Since I just celebrated 24 years of sobriety yesterday, I want to address the subject of recovery from addiction of any kind.  While food addiction differs from heroin addiction which differs from alcoholism which differs from sex addiction, the fact remains that many if not most aspects of recovery are the same regardless of what you are addicted to.
 
For instance, the illusion which tempts many addictive persons into a perpetual state of denial is the idea that simply abstaining from the behavior or substance one is addicted to will result in a full recovery.  Nothing could be further from the truth.
 
Recovery from addiction requires finding a suitable substitute for the behavior or substance which has become your "god" and your "lover" - the most important aspect of your existence.  That substitute must be more fulfilling than the addictive behavior or substance.
 
This is why the most popular and perhaps successful treatment model for addictions has been and remains the 12 step programs which are based upon a spiritual recovery.  The particular spirituality embraced by the addict is irrelevant.  As I heard it put once, "worship a lamppost if you like" - it doesn't matter as long as you learn to focus your thoughts away from something called "self-will."
 
At first blush this seems like a ridiculous antidote to addiction and yet it strikes at the very core of all addictions: a persistent longing for something to fill the void at the center of our being.  Many of the obsessions people are given to are merely substitutes for a spiritually centered existence and this is why in time one can feel empty and depressed after a life of pursuing empty pleasures or endless possessions.  Of course the addict's problem is far more serious than feeling empty or depressed.
 
Recovery or Sobriety is not the absence of the addictive substance or behavior.  Recovery or Sobriety is involves three major tenets (which just happen to be detailed in the 12 Steps):
 
 
Next month: more about these three important keys to recovery from addiction.
  
Feel motivated to share your perspective?

Save Babies from Senseless Surgery! 

 

This past Monday I was Janel Martin-Miranda's guest on Thought Crime Radio which airs on KOPN 89.5 FM.  The topic was circumcision, something I am actually quite familiar with for several reasons; 1) I once watched a video of an actual circumcision which changed my life, 2) I have seen hundreds of circumcised penises and I am familiar with how they compare to intact penises and 3) I have met more than a couple penises which were mutilated due to a botched circumcision.  Suffice to say that I was totally prepared to speak to the sad and gory truth about America's compulsion to mutilate the male member.  Or so I thought.

 

While I was on hold before my interview, an audio recording of a circumcision played in the background.  Since I had already heard the screams of a baby boy being circumcised in the video I watched years ago, I expected to feel sad and outraged but not completely devastated. As the cries of the helpless infant went on and on during what is actually a rather lengthy procedure (don't believe the cleaned up version you are fed in television shows and movies - the average circumcision last 15 minutes) my resolve to remain professional for the radio interview gave way to tears and sobs.

 

And I ask all of us, how can we feel otherwise?  What is it about our culture which has inured us to the suffering of the small and helpless?  What part of us had to die in order to facilitate such an inhumane lack of response to pain and despair? 

 

We have been told so many lies.  We have been told that babies "don't feel pain like we do."  Those words have been used to justify all sorts of torture.  Each of us has been a baby and yet we seem to be under the spell of the same massive forgetting that has convinced us to refuse to respond to the pleadings of infants who are at our mercy.

 

Although the percentage of newborn baby boys being circumcised in the USA has been declining, over half of all baby boys born in this country this year will endure the trauma associated with a circumcision.  Of those baby boys, a portion will face the first surgical procedure of their life without the benefits of anesthesia.  Although research has proven that babies do in fact experience extreme pain during circumcision (why we needed to research this is beyond me - just listen to the baby cry for crying out loud) some doctors and most mohelim do not routinely use any anesthesia.  
 

I know this isn't easy to look at.  We Americans would rather cast aspersions on female genital mutilation in a foreign country.  Any form of genital mutilation is abhorrent - does it matter what sex the baby or the child is?  Does the baby or the child care what religion he or she is mutilated in the name of?

 

If grown men and women wish to modify their genitals surgically, then so be it.  But no one has the right to visit such horror on a baby or a child.  Please watch the videos and THEN you can decide what you believe and how you feel about circumcision.  

 

Please have the courage to make a difference by at least facing the facts in all their visual and auditory detail before you decide.  You may never be faced with the decision to circumcise or not to circumcise your son.  But whether we have children of our own or not, each of us owes it to the children of tomorrow to become educated and informed about circumcision - especially if we consider ourselves to be sex positive.