change therapy

if you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. thanks for visiting!hello friends, and thanks for visiting this month’s buddhist carnival!
before we start, i want to say:
happy father’s day!
and i want to tell you a bit about my father, who passed away 12 years ago. it was my father […]

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it’s been almost a year that i last discussed a step from the 12-step programs a la AA. thankfully, someone made a comment on another 12-step post, and that spurred me on to another post.
while the 12 steps were originally intended to help alcoholics and addicts, they have proven to be a fine blueprint for […]

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in the last few weeks, a radio interview and two articles have encouraged me to again look at the nature of addiction. one of them is a discussion we are having on this blog here about alcohol use and art, with contributions by danish composer skovgaard danielsen and zen practitioner and painter eden […]

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this is a guest post by my blogging and twitter friend alexander zoltai. it’s the story of how, down and out with alcohol and homelessness, he almost … well, read for yourself:

at first, i was trying to push ahead when i really needed healing time.
went from a homeless situation in ohio to florida for […]

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today for my post on mental health, i’d like to share with you a letter i received a few days ago from a fellow canadian. while it is about the mental illness of addiction, i’d also like to think about it as a move towards mental wellness; wellness achieved by sharing our stories […]

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ladies and gentlemen, i present to you: the 15th carnival of eating disorders!

anorexia
an x-ray technician talks about three generations of women with eating disorders. she describes anorexia as an addiction:
unlike other addictions, anorexia is something you don’t do. to be an alcoholic you have to find alcohol to drink. drug addicts have to buy […]

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a prayer by someone dealing with addiction:

dear higher powers:
thank you for another day of life.
help me to walk closely with you today.
work through me so that i may better help others.
help me when i am weak. help me to reach out to your unending strength.
help me to remain hopeful and inspired.
help me to be humble […]

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it’s international women’s day week and this is my blog from the misbehaving women event, a fundraiser for the avalon women’s centre, organized by zoey ryan.
5:50 i’m sitting here at the heritage hall with glenda watson-hyatt and her husband darrell. unfortunately, they cannot partake of the wonderful spread here because they’ve been assaulted by […]

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one of the presenters at northern voice was vancouver ADD coach pete quily. he spoke on attention deficit disorder - ADD - for techies. let me share some of the information.
“the internet,” he said, “is the crack cocaine of people with ADD.”
one of the things that happens for people with ADD is […]

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yesterday, i was talking about the issues faced by men who are dealing with binge eating disorder. this was a follow-up on the promise i had made to talk about men and obesity quite a while ago.
before i continue on this topic, let me make it clear that obesity is not always a result […]

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finally, here is the long-promised post on the topic of men and obesity. the U.S. national eating disorders association mentions a number of behaviours, physical problems and emotions experienced by men with binge eating disorder. let’s look at a few of them.
behavioral characteristics:

hoarding food
hiding food and eating in secret; e.g., eating alone or […]

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it’s january 29, and you’ve had a hand at trying your new years resolutions. i sincerely hope they’re going well.
one of the three most common new years resolutions concerns dieting or just generally changing the way you eat. if that something you’ve decided to do and it’s going well, good for you.
if dieting […]

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most people have little reason to fear violence from people with mental illness, even in its most severe forms.
historically, in the 1950s, mental illness carried great social stigma, especially linked with fear of unpredictable and violent behaviour. while there is greater public understanding of mental illness nowadays, paradoxically, the perception of people with psychosis […]

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welcome to this month’s carnival of eating disorders, a reader’s digest of blog posts about mental health issues related to problems such as anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia, binge eating disorder, food addiction, exercise anorexia, as well as body image.
parents and anorexia
let’s start with a very controversial issue: pro-anorexia mothers. ex-model, ex-anorexic “mamavision” refers to […]

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driving home from my workout this morning, i turned on the radio. oh yeah, that piece on the guy with PTSD who raped a girl, and the civic strike, and someone got stabbed overnight, and …
“hey, stop!” i said to myself, “wasn’t i going to do a driving meditation?”
“but i want to hear […]

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