We offer a warm welcome to Scott who has just joined us as a gardener. We have such beautiful grounds that it really deserves the attention of a speciallist to let them shine.

Scott has already run through nearly all the flower beds giving us a lovely arrangement for autumn. More pics to follow!

There has been a steadily growing interest in Neurofeedback therapy. This therapy is already offered in one or two top international clinics and we are proud to be able to offer this treatment here at PROMIS.

Neurofeedback is a cutting edge therapy which is proving to be very helpful for the treatment of substance abuse, anxiety,depression, epilepsy, OCD, learning disabilities, bipolar disorder, conduct disorder, cognitive impairment, migraines, headaches, chronic pain, autism spectrum disorders, sleep dysregulation, PTSD and concussion.

Neurofeedback therapy involves placing a number of electrodes on the scalp in order to read the brain’s waves, in a similar way to having an EEG. These brain waves are then diagnosed and a treatment plan is dynamically created by specialist computer programmes.  This treatment is designed to work directly on the Central Nervous System, one of the biological systems which needs to be in a balanced state.

The experience of a Neurofeedback session is very pleasant. While still wired up to the computer, music is played through headphones and one is invited to watch a video. All one has to do is relax and listen. When the computer wants to interact and adjust a particular pattern, all it does is cause a very slight click sound in the recording which can be noticed through the sessions. This is enough to gradually change the brains patterns.

Each session lasts just under an hour and effects can be noticed immediately or after just 5 or 6 sessions. The effects are greater concentration, better sleep, more stable moods and more. This is why this system is now very popular with sports professionals and other professional performers. The benefits to our client group are obvious.

The typical course of treatment is a total of up to 30 sessions. This is a remarkable treatment but, like all the other treatments that PROMIS offers, it should be seen as being part of a system of treatments that, when combined, have a power far greater than the sum of their individual parts.

Just kick back, relax and enjoy yourself

because this is a PROMIS event..

Any excuse to get together with our friends and alumni, we cherish; however doing this over delicious food, freshly prepared for us to perfection is, well, simply our definition of having a great time. Our barbeques are not only becoming a tradition, they are starting to take on a life of their own with abundance of food, laughter, good conversations and luckily, plenty of sunshine. Our Master Chef Mark spoils us with mouth-watering steaks, seafood paella, salads, condiments, pastries and desserts whilst we chatter away with each other, make new friends and share old memories along with new experiences.

To see more pictures from our events, connect to us on our Facebook page. 

You can view more pictures from Mark’s kitchen via the following link…

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=70049174353&aid=166120

 

“A sailor’s joys are as simple as a child’s”. Bernard Moitessier

Sailing is one of those things you have to experience to understand how it feeds one’s soul in so many unique ways. The inspiration, peace and joy that can be found so readily out in the open sea have always been the subject of many poets, musicians, authors and other artists. One thing that is fascinating is how being out in the ocean evokes different feelings and emotions for everyone, everyone gets to find their little piece of heaven.

To say the least, we have found a new passion at PROMIS which we absolutely love sharing with our patients. Experienced sailors among our group often take control of the tiller and novices are guided about the basics of sailing and boat handling. There is always something to do for everyone on a sailboat.

We now look forward to our weekend outings to explore the finest bays and sights of South Coast, England whilst enjoying the fresh air, new challenges and more importantly each others company. For more information please visit http://www.promis.co.uk/activities/sailing/

“At sea, I learned how little a person needs, not how much”.    Robin Lee Graham

I have just bought a copy of Max Kirsten’s excellent new book on recovery called “Self Help, Find Your Self To Help Yourself”

In this new book Max explains the tools he has used and uses to help others. Max gives a very good explanation of how to use the 12 steps but also includes work from his own specialised therapy skills of hypnotherapy, NLP and positivity.  Each of these sections also contains straight forward exercises for us to use which builds this book into a very helpful work book too.

In the resources section of the book, Max is kind to list PROMIS as one of 6 International top treatment centres for addiction.

Can’t stop, won’t stop

Can you get a loved one to see they have a drinking problem? It’s tough, but it can be done. Susan Jackson explains…

Any recovering alcoholic will tell you that one of toughest steps towards getting help is admitting that they can’t stop drinking. However, trying to get someone else to acknowledge there is anything wrong is an entirely different mountain altogether.

It’s a dilemma many families in Britain are faced with right now especially as addicts cannot be treated against their will. Latest research suggests that alcoholism affects one in four families but these numbers are surely set to increase in the future.

Addiction to alcohol has reached astronomical heights in the UK as the headline-making statistics such as Alcohol Abuse Trebles A and E visits or One Million Children are Living with Alcoholic Parents show.

But how can those who want to help the people they care about – be it a family member or a friend –make that person see what they are doing to themselves?

According to Robin Lefever, an addiction therapist and treatment director at Promis, a company formed 25 years ago that deals with compulsive addiction from drugs to gambling to alcoholism, part of the problem is due to how addicts think about themselves.

‘It’s important to remember that alcoholism is a mental illness and an addict’s brain has a self protection mechanism that makes them believe there is nothing wrong with them. They think the problem is with everyone else,’ explains Robin.

‘They need to drink and they rationalise why they drink: a stressful job or a bad relationship, any excuse because they don’t want to stop and will do anything to continue. Often they become very manipulative; they can play family members or friends off against each other and divide them so that the pressure is taken away from them.’

When this happens those closest to the alcoholic can become emotionally ill themselves as with every promise to stay sober which can last for weeks, months or years provides the family with a high that everything will be OK, only for their hopes to come crashing down when the addicts starts drinking again.

‘It’s an emotional roller-coaster and while the alcoholic has an alcohol anaesthetic, the family does not and they become ruled by the addict and by what he or she will do next.’

Alcoholism does not go away. It gets slowly worse so that sometimes it goes unnoticed until enviably things do come to a head when a ‘rock bottom’ is reached.

‘We use the HELPS system to categorise the 5 rock bottoms that an addict may reach before they get help,’ says Robin. ‘H stands for Hospitalisation – the person may be told by a doctor that if they have another drink they will die, E is for Emotional – where they have lost everything in terms of they simply can’t feel any type of emotion any more, L is Legal – possibilities including being arrested for drunk driving, P is Physical – they may have broken bones perhaps and S is the Spiritual rock bottom – the addict acts against their true values: while once they were kind they are now mean.’

So what can anyone do? Is there any type of ‘wakeup call’ families can use? Thankfully, the answer is yes.

In the past therapists used to have to wait until the addict asked for help until in the 60’s a US Episcopal priest and recovered alcoholic Dr Vernon Johnson developed Intervention, a way to help alcoholics before they hit rock bottom.

‘Intervention first involves the family finding ‘an island’,’ explains Robin. ‘They take a step back so they can become more stable to be able to cope and understand the problem. There may have been so much blame that no one knows what to do. Intervention works with the family to unify them and focus on supporting the alcoholic.’

‘Human nature is that we are creatures of habit and change is very hard, so even when it is hard living with an alcoholic, we can’t face change so it’s easier to allow the addict to continue to drink – a situation known as enabling,’ he adds.

‘The next step in Intervention is to identify which family members would find the process of change difficult and if they are enabling the addict.  We work with them to make them see that something can be done.’

Once all the family members have the common goal the major part of Intervention starts. In the past therapists have tried many ways to get addicts to see they have a problem. They try an intellectual pathway and attempt to educate the drinker about what they are doing to themselves but studies have shown that this rarely works.

Another way is to ‘threaten’ them into recovery: the ‘I’m going to leave you ‘or ‘I’ll take away your lifestyle’ kind of thing, but again this hasn’t been shown to work in the long term.

‘Punishing people with a mental illness is not going to work,’ says Robin, ‘But what we, and other therapists have found, is that reaching them on emotional level can kick start recovery, and this is what Intervention is based on.’

‘Alcoholics usually end up feeling mad, sad and alone. They are isolated and this is where you can appeal to an addict,’ continues Robin. ‘So what we do is get their family to write an individual letter to the addict explaining how much they love them and who they really believe them to be, because this illness separates you from the person you love.’

Each letter must not just include things like, ‘I love you because you are kind and considerate’, it should give details on specific good times that the two people have shared and what great characteristics they used to have, examples like, ‘You were always there for me when I was little and needed someone to talk to’ with exact details of a particular time, like stroking your hair when you’d broken up with a boyfriend. Memories of a better time.

‘The letter should then give examples where the person has behaved badly because of their illness,’ adds Robin, ‘such as: “I made you a fantastic dinner but you were late and you were drunk and you couldn’t walk.”It’s the contrast of both times that hopefully will make the person feel the genuineness of what you are saying.’

Next comes probably the hardest part. Once all letters are written, a time and place is set up, without the addict knowing what is about to happen. The therapist is there to help, the addict is brought in and the family start to read out the letters.

‘The family are giving an invitation to seek help. If they refuse, then the family have to set out conditions for the addict: such as I’m not having you near my children if you have been drinking,’ says Robin.

‘They are saying we still love you but we will not tolerate you behaving in such a destructive way to yourself and other people. There is another model called the Arise model of Intervention where if a family doesn’t like the idea of a surprise meeting, the addict is included from the beginning. They are told that someone has contacted a therapist and would like to set up a meeting. Sometimes this is good so that the addict does not feel as if everyone has been sneaking behind their backs, and both methods are very effective.’

And what happens next? ‘Usually the addict goes to a clinic straight away and a treatment plan begins.’

If they refuse? ‘I always have what I call I fielder,’ says Robin, ‘someone who can talk the addict down if they are very angry and hopefully try to make them understand that what has happened is because of love. Intervention is not about shouting and expressing anger, it is about showing someone how much you love them and want them to get better.’

So if you are living with an alcoholic perhaps Intervention may be your last chance as in the end there are three outcomes for alcoholics: they end up in prison, in hospital or in a morgue.

If you are in need of help contact:

Promis, which has clinics across the UK can be reached on 0845 053 1785 or visit their website atwww.promis.co.uk

Intervention: How to help someone who doesn’t want help by Vernon Johnson is available at leading bookshops and at amazon.co.uk (£12.15).

Visit YouTube and search for both Promis Intervention and a US series a and e on Intervention to see examples of Intervention in action.

Cathryn Kemp chronicled her brave detoxification experience from powerful pain relieving medications last year in an article published in the Sun Newspaper in order to give insight into the difficultes of coming of prescribed medications and hope to others.

As well as writing about her experience at PROMIS Cathryn also spent her time creating a new body of art during this emotional and difficult time. She had a number of canvesses in her room and around our site that she was working on.

Since then the works that Cathryn created have received a good deal of public acclaim. Please take a look at them on the Saatchi Galery Website :  http://www.saatchionline.com/profiles/index/id/115385

Rediscovering one’s creativity is an important part of many people’s recovery. Often we are afraid that recovery will be a hindrance to our creativity when in fact it is the opposite. Cathryn shows us this very clearly.

Robin

The coalition has released their strategy on drugs last week that at first glance sounds quite exciting.
Under the last administration drug and alcohol services were rewarded for the number of people in treatment. Unfortunately they didn’t specify the goals of the treatment and so a lot of people were left with repeat prescriptions of drugs that qualified them as “being in treatment”.
Thankfully the new coalition have tried to correct this by starting to use a new terminology including the term “recovery”, normally only associated with abstinent and twelve step treatment. Of course a lot of commentators are unclear exactly what “recovery” is meant to mean and definitions are hard to come by but a reasonable working definition would be that recovery involves being abstinent from mood altering chemicals and is an holistic treatment incorporating not just a medical treatment process but also a social and even a spiritual one (however people want to define that).
A lot of this is very exciting for us. We have been advising these broader goals for recovery for some 25 years now and so you might expect us to be feeling rather as if our ship has come in! In fact we are receiving this news with a tinge of anxiety.
People may remember a prior Conservative government policy called “Care in the Community” from some 20 years ago. For those of you who don’t, it had the laudable intention of taking people out of mental health institutions who didn’t really need to be there and instead, helping them live a more integrated life in their local communities. Clinically and morally it was a fantastic idea. Many people had been locked up in institutions for years and years whose problems were really rather slight, and who posed little or no risk to society but who may have simply appeared a little “odd” to the “normal” population.
Unfortunately the aspect of “Care in the Community” which seemed to be catch the eyes of the Conservatives was the misguided notion that a small fortune could be saved by moving these people out of expensive institutions and into conventional social housing. In reality, to do this correctly would in fact be a more expensive process rather than a money saving one as monitoring and support in the community is less efficient than keeping people all in one place.
As a result, people were sent out into the community with very little support or management and we started to get a number of cases where people were managed badly and the public became afraid of this policy.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the current governments agenda is going to go the same way. We are hearing a lot of talk about the savings that will be made by prescribing less methadone, for example, but there is precious little talk about the extra funding that would need to be found to help this group then deal with their underlying psychological and social issues. As a result I fear that once again the correct clinical treatment is going to be discredited by being used as a justification for cuts.
I hope I will be proved wrong in this but the signs so far are not looking good.
Robin

I was quoted in The Sun newspaper today on the use of methadone to treat heroin addicts on the NHS, here is what I said:

HAVING people on methadone for years is a travesty. But if you get them off it you have to work out how to help them next. (more…)

11 October 2010