Canada Drug Rehab

By Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

We can learn a lot about addiction and recovery from our current fare of drug prevention programs.

Here are some statistics: According to a 2007 published survey by the Government of Canada, most Canadian youth, aged 15 to 24, reported that they used illicit drugs. Only 39.7% said they have never used, 38% said they used only cannabis, and 23.7% said they used an illicit drug other than cannabis. Almost all youth reported using alcohol, and 82.9% in the last 12 months. Of past year drinkers, 13.8% reported getting drunk weekly and 40.6% at least monthly. (By the way, if there is such a thing as a ‘gateway drug’, then these numbers tell us that it’s alcohol.)

To combat these numbers, communities, schools, and parents spend a lot of energy trying to keep youth away from drugs and alcohol. Most prevention programs are simply local efforts, which have no basis in psychology research or practice. But both the US and Canadian governments tell us that many programs have been studied and have “scientific evidence” that they work. These programs generally use some basic psychology principles to help people learn how to say no, how to deal with peer pressure, how to deal with stress, how to deal with anxiety and depression, and so on.

The key to all these programs is that they point out that drugs are a poor way to deal with what makes us uncomfortable in life. And there are lots of things that make us uncomfortable. Booze is great if you’re going to a dance. It helps you get over shyness. Being intoxicated is a great way of dealing with boredom. Getting high is a great way of dealing with loneliness.

The problem with using drugs for this kind of uncomfortableness is that they can backfire. Having to rely on drugs every time you go dancing, for instance—and having to use more as time goes on because of tolerance—can lead to disaster.

Pointing out the risks involved seems entirely reasonable. But here’s the problem: Regardless of what program designers and governments tell us, top-of-the-line research has shown that our current prevention programs don’t work very well.

It’s important to remember that Bill W., the driving force behind the development of the 12 steps, also understood the benefits of using. He said that intoxication is a substitute for satisfying the urge for wholeness and connection with God. In 1943 at the Shrine Auditorium in LA he told the audience that the alcoholic was a person who was looking for religion in a bottle. But, of course, seeking fulfillment through intoxication always backfires, leading to great suffering.

In this article we’ll explore prevention programs to see why they are not very successful. Knowing this can help you understand the power of drugs and what you or your loved one will likely have to do to recovery from addiction.

Part One — Our Current Approach to Prevention: “Drugs are bad”

Drug prevention programs operate according to the principle that “Drugs are bad, so don’t use them.” Typically, they tell us that using drugs will inevitably cause any number of problems. Studies of the effects of drugs on the brain, physical deterioration of the body, lost jobs, depleted finances, broken families, risk of arrest and incarceration, and so on are marshaled up to convince people to abstain. And many programs invite recovering addicts to tell their story to young people about how drugs destroyed their lives.

It all seems like a good way to keep young people away from drugs. Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work very well.

Many big-shot researchers have studied the “evidence” of programs that claim to be successful — the ones that the US and Canadian governments have said were scientifically proven to be effective. The researchers discovered that the “evidence” was not very good.

For example, four of the most famous prevention programs are Strengthening Families, Life Skills Training, Project ALERT, and DARE. Researchers examining the evidence for Strengthening Families and Life Skills Training wrote: “Far from supporting the evaluators’ claims concerning the rigour of the findings and their generalisability and public health significance, the results were very fragile, of little practical significance and quite possibly analysis-dependent.” What this means is that the so-called “evidence” that the program worked did not meet basic research standards. Other researchers studied the evidence behind Project ALERT and DARE and found that these programs were of little or no value.

Part Two — Problems with the “Drugs are Bad” Approach

It seems so reasonable to try to stop people from using drugs by telling them all the dangers. And the dangers are not little: lost families, major health problems, lost jobs, mucking up the brain chemistry. And there is the real possibility of death.

But there are a growing number of experts in the field, who are showing why this “drugs are bad” approach is not very effective in preventing drug use. Here are some of their reasons:

1) Prohibition doesn’t work — The idea that drugs are bad is based on, as one researcher said, “the persistence of prohibition as an ideological force.” What this means is that trying to scare people into abstaining is based on ideas of the prohibition movement that helped make drinking illegal in the United States in 1920 and in Canada in 1918. You probably know that prohibition did not work. It was based on a moral stance and not on any scientific understanding of human nature.

2) People don’t believe the message — Surveys of school kids exposed to the “drugs are bad” message have shown that they don’t believe it. They know kids who have used crystal methamphetamine and who didn’t end up in the emergency ward of the hospital. They know kids who use substances and are straight-A students. They know athletes who smoke marijuana. They know kids who get drunk at parties, and the most they seem to be affected is a hangover the next day.

3) Kids like to take risks — One of the pleasures of teenagers is to take risks, including doing things that are illegal (small things, mainly). There’s an excitement involved. A drug prevention program that displays illegal drugs is likely to inspire more curiosity than fear. Interestingly, when addicted famous people talked to kids about drugs, the kids usually thought they could do drugs and then clean up — just as these celebrities did. (By the way, when researchers discovered this, they stopped asking famous people to talk to kids about drugs.)

These are just a few examples; there are many more. But they show that perhaps our current drug prevention programs are wrong-headed.

Part Three — New Research on Prevention

A handful of researchers, knowing that current prevention programs do not work very well, have said that we need to re-think the logic that we use to try to prevent drug use.

Most of these researchers are in England, but a growing number are in Canada and the United States. For example, British researchers have been studying why young people in Britain use ecstasy and ketamine. They have discovered that many young people find positive benefits from intoxication.

The idea that intoxication has rewards is not new. The great psychologist and philosopher William James (the guy who impressed Bill W. so much) was convinced that being drunk or stoned helped the user connect with the universe, find insight into perplexing problems, and generally feel more energized and alive. And, of course, some of the great addict-writers, such as Thomas De Quincey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William S. Burroughs, Eugene O’Neill, and Jack Kerouac said more or less the same thing.

Young people we’ve studied have told us that using ecstasy and ketamine at dance clubs has helped them connect with others in a positive way. They even tell us that they have found long-term benefits of being more empathic (the ability to appreciate what others are feeling).

The second thing they tell us is that intoxication allows them to connect with something greater than they are. In previous articles I’ve talked about how people can feel a sense of belonging while under the influence. Researchers in the United States have studied 18 to 24 year olds who experience the benefit of ecstasy as “transforming the everyday.” The researchers concluded that ecstasy highlights “the extraordinary or transcendental nature of the experience.”

Part Four — Drug Prevention has to Account for the Benefits of Drugs

Modern drug researchers have come up with a “new” idea. As one researcher put it, “Research has failed to explore a significant and integral feature of drug use, primarily the reasons why people use and the benefits they receive.”

People use because they find some rewards for getting intoxicated. Researchers have concluded that we need to understand these benefits if wide are to design drug prevention programs that work. In fact, one researcher has pointed out the obvious: The reason why our current drug prevention programs don’t work is precisely because the benefits that users tell us they get from being intoxicated make them resistant to programs that are based on the approach that “drugs are bad.”

Here are some of the rewards that users have told us about substances: (1) “Alcohol is great for dealing with shyness,” (2) “ecstasy can make you feel closer to others,” and (3) “heroin makes everything okay even when my world is falling apart.” Young users of dextromethorphan tell us that it aids in creating a trans-personal experience. This trans-personal experience means that that intoxication moves the user beyond paying attention to himself and puts him in a state that is beyond time and space.

So, this is good information for you to know as part of how to stay away from drugs and alcohol. If the benefits of intoxication are this feeling of community and this trans-personal experience, then it makes sense that you will have to figure out how to find a sense of belonging and how to finding something in life that makes you feel alive.

This is, of course, the entire purpose of the 12-step program. And it is one of the main themes of addiction treatment at Sunshine Coast Health Center.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about the human need to feel comfortable in your surroundngs, feeling a sense of belonging.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses why it takes the human infant’s brain so long to develop and what this has to do with the importance of relationships.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about why “confirmation bias” may cause you to find facts that support your belief in the barriers that stop you from dealing with your addiction, and how to overcome this.

By Geoff Thompson - MA, CCC
Program Director

Lots of men who have participated at Sunshine Coast Health Center struggle with things beyond addiction. Some typical challenges are depression, anxiety and panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief over losing a loved one, and attention deficit disorder.

In the old days of addiction treatment, counsellors didn’t pay much attention to these issues. Mental health professionals didn’t want to work with them because they were addicts; addiction counsellors didn’t want to work with them because they had mental health struggles. Mostly, they just fell through the cracks in the system.

Thankfully, this has mostly changed now. At Sunshine Coast we routinely deal with both the addiction and any mental health issue. All the counsellors have graduate training and Dr. Howard, our psychiatrist, has been a great blessing, helping us with diagnoses and medications.

There is a popular idea that those suffering from depression, attention deficit, trauma, grief, and so on are less capable than ‘normal’ people. But think about this: some of the most successful people in the world have suffered from mental health issues. Here’s a few:
• Kay Redfield Jamison (bipolar)—Professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School
• Matthew Good (bipolar)—Canadian musician
• John Nash (likely schizophrenia)—Nobel prize winner, who was the subject of the book and movie, A Beautiful Mind.

This list could go on endlessly: singer Judy Collins, actor Jean-Claude van Damme, and so on. Some say Isaac Newton, Beethoven, and others who have profoundly influenced the world struggled with mental health issues. If we add an addiction problem, and the list includes:
• Robert Munsch (addiction, obsessive-compulsive and bipolar disorders)—Canadian children’s author. Munsch revealed last month that he suffered from mental issues and that he had recently achieved four months of clean time from cocaine and alcohol
• Eugene O’Neill (addiction, major depressive disorder)—Nobel prize winner for literature

So, some of the most famous people in the world have had mental health challenges and yet managed to do some amazing things.

Still, some do think that they are somehow less than ‘normal’ people, and some of those with both mental issues and addiction think that they are really different. In this article we’ll explore these co-occurring problems and how to deal with them.

Part One — Addiction and Mental Health Issues

Many people believe that addicts with mental health problems are ‘medicating’ their problem with alcohol or drugs. They tell us about research that says, for example, 50 percent of the people with post traumatic stress disorder have severe substance use. It’s interesting that some clients feel relieved when they get a mental health diagnosis. ‘Ah,’ they think, ‘So that explains why I keep doing drugs’.

But we have to be cautious about how we interpret this research. When we say that 50 percent of those with trauma are addicted, this is based on what are known as correlational studies. This research simply discovers if there is some link between two things. Just because we find a link does not mean that one causes the other.

One of the most famous psychiatrists in the addiction field is Ken Minkoff. Minkoff argues that those with mental health issues use drugs for the same reasons that all addicts use drugs, which is to deal with loneliness, feelings that they are different, feelings that they don’t belong, boredom, and so on.

Research on the self-medication theory is actually rather weak. When we analyze the research, we discover that there are lots of questions about self-medicating that remain unanswered. Some researchers claim that the self-medication theory was invented by those who don’t understand addiction. A major study soon to be published claims that it will go a long way toward dispelling the self-medication theory.

Some researchers point out that the drugs used are often poor choices if the addict is using them as a substitute for medication. One of the more obvious examples is cocaine. Many people with anxiety problems use coke. Since anxiety ramps up the body’s nervous system, one would think that the medication should decrease activity in the nervous system. But coke ramps it up. So it doesn’t really make a lot of sense biologically. So why do they use it? We do know that coke often gives a user the sense of power or is great as a distraction — get all that irritating clutter out of their head. These are the common reasons why people say they use coke, regardless of whether they have mental issues or not.

Part Two — Attitude

Many health care professions look at someone struggling with bipolar disorder or major depressive disorder or post traumatic stress disorder as ‘mentally ill’.

Sunshine Coast does not like this interpretation. Here’s why. There is a lot of evidence that if a professional tells a client that he is mentally ill, then the client might come to believe that there is something wrong with him. He might believe that he is different, abnormal, defective, and so on.

At Sunshine Coast, we see those suffering from these issues as no different than anyone else. Each of us is unique. Those suffering from addiction or depression or chronic pain or a heart condition are simply working through their own struggles, as any human being has to.

Basically, they didn’t ask for this to happen to them, but it did. So, they have a choice to make: Do I become a victim to my struggles or do I accept them as part of what I deal with and get on with my life.

There’s a saying in the recovery field that “Attitude is everything.” We’re not sure if it’s everything, but it certainly is a big part of whether someone lives a good life or not. The great psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, who we talk about at Sunshine Coast, wrote and spoke a great deal about developing a positive attitude. He considered a good attitude to be essential to living a personally meaningful life.

Attitude is basically accepting that depression or attention deficit or whatever is simply part of your life right now. Like having diabetes or eye problems or addiction, you still get to make choices.

Part Three — Courage

Many great thinkers, such as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche or the addict-writer Eugene O’Neill, tell us that suffering is a natural part of life. Many believe that overcoming suffering is how we mature and grow as people. Perhaps because of modern advertising, we tend to believe today that we shouldn’t suffer. Advertisements tell us that there is a pill or some technique that will make suffering go away.

The truth is that some have more good days than bad, some have more bad than good. But we know that everyone has bad days. One of the tricks to living the good life is to trudge through the bad days. This takes courage (some psychologists use the word ‘resilience’ or ‘hardiness’, which are a little more complex than ‘courage’ but basically the same thing). 

Courage is an interesting trait. Most people consider courage as acting in spite of fear or suffering. Many suffering people find it difficult to act, to do something. Those with depression, for instance, often deal with it passively — just sleeping when they feel tired, not eating because they may lack an appetite. But dealing passively with mental health problems is usually not too helpful, at least in any long-term way. A better way is to force themselves to get up, have a shower, exercise, do some activity. This is often very difficult because they have no energy. So, it does take courage to act in spite of suffering.

As clients who have attended the new program at Sunshine Coast know, one of the ways to develop courage is to remember why you would act in spite of suffering. What is the reason you would trudge on, force yourself to do something that you don’t want to do? If you have a goal, a mission, it makes it easier to deal with the ‘bad’ things in life. For most people, having a mission or goal gives them courage.

Part Four — Faith

This can mean religious faith, but it doesn’t have to. It’s actually used in psychology.

Faith means that you have hope that things will get better — even though you may not know how or why. In a way, it can feel like jumping out of a plane without a parachute. You have no idea how you are going to land safely, but someone says, “Just do it. It’ll be okay.” Those of you who are involved in 12-step programs know this experience. This is very similar to Step 3. You just have to have faith that things will work out if you continue working on recovery.

For those with addiction and mental health issues, it may sometimes feel that they’re stuck. They’ve been courageous trudging through the tough days, and then, bang, it happens again — the major depression, anxiety, or whatever. Perhaps they know others in early recovery who are going through what they’re going through. It’s often not very pleasant.

One of the great blessings of 12-step and other recovery programs is that there are many members who have overcome their struggles with addiction and gotten a handle on a mental health issue. For those struggling with depression, etc, these people are inspiring. And they often can give others clues to how they can overcome mental issues.

Meeting someone who is dealing with the same issue is one way for people who are struggling to develop faith that things will get better. Even if they have no personal experience and don’t understand how their lives can improve, there are real people around them who have pulled it off.

Part Five — Transcendence

The key to overcoming suffering—overcoming depression, bipolar disorder, attention deficit, and so on—is not to pretend it doesn’t exist or avoid thinking about it. The key is to transcend it. Basically, in real life, this looks like ‘Okay, I’ve got a problem. I don’t like it, but I’m stuck with it, so I’ll just deal with it and get on with the business of living’.

Suffering is reality for all human beings. We all suffer: lose loved ones, lose pets, find out we have a major medical condition, get into a car accident, get our heart broken, and, of course, have an addiction. Those with co-occurring mental health issues have their own struggles and, in some ways, struggle more than the average person.

But the thing to remember is that there is no thunderbolt coming down from the heavens to save us. The only person who can save me is me. The only person who can save you is you. Each of us makes decisions that determine the kind of life we lead. As we pointed out in the introduction to this article, many people suffering from mental issues have done remarkably well in life and contributed greatly to make others’ lives better.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses the term “confirmation bias” and what psychologists have learned about the different ways individuals will intake & process information.

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses whether relationships after addiction recovery will automatically get better with time.

By Geoff Thompson - MA, CCC

Program Director

Recovery demands three connections: with yourself (self-awareness), with others, and with something that makes you feel alive and energized and vital (e.g. volunteering). We’ve talked about these connections in previous blog postings.

One of the questions clients ask is if one connection is more important than others. It’s interesting that many in active addiction have very good self-awareness (though many also struggle with this). Some of the finest literary writers produced very good books while in active addiction. Think of John O’Brien’s novel, Leaving Las Vegas. O’Brien was an alcoholic and his book provides good insight into the nature of addiction. He was fully aware of what addiction is, what it cost him, why he drank. But even self-awareness didn’t help O’Brien. He took his life while in addictive alcoholism. So, connecting with self may not be the most important connection.

According to a remarkable amount of research, the one connection that addicts seem to struggle with the most is the connection with others. Relationships. Even John O’Brien wrote about this struggle to connect with others in Leaving Las Vegas. In fact, the importance of connecting with others is the main theme of the book. And, of course, Eugene O’Neill, the Nobel-Prize winning addict-writer, recognized that it was his feeling of separation from others that was the cause of his drinking. His greatest works are about why connection with others is the key to being clean and sober. In O’Neill’s own struggles to recover, it was through rebuilding connections with his wife and parents that led him to abstinence.

You should know that psychology now promotes relationships as one of the most important factors of life. In the old days, we used to focus on the individual only, trying to understand human beings by studying them in isolation. Today, however, more and more psychologists are developing theories and models that say that the way to understand human beings is through their need to exist in relationships.

So, if we had to choose one type of connection, it would not be a bad idea to choose connection with others.

For those suffering from addiction, the big barrier to connecting with others is Harry in the Bubble—or, from the 12-step interpretation, self-centeredness. Perhaps the most horrifying thing about addiction is that it isolates the addict. This was Eugene O’Neill’s argument, and the reason for his addiction: he never felt comfortable around people (including his parents, and his first two wives and the kids he had with them). Extreme isolation. Extreme loneliness. No sense of belonging.

The reason why Harry lives in the Bubble is due directly to the addiction. Harry is doing something that society, his friends, his boss, is family, his lover, his kids say is ‘bad’. He’s spending enormous amounts of money, told that he is a reject of society, risks his physical health, loses jobs, causes extreme stress in his family, runs into trouble with the law. To continue using the substance he has to come up with all sorts of tactics. Isolation, lies to attain money for the substance, manipulation of family and friends and bosses, and so on. If Harry were not good at these tactics, he wouldn’t be a very successful addict.

The problem is that these tactics push people away. In active addiction, the addict interprets others mainly according to the principle: can they help me get and use the substance, are they neutral, or can they hinder me from getting and using the substance? A family dinner can be a place of suffering if the addict wants to get loaded; the family prevent him from using. Even being with your kids can be a problem; they might catch you out. Bosses are certainly dangerous because they can fire you—or send you to treatment. People avoid you in public; how many people want to sit next to you on the bus if you’re loaded?

In this article we’ll look at how Harry can break out of his Bubble and connect with others.

Part One — Remember the Lessons from Living at Sunshine Coast

There is a reason why Sunshine Coast Health Center is a residential treatment center. Living with others 24 hours a day and 7 days a week may not be too attractive to most new clients, but it has great therapeutic value for overcoming addiction.

For those who in active addiction learned to push others away and isolate, they have to learn new methods to live comfortably. Harry shows up in his Bubble at the center, but now his old tactics of isolating and pushing people away don’t work very well.

Perhaps Harry is in a foul mood. Likely, he has no problem letting others know he is angry, even though all the other clients are suffering with their own issues. He has no problem taking his anger out on someone else or yelling or punching a wall. Perhaps Harry is on the phone in the phone booth. He raises his voice to his lover because he is angry at the lover, even though another client in the next phone booth is having a conversation with his six-year-old. The fact that there is another client in the other phone booth does not even register with Harry. Perhaps Harry does not care about keeping his room clean and tidy. The fact that this is expected of him at Sunshine Coast does not matter to him. Why should it? He has not paid attention to policies or laws or family requests for many years. Even if his roommate complains at Harry’s mess, it often doesn’t matter to Harry because he is in his Bubble. When you live in a Bubble, nothing outside the bubble really matters.

If Harry continues to act this way, he’ll soon discover that other clients want little to do with him. If he doesn’t change— doesn’t learn to connect with the other clients— he’ll likely be miserable in treatment. Rather than change, he’ll probably start inventing all sorts of nonsense to get himself out: other clients are jerks, counsellors are useless, and so on. But almost always, Harry learns to connect. The same requirement is demanded of the clients around Harry. They have to learn to connect with him. If they don’t, they’ll run screaming out the front gate.

Clients at Sunshine Coast learn to pay attention to others and what others are feeling, especially in small group. They discover that they share a great deal with others, that they are accepted warts and all.

In short, they begin to connect with others by seeing them as suffering human beings. All this effort helps Harry to connect with other clients, and other clients figure out how to connect with Harry.

Part Two — The Secret to Connecting with Others

The great thinker Martin Buber gave us the key to good relationships. Buber said that we have to treat others as valuable and worthwhile human beings, what he called the “I-Thou” relationship.

Treating another person as worthwhile and important usually takes practice. How many times have you seen one person treat another with disrespect, which then leads to an angry reaction from the person insulted? The justification is, of course, ‘well, he started it’. If you are an alumni of Sunshine Coast, you may have been reminded by your counsellor that simply because someone treats you disrespectfully is not a reason to treat them disrespectfully. You are still the author of how you react. But this is a tough one.

The blessing of learning to connect with others using ‘I-Thou’ is that you will feel better. Life will be more rewarding. You lose the feeling that you are an outcast, that you are different than others. You gain a sense of belonging, of fitting in, of being part of.

These benefits are precisely why connecting with others is so important for recovery. The great psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said that the reason addicts use substances is because they have little connection with others. Because of this, life has little personal meaning. But those who connect with others at a deep level discover that life is exciting and meaningful.

Part Three — Dating

Connecting with an intimate partner is another type of relationship. The key is to have two healthy equals come together in a relationship.

Because most in early recovery are filled with guilt and shame, they may not think that they are worth much. One client told us the reason he dated certain women in bars is because he didn’t think a healthy woman would want to be around him.

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services at Sunshine Coast, offers an example of a doomed dating relationship: Rescuing a damsel in distress. It is interesting how many clients and alumni seek out someone to rescue. They tell us that they are doing ‘good’, helping the less fortunate. But if we operate according to principle of equality in relationships, we can see that rescuing the damsel is not a partnership among equals.

Similar to rescuing the damsel is the notorious practice at 12-step meetings of ‘thirteenth stepping’, another doomed connection. A person new in the fellowship is vulnerable. Another member sees this and acts as if he or she (yes, it goes both ways) can help the vulnerable member. Of course, the older AA member is simply using the vulnerable person to satisfy his or her lust or loneliness. Using another person for your benefit is hardly a relationship of equals.

Another example is that some in recovery go on dates, and they don’t even really like the person. To use a heterosexual example, they date a beautiful woman and like to be seen in public with her. Other guys stare at his date, which makes the fellow feel good about himself. This, too, is using another person for their benefit.

Some use the ‘victim’ role to attract dates. Being needy is attractive to those who need someone to rescue. Obviously, this is not a good basis for a relationship.

Part Four — Connecting with Others Helps Connect with Yourself

It is one of those things about human beings that how they make sense of themselves has a lot to do with how others treat them.

This is one of the main dynamics behind group therapy. How you treat others in the group—how you connect with them—will likely determine how they treat you. Members of a group learn quickly that if you don’t show up on time for group, interrupt others, focus only when the topic shifts to something you are interested in, and so on, then you will not form good connections with others. When other group members see your behavior, they conclude that you have no interest in them and so won’t bother trying pursuing a connection.

If other people continue to avoid making connections with the person, he’ll likely be more convinced than ever that he is unworthy of caring. And so, he’ll just keep behaving as he does. It’s a vicious circle.

On the other hand, if you approach others with the attitude that they are important, you generally find that you are well treated. And based on this constant feedback, you will likely come to believe that you are a good person, decent person. And, of course, being a good person will likely help you to continue to treat others well.

Dr. Ken Hart, one of Canada’s foremost addiction researchers, reports new research on overcoming shame. Studies have found that the experience of having someone forgive you actually helps you to forgive yourself. And forgiving yourself is one of the key factors in overcoming feelings of shame. In this example, you make sense of yourself based in great measure by how another treats you. This is why helping out in the community often makes someone feel better. To use an extreme example, let’s say an alcoholic killed a child while driving intoxicated. We’ve discovered that one way to help alleviate guilt is for the person to volunteer with kids in the community or create a foundation to help underprivileged kids or some other activity. Because of this effort, the alcoholic will get feedback from others, likely positive. This feedback often helps the alcoholic in the process to forgive himself.

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, pulls together 4 key concepts for “living the good life.”

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses the nature of suffering and how to make sense of bad things happening to good people.