Your Family Survived the Holidays But Not Unscathed

There is nothing quite like the holidays to bring a family closer together or to drive them even further apart. Families and holidays can be wonderful.  However, they can also be painful and traumatic.  Even the best families can have some holiday drama.  Read More

Do Religious Families Play a Role In Addiction?

By Thomas Gagliano, MSW In order to understand why religious families inadvertently and at times unintentionally create an environment where their children run to addiction rather than God as their coping mechanism, we must first begin by understanding the mindset of a child. When we look back on our childhood, we look back through adult lenses. Since then, we have grown by our maturity and life experiences, which may have distorted the truth of our childhood. Many of us carry messages that tell us we are bad children if we get mad at our parents or disagree with them. This message can have a profound impact on the way the person feels about himself or herself in adulthood. It is important to respect our parents but we can also have different opinions. A child needs to feel their opinion is important to their parents or the child may feel he or she isn’t important. Validating and acknowledging a child’s feelings is essential if they are to have self-worth. If children are afraid to share their true feelings and doubts in fear of reprisal then who can they trust? All of these messages set up the destructive entitlement that leads to addiction. It’s no coincidence that most addictions begin before the age of 18. Read More

Healing Heartache: A Grief And Loss Workshop

When you’ve experienced a loss ─ the death of a loved one, the loss of your health, the loss of a relationship, the loss of an opportunity, etc.─ it can be helpful to take time out to lean into your grief. It’s often difficult, if not impossible, to initiate the… Read More

Of Mice and Mothers: The Quality of Maternal Care Shapes Offspring Development

By Dr. Jon Caldwell It may surprise you that some of the most compelling information about human attachment behavior comes from…rodents. These little mammalian mothers form attachment-like bonds with their young pups (i.e., rodent infants) like humans. As it turns out, this bond’s nature profoundly impacts the pup’s development. It… Read More

Recovering From Early Social Adversity: Valuable Lessons from Adopted Orphans

By: Jon G. Caldwell, D.O. During my first meeting with Rebecca (as I will call her), I asked about her family history of mental and emotional difficulties, which can tell me something about her genetic susceptibilities, and about her early life experience with caregivers. These two elements of the evaluation… Read More

Primacy of the Affect System: A Support for The Meadows’ Model

By John Bradshaw, MA Almost a half-century ago, research psychologist Sylvan Tompkins (referred to by some as ‘the American Einstein’) wrote: “I see affect or feeling as the primary innate biological motivating mechanism, more urgent than drive, deprivation, and pleasure and more urgent than physical pain. Without its amplification, nothing… Read More

Sharing the Disease

By Claudia Black, Ph.D., MSW It has long been known by addiction professionals that, for every person addicted, approximately another four persons, usually immediate family members, are directly affected – husbands, wives, committed partners, mothers, fathers, siblings, and young and adult children. Would the impact of addiction be reduced if… Read More

Straight Talk: What Recovering Parents Should Tell Their Kids About Drugs and Alcohol

Note: This article is an excerpt from Claudia Black’s book “Straight Talk”. It was originally published in the Fall 2003 edition of Cutting Edge, the online newsletter of The Meadows. Straight Talk from Claudia Black: What Recovering Parents Should Tell Their Kids About Drugs and Alcohol Whether you sobered… Read More