Tag Archives: relationships

Leisure

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This morning when I left my house, my son came to hug me goodbye. He stopped suddenly and listened, exclaiming ‘woodpecker’. I stopped too. All the noise in my head about leaving, driving, trains, my day ahead… all cleared and I heard the woodpecker drilling into a tree. I saw a leaf flitter across the lane and closed my eyes, just for a moment.

A poem came to me. One I had learned at my desk at school and I could recall every word…

Leisure, by WH Davies

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs,

And stare as long as sheep and cows,

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Charter gains a touch of Alchemy…

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UK’s top Addiction Specialists launch Charter Adolescents

Have communications with your adolescent broken down? Do they seem unhappy or anxious?  Are you concerned they may be drinking or using alcohol or other addictive substances? 

Then Charter Adolescents can help.

Research shows that Adolescents are more vulnerable than any other age group to developing, alcohol and other drug addictions in fact drug use is higher among young people than the adult population as a whole[1], yet there are a lack of specialist facilities to help them.

[1] http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/science-research-statistics/research-statistics/crime-research/drugs-misuse-dec-1112-tabs/extent-young-tabs

Which is why Mandy Saligari, Founder and Director of leading London addiction facility Charter Day Care, Residential and Counselling Centres has joined forces with Stephen Noel-Hill of Alchemy to form Charter Adolescents.

Stephen has extensive experience working with adolescents and young people spanning twelve years working at the Priory Hospital Roehampton and Adolescent Units in Holland.

Mandy has a well-established presence in independent schools lecturing on addiction, parenting for prevention and self-esteem. She has long since wanted to set up a service especially for adolescents addressing the issues that are brought to the surface in these school talks.

“Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to self-defeating coping mechanisms, our main aim with this service is to encourage a valuable sense of self, working with the young person and their parents – many of whom just don’t know how to cope with the issues their children are raising or the behavior they are presenting.”

Both Mandy and Stephen understand that that early intervention and prevention are fundamental to successful outcomes. It is this common vision that led them to merge Alchemy into Charter.

Charter Adolescents is an exciting new service that will do what Charter does best: intensive non-residential treatment and multi-disciplined counselling and therapy. The focus is on early intervention, education, emotional development and appropriate referral to give the adolescent and the family a new lease of life.

With a counselling team who are specialists in this area and experienced in work with young people, alongside Stephen’s expertise and Mandy’s guidance, this service will be dedicated to young people.

Working in groups, individual and family sessions and workshops, after school hours and at weekends, Charter Adolescents is an intensive and brief intervention and counselling service targeted to work with addictive disorders and emotional disturbance.

Charter is well established as a leading London addiction facility offering focused, flexible and effective day care for all addictive disorders at competitive rates.

For more information visit www.charterdaycare.com or call 020 73234970 or email  info@charterdaycare.com

Charter Day Care, 15 Harley Street, London W1G 9QQ

 

Press Information

Addiction Experts, Spokespeople, Advice Columns, Latest Research, Case Studies and Images available.

Enquiries: Jenny Rose, jenny@happypr.co.uk M: 07957 551 697.

 

 

 


 

 

Co-dependent love Kills

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The recent tragic death of Eva Rausing, daughter of a Pepsi executive and married to the heir of the Tetra Pak billions is yet another sad addition to the long list of deaths claimed by addiction. In a relationship fuelled by co-dependence, it is clear that neither partner would ever get recovery long enough to have a proper chance at life.

This situation is so familiar to those of us working in the field. Over and over again I warn my clients about getting into a relationship in treatment or early recovery and those who don’t listen – self will run riot – (and who stay in touch) have almost always found themselves in difficulty later down the line. And although it is the truth, to say ‘almost always’ to an addict they will illicit an attentional bias towards ‘almost’, encouraging the inherent arrogant belief that every addict has that they will be the exception.

It is so obvious to me that in rehab where you are putting down your drug of choice, you are wide open to an alternative, something to fill the gap, the void that any addict in early recovery feels – indeed must feel and learn to tolerate. For this lack of tolerance IS the addictive process in action. An inability to not know, to feel exposed, alone, afraid… – to feel vulnerable generates the compulsion to use. So a relationship in early recovery is a collusion between addicts to mutually fix and avoid this seemingly intolerable void, dressing it up as something worthwhile.

Sadly most of the time the addicts themselves are completely unaware of what is going on, usually insisting that they do know and they are actually in love, and treating those who seek to challenge the addiction (family, sponsors and therapists) as lacking in understanding, punishing and unreasonable. In turn this can drive the couple into secrecy, into the false yet seductive intimacy of ‘them and us’… as the  examples given by the journalist of this article displays, feted couples Burton and Taylor, Cobain and Love, Britney and Kevin, Whitney and Bobby – all very Bonnie and Clyde: over romanticised sickness ending in disaster.

At Charter we work on co-dependence and relationships (with self and others) as a mainstay of our programme. Addiction is at its roots relational and addicts need to be able to have healthy interactive relationships that nourish them, or they will relapse. I have had the privilege to support many people to avoid an ending such as Eva’s despite all the priming that might make that their destiny, and I am grateful for these clients’ willingness and trust to follow my direction. It is not easy, never easy, but it is most definitely worth it.

Read more:  http://m.guardian.co.uk/uk/us-news-blog/2012/jul/13/drug-using-couples-eva-rausing?cat=uk&type=article