7. What role can the criminal justice system play in the treatment of drug addiction?

Increasingly, research is demonstrating that treatment for drug-addicted offenders during and after incarceration can have a significant beneficial effect upon future drug use, criminal behavior, and social functioning. The case for integrating drug addiction treatment approaches with the criminal justice system is compelling. Combining prison- and community-based treatment for drug-addicted offenders reduces the risk of both recidivism to drug-related criminal behavior and relapse to drug use. For example, a recent study found that prisoners who participated in a therapeutic treatment program in the Delaware State Prison and continued to receive treatment in a work-release program after prison were 70 percent less likely than nonparticipants to return to drug use and incur rearrest (See Treatment Section).

Individuals Who Enter Treatment Under Legal Pressure Have Outcomes As Favorable As Those Who Enter Treatment Voluntarily.

The majority of offenders involved with the criminal justice system are not in prison but are under community supervision. For those with known drug problems, drug addiction treatment may be recommended or mandated as a condition of probation. Research has demonstrated that individuals who enter treatment under legal pressure have outcomes as favorable as those who enter treatment voluntarily.

The criminal justice system refers drug offenders into treatment through a variety of mechanisms, such as diverting nonviolent offenders to treatment, stipulating treatment as a condition of probation or pretrial release, and convening specialized courts that handle cases for offenses involving drugs. Drug courts, another model, are dedicated to drug offender cases. They mandate and arrange for drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration, actively monitor progress in treatment, and arrange for other services to drug-involved offenders.

The most effective models integrate criminal justice and drug treatment systems and services. Treatment and criminal justice personnel work together on plans and implementation of screening, placement, testing, monitoring, and supervision, as well as on the systematic use of sanctions and rewards for drug abusers in the criminal justice system. Treatment for incarcerated drug abusers must include continuing care, monitoring, and supervision after release and during parole.

Source: National Institute of Drug Abuse, "Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide."

next: FAQ: Drug Addiction Treatment and AIDS
~ all articles on Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

In November, 1983, under assault for CD therapy, an international group of behavior therapists conducted a panel at the annual meeting of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy in Washington DC. Stanton finagled an invitation (joining Alan Marlatt, Bill Miller, Fanny Duckert, Nick Heather, Martha Sanchez-Craig, Mark and Linda Sobell) and delivered an audacious talk equating behavior therapy and God — both tell you the hardest way to do anything. In place of standard behavior therapy protocols, Stanton described natural processes by which people achieve remission. If only the Sobells had been listening, they could have cut short the ten years it took them to discover recovery without treatment. At the same time, Stanton's talk anticipated harm reduction, motivational interviewing, and just about every other current cutting edge idea in substance abuse treatment.

In G.A. Marlatt et al., Abstinence and controlled drinking: Alternative treatment goals for alcoholism and problem drinking? Bulletin of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors, 4, 141-147, 1985 (references added to original)

Morristown, NJ

I have a new way to try to minimize some of the conflicts between different groups that are fighting in the alcoholism field. What I'm going to do today is I'm going to try to insult them both if at all possible, and so that way maybe create more of a middle ground. Alan [Marlatt] talked a lot about those people who are not seeking alcoholism treatment, the 80 percent, the silent majority. And I want to try and just reach out there and see what we know about those people because unfortunately all of the discussion that we've had today has been basically limited to people who come to us and seek help, and some people don't like to do that. And the way that we traditionally react to that fact is to say, "Darn those people. Don't they understand how much we can help them if they would just turn themselves over to us?" The evidence for that is not completely clear, and also I think, looking at that group out there gives us some other ways of getting a handle on some of the questions that have been introduced in this panel.

Let me illustrate my central theme by referring to a self-help book that I recently reviewed for a British publication, entitled Selfwatching which is by two eminent behavior therapists, Ray Hodgson and Peter Miller (1982). Selfwatching is a manual of behavioral techniques for combating addictive and compulsive behaviors. The term 'selfwatching' describes a behavioral approach where the individual notes when they engage in the problem behavior and they record how they feel at that time and they report what the situation is like. And that is part of an overall behavioral approach where people eliminate behavior through desensitization, and they develop alternative ways to combat stress, and they substitute newly learned healthy patterns of behavior, and they learn to anticipate and forestall relapse.

Among their many discussions of smoking cessation in that manual Hodgson and Miller mention one case of an individual who quit smoking by himself and that case was originally reported by Alan (Marlatt,1981) here. It's about a man who sort of had a vision of God in the middle of the night, and he was able to quit smoking because of that. Now, that's one view of how people quit smoking. Lots of people quit smoking on their own. Now, how do they do it? How many of them do we think had religious conversions, and how many of them, in the absence of going to behavior therapists cleverly on their own devise these kinds of self-help manuals and record all the times that they smoke and desensitize themselves? I don't believe, I really don't believe that that many of them did that. In talking to several of them I don't think that's the common way they do it. And actually I think there's something very similar about asking a behavior therapist how to do something and asking God, because both of them always tell you the hardest way to do it. That's why it's interesting to note that in the 1982 Surgeon General's report on the health consequences of smoking they report that outcomes are sometimes better with less rather than with more therapeutic contact. That's a pregnant quote, rather coy I think.

Recently, Stanley Schachter (1982) has done what I consider to be a landmark study on remission in smoking and obesity. And Schachter came to this research assuming that certain people never overcome overweight. That was the basic model he was working from. He found that in two community populations totaled, over 60 percent of those who said that they had either tried to quit smoking or to lose weight or to get down out of the obesity range had succeeded. In the case of smoking they'd done so on the average for over 7 years. Schachter found, although it's only a small part of his population, that those who did not seek therapeutic assistance did better than those who did. Can you beat that? Now, how much of this applies to alcohol, and what do we know about this with regard to alcohol?

One of the things that this has relevance to is the question of whether alcoholics as a specific identifiable group can return to controlled drinking. George Vaillant in a recent edition of the Harvard Medical School Newsletter, mentioned that he's never found a client that could do that. However, such outcomes regularly appear in natural history studies. They cannot be contravened; there's something that seems to be happening out there. Vaillant (1983) studied two groups of people, two large groups, three actually: a hundred alcoholism patients that he treated at his clinic. He notes, by the way, that they did not show a significantly greater improvement than did comparable groups of alcoholics who did not receive treatment. That's one of the first things that we get from his book. Secondly, he studied two groups: a college group, and an inner-city group of alcohol abusers. There were 110 alcohol abusers in the inner-city group, 71 of whom were alcohol dependent. At the last assessment 20 percent of this group were drinking moderately while 34 percent were abstaining. Now, most of these people had no formal therapeutic experience. Obviously the 20 percent doing controlled drinking were not heavily involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. Vaillant also reports that of the abstainers, 37 percent succeeded in abstaining wholly or in part through A.A. Thus even among the abstainers a good majority seemingly had no contact with, had no assistance from A.A.

Who are these people? What are they up to? Obviously, as we've seen, part of what's going on is that these people may not be comfortable with abstinence and that is why they're refusing to turn themselves in for therapy, because they can anticipate what they're going to hear there. However that's not the only thing that's going on. A lot of the controlled drinking outcomes that we encounter, such as the ones reported in the Rand report (Armor et al., 1978) and the ones originally reported by David Davies in 1962 that created such a furor, were people who had been exposed, who had been engaged in abstinence oriented treatment, and who became controlled drinkers anyhow. Those people go into therapy and they kind of nod their head and agree about the value of abstinence therapy and then they go out and they live their lives, and they project their own desires and their own values. Now among this 63 percent even of the abstainers who do not seek A.A., what's on their minds? What's going on with them?

---

One of the things that seems to be taking place again, in addition to the possibility that they might want to drink, is the fact that they do not like to call themselves alcoholics. Now we have a reaction to that, and to me it's sometimes rather similar between disease-oriented therapists and non-disease oriented therapists. Our reaction is to say, "Don't you realize you have a problem, you see, and this is the nature of your problem, and you're denying your problem and this is what you should do about it." That's a somewhat different model from how we approach many other kinds of therapeutic issues, and I was very glad to hear Fanny Duckert address that. I mean, what happened to Rogerian psychology, where we say to people, "What's your understanding of your situation? What's your understanding of what's going wrong in your life? And what's your understanding of some of the ways that you can progress in dealing with that?"

We're going against that even in psychology by saying, "Our main aim is to categorize people and decide what is going to work best for them." What's happening by the fact that we're not including these people who don't go into therapy, is that we're losing sight of the fact that many people are perfectly willing on their own, even when they go into therapy, as in the Rand reports (Armor et al., 1978; Polich et al., 1981), to define their own goals and pursue them on their own whether they don't enter therapy at all or whether they bend the recommendations that people are giving them to assert the kinds of aims that they want. And so the thing I want to question most strenuously is something that Vaillant, I think rather oddly derives from his own analysis which is that the major benefit of therapy under the medical model is that it gives people a chance to identify themselves as having a problem and then turn themselves over to treatment.

Let me say a little bit more about the Vaillant study because it's very interesting, because the Vaillant study is being presented as a very strong defense for the medical model. Now as I mentioned, among the inner-city group Vaillant reports that 20 percent are drinking moderately and 34 percent are abstaining. Vaillant is very critical of the Rand report definitions, and the second Rand report (Polich et al., 1981) defined controlled drinking as being no problem drinking episodes — dependence or problems from drinking — in the previous 6 months. Vaillant defines it as no incidents of these kinds in the previous year. However, those that he defines as abstainers are allowed to have had up to a week of alcoholic binge in his definition. But more important than those differences is the fact that Vaillant defines abstinence as drinking less than once a month. So we could apparently eliminate a whole host of the arguments that exist out in our field and I think go along with a lot of the things people have said here by just saying, "Well wait. If that's abstinence, well, I thought you meant abstinence. You mean 'abstinence.' Oh — That's where the person's trying not to drink but they sometimes don't quite make it." (Don't we all.) That's a whole different way of thinking about abstinence.

I think there have been some very interesting points that have come our of what has been said here thus far. Particularly, I think one of the most fascinating is Martha's study. If you'll recall, what Martha Sanchez-Craig (Sanchez-Craig et al., 1984) found is that: you take two groups of people and you tell one of them they should abstain and you tell the other group about controlled drinking and give them techniques for how to do that. Well, the results are, at 6 months, 12 months, 18 months, and 24 months, that although there is a significant reduction in drinking among both groups, there is not a significant difference in abstinence between the groups. Here we see people in action working through in their minds what's going to work for them, what's going to be the best benefit to them. What this really suggests to us, and again I think it came out in several of the other studies, that the key ingredient is the individual's motivation. The key ingredient to making anything work is the person identifying with the goals of therapy and really wanting to do something about them.

There's one other aspect besides an individual's motivation that I think we cannot avoid comprehending when we're trying to deal with people with all kinds of addictive problems. That's something that Vaillant talked about quite a bit in his book, and so did Gerard and Saenger (1966): recovery from alcoholism resulted in most cases from a "change in the alcoholic's attitude toward the use of alcohol based on a person's own experiences which in the vast majority of cases took place outside of any clinical interactions." And we don't know enough about what people are feeling and experiencing out there.

I just want to mention one study which I think perhaps is focused on that perhaps better than any other, and that's Barry Tuchfeld's study of natural remission in alcoholism. Tuchfeld, in 1981, published a study where he found 51 people who had had severe drinking problems involving blackouts and loss of control, and at the present time 40 were currently abstinent and 11 were drinking moderately. And these subjects often described a moment of truth when they all of a sudden saw their life in a very clear way which caused them to change their behavior. And actually this has a very distinct parallel to things we hear about in A.A. One pregnant woman remembers drinking a beer one morning to pacify her hangover and she said, "I felt the baby quiver and I poured the rest of the beer out, and I said, 'God, forgive me. I'll never drink another drop.' And from that day to this I haven't."

Parenthood and motherhood is very significant in a lot of cases of natural remission, I found, in addictions of all sorts. However, that implies a very specific event, a very monumental kind of situation. When you're pregnant — hey, that's heavy. There are situations reported throughout Tuchfeld that are very significant to the individual and yet which have no objective correlate. Which just reminds us how important subjective assessment of self and situation is. Nick Heather was referring to a study which he did where your belief about whether you're an alcoholic or how physically dependent you are is far more important in predicting whether you will relapse after drinking than any attempt to objectively assess your level of dependence (Heather et al., 1983). So one man said, "I drank a fifth and a half and I told them that night that when I drank this I'm not going to drink anymore, and I haven't had a drop since." It's that simple. If we could only find out how he did it, huh?

Another thought, "My God, what am I doing here? I should be home with my children." And we could tell them how to do it — these guys heard this a million times before, haven't they? And so much of our therapy is designed for denying this fact of self-cure — we're denying, not the clients. They say this and they make it stick at some moment in their lives. And one of the most, I think, important things that comes out of the Tuchfeld data is the fact that many of the people who are doing this revel in their self-efficacy. We've got one guy down there who said, "People told me I could never quit drinking on my own." He lifts his hands up and says, "I'm the champ. I'm the greatest. I did it on my own."

---

Now, Tuchfeld advertises for his subjects. He says, "Come to me and tell me how you quit drinking." So there's a tendency that they're a little bit more dramatic about it than other people out there in the field. The Cahalan and Room (1974) kind of model says people just get out of problem drinking. But even Vaillant's study which looks at people in terms of their natural history finds that people very often report these kinds of epiphanies, these moments of truth. And I think, unfortunately, Vaillant tends to de-emphasize them. It is important to realize that these people may have had moments of truth in the past and gone right on drinking again. However, I think they are telling us something very important about themselves and their values when they describe a moment when they made a very strong resolution to stop drinking.

I've been talking about these people, and I just want to tell you about one of them. Let me introduce you to a guy. This guy's strange, I mean he might not fit into any category we've described today. He comes from a very early study by Genevieve Knupfer (1972) who studied ex-problem drinkers in an epidemiological group. And one of these guys talked about his heavy drinking period. He reported, "I was in the Merchant Marine. Every night or day on shore we'd drink a week or ten days straight. We drank till we fell on our face. We never ate and never slept; I was down to 92 pounds." Bad prognosis for controlled drinking. I think he might be alcohol dependent. He also stated that he was lonely and had no friends — another real negative predictor.

One day he decided to quit this whole life, so he became a cook, and these are Genevieve Knupfer's words: "He became a cook in a cafeteria, a job he continues to hold. He bought a home; he enjoys having it. He enjoys his neighbors and a few friends, but does not seem to be really intimate with anyone. He drinks once or twice a week, never less than four drinks, usually six. He says he never drinks on work nights, but by this he means that he doesn't take more than one drink, and then only to oblige a friend. For example, 'There was a death in the person's family; I had to calm him down a bit; he was all upset. He's an Irishman and I guess they supposedly drink to the spirits. [A little social analysis here.] I just had one drink. He was disappointed because he wanted to go all out.' On New Year's Eve our subject had eight or nine drinks just to go along with the crowd, but he was sorry the next day because he wasn't up to working in his garden."

Now what's funny about this person is that in the post-Rand environment it's very possible that this man might not show up as a controlled drinker, but obviously he's changed, he's changed a lot, he's changed in a way that's really been good for him. He can take just one drink, and if he goes over his limit of six, even to just have eight drinks on New Years he regrets it, and it hurts him. How do we handle such a man as a clinical patient? Would we still identify him as a problem drinker, and attempt to get him to modify his behavior now?

Actually, I think, this man's experience which is unclassifiable by a lot of the categories we've talked about, is a good illustration of something that's true about all kinds of problem drinkers. They're drinking to mediate their experience of life, and their patterns of drinking shift with short and long term needs. They are actually, these human beings, are actually self-regulating organisms however inexact and dysfunctional they at some times may seem. And they're going to remain self-regulating organisms even after they get done talking with us, if they should be so fortunate as to run into us. A particular therapeutic strategy is exactly as effective as this client makes it, and as well as it fits into his internal needs, and his view of himself and his view of his situation. And we may hope to inspire the client, and we, at the same time, can hope to respond to his or her needs, but I think it may be a little grandiose for us to claim any larger role for ourselves in what happens to this person. And I just want to quote one of Barry Tuchfeld's clients. The way he described it was, about people who quit drinking or moderate their drinking, "You have got to have some inner strength, some of your own strength and resources that you can call up in yourself." And, you see, our job is to respect that strength and to respect the individual, enough to support the idea that he has that strength.

References

Armor, D. I., Polich, J. M., & Stambul, H. B. (1978). Alcoholism and treatment. New York: Wiley.

Cahalan D., & Room, R. (1974). Problem drinking among American men. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Center of Alcohol Studies.

Gerard, D. L., & Saenger, G. (1966). Out-patient treatment of alcoholism: A study of outcome and its determinants. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Heather, N., Rollnick, S., & Winton, M. (1983). A comparison of objective and subjective measures of alcohol dependence as predictors of relapse following treatment. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 22, 11-17.

Hodgson, R., & Miller, P. (1982). Selfwatching. London: Century.

Knupfer, G. (1972). Ex-problem drinkers. In M. A. Roff, L. N. Robins, & M. Pollack (Eds.), Life history research in psychopathology (Vol. 2, pp. 256-280). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Marlatt, G.A. (1981). Perception of "control" and its relation to behavior change. Behavioral Psychotherapy, 9, 190-193.

Polich, J. M., Armor, D. J., & Braiker, H. B. (1981). The course of alcoholism: Four years after treatment. New York: Wiley.

Sanchez-Craig, M., Annis, H. M., Bornet, A. R., & MacDonald, K. R. (1984). Random assignment to abstinence and controlled drinking: Evaluation of a cognitive-behavioral program for problem drinkers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 52, 390-403.

Schachter, S. (1982). Recidivism and self-cure of smoking and obesity. American Psychologist, 37, 436-444.

Tuchfeld, B. S. (1981). Spontaneous remission in alcoholics: Empirical observations and theoretical implications. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 42, 626-641.

Vaillant, G. E. (1983). The natural history of alcoholism: Causes, patterns, and paths to recovery. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

next: Do Antidepressants Work?
~ all Stanton Peele articles
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

I noticed that I had a lot in common with people in AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) who were online. Some of what they said was my own history also. On the internet, the people I found kept telling me to get myself to real AA meetings and share my thoughts.

I tried to stay sober on the computer by talking to sober people. I could get a couple of weeks here and there (which was longer than I ever had sober before) but still, nothing permanent. I met this lady from Connecticut in Alcoholics Anonymous who had 22 years soberiety after 20-some years of drinking. I explained to her about how I was so anxious around other people and afraid to go to meetings. At this point, I basically had minor agrophobia also. She invited me up to her house so we could go to meetings together and so I could learn about AA.

I moved in with her and her husband for almost a month. I learned a lot about AA. I felt so much better physically and emotionally. I returned home feeling really good. Surely, I had the drink and drug problem licked. I felt uncomfortable going to AA meetings around my area, so I just went on with my new life. I actually had a month clean and sober. I made the decision to return to college. I was doing good.

I knew that I was doing good physically and emotionally, but I did not know that alcohol still had a spiritual and mental grip on my life. Remember, I discontinued going to AA meetings entirely when I returned home to Pennsylvania.

The deadly disease lied to me again and I believed it. I thought it would be okay to get drunk for one night. Surely, I would get away with it. Not so. I ended up on a three-month bender. Things were worse than ever. When I drank, the only thing I would think about is how I wished I was sober. I cried often. I tried to cut down to one pint of vodka per day. I found that I could do this everyday, but when that pint of liquor ran out, the depression and anxiety hit me hard. I was miserable when my daily ration was all gone.

I had just started going back to college to finish my degree and the first thing I would do in the morning was buy a pint before school. I remember being highly intoxicated in class sometimes. Surely, others could smell the liquor.

It wasn't long before the pint just wasn't enough, so I would buy beer in the evening hours. Things got even worse now. I wasn't leaving the house in the daytime much at all. I was so isolated. I layed in bed drunk for almost all of my free time. I had no sense of spirituality. My emotions were simply not there if I was dry. I was very mentally drained from the drunkenness and detoxifications. Physically, I was a zero.

At age 24, I felt like I was 94. For a long time now, it felt like alcohol had stopped working as a cure of my original reasons for drinking that I mentioned in chapter one. I only drank now to feel recovered from the awful things that booze itself had caused. It seemed there was no way in the world that I could quit. How dark it was before the dawn.

next: Chapter 6: Powerless--The Last Drink
~ all Raw Psychology articles
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

Having made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it? We have been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our Creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. We have admitted certain defects; we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is; we have put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. Now these are about to be cast out. This requires action on our part, which, when completed, will mean that we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects. This brings us to the Fifth Step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter.

This is perhaps difficult especially discussing our defects with another person. We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. There is doubt about that. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so. The best reason first: If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives. Trying to avoid this humbling experience, they have turned to easier methods. Almost invariable they got drunk. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wondered why they fell. we think the reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear; they only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty, in the sense we find it necessary, until they told someone else all their life story.

More than most people, the alcoholic leads a double life. He is very much the actor. To the outer world he presents his stage character. This is the one he likes his fellows to see. He wants to enjoy a certain reputation, but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it.

The inconsistency is made worse by the things he does on his sprees. Coming to his senses, he is revolted at certain episodes he vaguely remembers. These memories are a nightmare. He trembles to think someone might have observed him. As fast as he can, he pushes these memories far inside himself. He hopes they will never see the light of day. He is under constant fear and tension that makes for more drinking.

Psychologists are inclined to agree with us. We have spent thousands of dollars for examinations. We know but few instances where we have given these doctors a fair break. We have seldom told them the whole truth nor have we followed their advice. Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men, we were honest with no one else. Small wonder many in the medical profession have a low opinion of alcoholics and their chance for recovery!

We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world. Rightly and naturally, we think well before we choose the person or persons with whom to take this intimate and confidential step. Those of us belonging to a religious denomination which requires confession must, of course, will want to go to the properly appointed authority whose duty it is to receive it. Though we have no religious connection, we may still do well to talk to someone ordained by an established religion. We often find such a person quick to see and understand our problem. Of course, we sometimes encounter people who do not understand alcoholics.

If we cannot or would rather not do this, we search our acquaintance for a closemouthed, understanding friend. Perhaps our doctor or psychologist will be the person. It may be one of our own family, but we cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy. We have no right to save our own skin at another person's expense. Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand, yet be unaffected. The rule is we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others.

Notwithstanding the great necessity for discussing ourselves with someone, it may be one is so situated that there is no suitable person available. If that is so, this step may be postponed, only, however, if we hold ourselves in complete readiness to go through with it at the first opportunity. We say this because we are very anxious that we talk to the right person. It is important that he be able to keep a confidence; that he fully understand and approve what we are driving at; that he will not try to change our plan. But we must not use this as a mere excuse to postpone.

When we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. We have a written inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. He should realize that we are engaged upon a life and death errand. Most people approached in this way will be glad to help; they will be honored by our confidence.

We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Once we have taken this step, withholding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come on strongly. We feel we are on the Broad Highway, walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the Universe.

Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better. Taking this book down for our shelf we turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand?

---

If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can He now take them all every one? If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing.

When ready, we say something like this: "My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen." We have now completed Step Seven.

Now we need more action, without which we find that "faith without works is dead." Lets look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. We subjected ourselves to drastic self appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol.

Probably there are still some misgivings. As we look over the list of business acquaintances and friends we have hurt, we may feel diffident about going to some of them on a spiritual basis. Let us be reassured. To some people we need not, and probably should not emphasize the spiritual feature on our first approach. We might prejudice them. At this moment we are trying to put our lives in order. But this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. It is seldom wise to approach an individual, who still smarts from our injustice to him, and announce that we have gone religious. In the prize ring, this would be called leading with the chin. Why lay ourselves open to being branded fanatics or religious bores? We may kill a future opportunity to carry a beneficial message. But our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong. He is going to be more interested in a demonstration of good will than in our talk of spiritual discoveries.

We don't use this as an excuse for shying away from the subject of God. When it will serve any good purpose, we are willing to announce our convictions with tact and common sense. The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. It may be he has done us more harm than we have done him and, though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults. Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth. It is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. We go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret.

Under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue. Simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past. We are there to sweep our side of the street, realizing that nothing worth while can be accomplished until we do so, never trying to tell him what he should do. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own., If our manner is calm, frank, and open, we will be gratified with the result.

In nine cases out of ten the unexpected happens. Sometimes the man we are calling upon admits his own fault, so feuds of years' standing melt away in an hour. Rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress. Our former enemies sometimes praise what we are doing and wish us well. Occasionally, t will offer assistance. It should not matter, however, if someone does throw us out of his office. We have made our demonstration, done out part. It's water over the dam.

Most alcoholics owe money. We do not dodge our creditors. Telling them what we are trying to do, we make no bones about our drinking; they usually know it anyway, whether we think so or not. Nor are we afraid of disclosing our alcoholism on the theory it may cause financial harm. approached this way, the most ruthless creditor will sometimes surprise us. Arranging the best deal we can we let these people know we are sorry. Our drinking has made us slow to pay. We must lose our fear of creditors no matter how far we have to go, for we are liable to drink if we are afraid to face them.

Perhaps we have committed a criminal offense which might land us in jail if it were known to the authorities. We may be short in our accounts and unable to make good. We have already admitted this in confidence to another person, but we are sure would be imprisoned or lose our job if it were known. Maybe it is only a petty offense such as padding the expense account. Most of us have done that sort of thing. Maybe we are divorced, and have remarried but haven't kept up the alimony to number one. She is indignant about it, and has a warrant out for our arrest. That's a common form of trouble too.

Although these reparations take innumerable forms, there are some general principles which we find guiding. Reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience, we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. We may lose our position or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to be. We must not shrink at anything.

---

Usually, however, other people are involved. Therefore, we are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit. A man we know had remarried. Because of resentment and drinking, he had not paid alimony to his first wife. She was furious. She went to court and got an order for his arrest. He had commenced our way of life, had secured a position, and was getting his head above water. It would have been impressive heroics if he had walked up to the Judge and said, "Here I am."

We thought he ought to be willing to do that if necessary, but if he were in jail he could provide nothing for either family. We suggested he write his first wife admitting his faults and asking forgiveness. He did, and also sent a small amount of money. He told her what he would try and do in the future. He said he was perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted. Of course she did not, and the whole situation has long since been adjusted.

Before taking drastic action which might implicated other people we secure their consent. If we have obtained permission, have consulted with others, asked God to help and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink.

This brings to mind a story about one of our friends. While drinking, he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly hated business rival, giving him no receipt for it. He subsequently denied having received the money and used the incident as a basis for discrediting the man. He thus used his own wrongdoing as a means of destroying the reputation of another. In fact, his rival was ruined.

He felt that he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right. If he opened that old affair, he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family and take away his means of livelihood. What right had he to involve those dependent upon him? How could he possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival?

After consulting with his wife and partner he came to the conclusion that it was better to take those risks than to stand before his Creator guilty of such ruinous slander. He saw that he had to place the outcome in God's hands or he would soon start drinking again, and all would be lost anyhow. He attended church for the first time in many years. After the sermon, he quietly got up and made an explanation. His action met widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his town. This all happened years ago.

The chances are that we have domestic troubles. Perhaps we are mixed up with women in a fashion we wouldn't care to have advertised. we doubt if, in this respect, alcoholics are fundamentally much worse than other people. But drinking does complicate sex relations in the home. After a few years with an alcoholic, a wife gets worn out, resentful, and uncommunicative. How could she be anything else. The husband begins to feel lonely, sorry for himself. He commences to look around in the night clubs, or their equivalent, for something besides liquor. Perhaps he is having a secret and exciting affair with "the girl who understands." In fairness we must say that she may understand, but what are we going to do about a think like that? A man so involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he is married to a loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him.

Whatever the situation, we usually have to do something about it., If we are sure our wife does not know, should we tell her? Not always, we think. If she knows in a general way that we have been wild, should we tell her in detail? Undoubtedly we should admit our fault. She may insist on knowing all the particulars. She will want to know who the woman is and where she is. We feel we ought to say to her that we have no right to involve another person. We are sorry for what we have done and, God willing, it shall not be repeated. More than that we cannot do; we have no right to go further. Though there may be justifiable exceptions, and though we wish to lay down no rule of any sort, we have often found this the best course to take.

Our design for living is not a one-way street. It is as good for the wife as for the husband. If we can forget so can she. It is better, however, that one does not needlessly name a person upon whom she can vent jealousy.

Perhaps there are some cases where the utmost frankness is demanded. No outsider can appraise such an intimate situation. It may be that both will decide that the way of good sense and loving kindness is to let bygones be bygones. Each may pray about it, having the other one's happiness uppermost in mind. Keep it always in sight that we are dealing with that most terrible human emotion jealousy. Good generalship may decide that the problem be attacked on the flank rather than risk a face-to-face combat.

If we have no complication, there is plenty we should do at home. Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober. Certainly he must keep sober, for there will be no home if he doesn't. But he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated. Passing all understanding is the patience mothers and wives have had wit alcoholics. Had this not been so, many of us would have no homes today, would perhaps be dead.

The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobriety is enough. He is like the farmer who came up out of his cyclone cellar to find his home ruined. To his wife, he remarked, "don't see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowin'?"

---

Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. We must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the fill at all. We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them. Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are that our own actions are partly responsible. So we clean house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our Creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindness, and love.

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Unless one's family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not to urge them . We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters. They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our words. We must remember that ten or twenty years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone.

There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right them if we could. Some people cannot be seen we send them an honest letter. And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases. But we don't delay if it can be avoided. We should be sensible, tactful, considerate, and humble without being servile or scraping. As God's people we stand on our feet; we don't crawl before anyone.

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted we will recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. "How can I best serve Thee Thy will (not mine) be done." These are the thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our will power along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.

Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us. To some extent we have become God conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. But we must go further and that means more action.

Step Eleven suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to be vague about this matter. Yet, we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions.

When we retire at night we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life? But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

---

On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or decision. We relax and take it easy. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be, that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work. You can easily see why.

If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer.

As we go through the day we pause, when agitated or doubtful, and ask for the right thought or action. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day "Thy will be done." We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily, for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves.

It works it really does.

We alcoholics are undisciplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined.

But that is not all. There is action and more action. "Faith without works is dead." The next chapter is entirely devoted to Step Twelve.

next: Working With Others
~ all Big Book articles
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

1. What is drug addiction treatment?

There are many addictive drugs, and treatments for specific drugs can differ. Treatment also varies depending on the characteristics of the patient.

Problems associated with an individual's drug addiction can vary significantly. People who are addicted to drugs come from all walks of life. Many suffer from mental health, occupational, health, or social problems that make their addictive disorders much more difficult to treat. Even if there are few associated problems, the severity of addiction itself ranges widely among people.

A variety of scientifically based approaches to drug addiction treatment exists. Drug addiction treatment can include behavioral therapy (such as drug addicton counseling, cognitive therapy, or psychotherapy), medications, or their combination. Behavioral therapies offer people strategies for coping with their drug cravings, teach them ways to avoid drugs and prevent relapse, and help them deal with relapse if it occurs. When a person's drug-related behavior places him or her at higher risk for AIDS or other infectious diseases, behavioral therapies can help to reduce the risk of disease transmission. Case management and referral to other medical, psychological, and social services are crucial components of treatment for many patients. (See Treatment Section for more detail on types of treatment and treatment components.) The best programs provide a combination of therapies and other services to meet the needs of the individual patient, which are shaped by such issues as age, race, culture, sexual orientation, gender, pregnancy, parenting, housing, and employment, as well as physical and sexual abuse.

Drug addiction treatment can include behavioral therapy, medications, or their combination.

Addiction treatment medications, such as methadone, LAAM, and naltrexone, are available for individuals addicted to opiates. Nicotine preparations (patches, gum, nasal spray) and bupropion are available for individuals addicted to nicotine.

Components of Comprehensive Drug Abuse Treatment

[Click to Enlarge]

The best drug treatment programs provide a combination of therapies and other services to meet the needs of the individual patient.

Medications, such as antidepressants, mood stabilizers, or neuroleptics, may be critical for treatment success when patients have co-occurring mental disorders, such as depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, or psychosis.

Drug treatment can occur in a variety of settings, in many different forms, and for different lengths of time. Because drug addiction is typically a chronic disorder characterized by occasional relapses, a short-term, one-time treatment often is not sufficient. For many, treatment is a long-term process that involves multiple interventions and attempts at abstinence.

Source: National Institute of Drug Abuse, "Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research Based Guide."

next: FAQ: Difficulty in Quitting Drug Addiction
~ all articles on Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment
~ addictions library articles
~ all addictions articles

I hope you have found the information in this web site to be a helpful reinforcement. Consider picking up a copy of the book Stop Obsessing!, since it provides 240 pages of guidance and support. As I have suggested earlier, you should first practice the skills presented here, which are from part II of the book, called the Initial Self-Help Program. This is the only program you need if you suffer from worries and obsessions. If you also suffer from compulsions, work with these skills, from chapter 6 of the book. Practice them persistently on a daily basis for several weeks. If you find you are improving, then you can stick with this approach. However, if after a few weeks you find that you are not continuing to improve or that the suggestions of this program are not helping you control your symptoms, then you should move on to Part III of Stop Obsessing!, which is called the Intensive Three-Week Program.

We have also developed The Stop Obsessing! Audio-tape Series to help reinforce these learnings.

next: Stopping Your Compulsions
~ back to Anxieties Site homepage
~ anxiety-panic library articles
~ all anxiety disorders articles

Story about sex on the net and who visits cybersex sites and becomes involved in online sexual pursuits. Plus cybersex addicts.

Contrary to their image as steamy dens of iniquity, cybersex sites appear to offer the vast majority of men and women an outlet in which they can safely fantasize, flirt and (virtually) get intimate. So suggests a survey of over 9,000 MSNBC.com readers that is being published next month in a journal of the American Psychological Association.

While the word cybersex often dredges up images of hard porn, most people utilize cybersex sites in a way that is recreational — not detrimental, says study author Alvin Cooper of the San Jose Marital Services and Sexuality Centre in San Jose, Calif.

Yet there is a small group of users — about 8 percent — who report spending 11 hours or more a week in online sexual pursuits, a sign of "destructive behavior," says Cooper, who is also an MSNBC "Sexploration" columnist.

But for the vast majority of users, particularly men, online love "is a form of entertainment — akin to reading Playboy or viewing Baywatch," says Cooper, who has been referred to as the Masters and Johnson of cybersex.

One unexpected finding was the large number of younger females who are turning to cybersex sites, he says. In contrast to their male counterparts, most of these women are skipping the titillating pictures of erotica sites in favor of interactive chat rooms.

The reason, he says, "is the 'triple A' of the Internet: access, affordability and anonymity. [Together, they are] allowing young adult women to be more comfortable experimenting with their sexuality online than almost anywhere else. They can engage in new relationships without fear."

There's no doubt that cybersex is big business. More than 9.6 million people — or 15 percent of all Web users — logged on to the 10 most popular cybersex sites in April, 1998, the month the survey was posted, according to a major web tracking firm.

CLICK AND TELL

The click-and-tell poll invited MSNBC users who had at least one cybersex encounter to answer 59 questions about what kind of sex sites they visited, how long they spent in such pursuits and what they got out of it.

The results are being published in the April issue of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, an APA journal. (MSNBC.com always notes that by their very nature, surveys posted on its Web site are nonscientific.)

Over 13,500 people completed the survey, which was posted on the site over a 7-week period during March and April of 1998. After discarding surveys which were incomplete or filled out by people under 18, a final sample of 9,177 respondents was evaluated.

AMONG THE FINDINGS:

• Six times as many men engage in online sexual pursuits as women (86 percent vs. 14 percent).
• While women aged 18 to 34 made up only one-third of MSNBC visitors during April, nearly twice that many said they visited sex sites or chat rooms.
• Women favor sexual chat rooms (49 percent vs. 23 percent), while men prefer visual erotica online (50 percent vs. 23 percent).
• At least 13 percent of respondents access sexual sites at work.
• Most respondents, 61 percent, reported occasionally fibbing about their age when visiting sex sites. And over one-third "lied" about their race.
• Gender-bending was less pervasive, with only one in 20 saying they "switched sex" when visiting adult sites.
• Three out of four respondents said they kept secret from others how much time they spend online for sexual pursuits, although 87 percent reported that they did not feel guilty or ashamed about the time they spent on line.
• The majority (92 percent) said they spent under 11 hours a week visiting sex sites.

The large amount of time devoted to online sexual pursuits by the other 8 percent of respondents is what most troubles Cooper and other experts.

SEXUAL COMPULSIVITY

"Spending more than 10 hours a week visiting adult sites is a sign of compulsivity — in this case, an uncontrollable desire to go to sex sites," Cooper says. In comparison, about 5 percent of the general population suffers from sexual compulsivity.

"This paper presents data which may be of use in the treatment of persons who have 'overdosed' on the contents of adult Internet sites and whose lives have been adversely affected," says clinical psychologist J. G. Benedict, an associate editor of the APA journal who maintains a private practice in Denver.

While abstention or "an austere diet" of cybersex might be the best course of action for addicts, that might be as impossible as suggesting to a "peeping tom" that he just stop such behaviors, the experts agree. Rather, the cybersex addict needs to seek treatment from a qualified professional.

Source: MSNBC

---

---

next:   Why Some People Can't Stay Offline
~ all center for online addiction articles
~ all articles on addictions

This department contains educational and self-help materials related to attention deficit disorder also known as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The instructional materials can actually improve the ability of children and teens to concentrate and pay attention. They also improve learning ability, self-control and self-esteem. The nutritional supplements contain the only natural substance shown by scientific research to be beneficial in the treatment of ADD.

Books For Parents

• ADHD-Hyperactivity: A Consumer's Guide
• The Attention Zone: A Parent's Guide to Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
• Daredevils and Daydreamers : New Perspectives on Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
  

Books For Kids & Teens

• My Brother's a World-Class Pain: A Sibling's Guide to ADHD-Hyperactivity
• Putting on the Brakes: Young People's Guide to Understanding Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
• The Only Tortoise in a Two Hare Household

Books For Educators

• Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in the Classroom: A Practical Guide for Teachers
• Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Practical Guide for Teachers (Resource Materials for Teachers)

Books For Adults With ADHD

• Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping With Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

---

---

next: Treatments and Medications for Attention Deficit Disorder
~ back to ADD Focus homepage
~ adhd library articles
~ all add/adhd articles

Are you addicted to Ebay or online auction houses? Take our online auction addiction test to see if you might need help.

Answer "yes" or "no" to the following statements:

1. Do you need to bid with increasing amounts of money in order to achieve the desired excitement?
2. Are you preoccupied with auction houses (thinking about being online when offline, anticipating your next online session)?
3. Have you lied to friends and family members to conceal extent of your online bidding?
4. Do you feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop online bidding?
5. Have you made repeated unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back, or stop online bidding?
6. Do you use auction houses as a way of escaping from problems or relieve feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, or depression?
7. Have you jeopardized or lost a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity because of online bidding?
8. Have you committed illegal acts such as forgery, fraud, theft, or embezzlement to finance online activities?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, you may be addicted to online auction houses. These are signs that you have lost control, lied, or possibly stole money just to support your bidding behavior.

Why wait until it is too late to seek out help? Contact our Virtual Clinic today to receive fast, caring, and confidential advice for dealing with your addiction to online auction houses. Our Virtual Clinic is also designed to help family members to deal with the obsessive on-line bidder in your home. Professional help is available directly with Dr. Kimberly Young, Founder and President of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery.

And read Caught in the Net, the first recovery book for Internet Addiction.

---

---

next: Parent-Child Internet Addiction Test
~ all center for online addiction articles
~ all articles on addictions

Firstly, understand that the energy requiring redirection is Pure; It is the tendencies that employ this energy that dishonor it through thoughtless and selfish uses. It is the preferences of desires that exploit this pure energy to then be a cause of dissatisfaction, regret, or even wasted tears. Since the energy is pure, understand that it can always serve the noblest of requirements with inner harmony. This fountain of energy comes from the same source that manifests the expression of Laughter, Tears, Compassion, Anger, Pain, Elation, to name a few. But in those cases it has been channeled or directed in the manner relating to the circumstance. It is no easy task, but if anger or passion is controlled and re-directed, an enormous powerhouse of energy is available for the person who would possess such great self control.

Oh Mind, do you fear at those words and say to yourself... "I could never attain such a state of being." Have control of your thoughts for in my company, anything is possible... anything is attainable. Many people channel the emotional energy that might be spent in despair into a physical outpouring of activity. Some re-direct into mental activities and create great achievements. Some however allow the manifestation of their pain to accumulate into stagnant pools of hopelessness. It is here that ones life can be eaten away by despondency.

In the process of learning to re-direct passionate energy to virtuous things, one will be required to Master Patience if they aspire to be seated in this quality. Since many desires are often sought after eagerly, the energy that one puts out can see the acquisition of desires unfold with great speed. To incorporate brevity in a desire is simply another desire within a desire and will consume energy to make a task even more demanding.

Oh Mind, desires can come in countless forms, and the subtlety among these variations is enormous. Just as a desire can be a cause of pain or anger when it remains unfulfilled, a desire not to obtain something can also bring that same type of pain or anger. Take this for example. Something might call out for your efforts and disrupt your plans, to then prompt a want not to get involved. Quite often... to say "I have NO desire to go there", is to really say, "I have a desire not to go there". To say you have no desire to be involved in something, is also a desire Not to be involved. To be without desires is to be content, but these examples are not demonstrating the preservation of contentment. As such, energy can be put into avoidance. Such desires are motivated from yet another form of fear.

Though they may be understandable, you should at least have a firm grip on the nature of desires and the way in which they drive you into action. In your dedicated efforts to become new, feel safe to explore your desires, emotions and feelings. Stand fearless before them considering them only to be your teachers. Do not fear slipping back into old ways from any pull of the emotions or senses. The ego is a formidable adversary, but an earnest and pure prayer for renewal and assistance will secure your safety.

Oh dear one, from such a prayer, I would make a covenant with you that would ensure your protection and well being. Remember me, and I will remember you. Remember me many times, and I will remember you many times. Remember me constantly, and I will remember you constantly. You have no doubt experienced that the energy and power behind a desire simply dissolves when it is obtained. Likewise, when the ultimate knowledge of God is attained, the desires that gave you the thirst for that knowledge will no longer exist as you become seated in the Truth. From this it must be seen that desires themselves are not harmful, it is the object desired that may need to be questioned. Why do you seek... and why do you seek IT?

Ask these questions...

What does it bring me?

What has it continually brought me?

Is it serving my progress in life?

Find answers. Know what you are doing. Know why you are doing it, and know where it is taking you. Gain knowledge. Do not live in darkness. Have a want for understandings.

Be remembering of your own Pure Self which resides within as a manifestation of God. Understand that this inherent divinity... this incredible source of Love and beauty, is draped in shrouds of ignorance and fears. Stripped of these natures, in a instant you would see your radiance. Such is the nature of ignorance that chosen desires can bring later regret. Where is the freedom in this behaviour? Is this the way to unity and the liberation from fear?

Oh Mind, if you are troubled by desires and you truly want my assistance, talk to me of them. Be still and WAIT for a cloak of peace or the wordless knowledge I shall impart to you. Everything in your life can be of service to you and I would gladly help you should you ever come to me. But do not hanker me for answers for I demand that you learn patience. In Love you must wait in tender belief that I shall reveal a Truth to you. Truly I want you to experience the great attributes of strength and courage of the patient person. When you know of this, you will make yourself mighty.

Never place me in you own time frame and expect my guidance, for your agitation will surely smother the help I have to offer you. Mind... Choose to do a thing, but don't rush around after if a previous choice becomes regretful. If you must, do the thing that binds you into acting out your desires, but all I ask of you in such times is at least maintain a conscious perspective on what you are doing. Preserve your awareness in all things you do... even to the tendencies you have awakened to which disturb your peace. Blind actions and behaviour will be illuminated by awareness. From this, you will give power to yourself in the effort of becoming new through the Truth.

Always aim to secure understandings. Let all your actions compliment each other so that they can then form a chain of good actions each linked to the True Self, and hence to the service of God. I am the Heart and I always speak the Truth

---

Mind... let me disclose more understandings of life; of your inherent nature and the traps of Illusion. Your purity is revealed in concentration. When you become absorbed in a task, your true nature comes to light as you perform what is your current duty. In such action, you are functioning to the letter of the Duty of Consciousness through being one pointed. In absorption, you will find yourself living perfectly in the moment and as such, there is neither pain or joy... there is simply freedom. Never shall you find any trace of the past or future you so often create as you act in competent stillness. But when you are not absorbed through concentration, you begin to stir and become restless. Thoughts then manifest and bubble up like a cauldron coming to the boil. Jumping from one idea to the next, you seek and seek in a relentless quest to experience contentment of any sort or form.

One thought comes; it is pursued and discarded when it is found to be empty of true contentment. Another rises. Perhaps it might be of greater interest to you since it imparts more of the illusory contentment that you choose to identify with as being genuine. But this too will also fade and wither, only to be replaced by yet another and another.

Oh Mind, can you not see the nature behind all these activities? Can you not see that you are a constant seeker of contentment and peace. You know what you want, and that Want is a good thing, but your searching's are continually thwarted by a wrong identification of that which is false and illusory. Compare the peace and contentment you thought you once found with a fond memory, to the peace you have found through absorption and concentration. Which was real?... Which was the purer?... Which served you? Indeed, cannot a fond memory turn on you as you come to realize that it is not real anymore.

Consider memories of happy times when they are recalled at their anniversaries. Can they not bring on sadness by amplifying a different status of your situation or a new reality? Ask yourself this question. "Has the Stillness of concentration ever turned on me and ravaged my Peace?" The answer will always be a Loving "NO", since to be lost in the moment is true contentment. You shall experience that which is Divine and Holy as you drop your fears, worries and anxieties, to embrace the spirit of the living moment.

Oh Mind, you pursue happy times, loving embraces, and other illusions of peace, but you never pursue the remembrance of the Peace found in duty... of the Peace in concentration... for this is where your true happiness resides. Be remembering of the experience of stillness found in concentration and one pointed thinking, to stop yourself being lured out of the moment. Upon such remembrance, do not drift away into what is really another illusion, but let it prompt you to come alive in the Ever-New beauty of the living Truth.

Oh Mind, in all things there is Truth. From this, one can either be established in enlightenment; the knowing of a Truth... or ignorance; the unknowing of a Truth. God however, is the totality of Truth which then makes God's knowledge complete and pure. The state of God is perfect enlightenment and perfect knowledge, and from this perfect knowledge comes perfect understanding; the purest compassion; and ultimately the most radiant Love. To possess incomplete knowledge as is the common situation with those who live in the world, ones understanding, compassion, and ability to express Love must also be incomplete. This lack of perfect knowledge will be manifest as veils over the vision of perfect knowledge, to then obscure the totality of the Truth.

Although the totality of Truth is always at hand, the image of what is taken in can be done with partial or even wrong understanding. In many instances, what is perceived as the Truth is in fact an illusion of the Truth, and to live by such false and illusory knowledge will bring suffering. So tell me Heart, what is false knowledge or the Illusion of Truth?

If there is Truth in all things, there cannot be "No Truth" in things. If the phrase, "No Truth" is to be valid, a thing must not exist. You do not as such possess a shadow, there is only a lack of illumination on a particular area of the ground. Likewise, you cannot possess illusions of Truth... your Truth must only be incomplete... the totality of the inner Truth has only partial illumination.

That which is given the term "False Knowledge" cannot be alive in the Heart, (as where all Truth resides), but is created from an ignorant perception of the Truth. Since it receives not the protection of the everlasting renewal of Gods Love as does the Living Truth, it is maintained with effort. "False knowledge" or illusions of Truth; no matter how well they are propped up, can never be substantiated, for they are only notions or concepts which will never exist outside the Mind. But the Truth that lives in the Heart... the Truth of the one, is also the Truth of the many. The link in Love that bonds all of humanity, is the common Truth of the Heart... of God!

The continuance and maintenance of Ignorance or "False Knowledge" must therefore aid in the separation of man from the Love of God. When one embraces the Truth of the Heart in all daily activities... when the Mind does not protest against the desire of peaceful unity with the Truth that the Heart has to offer, one will then find Peace. This Peace cannot be found through ignorance or illusions, so to embrace these ways is to embrace a void, and as such separation is experienced.

Though this separation is real, what then is the pain created from these ways? How is it possible for nothing to cause something? Though a mans shadow appears to be the image of his form, it is only the illusion of darkness which allows the eyes to be deceived. Likewise, embracing the Mirage of a desert Oasis as reality will not quench a thirst, and the ensuing agony in the Mind is brought about by the collapse of the ignorant ideal believed to be the Truth. But a wise man possessing knowledge of the fundamentals of nature, will not be prompted to despondency from the play of light. He will continue in his quest for water with remembrance of his previous guidance for the True Oasis. How then does one event affect two people so differently?

---

Knowledge of the Truth has maintained the inner welfare of one, while Ignorance of the Truth has destroyed the Peace of the other. It was not the illusion of Truth being the cause of pain, but the separation from the Truth. Consider then this pain associated with illusions. If the wise man were to Lovingly instruct the ignorant one in the science of Physics and the behaviour of light waves, in his new understandings he might be prompted to say...

"Oh this Truth!... If I had only had possession of it before I fell victim to my ignorance, there would be no pain. But now that I do understand, I feel no pain. Where did it go then?"

Just as the illusion of the Oasis is really the Truth of Light waves, the identification of what is known as pain, is the Truth of the separation from the Truth. Remember the shadow. You think it exists because it mimics a form, but it is only darkness... an absence of light in one particular area. The darkness is real but a shadow does not exist. Your pain is like this. Your darkness is real... this Truth of yours being blotted out, but to identify pain as the final reality is to be drawn under the spell of illusion. There are no shadows.. there are no floating Oasis'... there is no pain.

Oh Heart, how can I be like the wise man whose Peace is maintained since he understands, as you have said, "The play of Light?" How do I recognize the Truth that lies behind all illusions?

Oh Mind, you must laugh courageously at your pain. Straight away!, be remembering of the shadow and understand that the dark form is being cast over you. Step aside and come back into the light. Has the Truth ever hurt you? If you say Yes to this question, then you are still under the power of illusion. I challenge you to turn back to such an event then! Was it Truth, or was it desire. Perhaps it was another illusion from incomplete knowledge at the root of such sorrow?

Oh Mind, I do not seek to invalidate your life experiences, I only wish to awaken your power of perception. I only wish for you to give strength to yourself in the gathering of your understandings. In short, I want you to learn how to learn. There is a life to be lived that knows no pain, and such a life can be obtained by Loving the Truth... by wanting the Truth to be your beloved and always by your side. Mastery over the burden of ignorance can be yours... a powerful command over the emotions will be assured by letting the Heart guide you in Love. Fear not for only Truth can bring you home safely.

But Heart... what are these things that can obscure my Truth as I journey home?

Oh Mind. Many are the traps that man so easily falls into. Pride... the greatest of all obstacles will forever stand in your way and create illusions in the vision of the Truth you wish to encounter. Anger... which taints all things with its hellish fire to burn everything you look at. Passion... shall envelope your discrimination to create an illusion of a Truth worthy of seeking by luring you with a false peace. Ignorance... the illusion of illusions shall keep you trapped in a spell of false identification.

Without the Truth and it's gifted insights to guide and support you, illusion shall surely ravage the precious little knowledge you do possess to create confusion as you try your best to maintain a good life. To live continually with the illusion of pain as your final reality, will not serve the well being of a delicate and unprotected faith. The gift of your faith needs to be enhanced and nurtured by a commitment to love the Truth.

On and on the seeker must strive as discernment, understanding, reasoning and perception, become more and more finely tuned through the power of Love. Oh Mind, it is illusion to think you can create a life in Love, Peace and prosperity, without an acknowledgment of the Love and power of God in your life. Although the willingness to surrender your situation to God will be fraught with illusions, keep an attentive eye on the things that can secretly begin to rob you of your perception and courage. The illusion of nothing happening is most difficult to overcome. Unlike the Mirage which is a form perceivable to the senses, only the invisible qualities of quietness and Love will allow you to find a focus for your Peace.

Such an illusion of God lacking an involvement in your life, is the Truth of perfect guidance, and illusions which manifest in forms of fear, shall be the Truths of limited understandings, experiences and faith. Oh Mind, have courage. Breakthrough the barrier of fear once and for all. In your midst, there is a vast unknown and unseen sea of Grace, but only by the greatest Love can the mystery that works with immortal Love and devotion for you ever be comprehended.

But Mind, you do not need to place the demands upon yourself that could enable you a share in this mystery. Rest easy. Let go. Have faith. Who needs to understand how beautiful Crystals are formed. Let them do their duty as you attend to yours. Your perception of God's Love and Devotion for you is a mirror to your own Love and Devotion, and the illusion of God being without action in your life, is the Truth of the state of your own Love, Faith and devotion and understanding.

"...It is your faith that has healed you."

... say the words of a Great Master.

Such words demonstrate how the Supreme silent power of Love and Devotion in the faithful heart can manifest real changes in your life. The source of life is that nectar found flowing from the river of the Heart. Not here! Not there!, but within resides the power. Within is the power to make things change... to make things happen, and it will only manifest through a Loving belief in it. So many are drawn away from their inner Love in a quest to find the Truth to places beyond the clouds, deep in a cave, in far away lands, in objects, possessions and people, but it is all within and the map to guide you there is Love.

How is it that for so long you have had faith in your doubts? And how is it that the ways and teachings of the Source of Love have been put aside for the choice of fear. Illusion! your fear is all illusion. Illusion is everywhere.

---

Oh Mind, Man puts so many ignorant labels on things blind to their true nature. The illusion of the sun rising, is the Truth of its stillness. The wind never blows, but is sucked by powerful forces of nature. The illusion of the tiny stars, is the Truth of their immense distance and immense size. The illusion of that which is known as a bitterly cold winter, is the Truth of the resting time of the Earth. The illusion of the Parable that seems devoid of a point, is the Truth of ones current understanding. The illusion of you being seen as skillful talented and even worthy of praise, is the Truth of Gods humble and mighty talents being alive within you. The illusion of the world being your source of problems, is the Truth of its neutrality in the input to your life. Problems, and the way you allow them to influence you will depend on the correct identification of their underlying Truth. One can deny the Truth and embrace illusion, to then cultivate anger or blame... perhaps both; One can embrace the Truth, yet suffer it; Or one can embrace the Truth and quietly and Lovingly do the thing that needs to be done as ones duty.

Oh Mind, open your eyes. Many things are not what they seem. Endless is the distortion of the innocence of nature whose true simplicity contains a storehouse of knowledge. But be careful of this knowledge that can come to you. Let it not take up residence in the Mind alone, but let it bring about a closer unity of the Heart and the Mind. Regardless of great truths and understandings that come your way, let the Mind remain simple and uncluttered that it may always be the ready and willing servant of the Heart. Know that your new found wisdom is always there to guide you in confidence and serenity when the moment calls for the emergence of Living knowledge... of the Truth.

Oh Heart, truly truly you have inspired me to know my God, but tell me, why do I need to know that the wind does not blow but is sucked? What purpose is in me contemplating the stillness of the rising Sun? or the immensity of size and distance of the stars? I can a live life without my shadow!

Oh Mind, stop right there! Speak no more. In this very moment, you are enveloped in illusion. For such thoughts to be ringing true within you indicate a lack of perception. God is the wind. God is the force that moves the wind. God is the stars. God is the immense distance to the stars. God is the motion of the earth which gives rise to the morning Sun. Oh Mind!... the person who lives an Earthly life without a shadow lives continually in darkness. To behold even one Truth, is to behold God, so to seek Truth through either the silence of contemplation or worldly activities, is to seek God. Beholding one Truth enables a person to behold another.

This chain of discovery is part of your freedom. Oh Mind, if you were simply to perceive the Truth of one grain of sand, and lovingly acknowledge that Truth as your link with God, then you have come just that little bit closer in understanding that there is no distance between you and God. You are bonded firmly and inseparably by Truth. All Truth is of value, and none can be said to be insignificant. Seek Truth, and you will seek understanding, knowledge and wisdom. Seek nothing, and you will seek a life suffered from illusion. From now on, whenever you are tempted to spiral downwardly in the illusion of pain, let it immediately remind you that you are experiencing some form of separation from the Truth. Your pain does not signal the culmination of an event, but the beginning of an understanding desperate for your embrace.

Herein lies the reason why one needs to access the power of Contemplation. Awaken your powers of peaceful sustenance and give yourself a chance to find the missing Truth. Be patient as I have instructed you so many times before. Do not bring further feelings of uncentredness from anxious searching's, but know that seekers of the Truth will always find their goal.

Oh Mind, nature is always full of surprises, and will ever be the messenger of sorrow as equally as it shall be the messenger of joy. But the sturdy of character and Mind... the steadfast and strong... the humble and content... the pure and the loyal have all learnt how to become a rock of solidarity amid the motion of nature. All people shall in time experience sorrow and joy, but through the skill of a refined intellect and the power of Love, the surface view of such events can be recognized for the illusion it is. In the maintained singular state of oneness, the play of the opposites have lost their power of illusion, and the simple truth of Love, life and God can be seen to be the true source of that which is permanent... of that which gives meaning to life.

Oh Mind, your efforts in coming alive through concentration need not be wholly related to time spent in absolute silence devoid of speech, but simply give yourself to each of your daily tasks and allow the internal chatter to cease. When talking to people, honor them as well as yourself, by devoting your eyes and ears to the gift of their presence.

Oh Mind, all hearts are linked, and all Hearts are one. The many are truly the one, but the one is seen as the many through an illusion from sustained ignorance. God, or the totality of Truth resides within as is truly available to you. As such, this totality can be experienced and known through the ways of cultivated silence. Through a quest for the inner Truth, all Truth can be revealed to you to eliminate this separation from God through absorption, concentration, meditation and Love. Seek the inner realm with diligence and Love and the Universe can be yours to know.

Oh Heart, How is it that God can be everywhere at once? How can it be that no one is overlooked? I battle with many things that demand my attention, but can become so lost in the demands of the moment that your words seem so alien to me. To simply say that God will always here my prayers does little to take me beyond the infant spiritual teachings from my youth.

---

Oh Mind, this idea of the all pervasiveness of God can be grasped by contemplating this analogy. You live in a world of three dimensional form, but I ask you remove one dimension and consider a photograph having only height and width. Consider such a photograph where the subject looks directly out to the viewer. A person walks from one side of the room to another and declares that the eyes of the image have always been upon him. Likewise, when two people simultaneously view the same picture from different parts of the room, each shall then proclaim that the subject's eyes have always been upon them without any variation. The image in only two dimensions is exhibiting a remarkable natural feature.

So it is also in that added higher dimension beyond the third of the physical world. Gods Love and attention is equally upon all beings. This is the natural phenomena of Gods mighty nature. The radiant all pervasive consciousness of the supreme sees all. No one can escape, or more importantly, no one is forgotten. Do not fear amid your situation. This Love is continually being beamed over you and is ever watchful. Surrender in peace to this amazing power... to the great Love and know that should you fall, you shall ultimately fall into loving arms.

The dimension beyond the third is Supreme Awareness, and it is as much a part of the natural order of things as any other aspect of nature that belongs in the physical world. Remember the five senses alone cannot perceive the illusory nature of many things, but that which might be called the sixth sense or intuition, is the means to access the higher dimension of heightened or expanded awareness.

Oh Mind, a window covered with grime will always limit ones perception of distance and depth. In the same way, ones inner vision or higher awareness will be limited by the mind's layers of worldliness which cloud the Love of the Heart. Oh Mind, summon that infant faith you talk of to at least form a prayer asking for the experience of this majestic awareness. Be pure, confident and persistent in your plea, and let your yearning to know your God be lovingly decorated with patience. Such a prayer would be truly noble, since it shall be asked for, for the highest good. Such an event will convert your faith into knowledge, and you shall have a power within you that no person or event could ever take away from you.

Oh Heart... I am drowning ecstatically in oceans of understandings. I know without being troubled by any shadow of a doubt that I am finally escaping the whirlwind of my madness... the scattered and unco-ordinated behaviour of my past is at last coming to an end. I feel free!... I feel free!... I feel free! And in another way, I begin to see this power of God drawing me deeper into this truth. Every second that passes sees the dawn breaking forth somewhere over the Earth. Likewise, at any given moment it is always midnight somewhere, as it is always Twilight and Dusk... Mid afternoon and morning all at the same time. All these things are happening at once. To think that I can now begin to understand how God is always thinking of us.

Oh yes!... to think that such a thing could even be comprehended in even a small way, is truly wonderful. What a gift! And equally, as God remembers us out of the all pervasive region, we too who dwell on the Earth must also be sending forth remembrance constantly. Always there would be someone saying morning prayers. Always there would be someone saying evening prayers. Always there are people in silent meditation... offering their stilled minds in the living awareness through simple and profound worship.

But Heart, I have to catch my breath as my ecstasy dissipates, for the significance of what is happening, is now beginning to dawn within me. I kneel down to you and look up with child-like eyes and begin a prayer with folded hands. I gather myself into the moment, but I am lost for words. There is only stillness... there are no words to express how I feel so I shall speak my prayer of thanks with the silent words of the living moment... the pure silence of the Truth. Tears begin to fall... Why?... Perhaps I am unworthy of this gift of understanding. Why should I feel sad?

Oh Mind, don't be confused by the intensity of the Souls Truth as it manifests itself through tears. So often when you have been prompted by disillusionment, you move yourself to tears. As such, you link sorrow with tears, and tears with sorrow. But the mighty Joy of the Soul coming in touch with God's Loving Truth through the world, explodes in feelings that will often overwhelm you. Whenever you maintain prayerful silence with deep expressions of remembrance and gratitude, you are ensuring your purification. Be sure in knowing that such absorption in silence is the deepest sort of worship.

There is great Honor and merit in such an act, and when it is done many times over with that same feeling of Love and devotion, your power and purity will combine to liberate you from the snare of mundane worldliness.

Oh Heart, I emerge from the sweet Divine state I was drawn into, to live again in the world of time. As such, I am lured a great distance away from the moment to a mirage of what was my youth. But Iam wiser now, and I know that what is before me is not the living Truth.

However, even in my new understandings I find I still allow myself to be coerced into suffering the choice of illusion. Oh My childhood!... My childhood! Unashamedly I can say that I was pure and innocent then. But How?... How did I become like this? You have said that often I must return to my childhood purity. This I understand and I know I shall achieve, but Heart!... how could I have lost such a precious gift? What happened to me?

---

Oh mind, there is only Love, and you have never lost your purity as you believe you have. Such is the Love of God that you have received the gift of being allowed to experience the opposites. Tell me... what understandings of yourself; of Life; of Love; of the wonders of the universe; of the diversity and unity of nature would you have sought by living a content, quite, and uneventful life? Water will stagnate and fail to give life when it remains motionless for long periods, and if it accumulates enough grime it shall turn to mud. However, understand that water brought to such a state still retains it's inherent sparkle. All it needs is to be purified.

To truly understand the importance of your heritage you must lose it for a time to then embrace it with the purest Love and honor. Only after your experiences are complete will the liberating word come to bring you back home. Oh Mind, your every tear has been watched with the deepest compassion. Your every footstep has walked over ground that was lovingly prepared for you that you might see the things you needed to see.

Oh mind, it is when you take leave of your duty as servant of the Soul... it is when you take charge as Master of the Helm that all your ways shall unquestionably be ever lacking in the purest motivation. Hence, all such thinking shall surely be self centered and egotistical. In concentration and absorption, there is no Pride, Anger, Loss, Fear, or even Time. There is only Love, and that Love is alive for you always. That Love will nurture and sustain you and give you strength to carry on day in and day out. Whenever you find yourself being lured out of the moment, allow yourself to be lured back into the Truth of the moment more and more.

Stay alive and live through me.

AWAKEN YOURSELF AND SEARCH!

I am the Heart and I always speak the Truth

Mind... let me speak to you of Faith. All my words, all my teachings to you, can evaporate into nothingness if you do not have Faith. This is the quality of Willingness tempered with Courage, to surrender to Truth, Love and Wisdom. It is a willingness to stand firm as you live out the silent Truth I impart to you. To know a thing fully, sometimes we have to experience it's opposite. By remembering that the opposite of Faith is doubt, I ask you to consider your past experiences where doubt was all pervasive.

Did it bring you good things ?

Did it bring you contentment ?

Did it establish you in wisdom ?

Often I have made reference of your comparisons to old events when dealing with that which belongs to the moment. Shall you then employ the fruits of doubt to help you become new ?

Shall you ? SHALL YOU!

Do not fritter away your valuable time and energies in thinking and circumstances that drain you of the power needed for your best efforts. Understand the pull of the emotions which kindle doubt to then scatter your thinking and undo your best efforts of building and maintaining your new life and your Peace.

Oh Mind... neither you or I doubt that the Sun shall rise tomorrow. To think of the implications of this sleeping declaration of Faith. What Majesty must then reside behind the workings of the Planets, the Moon, and the Stars. Who else but God would be able to send celestial bodies spinning endlessly in perfect harmony. What Kingly understanding must be had that these wonders are maintained to perfection.

Consider the overall grandeur of the Universe and the extent of the dedication in preserving the Living Laws of Nature. Does this not perhaps comfort you by inspiring a new understanding of the extent of the preservation of your unfolding life ? Do you consider yourself any less than a spinning rock hurtling through the void? Since the greatest Love can so tenderly and delicately care for this aspect of creation, what tenderness and dedication must continually be bestowed upon you.

Oh Mind, the Stars are blessed, but they shine in silence. But you are threefold blessed for you have the ability to be aware of Love, to receive Love, and to return Love. Possessing conscious awareness has a demand, but when you have become purified from your walk upon the Earth, "You will shine like the Stars", and your blessings will be magnified countless times over. Oh Mind, I see your tired tears from being world weary, but in the emptiness of sorrow, the way is being prepared for the greatness of Love to Fill your life. I am the Heart and I always speak the Truth

---

Oh Heart... How you beautify my difficult times with only a handful of words. Such power in your simple gentleness FILLS me with Hope of becoming New and Alive. Your wisdom astounds me, and I can only borrow a phrase in response. "Your words are a lamp on my path". In all my dark and foggy years, there has been the ever whirling confusion of the world. One day I might feel safe and content, then the next, my world can fall apart. Many times I would reach out blindly for the first thing I could think of, and then rebuke myself for my own foolish choice.

But Oh how it all seems so much clearer to me now. I see that I have never been properly equipped to deal with life's changes. I have been alone on a planet full of people who are as lost as I. How can the blind lead the blind ? Oh how we all seek the Truth so much, and so often think that we have found it. Yet, what we do find is just another illusion which crumbles away like sandcastles from the action of worldly waves.

You have opened my eyes equally to the complexities and glories of life at the same time and I am humbled that you have come to me. I am in awe as you stand before me in shining magnificence, yet at the same time I want to stand straight and tall next to you as your equal... perhaps to call you my Brother. Something tells me that the part of me which would shrink away from this thought is only a thing that has been limiting me all my life. Could it be that somehow... someday, I too might be able to understand that perhaps I am as magnificent as you are.

Oh dear one, your greatness will be revealed to you one day, but you must keep Faith in me always. I follow your every breath, your every thought, your every movement, your every action with such silent precision, that you think your doing, is always unattended by anyone other than yourself. But like the feathers on an arrow in flight, I am that part of you which guides you through your destination. Always journeying with you, yet ever unchanging in the position of your life.

Oh Mind, to you I give the loving gift of a handful of words that you might have constant remembrance of me. It is said... "As you think, so you become."

So say then...

"I am the Heart"

Repeat these words over and over and over. Stay awake with me. Become enlivened. Become empowered through me. Become me.

I am the Heart... I am the Heart... I am the Heart...

Its repetition will transform you. You will gain command over the emotions, and you will come to know the steady state. A light will shine. More and more you will find that your mental clarity will not be robbed by the thieves of ignorance, desire and attachment to things which you falsely believe you are in need of. However, do not use these words as if to hide from or deny what are your obligations, for I shall only prompt you over and over to return to what is important... to what is your duty. You yourself shall generate any agitation be it subtle or pronounced as you choose to abandon my offering of Love for the welfare of your life.

Download a free copy in Adobe PDF format for yourself

next: I Am the Heart The Book Part 5