Name a fear, and there’s probably a word for it. Fears have names. And sometimes the names are more frightening than the fear itself. Consider these (just for fun?): Nomophobia is the irrational fear of being without a mobile phone or internet access. Athazagoraphobia is an intense fear of being forgotten or forgetting someone or …
I am seated at an outdoor café lunching with a friend after several months’ absence. We barely scan the menu before the talk turns to our children, and then their peers. These are the now grown kids we both watched in the high school marching band, on the outdoor track, in the auditorium at back-to-school …
July 4th makes me think about taxes. It’s not what you think. It’s not about “taxation without representation” or the tax on tea that helped spark a war with a king. It’s about the ties to April 15 – and something my son once said. When Jacob was in high school, and slowly numbing himself …
He had been sober for 6 months. The moment felt so fragile, like a porcelain teacup teetering on the table’s edge. One tiny shake of the house – a truck rumbling outside or a jet flying too low overhead- might send it crashing to the floor. If it shatters into a dozen pieces, can it …
According to both online and published reports, credit card scams are up. But what’s that got to do with addiction? Just ask any parent of a teenager or young adult. It’s bad enough when your card is hacked from someone “outside.” But when it happens inside your household, it is even more painful. Today it’s …
Somewhere between spring and summer is another season: graduation. It’s a season when expectations run high. Not just for the graduate, expecting that one shining moment on stage…. But even more so for the parents. What mom or dad hasn’t sat on a folding chair or a hardwood bleacher and watched their child among hundreds …
Twelve men and women sit around a table agreeing on what should come next. The subject of their discussion lays sprawled out on the floor, big, brown and unflappable. A loud gnawing emanates from his corner. He’s chewing on a bone, oblivious to the decision that will bring in others of his species. The all-volunteer …
It’s a common word and maybe a little overused today. Compassion. Fostering an intense caring for another’s plight, it sometimes stirs up action – like sending in an army, lending money, delivering groceries, or just making soup. But that loving feeling was not always part of my life. When my son fell into addiction in …
On a recent stroll I spotted two men at the entrance to an elementary school parking lot. A 10-foot wooden gate had locked in the closed position. The men were trying to free it. When I returned about 30 minutes later, they had. Last week a leak sprouted from a fire hydrant at a nearby …
In addiction circles it’s a common phrase. It turns up over time. First, parents yearn for their child’s sobriety, praying for the time when alcohol or drugs will no longer come between them and their son or daughter. Then, as it happens for many, the child finds sobriety. For the first month, or ninety days, …