Power to the Reader
A website can be many things for many people. For me it’s a way to explain myself; to help my patients and their families; and to share with a broader readership things that are creative, new, or inspiring. There is a quote thought to be from the 12th century physician, Moses Maimonides, which has animated me for some time. He is said to have seen all of the forces of good in the world in perfect balance with all of the forces of evil, and that each day brings us a chance to shift the balance. I have never met anyone who claimed to do this every day. But the person who doesn’t want to try is suffering from what Maimonides called the evil against the self. In the 20th century we called this evil mental illness. But if we have learned anything, it’s that illness is not only something we bring on ourselves, but something our environment and genes bring on us willy-nilly. No one wishes for cancer, but millions of people have fallen into the environmental trap of smoking, for example, and died nonetheless.
More...
There is no secret that our kids use drugs. More than half use an illegal substance before they graduate from high school. If children are subjected to random drug testing, goes the logic, testing might stop their drug use, or at least serve as a red flag to their parents. The problem is that not [...]
Advice on Parenting, Parenting Tips
Seldom do parents feel as helpless and guilty as when they learn that their kids have gotten into trouble with drugs. Lots of parents feel that way. A casual glance at today’s newspaper is likely to tell the painful story of a combination of permissive parents, teenage drinking, and heartbreaking tragedy. Studies show that in [...]
Advice on Parenting, Parenting Tips
There are few of us who work with addicts who would applaud the latest legal troubles of Rush Limbaugh. We know that wealth does not confer immunity to addiction. But the case high lights the injustice, waste and failure of a drug “war?based on criminalizing the sick. Given short shrift are the two approaches to [...]
Opinion Editorials
Robin Williams once said that cocaine is God’s way of saying you have too much money. That may be true for supermodels like Kate Moss, but it’s hardly true for most kids fooling with cocaine. Moss was featured in a recent article, along with “shocking pictures,” using cocaine in a London recording studio. Today her [...]
Advice on Parenting
