Let’s Clear The Air About Marijuana in the Workplace

Every year, I speak with hundreds of business owners and managers around the state about drug and alcohol issues at work. One of the topics that now comes up regularly is how to deal with employees holding medical marijuana cards. The importance of this issue is growing as the number of people holding cards accelerates. It’s now easy to obtain a medical marijuana card. The amounts now allowed are large. We’re going to hear more about this, not less.

 

In the End, The House Always Comes Out Ahead

In the life of almost every alcoholic or addict, there’s a moment when something happens to their thinking. It changes their lives. It’s much like flipping a switch. They’re drinking or using, and they suddenly have feelings they’ve rarely if ever felt before. Worries and social anxieties disappear and they feel smart, powerful and in control – exciting and attractive. They’re finally among friends who really understand them. Nothing else has ever given them this feeling quite this way. And it’s so easy to get. Just take a drink or use the drug.

 

It’s the Thinking That Gets You

In more than 30 years of working with friends, family and employers of alcoholics and addicts, I’ve heard the story many times. A person gets clean and sober. His or her life improves dramatically. And then…they slip or go into full-blown relapse.

 

A Catastrophic Loss of Talent

There are times when those of us in the field of drug treatment can feel a little like Cassandra, the woman in Greek myth whose warnings fell on deaf ears. It’s not because people don’t care about drug abuse – they do – but because we’ve talked about it for so long.

Then something tragic gets people’s attention. Maybe a car full of teenagers crashes. Another tragedy unfolded recently, but you wouldn’t have heard about it. In one month last fall, a significant percentage of Serenity Lane’s residential patients were between the ages of 18 and 24 – and most of these young people were addicted to opiates.

 

The Mindset Essential To Positive Change

There’s something about January 1 that makes many of us think of fresh starts and clean slates. We have high hopes for behaviors we want to change. It’s a time for new beginnings. It’s resolution time.
If we want to be successful, there’s one fundamental mistake we’ll need to avoid. For many, it’s so much a part of our thinking that we don’t even know it’s there. What is this fatal flaw? Overestimating the effectiveness of will power and underestimating what’s actually required to make lasting, positive changes.

 

Managing The Most Intense Time of the Year

For many people, the next few weeks will be, as the old song says, “the most wonderful time of the year” — a time of good food, beautiful decorations, get-togethers with family and friends, and generous giving. For others, the season will be very challenging — a time of difficult family gatherings, out-of-control drinking and feelings of isolation. For them, this time of year brings up painful memories of holidays ruined by drinking, drugs, and perhaps domestic violence.

 

Keeping Tailgate Parties Safe this Season

With the fall comes football season and that great American tradition: the tailgate party. It’s a party, all right: outside a stadium with 25,000 of your new best friends, anticipating the game (which your team wins), enjoying the fall weather, eating good food. And of course, drinking alcohol — often, in excess.

 

When Their Drug of Choice Comes from Your Medicine Cabinet

This is the time of year when many young people head off to college. Parents hope that they’ve influenced their sons and daughters to avoid problems with alcohol and other drugs – but also know they won’t be hard to find.

Yes, alcohol is illegal for anyone under 21 and marijuana is illegal for anyone without a medical card. Nevertheless, using them sometimes seems like a campus rite of passage.

 

Charlie Sheen’s Train Wreck Painful to Watch

Over the past few months, our national attention has been focused on Egypt, Libya, disaster in Japan, the rising price of gas and … Charlie Sheen? No matter what world-shaping events are happening, we seem fascinated with watching the soap opera of celebrity living.

As a treatment professional with three decades of experience — and as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict — I find the Charlie Sheen story to be both painful and very sad.

 

Spiritual Growth Can Be Challenging for an Addict

These days, most treatment centers combine three disciplines to help patients into recovery. Staff doctors and nurses address medical problems. Team psychiatrists and counselors tackle mental challenges. And for spiritual issues, there are 12-step meetings and volunteers who use “the program” to maintain sobriety. Some centers even have chaplains.

The first two areas aren’t particularly controversial. Medical and psychological practices to heal the body and mind are broadly accepted in our society. But the third area, the spiritual one, presents some special challenges.