August 26, 2010 Welcome to Cornerstone of Southern California!! Good afternoon! Here are a few testimonials from past clients and client family members about our diverse and individualized programs here at Cornerstone! Cornerstone has increased our affiliate medical staff by welcoming aboard two new physicians to our outstanding team as well as three licensed nurses. We are also proud to offer new activities in recovery like yoga classes, our New Music Therapy sessions with instructor, AmyLynn Dimaano, and also our Native American Healing Circle which connects spirituality with recovery! We are very proud of our recovery programs here at Cornerstone and continue to add new and exciting activities! Read on and hear what is being said about Cornerstone of Southern California! Thank You Cornerstone! Cornerstone has been vital in my journey through rehabilitation from my alcoholism. I was admitted to Cornerstone by way of an intervention of my adult daughters and with the help and support of Cornerstone staff. In the beginning I was amazed and bewildered by the kindness and respect with which I was treated. At the time, I was so sick in my disease that I  certainly did not believe I was worthy of it. The care I was given through my detox was nothing short of a gift from God. They held my hand and cared for me until I could physically begin to care for myself and begin the long process of recovery. The staff has the patience of saints and really care about the clients. Each clients program is customized to fit their individual needs and they are so “solution oriented” it is incredible. Counselors and staff are always available and the education I received pertaining to addiction, recovery and relapse prevention is excellent.  One of the awesome things about Cornerstone is that they recognize that addiction affects not only the addict/alcoholic but the entire family. Cornerstone encourages the participation of family and other support members to participate in the recovery process as well. Cornerstone provided a physically and emotionally safe environment for me to begin to heal and learn the tools I would need to use in my recovery. I would recommend Cornerstone to anyone and if I had to do it all over again I would………And in fact I did.  Part of my recovery has been plagued by relapse and i was welcomed back to Cornerstone with open arms despite my miserable self-inflicted humiliation and devastation. I’m a slow learner in this process but Cornerstone has never given up on me. I have gone through nearly all phases of their program from my initial medical detox, to their extended care program, Intensive outpatient, family program and  I now am happily residing in one of their sober living houses as I am 9 months sober. Thanks to Cornerstone I am working with a sponsor in AA, working full time and continue to participate in their aftercare program.  I would never have been able to begin to learn how to live without alcohol if not for the education support and direction of Cornerstone. My undying gratitude to Dr. Stone and His staff for their selfless dedication to the alcoholic/addict who needs help. I would not be where I am today if it were not for them.  I continue to grow in my new sober life and I only pray that I can someday pass on to others what Cornerstone has given to me. God bless you Cornerstone. Laura Continued Success! Our daughter soon to turn 19,was admitted here for a stay of approx 62 days. Thank goodness for the cornerstone staff on the 24 hr hot-line that night, when i called distraught, the staff were and continue to be so helpful, they are well qualified and genuinely care. When i talked to someone there, in the middle of the night distraught, I knew that our daughter would get the help that she needed there.The program there is structured and educational for the addict and along side the treatment plan for the loved one, they offer support and education for the families too..We were attending classes/groups along with our  loved one, and also without, at the same time our daughter was attending the inpatient treatment center.We got so much out of the educational groups that we have attended, as well as support, guidance and help from all at Cornerstone.The staff there are very supportive, and knowledgeable. I would like to just  like to say especially  to the staff member who runs the Tuesday night family/loved ones group,(u know who u are) a big.  Thank you . Our daughter has left the facility now, with the tools, guidance,support and strength to stay sober and I am proud to say Has 90 days sobriety.  We still attend the support groups offered there, in order to stay healthy and educated so we are able to help and support her in her new sober life…… To all at Cornerstone from the intake staff, to the group councilors, to the drivers, and the house managers and everyone else  there,who has so positively impacted our lives we cannot express the gratitude that we have for the facility and everyone there.. Thank You!!!   xx Nicky Help for the family too! TO THE FAMILIES OF THE ADDICT: I have been dealing with my wife and her alcohol addiction for some time now.   She finally decided to get involved with a rehab.  We were very fortunate to have found Cornerstone for her rehab facility.  She received excellent care from a group of very caring people.  She is currently in a sober living house, and is doing well. The thing that I did not realize or expect was that I needed help for myself and I was going to get that help in the form of a family group meeting.  Most everybody enters this meeting with a bundle of emotions in the form of being angry, scared, nervous, and tired.   Just as your addicted loved one is going to meetings and learning about their addiction,  the family goes to their meeting to learn how to deal with the addict, and how to bring some calm back into their lives.  The secret to these meetings is to give it some time.   I did not want any part of this process in the beginning, but because I wanted to do everything I could for my wife, I returned for meeting after meeting.  In a very short time my mind set had changed and I could not even consider missing one.  The format of the meeting is set up to allow cross talk.  This works extremely well.  You will meet people that have gone down the path that you are just venturing into. They will share their experiences and their resolve, from that you will be able to pick what applies to you and what you think will work best for your set of circumstances.  Our meeting manager is Vaughn.  His life experiences, knowledge of the subject matter, and personality have enabled him to be the perfect match for the job. You will learn you are not alone in this. You will learn that it isn’t healthy for anybody to allow the addict to consume their life.  You will learn to deal with the addict while taking care of yourself.   If you pay attention and open up you will even learn to smile and laugh again. I would like to close by giving a bit of advice. When it comes to your addicted loved one and rehabilitation, the longer the person is involved with treatment the better.  When it comes to the family members, attend as many meetings as you can.  The result will be a higher understanding of the addict, addiction, and your role for the future. I wish you the Best of luck in your future. Thank you Nick

Cornerstone is here to help! In This Issue Thank You Cornerstone! Continued Success! Help for the family too! NEED HELP NOW? Call us!! 714-547-4300 or 1-800-385-9889

Tim Stone
Cornerstone of Southern California

– Mehmet Oz, M.D., Professor of Surgery at Columbia University
 and author of bestsellers “YOU: The Owner’s Manual” and “YOU: On A Diet”

A little known but potentially life-saving fact is that common medications deplete vital nutrients essential to your health. Here’s a practical guide to avoid drug-induced nutrient depletion, and even replace your medications with natural supplements.

We have been called a pill-popping society, and statistics bear this out. Nearly 50 percent of American adults take at least one prescription drug, and 20 percent take three or more. In a survey(1), more than half of those over 65 and 30 percent of people 45 to 65 used at least three prescription drugs in a one-month period. With our increasing reliance on medications comes nutrient depletion, a problem we can’t ignore. Every medication, including over-the-counter drugs, will drain the body of specific nutrients. On top of this, most Americans are already suffering from nutrient depletion. In fact, many of the conditions we see in everyday practice may actually be related to this deficiency.

The good news is that with the right supplements, you can avoid depletion side effects, and even better, you may be able to control and prevent chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis.

A Common Scenario

I have seen case after case of patients who have experienced nutrient loss from taking prescribed medications. Too often, neither the patients nor their doctors were aware that the cause of symptoms was the medications themselves.

For example, a 57-year-old retired schoolteacher, Kathy, was being treated by her internist with three medications: the thiazide diuretic, Diuril, for high blood pressure; Fosamax for osteoporosis; and the beta-blocker, Tenormin, for heart palpitations.

She was referred to me, an integrative psychiatrist, because she suffered from fatigue, anxiety, depression and insomnia. I couldn’t find an obvious psychological explanation for these symptoms, except perhaps for the stress of her physical illnesses.

The likeliest cause of her symptoms was the drugs themselves. So, rather than adding an antidepressant, an anti-anxiety pill or sleeping agent, I checked the known nutrient depletions associated with these medications. Lab results confirmed that Kathy was deficient in three essential minerals: magnesium, potassium and zinc.

Any one of her three medications could deplete potassium and magnesium, causing arrhythmias, hypertension, fatigue and depression. The diuretic also could be depleting zinc. Her internist agreed that he would continue to oversee her medications while I supervised her nutritional regimen.

Daily doses of magnesium, zinc and potassium, in addition to a high-potency multivitamin, resolved Kathy’s “psychiatric” symptoms. Once her mineral levels were restored, her energy and mood were back to normal. She was not only spared the burden of an additional medication, but was able to lower the doses of the three she was taking.

I see cases similar to Kathy’s more frequently than I’d like. Physicians will often tell these patients that their symptoms are “part of the illness” or “just signs that they’re getting older.” They then prescribe an additional drug or two for the side effects, further compounding the problem.

To understand the role of medications in nutrient depletion, we must first understand the variety of nutrient-depleting mechanisms in pharmacy.

Many drugs, such as the stimulants Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Adderall, are prescribed for attention deficit disorder. These can reduce appetite. This, in turn, decreases the intake of beneficial nutrients. Some antidepressants also tend to have this appetite-reducing effect.

On the flip side, a drug can reduce nutritional status by increasing the desire for unhealthy foods, such as refined carbohydrates. Many of the neuroleptics (antipsychotic drugs) and some antidepressants cause insulin resistance or metabolic syndrome, with resulting blood sugar swings. Patients then crave simple carbohydrates, such as sugar, bread and pasta. Steroid drugs, including those given by an inhaler, can create similar issues as well.

Certain medications reduce the absorption of nutrients. In passing through the gastrointestinal tract, drugs often bind to specific nutrients before they’re absorbed into the bloodstream. The antibiotic, tetracycline, for example, can block absorption by binding with minerals such as calcium, magnesium, iron and zinc in the GI tract.

Weight loss drugs and cholesterol lowering medicines similarly bind to fats, preventing them from being absorbed. Drugs that treat acid reflux or heartburn raise the pH environment of the upper GI tract, which reduces absorption of needed vitamins and minerals. This is especially problematic among the elderly, who often are already low in stomach acid.

Nutrients are essential to the metabolic activities of every cell in the body. They’re used up in the process and need to be replaced by new nutrients in food or supplements. Some drugs deplete nutrients by speeding up this metabolic rate. These drugs include antibiotics (including penicillin and gentamicin) and steroids, such as prednisone and the gout medication, colchicine.

Other drugs block the nutrients’ effects or production at the cellular level. In addition to the intended effect on enzymes or receptors, medications can influence enzymes or receptors that help process essential nutrients. For example, widely prescribed statin drugs block the activity of HMG-CoA, an enzyme that’s required to manufacture cholesterol in the body. This action also depletes the body of coenzyme Q10, which requires HMG-CoA for its production. This has a serious negative impact on muscle and heart health.

Drugs also can increase the loss of nutrients through the urinary system. Any drug that does this can drain the body’s levels of water-soluble nutrients, including B vitamins and minerals, such as magnesium and potassium. The major offenders are medications to treat hypertension, particularly the diuretics that reduce blood pressure by increasing the volume of water flushed out of the body.

Drug-induced nutrient depletion is far more common than we think. In evaluating patients’ symptoms, doctors must assess whether symptoms are due to the illness, to side effects of the drugs or to drug-induced nutrient depletion. Considering the inadequate nutrition of most people, we must remember that the illness itself may be due, in part, to nutrient deficiency. To cover all bases, it is easiest to provide baseline coverage: a daily high potency multivitamin mineral formula, CoQ10 (200 mg), omega-3 fatty acids (2 grams) and additional vitamin D and probiotics, especially if you’ve taken antibiotics.

The bottom line: As physicians, we must look more deeply and determine underlying causes to determine whether drugs are harming patients, and what we can do to reverse these effects. As a consumer, be aware of these drug-nutrient depletions, and do what you can to avoid taking medications whenever you can, using natural products instead.

1. Centers for Disease Control and Statistics. Health United States 2006. Accessed via www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus06.pdf#093.

I will also continue this theme in subsequent blogs, discussing various categories of medications, their nutrient depletions, and natural, healthier substitutes.

A more complete article can be found at Total Health Magazine, p. 40 ff.

For more information, see my book, Supplement Your Prescription: What Your Doctor Doesn’t Know About Nutrition available at my website, www.cassmd.com.

It is very important when you are confronted with a decision to make a significant lifestyle change that you carefully weigh the pros and cons (i.e., benefits and disadvantages) of making that transition. It is easy for many people who have been eating addictively to see the disadvantages or negative consequences of that behavior (i.e., obesity, heart problems, joint problems, etc.). Therefore, it is often difficult to admit that they mistakenly believe there is a benefit to eating addictively—in this case to help cope with their chronic pain condition.

Some people use eating to cope with uncomfortable emotions or to deal with the consequences of having poor social skills and lack of friendships. Others use eating to avoid intimacy by making food their best friend. There must be some benefits to your eating inappropriately or you wouldn’t have started eating to cope instead of for fuel. These benefits are sometimes called secondary gains. Being open to seeing that this may be a problem is the first step toward change.

To read a bit more about this topic that includes a review of the Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook please check out my article Eating Addiction Needs a Strategic Relapse Prevention Protocol that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with relapse prevention, I’m very excited to announce that the Gorski-CENAPS Corporation is presenting The Relapse Prevention Therapy44 Hour Certification Training in Ft. Lauderdale October 18-22, 2010. To learn more about this 5 day 44 hour training you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, and are experiencing problems with using food to cope or other eating addiction problems please go to our Publications page and check out my book; the Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook. Many of my patients have found benefit from completing this workbook.  To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

The NFA also states that nutritional therapy practitioners are successfully using diet to treat and prevent illness, and restore the body to a natural healthy equilibrium. Some healthcare practitioners believe that deficiencies of minerals and vitamins could be responsible for much of the disease and weakness in the body. Examples of conditions resulting from deficiencies include fatigue, lethargy and susceptibility to colds and viruses.

There is also substantial pain management literature emphasizing the importance of nutrition and exercise in the healing process and effective chronic pain management. In fact, Dr. Margaret Caudill (2001) devotes an entire chapter of her book, Managing Your Pain before it Manages You, to nutrition in an effective chronic pain management program.

Harris H. McIlwain, M.D., and Debra Fulghum Bruce, M.S.authors of Pain-Free Arthritis: A 7-Step Program for Feeling Better Again, outline some of the foods and nutritional supplements that are helpful for chronic pain management.  I’m including a brief synopsis of their work below.  Their book is published by Henry Holt and Company, LLC; September 2003; ISBN# 0-8050-7325-6.

Until recently it’s been unclear whether changing your diet may influence the symptoms of a chronic illness like arthritis. Nevertheless, new research continues to pour in touting the healing benefits of certain foods. Perhaps these foods aren’t the miracle cure many hoped for, but through scientific studies we do know that certain nutrients can boost immune function and decrease inflammation in those with arthritis. Be sure to include the following suggestions in your pain-free diet to further reduce inflammation and pain.

Sip Tea: You can now add tea to your list of healing foods. In fact, some experts claim that we should add tea to the list of disease-fighting fruits and vegetables that we should eat daily. Some intriguing information was presented at the Society of Critical Care Medicine in January 2002 on how green tea may help decrease inflammation.

Serve Vegetables: There is a lot of evidence that a diet high in vegetables can help to decrease inflammation in susceptible people. I’ve had many patients, particularly those with inflammatory types of arthritis, say a modified vegetarian diet (including fish) helps to reduce symptoms. Journal studies over the past five years have shown that a vegetarian diet causes an extensive change in the profile of the fatty acids of the serum phospholipids. These changes may favor production of Prostaglandins and leukotrienes with less inflammatory activity, which is a bonus for those with inflammatory illnesses.

Feast on Fish: Studies continue to come in touting the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, contained in fish, as helping to decrease inflammation.  Some research indicates that when fish oils are added to the diet, scientists measure a very significant drop in one of the most inflammatory immune substances – -leukotriene B4, which is an important part of the process of inflammation in many types of arthritis. Researchers suspect that omega-3s may block the production of inflammatory substances linked to autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. In some trials, taking fish-oil supplements for at least twelve weeks resulted in positive improvements in symptoms with less morning stiffness and tender joints.

Poor diet and nutrition is only one road block to effective chronic pain management.  To learn about other obstacles please check out my article Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you’d like to receive training for helping people with chronic pain and coexisting disorders, including addiction, I’m very excited to announce we are presenting my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training in Sacramento on August 5-7, 2010. To learn more about this 3 day 20 hour training and my other upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Foreclosing on Our Inner World

Many of our psychological and emotional problems, if we think of it, come from running from what we don’t want to feel, rather than simply learning to sit with it. We fear feeling more than we can handle. We have an idea that we will not be able to bear feeling certain emotions, that we’ll fall apart. So we shut them down. We rationalize what we’re feeling to make it more palatable, or we flat-out deny what’s going inside or outside of us, rewriting reality to suit our capacity to live with it. Painful emotions can make us feel vulnerable and insecure; that our lives aren’t working the way they’re supposed to. But when we run from what we feel, it makes what we feel bigger, not smaller. Denied feelings don’t go away, they grow, like yeast in a dark corner.

Am I the Only One Who Feels Like I Can’t Survive My Own Emotions?

Nature wired us to depend upon parents and the clan for our very survival. Banishment from the clan meant death. So we do whatever we can to stay connected, including rationalizing our emotional responses to people we’re close to in order to allow us to remain in relationship with them. Or to reinterpret the past or create fantasies about the future that allow us to feel OK about ourselves. That feeling of possible rupture is threatening to us at our core because rupture feels against nature’s primary intent. We are, in other words, wired to want to live in connection. We really do feel we will die of a broken heart because love, like fear, is a necessary emotion for survival. Without it we wouldn’t pair-bond or attach to children or parents. Without fear, we wouldn’t avoid danger. We would not, in fact, survive.

But with practice, our thinking brain can help us to experience, process and understand our emotions rather than distance them. We can reflect upon and understand our feelings rather than diminish or disown them. We can use our thinking to understand ourselves, our worlds and our relationships. Developing emotional balance and sobriety requires that we learn to sit with the powerful emotions and physical urges that get triggered inside of us without blowing up, shutting down, acting out or self-medicating.

But What Happens When I Get Triggered?

When we’re scared, we send the same fear signals to our limbic brain, whether we’re walking in front of a car, staring into the jaws of a lion or listening to the parents we depend on scream at each other. Later as adults, scenes that are reminiscent to those that frightened us in the past — say fighting with our spouse or boss — can trigger us into a child state of fear and helplessness. Our limbic or emotional system goes into fight/flight/freeze and we’re cocked and ready to react. Or under-react: we freeze, become inarticulate and unable to think of anything to say, because our mind just isn’t working properly. In order to bring our emotions back into balance at those moments, we need to understand that our limbic brain/body is getting triggered, throwing our emotional state out of balance. And our cortex, where we order and make sense and meaning out of our emotions and sense impressions, is temporarily on tilt.

Counting to 10, taking a deep breath or a short break may give us the time we need to allow our limbic system to settle down enough to bring our thinking back on board. It’s when we’re feeling intensely that we’re most at risk for becoming unbalanced and losing it. Our feelings run ahead of us and our thinking can’t catch up. At these moments, talking doesn’t do us much good; our limbic reactions are just too big. But if we can become aware of this phenomenon and of what triggers us in particular, we can learn to ride out the limbic storm, so to speak, and make better choices and decisions once we’re in a calmer state and have had a chance to reflect a bit. Or we can teach ourselves not to get so riled up in the first place. We can slowly reeducate our limbic systems to have a calmer set point. Through regular activities and exercise, soothing hobbies, rest and learning to sit with powerful feelings and expand our ability to tolerate and translate them into words, we can take better charge of our psychological and emotional selves.

For more information on this subject, log onto tiandayton.com or read Emotional Sobriety: From Relationship Trauma to Resilience and Balance.

Top on our list is celebrating National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month in September. The official Website, www.recoverymonth.gov, explains:

“The Recovery Month observance highlights the societal benefits of substance abuse treatment, lauds the contributions of treatment providers and promotes the message that recovery from substance abuse in all its forms is possible. The observance also encourages citizens to take action to help expand and improve the availability of effective substance abuse treatment for those in need.”

Events to share and celebrate hard-fought recovery can be found throughout the country; go to www.recoverymonth.gov to find one near you.

Speaking of closer to home, this issue covers the gamut in addictions treatment and recovery topics. Dr. Kevin Fleming debunks common myths about how the brains’ wiring affects successes and failures in recovery.

And if men are from Mars and women are from Venus, will they both understand how to get to recovery the same way? According to Bud Williams, probably not.  He explores the most effective treatment approaches for men – and it involves parasites.

A complete departure from the creepy-crawly is Leo Booth’s personal journey in recovery with spirituality. His need to redefine his spiritual connection in the context of traditional religion is perhaps one many can relate to as they rely on their “higher power” to provide strength and grounding in sobriety.

Also opening his heart, Dr. Alan Downs shares his deeply personal and moving account of 25 years spent grappling with mortality and the existential questions of why we’re here and what we’re meant to do with the time we’ve been given.

New regular contributor, Sherry Gaba, expounds on the principles of what she has coined the “Laws of Sobriety”, based on the popular Laws of Attraction, and how they can be implemented into addictions treatment.

For many living with chronic pain, managing from one day to the next is only about focusing on the present to get through. Dr. Steven Grinstead examines why the one-day-at-a-time approach is a double-edged sword, and advises how to avoid getting cut.

Dr. Tian Dayton encourages us to not just face our fear of feelings, but make friends with them so they won’t derail our best attempts at sobriety. In his View from the Hill, Andrew Kessler informs us about the newest developments in President Obama’s National Drug Policy, and what we can expect from Washington in the next couple of years.

We hope you’ll jump into this issue with that back-to-school hunger to learn and excitement to embark on new adventures. And don’t forget to check out our events calendar for plenty of ways to bid summer farewell and autumn hello!

Best,

Jim and Josie Herndon

In this thought-provoking series, I will share the stuff of addiction that is in between the lines — the afterhours thoughts, if you will, the bubbles above our heads. Not that training, education and all sorts of counseling are not helpful. Of course they are. But in the understanding of addiction, we forget that for the fullest level of knowledge around anything, we must know what is and what is not. The latter is especially tricky to arrive at when the brain is involved, for it is a master of disguise, always rewiring itself to feel right, to be ineffective, to reduce dissonance and to avoid the truth. We should be most skeptical of our thinking especially — and ironically — when we choose to move beyond these illusions through conscious awareness or, in other words, when we choose treatment.

So how does one tackle this elusive, slippery slope of neuroscience mechanisms when we want to live a life of freedom and truth, and eradicate the chains of addiction? I would like to share some thinking guidelines that we should keep handy and use wisely while reviewing brain myths — untruths that sadly have been popularized by culture as being gospel. We have become a society intellectually dumbed down, one where correlations are confused for causality, and where things that make sense are called true. This is tricky enough in the absence of addiction. In my addictions’ coaching work, I tell clients who are working through their addictions that they have to step up their critical thinking immune systems even more so than others.

Therefore, in the spirit of Einstein, who said, “No problem can ever be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it,” the following are some guidelines that may help take those living with addiction to this other, higher level of thinking. These overarching natural laws of thinking should be at hand while digesting the brain myths I will bust.

• Pause, then pause again. And when you think you know what “it” is talking about, pause one more time. The brain is quick to fill in gaps of knowing, and without countering this with an extraordinary amount of intention, we are left not knowing really how we know something.
• Beware of spiritual narcissism. This comes from over-identifying incidences that prove that you are doing well or under-identifying incidences that are blind spots for you.
• Know the difference between transactional and transformational goals. The brain loves itself and has a tendency to seek ideals above and beyond reality — no matter how irrational these ideals might be. There are certain things in life that can not be broken down into a to-do list. The brain will tell you, “No way!” and put you on a nice, neat journey in that vein.
• Embrace dialectics. Just a fancy phrase for two opposites coming together to make a more meaningful whole. The ability to do this is key in digesting and working through building an addiction-free life that calls B.S. on the brain. Two examples of dialectics are:

Truths and wrongs that are opposite, yet together make for the only path of higher learning.

Pain gives life more meaning, and in that gives many people joy.

• Think about your thinking. Know your first-draft story about yourself, your life, your partner and your decisions in general. Chances are, it is wrought with half-truths that make sense to some part of your brain, but is like an MC Escher painting — if you look at it long enough, another image emerges, releasing you from what you thought was true.