Mental health

Am I Too Hard on Myself?

by Bill Brenner January 5, 2011 Addiction

A friend asked that question yesterday. I’ve certainly been accused of being too hard on myself before. My step-mother reads this blog and told me I should give myself a break. Steve Lambert, former editor of The Eagle-Tribune, said I was too hard on myself when I wrote the “One of My Biggest Regrets” post. Mood music: [spotify:track:0OXjHxbrmrkpvqudvzWlDR] The short answer is that sometimes I am, most of the time I’m not. When I was…  [Read More]

It’s a Disease, Not a Choice: Part 2

by Bill Brenner January 4, 2011 Addiction

The Sunday night step study meeting I wrote about yesterday gave me more to think about than I could cram into one post. Another thing that stuck with me is how society continues to mistake addiction for choice. Mood music: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cECTX3mPu1o&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0] I’ve tackled this subject many times in this blog. In the first “It’s a Disease, Not a Choice” post a few months back, I noted that the addicted brain works differently. My problem was binge…  [Read More]

The Hole in Your Soul

by Bill Brenner January 3, 2011 Addiction

A lot of changes to my program of sobriety and abstinence are under way, and I feel like I’m running on nuclear power. Last night was my first Big Book Step Study meeting, which is quite different from the speaker-discussion meetings I’m used to. It only took me a few seconds to realize why I had to be there. Mood music: A lot of times when someone sobers up or stops binge eating, it’s a…  [Read More]

Midwest Center for Fraud & Bullshit

by Bill Brenner January 2, 2011 Addiction

Cleaning out the trunk of my car yesterday, I came across a stack of cassette tapes from a period in my life when I was so desperate I’d spend stupid sums of money on anything to remove my fear and anxiety. These tapes were part of a program that cost me some $450. Each tape, sold by the Midwest Center for Stress & Anxiety, is designed to help people learn the skills to defeat anxiety and…  [Read More]

A Year in the Life

by Bill Brenner December 31, 2010 Addiction

This isn’t a post about New Years resolutions. I don’t need a holiday to make changes in my life. IT IS about lessons I’ve learned in an effort to make resolutions. Mood music: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNUU8jHXLMg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0] There’s been plenty of unpleasant stuff this year. I’ve watched two marriages fall apart. We had a couple months where money was painfully tight. My recovery has never been easy. But that’s life. A big fistful of goodness slammed down on…  [Read More]

From Confusion to Wisdom

by Bill Brenner December 26, 2010 Communication Skills

I’ve crashed many times while blasting down the road of life. The car is in one piece now and I’ve learned to throttle back some. And when I hear the following words of wisdom, I KNOW it’s the truth: Mood music: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agn4y-M1rjA&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0] ACCEPTANCE ?”Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill someone else.” – Matt Baldwin, Snow Rising (thanks, Cheryl Snapp Conner, for pointing this one out. “People are like stained glass…  [Read More]

More on Kids and Divorce

by Bill Brenner December 22, 2010 Children's issues

Yesterday’s post on children and divorce hit a tender nerve for a lot of you, so I feel a few clarifications are in order. Mood music: http://youtu.be/kJHFaU0lpZ8 Here’s what yesterday’s post WAS NOT: –A rebuke of single parents. I know a lot of single parents who bust their ass and give their children a lot more love than some of the married couples I’ve met in my day. –A plea for people in troubled marriages…  [Read More]

Screwing Your Kids in the Divorce

by Bill Brenner December 21, 2010 Children's issues

When people you know go through a divorce, much is made over who gets what and who loses what. The ex-wife gets the house. The ex-husband gets full custody of the kids. But here’s a constant that’s most upsetting: The kids almost always get the shaft. Mood music: http://youtu.be/gvkvJo2VRJc Parents don’t usually mean for this to happen. They start out determined to shower the children with love and shield them from the ugly stuff as…  [Read More]

Talk Therapy: Sane or Satanic?

by Bill Brenner December 20, 2010 Coping tools

I touched a nerve with my post about the pros and cons of the therapist taking the patient through the same things over and over again. They didn’t slam my perspective outright, nor would they. But they flagged some dangers in this technique that are important to share. Mood music: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZzus86pdls&fs=1&hl=en_US] What makes their feedback so valuable is that they are therapists themselves. The following responses came my way by way of the LinkedIn NAMI…  [Read More]

WTF Is That Shrink Doing?

by Bill Brenner December 16, 2010 Medicine

A friend of mine recently started going to a therapist, and he’s puzzled as to why the therapist keeps making him rehash the week. Here’s my theory. Mood music: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34wASuHRuRo&fs=1&hl=en_US] He’s asking a lot of redundant questions to dig up patterns. They seem like stupid, recycled questions. But when you have to answer the same, stupid questions over and over again, no matter how infuriating that is, something important happens. The stuff that’s really haunting…  [Read More]

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