While on our honeymoon I caught many sights and sounds of a country reborn: Vietnam.

Up close, looks different. Richer. Stronger. Incredible history and inspiring strength. Prior to walking the streets there, I had a history book perspective. In front of me, talking with folks and walking with them, my view shifted. What I believed to be one thing, was another entirely.

An oft cited study of families who have an addicted loved one in their midst, tells us that on average it will take seven years for the group to speak up and try to usher in help.

Seven years. Sheesh! Some stretch. 2555 days and nights before it’s just too much to bear, or the fear of the outcome is outweighed by the immediacy of the need to help right now. Seven years. The average. 

Because it looks different up close. We love someone, we care about someone while we see them hurting or in the midst of chaos brought about by some behavior we think we are powerless over helping them change. Up close, like the frog in the water on the stove with the heat increasing over time, we don’t notice sometimes just how hot it’s getting. 

He’s ok.

It’s better the past three days.

(SEVEN YEARS!)

She made it to work every day last month.

He told me his doctor prescribed it, and he’s taking it as prescribed.

She says she’s okay.

Up close, looks different. The focus shifted, an inventory is taken. We write it out, what we have really seen, what’s really going on. What have you seen? What are you an I-Witness to? Write it down. Consider. 

Seven years is the average. Who wants to be average? 

Call me anytime.

-Brad

Publishers Weekly on December 1, will run something about a bunch of work.

I did the work, over two years time, hundreds of hours poured in to a book, reflecting thousands of hours working with families and friends and behavior and change. HOW TO CHANGE SOMEONE YOU LOVE has found a great publisher for the North American rights. So on December 1, 2008, a little bit of real estate in a publication about publications will tell a bit more than this blog entry about the book, the publisher, along with the publishing schedule.

But really the deal is this: WE CHANGE. 

Good. Bad. In between. Right. Wrong. The black and white, and the gray. We change and adapt always. Constantly changing.

So while my book is nothing new in terms of words on pages (shoot, there are lots of books out there!) the stories and theory and truth are unfamiliar to most. Because much of what we have been told about change, and intervening and waiting on the sidelines before stepping in to help someone we love is plain wrong.

We have, right where we are, tremendous power to help a loved one change. In fact, more than that expert or therapist or shrink or treatment center that we think just might deliver a miracle, we already share love and intimacy and history with those in our lives. 

As important as the question: IS THIS TRUE? CAN WE REALLY CHANGE SOMEONE WE LOVE?! is the truth that we constantly change while adapting to trouble caused by the behavior of others. We adapt; practice resilience.

We change. Why not change for the better?

Nearly every day I hear from someone who is “waiting until he is ready to stop…and then…” And then what? 

In an instant, change begins. An instant becomes a moment, stretching to a minute becoming an hour, prolonged in to a day and finally more time unfolds in front of us. Change deepens, strengthens, and replaces the normalized abnormal we often settle for.

So here is to change and books. To theory and truth put in to practice. HOW TO CHANGE SOMEONE YOU LOVE. More than words, it’s truth in action. Truth in action.

Onward, Brad

Ryan O’Neal, son charged with meth possession

“Oh my God! He’s going to die right now!”

That is the line that woke me, Friday morning at 3am. Connected to the voice of a mom, who found her son literally dying for help. Call 911, now, I say. Pause. “He’s not really dying…he’s just overdone it again and is a little bluer this time.”

Oh my God, is right.

The feelings of being all alone in this effort to get someone we love to change, can be overwhelming and over time, becomes normalized. “I feel alone” becomes “I am alone…” and the hope of helping in the face of this terribly lonely problem recedes from view.

But you are not alone. This is truth. And it is the number one tool in reaching out and initiating change in the lives of those we love who are drowning in addiction.

Truth is, that truth is our number one tool. A feather sometimes, a little heavier as needed. 

Call us. Change Begins, I promise.

- Brad

It grates on families. Grates on the skin of your soul. The second guessing. The waiting until the “right” time to act with new direction and focus.

And so this Grate Wait is the painful in-between. The in-between the pause that concern causes, and the action that the dying requires.

Just do it. Try something new today. Ask him or her, if they wanna talk treatment? If they want to talk help. And so this always grating wait, ends when you start with the new, the helpful, the right.

It’s like this - we throw the life preserver to the one drowning. Knowing that there are motivators to grabbing on, other than the fact that their legs are tired. To name a few:
1) it sucks to be tired and wet
2) there are sharks in these waters
3) birthday cake is too good to check out now!

The Grating Wait ends when you say it does.

- Brad

I’m working with two families at present, where a family member is seriously obese. 500+ pounds obese. Like other addictions, food speaks to the brain’s pleasure center. Though in some ways it is unique. Like water, food is a must. We are hardwired for it from birth. Don’t eat, and you’ll die.

But overeat, and the consumption is no longer answering this native call to live, but some other call.

In Overeaters Anonymous (OA) it’s called “being in the food.” The recovery from active food addiction is called “abstinence” as once a food plan is in place, one abstains from the food that is triggering, the food that doesn’t make the food plan cut.

Keeping an accurate food journal is a baseline for OA work. Outside the realm of Twelve Step support groups, food journaling is accepted as a key piece of changing ingrained patterns of behavior. Below you’ll see an article that hit the news wires today, reflecting this truth.

I like Bob Greene’s THE BEST LIFE website’s food journal application (www.TheBestLife.com). It’s more than just a food journal - and at roughly $20 per month, it will cost you something. But what it will give you is worth it I think.

If food is your “thing”, consider making lifestyle changes to get better. To LIVE YOUR BEST LIFE. Forget the diet, the yo-yo, and the defeat, and try a food journal, coupled with focus on quality of food, and quantity of food. And then get moving!

Onward!

Brad

—

Back to Story - Help
Study shows value of food diary in losing weight
By Will Dunham
Tue Jul 8, 3:25 AM ET
Keeping a food diary — a detailed account of what you eat and drink and the calories it packs — is a powerful tool in helping people lose weight, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

The study involving 1,685 middle-aged men and women over six months found those who kept such a diary just about every day lost about twice as much weight as those who did not.

The findings buttressed earlier research that endorsed the value of food diaries in helping people lose weight. Companies including Weight Watchers International Inc use food diaries in their weight-loss programs.

“For those who are working on weight loss, just writing down everything you eat is a pretty powerful technique,” Victor Stevens of Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Health Research in Portland said in a telephone interview.

“It helps the participants see where the extra calories are coming from, and then develop more specific plans to deal with those situations,” said Stevens, who helped lead the study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

The technique also helps hold dieters accountable for what they are eating, Stevens said.

The study involved people from four U.S. cities: Portland, Oregon; Baltimore, Maryland; Durham, North Carolina; and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Their average weight loss was about 13 pounds (6 kg). But those keeping food diaries six or seven days a week lost about 18 pounds (8 kg) compared to 9 pounds (4 kg) for those not regularly keeping a food diary.

The average age of people in the study was 55.

They were asked to eat less fat, more vegetables, fruit and whole grains, exercise 180 minutes a week mostly by walking, attend group meetings, and keep a detailed food diary.

Blacks made up 44 percent of the people in the study. The researchers noted that blacks Americans have a higher risk than whites for conditions linked to obesity including type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

“Keeping a food diary doesn’t have to be a formal thing. Just the act of scribbling down what you eat on a Post-It note, sending yourself e-mails tallying each meal or sending yourself a text message will suffice,” Dr. Keith Bachman, another Kaiser Permanente expert, said in a statement.

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Irreplaceable. That’s what the family is in the life of the addicted. Whether ushering in sane solutions and help, or enabling and impotency. The latter come from not owning, that THEY’VE GOT THE POWER. So in spite of headlines like the following (which are true and reflective of the enormity of the issue of addiction and loss) we stand ready and empowered.

We help you make hope happen.

Onward!

Brad

—

Americans on Top in Drugs
Jul 1 12:07 PM US/Eastern

Americans are the world’s top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine.

The study, released Monday, revealed that 16.2 percent of Americans had tried cocaine at least once, and 42.4 percent had used marijuana.

In second-place New Zealand, just 4.3 percent of study participants had used cocaine, and 41.9 percent marijuana. The research was conducted at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, based on World Health Organization data from 54,068 people in 17 countries.

Rates of participation differed from country to country, and researchers noted uncertainty over how honestly people report their own drug use.

“Nevertheless, the findings present comprehensive data on the patterns of drug use from national samples representing all regions of the world,” a PLoS statement said.

A vast majority of survey participants from the United States, Europe, Japan and New Zealand had consumed alcohol, compared to smaller percentages from the Middle East, Africa and China.

The data also revealed socioeconomic patterns in drug use. Single young adult men with high income had the greatest tendency to regularly use drugs.

Drug use “does not appear to be simply related to drug policy,” the researchers wrote, “since countries with more stringent policies toward illegal drug use did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies.”

In the Netherlands, where drug policy is more liberal than the United States, 1.9 percent of survey participants said they had used cocaine and 19.8 percent marijuana.

Twelve US 12 states including California permit medical use of marijuana, but possession and use remains prohibited under federal law.

And despite the US government’s massive anti-drug efforts, the United States remains the world’s top drug market, one amply supplied by South American cartels.

The US Drug Enforcement Agency has observed ever larger quantities of illegal drugs pouring into the country.

“We are seizing greater quantities of illegal drugs than ever before,” said a DEA statement last week.

In 2007, agents seized 41 metric tons of cocaine in just two raids, and denied drug traffickers record-breaking revenue of 3.5 billion dollars for the year, it said.

from many spiritual traditions, I find inspiration and hope. From my own Quaker tradition, the words of this Buddhist prayer/poem resonate in me, reminding me that service without action is just a thought.

By reaching out my hand to another, change begins.

You’ve Got the Power!

—–

WE PRAY
with the intention to attain
the ultimate supreme goal
that surpasses even the wish granting jewel
may i constantly cherish all living beings

whenever i associate with others
may i view myself as the lowest of all
and with a perfect intention
may i cherish others as supreme

examining my mental continuum
throughout all my actions
as soon as a delusion develops
whereby i or others would act inappropriately
may i firmly face it and avert it

whenever i see unfortunate beings
opressed by evil and violent suffering
may i cherish them as if i had found
a rare and precious treasure

even if someone i have helped
and of whom i had great hopes
nevertheless harms me withot any reason
may i see him as my holy spiritual guide

when others out of jealousy
harm me or insult me
may i take the defeat upon myself
and offer them the victory

in short - may i directly and indirectly
offer help and happiness to all my mothers
and secretly take upon myself
all of their harm and suffering

furthermore, through all these method practices
together with a mind
undefiled by the stains of conceptions
of the eight extremes
and that sees all phenomena as illusory
may i be released from the bondage
of mistaken appearance and conception