pursuit of Light as the winner
of the General Biography category for
THE NATIONAL BEST BOOKS 2008 AWARDS

The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.recoveryforum.ning.com

Recovery Services for Middle Income Families

When we made the decision to develop a Retreat and Recovery Center in Panama it was with the middle-income market in mind. This market is the segment of our population that seems to take the hit. Their income does not afford them the freedom to make choices based upon merit. Their choices are often made by what they can or cannot afford!

Yet their purchasing power is massive. Take a look at Wal-Mart, a store that sells everything to the middle-income market.

1. At Wal-Mart, Americans spend $36,000,000 every hour of every day.

2. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St. Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target + Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest private employer.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 Supermarket chains sought bankruptcy (including Winn-Dixie).

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which 1,906 are Super-Centers; this is 1,000 more than 5 years ago.

11. This year, 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences will occur at a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is approximately 6.5 billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a Wal-Mart

The erosion of the middle-class is a recipe for disaster. The United States may be in a recession certainly caution is on everyone’s mind. Fear persists fear of losing a job, a home, sending a child to college, simply paying the bills is a burden!

The wealthy have the ability to pay any price tag for recovery services the poor and lower-middle-income folks are often qualified for government programs or subsidies. But middle-income families are left with few options. If a family has medical insurance most recovery facilities require the individual to come out of pocket and then file an insurance claim. When addiction strikes a teen or young adult, families have turned to home equity lines of credit, credit cards, or they drain their 401k’s in an attempt to save a child!

It is for this reason The Last Resort Panama offers affordable retreat and recovery services. If you want help we are here to serve your needs.

The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.recoveryforum.ning.com

Starting the Day Right!

There are three basic rules of success, Rule number one, Always Be Positive. Rule number Two, Always Be Positive. Rule number Three, Always Be Positive.

Many folks hear statements like these and turn a deaf ear. They conjure up images of some pretentious geek playing Mr. Happy! If that is what you think then please stop and reconsider. Positive-ity is a state of mind that a majority of us need to consciously work on. We are conditioned to think negative. Many people have an alternative term to justify negativity. They call it constructive thinking. They say you must challenge all thought, suggestion and theory with critical thinking!

What a load of bad B.S. (“Belief System”, Dan Ohler)! Obviously we all must “Stop, Look and Listen” for the train when we cross the railroad. However, we must be cautious about sending down the crossing warning signal prematurely.

So what does one do to acquire a positive mental attitude? An attitude of gratitude that is not sickening and pretentious. First start the day off in a positive tone. Personally, my day starts with “The Strangest Secret” by Earl Nightingale. I have my CD alarm set for 7 AM daily with the full version set to play. I listen to the CD for a full hour it plays nearly two full times through. Here are some additional suggestions many I use, add as many as you can you are not limited to one:

1) Up lifting positive music.
2) Prayer with praise and thanksgiving.
3) Daily meditation or spiritual book.
4) If you live with your life partner a hug and a kiss and an uplifting comment to them.
5) If you have children a hug and a kiss and an encouraging word.
6) Yes to life! I hit the shower to; I’m alive I’m awake and I feel great!
7) A good healthy breakfast.
8) An expectation of a positive and productive day.
9) A moment of reflection for everything I am grateful for receiving and accepting.

Expect a positive outcome and you will achieve positive results. Focus on the negative or constructive thought process, well as they say, “Suffer Well”!

Peace,

Dan ☺

The Last Resort Panama, Drug and Alcohol Rehab www.Thelastresortpa.com www.facebook.com/thelastresortpa www.myspace.com/thelastresortpa www.recoveryforum.ning.com