I've probably said this here before, but I really liked Carl Hart's book High Price, which follows both his own story including fantastic specific details on the importance of mentors for disenfranchised/non-traditional students as well as his studies of addiction and how drug use, abuse, and addiction are not the same thing even though politicians would like them to be.
You think I'm strange, you should see Lust.
Columbia has a Spirituality Mind Body Institute?
"If you tell me you know something in your gut, I say that's hard data," said Dr. Miller, who co-hosted a cable television series on psychic children in 2008.
Sounds fucking ridiculous.
4,5:
The Teachers College is fairly independent, isn't it?
Relatedly, I was always surprised at the large profile of the Wellness Center within Harvard University Health Services:
I think it's largely a good thing. Just wouldn't have expected it.
And quotes like 7 always make me hear this in my head.
Quote in 7 sounds like a Focusing/Gene Gendlin thing (although it's probably much broader and has a name in the discipline) which is also interesting stuff. Not that it can't be ridiculous sometimes, but that's true of everything.
Look, I didn't read any of that, but there's no way that NYT "room for debate" section is providing quality information about anything.
11: That's just so wrong. I learned that addiction is a disease, or maybe it isn't.
It's providing the best possible information, which is just enough to sound like you have a clue at a cocktail party.
OK, now I did read it. I'm embarrassed to say that I actually 100% agree with the following. Which I guess is trolling of a kind so maybe I'm not that embarrassed. It works if you work it.
Research shows that a personal relationship with a higher power is the most powerful form of protection against the unsuccessful grasp at what James called the "mystic consciousness'' of substance abuse, and for those in recovery against relapse. While we usually can return to transcendence through reflection and practice, this is not so when we pop in as a tourist, through drugs.
Spiritual treatments based upon a personal relationship with a loving and guiding higher power, such as 12-step programs and some spirituality and mind-body programs, generally are highly effective, provided that they include the second key spiritual ingredient -- relationships based on encouragement, trust and more generally spiritual values.
no way that NYT "room for debate" section is providing quality information about anything
The blog The Reality-Based Community is what you may be looking for on this subject. A number of personalities from this blog comment there when comments are enabled.
This guy also seems pretty good. Ogged, thank you for these informative links. Now it's time to defend some semi-informed opinions to the death, let's do this.
a personal relationship with a higher power is the most powerful form of protection against the unsuccessful grasp at what James called the "mystic consciousness'' of substance abuse
From context I think this means that a personal relationship with a higher power is powerful protection against substance abuse, but just reading the words as written I'm not sure I could have gotten there. In fact, read literally, it seems to be saying the opposite--if your attempts to grasp at substance abuse have been unsuccessful, you should try a personal relationship with a higher power, which protects you against unsuccesful grasps at substance abuse, so you'll be able to grasp successfully.
Anyway, whichever way it's supposed to be read, I don't for a minute believe it's true.
Oh, wait, now I understand the sentence: belief in a higher power is supposed to help keep people from turning to substance in an attempt to grasp the "mystic consciousness''. That makes sense. (Although I still don't believe it.)
Dormandy's book on the history of opium is great, highly recommended. The higher power stuff, eh, totally unconvincing to me. People like to feel good, particularly when they are in pain. The poppy seems to be highly effective at the feel good thing. Likely biochemical basis for susceptibility/resistance to habit forming.
I dunno about the "mystic consciousness" part, but the admitting that you simultaneously don't have control or willpower and need something outside of yourself to make choices seems very helpful to a lot of addicts. I found this with a super-quick Google search, from an AA-style center for meth addicts:
Why do we need a Higher Power?A Higher Power is important because most of us needed a power greater than ourselves so we wouldn't go back to drugs. Few of us came to CMA to think about God. We came to stop using drugs and to put an end to our misery. We couldn't quit on our own. Many of us tried and tried--swearing we would never use again after experiencing the consequences, remorse or depression that went along with our using. Some of us could "white knuckle it" for a while--using willpower for days, weeks or months. But willpower could only get us so far and, sooner or later, we were using again. Others couldn't go a day without using. We were desperate to stop, but try as we might, we just couldn't do it. We had turned our wills and our lives over to the care of a higher power--crystal meth. And though crystal and other drugs provided relief and even euphoria for a while, eventually they turned on us.For most of us, CMA was our last resort. Our willpower hadn't been enough. Our own resources had been insufficient. We felt doomed to a life of active addiction without some outside help. Fortunately, CMA and its solution were there for us. In the First Step, we admitted we couldn't stop using on our own; we were powerless to do so. We could no longer bear the unmanageability of our using lives. We needed a power greater than ourselves-- something stronger than our addiction--to get clean. In the CMA program this power is often called "Higher Power," "God of our understanding" or "God."Finding your Higher PowerTry to keep an open mind. There are probably as many conceptions of a Higher Power as there are people in CMA. Some of us already had a clear idea of our spirituality when we came to CMA or began to reexplore the God we grew up with. Others decided to individualize a version of God we could relate to more easily. For others, God was not a "being," but a spiritual concept: a force or the system that underlies the universe. Your Higher Power could be a concept such as love, hope, faith or compassion, or as many of us found, an unsuspected inner resource. Making your Higher Power the CMA program--the principles, the meetings and your fellows-- works too. Thinking of God as Good Orderly Direction or a Group Of Drug addicts is another useful approach.Some of us called our Higher Power "God" and others did not. Some of us didn't worry about defining it. Others were uncertain and worried that the program wouldn't work if we were unsure about all this "God stuff." But even if all we could say was, "Supreme Whatever, I'm not going to make it without some other-than-human help!" that was enough for a good start. As long as we were willing to accept the aid of some kind of Higher Power, we could recover.
Infinite Jest readers are nodding their head at 20.
Since he's dead and I'm not an addict, I'll just go ahead and say I was at an AA meeting with DFW once. Isn't that weird?
22: It's awesome and weird! What were you doing there? Did he talk?
I myself made some observations on . . . nitrous oxide intoxication, and reported them in print. One conclusion was forced upon my mind at that time, and my impression of its truth has ever since remained unshaken. It is that our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.
How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your senses five?
Now it's time to defend some semi-informed opinions to the death, let's do this.
Gonna tell us the Comcast-Time Warner Cable merger would be great for consumers, right?
there's no way that NYT "room for debate" section is providing quality information about anything.
It's the most unpleasant moving of the Overton window that they do, by far. I've lost track of the number of times that the sheer phrasing of a Room for Debate question has made me see red. I honestly expect them to publish: Women -- Should They Really Be Able to Vote? sometime.
23: I went with a friend who wanted company. DFW didn't speak at the meeting. It seemed like half the people there were writers, and they all hung around to talk with him afterward. He brought a girl he just met at a bar.
Sure a personal relationship with a higher power will protect you against drug abuse. You've got a higher power looking out for you. But what if the higher power doesn't return your calls? Or, you know, answers all your prayers with a "no."?
Oh god, the link at the beginning of the thread.
"This takes it beyond simply the analytics of physics and says that love is in the fabric of the universe," Dr. Miller said
STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB
30: Aww, got scooped on your Physics of Valentine's Day research?
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I just have to put this somewhere. Look, I'm not saying I've never humblebragged in my entire life. I'm sure I have. Especially in the early days of Facebook. But this is egregious. The humble part is so totally meaningless.
I've had a long, whirlwind day of conferencing, talking, and networking (and it isn't over yet), and I just came back to my hotel room for a quick rest, only to realize that my underwear have been on inside out alllll day. This doesn't bode well....
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It would be better if the underwear had been on the outside of the other clothes.
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My 73 year old mother just pushed a police car out of a snowdrift. It's nice to know the police aren't ageist or sexist about who they'll accept help from.
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LB is just humble bragging about her mother's hardiness.
I don't understand what the precisely is the humble and what precisely is the brag part of 33.
Is this the snow thread? I just posted some photos of my snow-covered burg to the Flickr group, including one of an intrepid cyclist.
I'm bragging about Mom's hardiness. And genuinely surprised that the cop didn't wave her off -- I mean, I know she's tough, but visually, she's clearly an old lady. And further genuinely surprised that she did something nice for a cop; she normally sticks pretty firmly to her ACAB principles.
It would be better if the underwear had been on the outside of the other clothes.
Is this the Woody Allen thread? No? Well that's the second time today that's come up and I was reminded of that funny bit (I thought at the time) in Bananas when the dictator decrees that all that underwear will be worn on the outside. Then I looked it up.
In addition to that, all citizens will be required to change their underwear every half-hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside so we can check. Furthermore, all children under 16 years old are now... 16 years old!
Ick.
strike that second "that". Mistakes in off hand comments, I must be writing.
I don't see how to reconcile these two bits:
Your Higher Power could be a concept such as love, hope, faith or compassion, or as many of us found, an unsuspected inner resource.
" But even if all we could say was, "Supreme Whatever, I'm not going to make it without some other-than-human help!" that was enough for a good start. As long as we were willing to accept the aid of some kind of Higher Power, we could recover.
Love, hope, faith and compassion, and especially an unsuspected inner resource, are human help.
What if your higher power is a lay-about stoner? Sure, once upon a time he created the universe, but these days he just gets high and watches game shows.
"You believe in a higher power. In your case, it's yourself. "
42 last gets it exactly right; so does 31.
I'm sitting here on the top of the world
I hang around in the longest night
Until each beast has gone bed and then I say
"God bless" and turn out the light
While you lie in the dark, afraid to breathe and you beg and you promise
And you bargain and you plead
Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus
It's the big white beard I suppose
I'm going up to the pole, where you folks die of cold
I might be gone for a while if you need me
