Many years later, trying to get sober, I began to learn what feelings were, how to identify them and, most important, what to tuck away for later and what to deal with now—as this article describes. I learned that feelings, although they may hurt, cannot harm me unless I let them. I remember well the very first time that I felt joy and was able to identify and enjoy it. Wow!

I learned all the techniques in this article and put them into practice with a good deal of success. It's been a really good life for the past 40 years. Moreover, I learned it all in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), long before the days of formal credentialing for addictions counseling and cognitive-behavior therapy.

It still amazes me that these pioneers in recovery were so insightful and so far ahead of their time. Maybe they did not have the science, but it is clear to many of us that they damn well knew how to get sober and recover.

As former head of the Chemical Dependency Counselor program at Suffolk Community College on Long Island, I think the formal study of addiction and the practice of counseling have come a very long way since then, but in some ways not all that much has really changed. We will always owe a lot to the founders of AA.

“cccambell38”
commenting at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind

MARIJUANA'S EFFECTS

“The Truth about Pot,” by Hal Arkowitz and Scott O. Lilienfeld [Facts and Fictions in Mental Health], is a good article that goes over many of the issues surrounding marijuana. But I don't think that we as a society are talking about the most important issue. When people use alcohol, a drug that we have a lot of information about, we have legal guidelines concerning how intoxicated a user is. We have test equipment, and police officers are trained to use it to keep the public safe from abusers. The problem with marijuana is that it is very difficult to know how intoxicated or affected someone is who smokes pot. There is no rating system concerning the potency of the drug, and the residual effects can last for days. When a train engineer crashes his locomotive into an oncoming passenger train, are we able to say how much his use of marijuana two days prior to the accident affected his performance?

Until these types of issues are resolved, public sentiment concerning the moral nature or medical efficacy of the drug is irrelevant.

“LongbowMike”
commenting at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind

As a marriage counselor, I've had lots of clients over the years who were addicted to pot. One thing that I find always missing from these drug studies is the effect of drug use or abuse on relationships. I would guess that about half the couples I see for counseling are experiencing adverse impacts of drugs and alcohol on their marriage.

Many times the chronic pot user seems to have puer eternis, or arrested development, and still relates to the world like a teenager.

“pabloson”
commenting at www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind

1 Comments

1. 1. eeyoredragon 10:45 AM 6/22/12

   Blood alcohol testing is a pretty recent thing. (1927?) The first functional portable device was invented in 1954. "Until these types of issues are resolved, public sentiment concerning the moral nature or medical efficacy of the drug is irrelevant." rings pretty hollow IMO.
   
   Should we be doing more research? Sure. Most certainly. The kind of thinking above however is just a simple means to shut the door on the topic. It's an irrelevant discussion until we know more about it. But when are we going to spend time and money researching something that's irrelevant?

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