Empowering Your Sober Self -- the Class

As I noted here earlier, Prof. Arthur McCullough in Belfast announced a class on Empowering People Against Addictions at Queens University's Open Learning Centre. Now Prof. McCullough kindly sent me an email with a short report on how the session went:

Dear Martin,

The course Empowering People Against Addictions - 5 weekly two-hour sessions at Queen’s University Belfast Open Learning Centre – was completed last night. Its main inspiration is its recommended text Empowering Your Sober Self.  ...

As described in the Open Learning Programme, for Spring  2010: OLE1097 -  “This course is about how and why people get into addictions, and about how to get out of them. It covers major areas of addiction such as alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex; and related ones, such as isolation, suicide, physical and mental illness. Discussions involve perspectives in science, culture and society, and will focus on the recovery model.

There were 16 students mostly community, care and social work professionals or semi-professionals. About a quarter had had addictions. It’s been an exciting and interesting course, with LifeRing a point of departure all along. Two of the students say they are interested in a LifeRing in Belfast, and are in touch with Dennis Stefan (Dublin), who is interested and very willing to help. I think it could be very valuable here.  Every member of the course thinks so. ...

I thank Prof. McCullough, who appends this short bio:

Arthur McCullough was a Researcher in Organizational Studies at the University of Bradford, and Bradford Management Centre. He was Senior Lecturer at the University of Ulster, and later Head of its Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology. He is currently an Open Learning Tutor at Queen’s University Belfast providing courses on World Cinema, Tribal Art, Irish Art, Sacred Places Objects and Art in the Province of Ulster, and Empowering People against Addictions.

Needless perhaps to add, I hope that other educators find a place for Empowering Your Sober Self in their addiction-related classes.

Nice short book review

A tip of the hat to James in Ireland who posted a review of Empowering Your Sober Self on the goodreads.com website, here.

Catch me on Audrey's Show

Last August I had the privilege of being a guest on the Audrey Chapman show; see my blog post about it.  Today I had the honor of being invited back for a second appearance.  We recorded it today, and it'll air on Saturday, April 24 at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, on WHUR-FM at 96.3 -- heard up and down the East Coast from Florida to New Jersey -- and via the Internet at http://www.whur.com.
Audrey has a great touch.  I've not had the pleasure to meet her in person, but if I were looking for a counselor to tell my troubles to, Audrey would be high on my list.  She's empathetic, she's widely read and well informed, and she has a knack for getting to the core of an issue in a heartbeat.  Try and catch the program; it'll run about 45 minutes, and it's focused on my new book, Empowering Your Sober Self. 

Ireland Leads the Way

A number of people have told me that my new book, Empowering Your Sober Self, would make a good classroom text in addiction recovery, but no one has done it  -- until now.  The pioneer is Arthur McCullough, BSc, BSSc, MA, at the Queen's University in Belfast.  The University has announced a new class beginning April 28, as follows:

Empowering People Against Addictions [OLE1097]

Arthur McCullough, BSc, BSSc, MA 5 weekly sessions on Wednesdays 7.00 pm to 9.00 pm, starting 28 April This course is about how and why people get into addictions, and about how they can get out of them. It covers major areas of addiction such as alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex; and related ones, such as isolation, suicide, physical and mental illness. Discussions involve perspectives in science, culture and society, and will focus on the recovery model. Recommended Textbook: Empowering your Sober Self, Martin Nicolaus, (Jossey-Bass. A Wiley Imprint). 5 CATS Points (Level 1) (concession rate £19.00) Full Price: £30.00

Here's the link if you want to sign up.  I'm grateful to Dennis S., LifeRing area convenor for Ireland, for spotting this web item and alerting me to it.

On the Air with Audrey Chapman

It was my great pleasure this morning to appear via telephone on the Audrey Chapman show, broadcast in the Washington DC area on WHUR-FM at 96.3 and via the Internet at http://www.whur.com. Audrey is a relationship specialist who has written several books on love and its problems. She's active as a writer and speaker and also maintains a busy counseling practice. She talks with radio listeners every Saturday morning from 8 - 10 am (5 -7 a.m. my time), and her show is said to have a huge morning audience up and down the East Coast.

From the first words, you can see why Audrey has such a following. She's calm, she's clear, she's relaxed; she projects empathy without judgment. You immediately feel comfortable talking to her, telling her your problems. She also sees right to the heart of an issue. She couldn't have had much time to read my new book, but she clearly understood the main points. Her questions were relevant and moved the conversation forward.

Audrey thrives on the freshness and urgency of listener calls. And her callers didn't disappoint. In just a few conversations, much of the huge panorama of addiction problems in the society was laid out before us. A grown up woman was concerned with the drinking of the auntie who raised her. A mother was troubled by her teenage son's drinking. A father worried that his own drinking was leading his son into alcoholism. And so on. Addiction is an enormous problem, and there are people everywhere struggling with it.

We don't yet have LifeRing meetings in the D.C. area, but I had the opportunity to tell listeners about www.lifering.org, our website. I was pleased that Audrey asked me to stay on into the second hour of her show. There was still much more that could have been said, and I had to bite my tongue once or twice when callers pushed concepts and solutions that have very limited utility. But I loved the live interaction, and I could see myself engaged in a longer and very interesting conversation with Audrey on some other occasion. She's smart and she has an open mind and a great way with people.

Check out her website at audreychapman.com.

Empowering Your Sober Self: The LifeRing Approach to Addiction Recovery

Jacqueline Foreman (right) interviews me on Your Mental Health Talk Radio about my new book, here:

Empowering Your Sober Self: The LifeRing Approach to Addiction Recovery

The program aired July 7 2009 at 5 pm Pacific Time.

They laughed at him

A little while ago, a gentleman -- let's call him "Guy" -- phoned to say that he had just read my book and wanted to start a LifeRing meeting. Guy said he is more than 20 years clean and sober in AA, and is one of the better known AA speakers in his region.

He happened to go to his favorite recovery bookstore, and this title, Empowering Your Sober Self, "jumped out at me." He bought it and over the next 24 hours read it straight through. He said he had been reading recovery literature for nearly 30 years and nothing had resonated with him enough to pick up the phone and call the author, until this book.

He said he liked AA enormously but after more than 20 years, he felt it was always the same thing, and it wasn't going anywhere, and he wanted the challenge of moving forward. The LifeRing concept really spoke to him.

He wanted to start a LifeRing meeting in his area, and he outlined a plan to go speak with some head people at a number of treatment programs with which he was familiar, having often spoken there, in order to get a room and referrals. Of course, I encouraged him, but at the same time I cautioned him that his enthusiasm might not be shared by some of his AA friends.

And so it was. At the first program where he spoke with the chief, he was told that the facility's board of directors was unlikely to go with anything other than 12 step.

He then took the book to his home group, and presented a share about the "A" and the "S" -- the addict self and the sober self. He said, "They laughed at me." They agreed about the "A" but they couldn't wrap their minds around the concept that there was an "S" -- a sober self -- inside the alcoholic's head. His talk met with sarcasm and ridicule.

It reminds me of Gandhi's famous saying:

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."

To his everlasting credit, Guy wasn't intimidated. He's going to speak to other treatment professionals. I shared with him that a number of senior people in 12-step programs have been expressing interest in the LifeRing option. He's now reading How Was Your Week in order to prepare for the convenor role. He's making plans to come visit Northern California in September so he can see LifeRing meetings first hand.

LifeRing in New Living (NY)

An excerpt adapted from Chapter 2 of my new book (Empowering Your Sober Self) appears in the April issue of New Living, a free 20-p health and wellness newspaper published in Stony Brook NY and distributed in the New York City area and Long Island.

This chapter from my book contains a set of tips and exercises designed to help the person who wants to stop using addictive substances to move across the gap from contemplation to action. They include visualization, laughter, self-forgiveness, reframing, exercise, and other attitude-builders. I wrote a 900-word excerpt for the paper.

The editors took some minor liberties with the chapter. They took the sentence, "Becoming drug or alcohol-free can exhilarate you and enable you to accomplish great things in life," and added the phrase "... and perhaps, more importantly, give you gratitude and humility, two spiritual qualities hard to find in most people."

OK, I may not be the most original writer in the world. But I try not to stoop to moth-eaten cliches like "gratitude and humility." But it's good to have the article in the paper, with a plug for the book, and a plug for the two LifeRing meetings in Long Island; and I guess there's a small price to pay for that. I am humbly grateful.

No Such Thing as a Bad Person Addicted to Alcohol

Had the pleasure today to hear and meet Charles D. Appelstein, author of No Such Thing as a Bad Kid and other works expounding the strength-based approach to working with at-risk youth.  

Charlie was keynoter  at the 12th annual Northern California Tobacco, Alcohol, Drug Educator and Youth Development Conference at UC Berkeley, where I staffed a LifeRing exhibit table.  He's a fun speaker, gets the audience laughing, chanting, and singing, all the time delivering key points of a message that is in many respects revolutionary.  

When a teacher or counselor begins work with troubled kids -- also "trouble kids" -- the key thing is attitude, Charlie began.  The successful attitude, he said, is "I believe in you.  You are a great kid.  You can do great things."  This attitude transfers to the kid; it makes the kids feel good about themselves, it gives them hope, and it inspires them to change for the better.

Afterward we chatted about addiction treatment, and I told him that LifeRing was one of the strength-based approaches in this field.  He expressed great interest.  We also exchanged books; he gave me his and I gave him mine.  

I also had the opportunity to chat with Tom Herman of the State Department of Education, Dr. Alex Stalcup of the New Leaf Treatment Center, Ralph Cantor of the local County Office of Education, and a number of substance abuse program administrators, teachers, cops, and others in and around K-12 education who are concerned with the drug issue.  The message that there's a secular, strength-based addiction recovery support network out there was welcome news to many ears.  

First call

Had the first telephone call today from an arms-length reader of Empowering Your Sober Self, my new book.  A counselor in San Diego called on the 800 line to say he had a number of clients who were not responding to 12-step and this looked like just the right approach for them.  Wanted to know were there local meetings (not yet) and how they could connect with us (online).  "Very glad to see you exist.  This is much needed."