Negative emotions, like depression or anxiety, have been shown to affect our immune system. Stress impedes wound healing.

The true source of happiness is within each of us.

There is only one way to achieve lasting happiness. That is simply: Be happy.

When nothing else worked, we created a holistic, hand-tailored program that saved Pax’s life. At Passages, he and I use what we learned in curing him to help other discover the roots of their addiction or alcoholism and break free.

People who are dependent are merely using alcohol as a crutch to get through the day. Yet doctors and scientists are still treating “alcoholism” as if it is the problem, when it has nothing to do with the problem. They might as well be studying “scratchism” for people who have a chronic itch.

The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens.

Think about the stigma that is attached to the idea that alcoholism is a disease, an incurable illness, and you have it. That’s a terrible thing to inflict on someone. Labeling alcoholism as a disease, a cause unto itself, simply no longer fits with what we know today about its causes.

How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribed to the belief that “once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict” and who believed that your current stay in rehab would be one of many?

You use your brain much as you would use a radio crystal; you tune in different frequencies.

If you examine your motive for doing anything, you’ll soon discover that your reason is that you believe it will make you happy.

Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.

A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains us daily in everything we think and do. It gives us optimism and hope.

Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don’t believe something is possible, you won’t even attempt it.

By changing how you perceive things and how you act upon those perceptions, you will change your life.

If who you are and what you have is what you want, that’s perfect. Keep doing what you’ve been doing and you’ll get more of it.

The energy everything is made of is conscious. It’s alive.

The advertise their products in such a fashion as to make it seem wonderful to drink their ethanol products. It does not matter if they give their products fancy name like Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, or if they put bubbles in an ethanol product and call it champagne or beer- everyone is selling ethanol.

Do you believe in chaos- in random, uncontrolled events, in the idea that anything can happen at any time without fixed laws governing it? If you believe that, you will always be in a state of fear, not knowing what will happen from one moment to the next. The fear might be small, but it...

Only discovering and healing the root causes of each individual’s dependency puts an end to dependency. One-on-one sessions are key because the individual issues at the core of dependency are just that- completely individual.

Times change and discoveries are made that render earlier techniques and approaches less effective. Change is inevitable. To remain rigid when the whole world is changing and advancing is to invite misfortune. The AA program in particular is challenged with an opportunity of unprecedented magnitude.

If you feel depressed for an hour, you’ve produced approximately eighteen billion new cells that have more receptors calling out for depressed-type peptides and fewer calling out for feel-good peptides.

Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them “god for us” or “bad for us.” The event is only an event. It’s how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn’t make that determination- we do.

The treatment must fit the malady and the malady is not alcoholism or addiction, or addictive drugs and alcohol. Once the correct cause is diagnosed, healing will take place and hoped-for cure will come about.

It’s the causes, not the dependent person, that must be corrected. That’s why I see the United States’ War on Drugs as being fought in an unrealistic manner. This war is focused on fighting drug dealers and the use of drugs here and abroad, when the effort should be primarily aimed at treating and curing...

Whether the underlying cause of your dependency is a chemical imbalance, unresolved events from the past, beliefs you hold that are inconsistent with what is true, an inability to cope with current conditions, or a combination of these four causes, know this: not only are all the causes of dependency within you, but all the...

The moment you make the internal changes necessary to obtain your goal, the outside world changes instantly.

Take a few minutes now and see your current circumstances- your physical condition, your emotional condition, your possessions, your financial condition, where and how you live, your relationships, the situations surrounding your life, and the way you believe other people see you- as mirrors showing you “Who You Are.

Life is like a river: nothing is ever the same, even for an instant.

Whatever you now do, whatever you now believe, whatever your current circumstances may be, you are perfectly equipped and fully capable of fulfilling your needs and desires.

The answers are never “out there.” All the answers are “in there,” inside you, waiting to be discovered.

When a problem or a difficult situation arises, say to yourself, as if you already believe it: “This is for my benefit.

When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works.

You can be happy if you are willing to let go of your past and leave yourself unencumbered so you can fly freely.

Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them.

We wouldn’t have much need of a war if people stopped using drugs. It’s like taking up a fight against the use of headache remedies; it will never work until the condition causing people’s headache pain is healed.

The events that occur in my life are workout situations. They are there for my benefit so I can become strong and gain wisdom and information by working my way through those situations.

Treatment for dependency at substance abuse treatment centers must change if alcoholism and addiction are to be overcome in our society.

…there is a saying used in twelve-step programs and in most treatment centers that “Relapse is part of recovery.” It’s another dangerous slogan that is based on a myth, and it only gives people permission to relapse because that think that when they do, they are on the road to recovery.

What determines each person’s state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.

Believe that is cure is possible for you. Discover and heal the underlying causes with a holistic recovery program. Adopt a philosophy based on what is true in the Universe.

What we call coincidences, accidental and remarkable events occurring at the same time, are actually circumstances and events that have come into your life to serve a purpose- and that purpose is to benefit you.

Once you look at your problems as “workout situations,” they take on a whole new aspect.

Each of us is different and has different needs. In addition, our needs change over the course of our relationship. When you are committed to an enduring relationship with someone, you aren’t simply concerned about having your needs met. You also go out of your way to care for your loved one, being aware of...

People who believe they have bad luck create bad luck. Those who believe they are very fortunate, that the world is a generous place filled with trustworthy people, live in exactly that kind of world.

You don’t need to be a scientist to know how powerful your imagination is.

There is no cell culture for depression. You can’t see it on a bone scan or an x-ray. Not everyone with depression will show the same behavioral symptoms.

The punishment approach and bad consequences approach to treatment is the kind of thinking that is prevalent in every residential substance abuse treatment center in the United States of which I’m aware.

The challenges and changes you meet are, in effect, hand delivered to you by a generous, loving Universe for the purpose of making you stronger and wiser.

If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? Yet it’s no sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you’re used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it.

When you change the way you see and interpret events, suddenly everything will be different for you. Everything will make sense.