One day I discovered Proverbs. It took me a while to realize they were advice from a very old man — hundreds of years old — to young men. I do think it applies to males AND females, though, so you’ll forgive me if I clean up the machismo a bit.

What is hated is: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. So far, so good.

Then, Solomon says, an imagination that thinks up evil things and feet that run to mischief. Again, great advice. My son could have used that last bit of wisdom. His feet ran to mischief faster than his mother’s feet could run to stop him.

Here’s two favorite bits of Solomon advice: It’s terrible to be a false, lying witness. We all know that from watching Cold Case, Law and Order and our naughty cousin who landed up in Juvie. Here’s one many families would benefit from: “Do not sow discord among your brethren.” Boy, did Solomon know families! Well, he had hundreds.

“My son, leave not thy father’s commandment and forsake not the laws of your mother.” In fact, adds Solomon, tie them around your neck and bind them to your heart. A commandment, after all, is a bright light.

Adultery is one big-time sin. Anyone who knowingly steals a mate is stealing a home, destroying a family, maybe destroying a man or woman’s life in its entirety.

Once there was a young girl named Katherine. She saw a woman’s husband and nothing would do but she would have him. So she spent a year wooing him, first subtly, then more persistently. Finally, blatantly. One weekend, while his wife was out of town, Katherine went to their home, tumbled into the hubby’s bed and was found there in the morning by the man’s wife – surprise! Wife missed him and came home early. It ended the couple’s marriage. It ended their business relationship. Adultery damaged all three.

Proverbs is a nice little life training manual. Check it out.

Meditation for the Day

“Your highest self will never respond to any ordinary half-hearted call, or any milk-and-water endeavor. It can only be reached by your [toughest] effort. It will respond only to the call that is backed up by the whole of you, not part of you; you must be all there in what you are trying to do.” Orison Sweet Marden, philosopher

Action for the Day

I am going to answer the call to change with all my will, my passion, my determination – and take Solomon’s advice. After all, he was wiser – and older — than I will ever be.

As a child, I was told the story of King Midas and his beautiful and beloved little daughter, the Princess Goldeena. King Midas loved gold above all else which is why he named his beautiful daughter Goldeena. One day he saved a stranger from drowning. The mysterious stranger, a magician, rewarded him by making whatever the King touched turn to gold.

King Midas was delighted. He touched an oak tree; its branches and trunk turned to gold. He touched his castle; it turned to gold. He touched his carriage. It suddenly gleamed brightly; it was gold. However, when he touched his food and drink; they, too, turned to solid gold. He was hungry; he was thirsty. He wanted to eat; he wanted to drink. Then, just as he began to realize the down side of this strange gift, he saw his precious daughter run through the corridors, slip and almost fall. He ran and stopped her just in time by catching her – and she turned to gold. He was horrified.

The king ran to the river where he had saved the young man, and cried out to be spared this awful gift. A voice said, “I will return your food and your drink, but you will have to give up all else to regain your daughter.” Of course, the king agreed to do this. He ran home, anxious to see his daughter. She was once again flesh and blood. Just as he moved to embrace her, his castle turned to old stone and crumbling parapets once again. “No,” the king shouted and reached to stroke his gorgeous property. As he did so, Goldeena lifted her little arms to embrace her father once again. And this time for forever, Goldeena was turned to hard gold.

Greed always leads to more greed.

Meditation for the Day

“If you want to find the evils on earth, don’t test for alcohol or drug abuse, test for selfishness and greed.” Unknown

Action for the Day

Today, I’ll concentrate on simplifying my life. I’ll take and use only what I need and be grateful for having it.

In fact, multiple addiction can apply to almost anyone. Almost everyone has at least a mild addiction to something and in most cases there are probably two or three things you would like to quit but simply couldn’t muster up the energy or attention to do so. We’re all pretty much hooked on one thing or another to the extent that we would probably have a pretty tough time quitting even if we put our minds to it. The fact is, most addictions occur in different forms for different people so that you don’t have to be a “hospital patient” in order to see yourself as someone who possibly suffers from multiple addictions. Multiple addictions are more often the rule rather than the exception.

On the lower end of the scale, many people refer to their “love of chocolate” as an addiction or their “excessive television watching” as being a problem. There are many behaviors, such as co-dependency and anger issues that could be readily defined as addictive tendencies in most people. Multiple addictions are actually more common that most people realize and, just like the most serious addictions to heroin or crack cocaine, it is always the recognition of the problem that is the first step to recovery.

A funny thing happened recently. Each morning, as I awoke, I remembered a bit of my life I would live differently if I had a second go at it. Is this normal? Does anyone else ever chew over regrets like a cow chews her cud? The answer is yes. We all do it.

A woman of 60 still yearns for the man she turned down.

A man too scared and poor to follow his dream of a higher education lives with gut wrenching regrets.
We plan to make amends to someone we injured but we wait too long and they’re gone.

We have a rift in our family, a misunderstanding, an angry word. We steel ourselves against reconciliation. “There’s time later,” we think but then in a heartbeat, it’s too late. The mother, father, sister, brother, wife, husband we thought we could never forgive are gone forever. We are haunted with regrets — and sudden memories of all their good qualities. And how we already miss them.

Sometimes we regret career choices or a lack of self discipline that harmed us.

Regrets are normal but they keep us from living in the present. Hamilton Beazley, PhD. author of No
Regrets: A Ten-step program for Living in the Present and Leaving the Past Behind, says “Dwelling on past mistakes or missed opportunities consumes one’s ability to enjoy the present.”

So how do we “erase” haunting regrets? Here’s one method. Rewrite the past. For instance, instead of moaning and groaning about the gal that got away, write down how bad a move it could have been. She’s selfish, lazy, too tied to mama, a spendthrift. Or maybe one marriage might not have been her thing. See what I mean?

Or, you may have grown intellectually and the handsome high school athlete, whose jacket you once wore, now seems dull as dishwater and dumber than a box of rocks.

The flip side is listing all the terrific things you’ve done by taking the road less traveled. My mom changed her life forever when, at age 62, she undid a regret and went to college. Who needs regrets when we can have uplifting satisfaction?

Meditation for the Day

“I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.” Colette, French author

Action for the Day

Today, I’ll list anything that haunts me with regrets, figure out why, then decide: Act to change the situation or do a creative paragraph or two on how the opposite decision may have turned out really bad. List all the good things I got to do by taking the path I did. No holds barred. Silly scenarios allowed.

Some folks love to wander through old cemeteries. It may be a weird hobby but one day, at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, it was pretty intriguing. Wandering over fossilized carriage tracks into a field of raggedly placed headstones, Joan and I found two that cried out for attention. One looked out over the grass decorated broken fencing. It said, “Here lies Captain Ross Marshall (not his name), who died in the battle of Gettysburg.” Next to it was a small stone laid flat on the ground. It read, “And here lies his concubine.” Those two inscriptions gave us much to ponder on the way home. It started us collecting epitaphs — finally, we created our own.

Some of America’s most illustrious citizens left us with real appreciation of their innate humor and joy. Who says you can’t take it with you?

“Together Again,” George Burns and his beloved wife, Gracie Allen; self written

“I told you I was sick!” Found in a Georgia cemetery

“Here lies Ezekial Aikle, Age 102, The Good Die Young.” (Headstonez)

“The Entertainer” He did it all.” Sammy Davis, Jr.

“Called Back”, Emily Dickinson, self written

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson,
author of the Declaration of American Independence,
of the statute of Virginia for religious freedom,
and father of the University of Virginia.”
Thomas Jefferson, self written

My dear friend Joan: “Now I start a new adventure.”
Mine: “I loved and I wrote. Lucky me.”

Meditation for the Day

Life is too short to fear its end; live each day as if it is forever and forever one day.

Action for the Day

Today, I’ll open my mind and heart to love and laughter and learning, wherever and whenever. And I’ll start RIGHT NOW.

According to Al Tighe, supervisor of Continuum Services at Hazelden, it is “stinking thinking” that usually precedes relapse—a return to drinking or other drug use after a period of abstinence.
Tighe has worked in the field of relapse prevention for 23 years. He says that relapse often comes as a surprise to the person in recovery.

“The most common situation I see is a person who wakes up at eight in the morning and says that he feels fine—and then ends up in detox that night,” says Tighe.

While this might seem a mystery, relapse is often preceded by subtle changes that occur over a period of time and go unnoticed.

Many of those changes are shifts in attitude, says Tighe: “There’s a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous about the importance of HOW, which stands for honesty, openness and willingness. When attitudes like these start to erode, the seeds of relapse are already present.”

Tighe recommends the following strategies for preventing relapse:

Remember that addiction is a chronic disease marked by relapse. In terms of potential for relapse, dependence on alcohol and other drugs is not unique. For example, people living with asthma, hypertension and insulin-dependent diabetes must also make long-term changes in attitudes and behavior. When they don’t, their health immediately deteriorates.

What’s more, the danger of relapse is always present. “We are susceptible to relapse whether we have decades of sobriety or just a few weeks,” Tighe says.

Look for “red flags” in attitude change. The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous emphasize a daily review of “character defects.” Among them are attitudes that allow people to rationalize a return to drinking or drugging. Examples are a desire to control the outcome of every event and a demand that other people always behave according to our expectations. These represent a general refusal to “live life on life’s own terms.”

In turn, such attitudes fuel feelings of sadness, anger and fear. And when those feelings reach crisis levels, they prompt the search for a quick “solution” that seemed reliable in the past—alcohol or another drug.

If you’re in recovery, remember that your friends and family members can sometimes spot changes in your attitudes long before you can. Give them permission to speak up when they see a “HALT” situation—signs that you’re becoming hungry, angry, lonely and tired. Then be willing to listen if you receive this feedback.

Identify high-risk situations. If you’re a person in recovery, then you need to prepare for three risks in particular:

• Any person, place or feeling that’s been associated with drinking or use of other drugs in the past.
• Any situation where alcohol or other drugs are available.
• Any situation that’s associated with high stress.

Create a relapse prevention plan. It’s easy to say, “If I ever get in a slippery situation, I’ll just call somebody.” However, a vague intention is not enough. Write out a plan to handle high-risk situations.

Include specifics such as:

• The names of people you can call when you have thoughts about drinking or drugging again, including phone numbers that you can program into a cell phone.
• Places you can immediately go for help.
• Thoughts that will inspire you to avoid relapse, such as a favorite slogan, prayer or quotation from a recovery book.

Once you have a plan in writing, give copies of it to your sponsor, friends in recovery, family members and other key people. This sheet of paper represents instant accountability—a contract with yourself and others to prevent relapse by taking the actions that sustain a lifetime of sobriety.

Alive & Free is a health column that offers information to help prevent and address addiction and substance abuse problems. It is provided by Hazelden, a nonprofit agency based in Center City, Minn., that offers a wide range of information and services on addiction and recovery. For more resources, call Hazelden at 1-800-257-7800 or check its Web site at www.hazelden.org.

I know from experience that the fear surrounding a person who abuses alcohol doesn’t go away even after sobriety. All too often, if a teenage drinker is left to continue drinking through their teen years and into adulthood, the chances of alcohol being habitual and affecting their lives long term increases dramatically. Many teens who drink will continue drinking into their college years. Without a parent in college to help guide them, their grades will suffer and possibly their other relationships with friends.

Fortunately, the laws are changing regarding teenage drinking as studies show the effect that advertisement, peer pressure and maturity play in alcohol abuse. Many communities have zero-tolerance laws with serious consequences for a teenager who is caught drinking and driving. Hopefully, these laws will deter underage drinkers from acting impulsively and getting behind the wheel of a car after a night of partying with their friends.

Knowing that teenagers will automatically feel the need to break away from their parents control by experimenting in behaviors we wouldn’t normally approve of doesn’t change the fact that we are parents. When I look at my children, I worry that they too will go out into the world and make choices that aren’t always going to be the right choice. My job as their parent, their teacher, as a person who loves them is to make sure they are armed with as much knowledge as they can have regarding the dangers of engaging in underage drinking and how it can affect their entire lives.

Through guidance, support, and love, most children will make it through their teenage years without feeling the loss and grief that so many parents have faced when a child dies because of an alcohol related accident. We can do our part by educated them, making sure that laws continue to be enforced to protect them against underage drinking to give them the best chance to have the fullest life possible.

Like all students everywhere I was, as a journalism student, fascinated by some classes and turned off by others. One I adored and would race to was an ethics class. Our professor – Jeff — was tall, skinny as Ichobod Crane, and had great stories to tell us about his long career as a newspaper journalist. I loved the debates that followed, sometimes reaching crescendo level. I loved analyzing the ifs, buts, and maybes of ethics and the moral mazes they led us through.

One of his early reporter stories’ about newsroom gifts seemed like an ethical slam dunk at first. Jeff was working on the staff of a small town newspaper. He wrote a short piece about a local event. The female chair person of the group heard it was Jeff’s birthday the next day and came in that morning, carrying a huge chocolate birthday cake. She marched up to his desk and loudly gushed, “I am soooo pleased with the lovely story you wrote about my club. I made you this cake to thank you.”

Jeff said thanks, took the cake and laid it out on a nearby table. Another young reporter got a knife and some paper plates. What a neat thing, they thought, until they heard a loud bellowing, “Whaaaaat is going on here!!” It was their editor and he was not pleased. He covered the room faster than they had even seen him move. Someone started to explain. They didn’t get past, “That nice lady gave us . . . ” Their editor turned purple in the face and shouted, “Get that cake out of here. We DO NOT, repeat DO NOT accept gifts. End of Story. Get ridda’ the cake!” The chocolate sugar high disappeared in seconds. Jeff never took a gift while a reporter again.

I got it. So later, when a gal who had set me up to write a story I later realized was contrived marched into our newsroom, a gigantic cake held like an Oscar before her and thrust it my way, I blanched. Then I said, sweetly, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jones. We are not permitted to accept gifts.” She argued haughtily, “How silly, Why don’t you just take it and give it to the “boys” if you don’t want it?” When I held my ground and said I was sorry but that would be the same thing, wouldn’t it, she changed her tactics. She tucked the sheet cake under her arm like an old parcel, opened her purse and pulled out a sheaf of papers. They were for me, she said. It was her draft of a story she thought I should write for the next day’s paper! I referred her to my editor.

Now, whenever I hear someone shredding ethics, I want to say to the targets of their manipulation, “Don’t take the cake.”

Meditation for the Day

“Truth may be stretched but cannot be broken. It always gets above falsehood as oil does above water.” Miguel de Cervante, author, Don Quixote

Action for the Day

Today and tomorrow, I’ll embrace integrity and say “thanks but no thanks” when someone offers me the cake.

While teenagers do become argumentative and “mouthy” with their parents on occasion during their teenage years, a teenager who is using alcohol either occasionally or frequently will tend to have more frequent and more severe mood swings due to the effects of alcohol on their young body. As the situation grows more severe, a parent might even notice that money or other valuables have been taken from household as a way to pay for an increased habit. After all, not every family has a liquor cabinet that other friends can steal alcohol from.

It can be a very delicate situation to confront your teenager if you suspect that alcohol use has become a problem. But it is important to act quickly before the problem gets out of hand. No matter how difficult it will be to confront your teenager, you must do it and let them know that you are aware of the problem. Sometimes letting them know that they are not fooling you with their behavior is the first step to their stopping it.

The damage that is done to a teenager’s body from alcohol abuse is quicker than that of an adult’s. Teenagers don’t think in long-range terms. They see the here and now and live for the moment. But continued use of alcohol could end up meaning that your child will be battling a lifelong problem either with health issues or alcoholism.

First try talking to your teenager. More likely than not they will become angry, defensive, and deny that there’s problem. That’s normal and something that you should expect. Make them aware of whatever house rules you have regarding alcohol use and the consequences if those rules are broken.

If the situation has moved beyond occasional use and you fear that your child is headed towards alcoholism, it’s best to seek the advice of a professional. While your child won’t readily cooperate with going to see a counselor or even a member of the clergy, you can make your teenager’s physician aware of your concerns. During a routine physical your teenager’s doctor can have a candid discussion with your child and make them aware of the dangers they face by continuing to use alcohol.

If that doesn’t help, you may want to consider taking your child to an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting. These meetings have strict rules and while you might hope that having your teenager see how alcohol has affected other people’s lives will be enough to knock some sense into them, that might not always be the case.

No one at an AA meeting is there to save your child. They are simply there to share their experiences in the hopes that they can enlighten someone who is facing the same struggle with alcohol that they have had; and in turn give encouragement to help someone dealing with alcohol abuse to help themselves.

It doesn’t end there. There are also support groups for family members who are dealing with a person who has an alcohol problem. Al-Anon and Alateen are support groups very much like their counterpart Alcoholics Anonymous. These groups provide a support system for people who are affected by alcoholics in their life.

It is hard to sit back and watch a person that you care about become self-destructive through the use of alcohol. Many times a parent or sibling or friend will blame themselves for not doing enough to help the person who has the problem. They will experience feelings of anger, fear, disappointment and confusion as to why the person has continued to behave the way they have. Al-Anon and Alateen give a nonjudgmental forum through closed meetings for people to share their experiences with other people who are going through the same problem.

Many times a family member or friend will think that they are the only one going through this problem. Only by sharing the problems that they are facing with others who are also going through similar experiences can they begin to understand how to deal with their feelings of guilt and fear as their family struggles through the crisis.

Members of Al-anon and Alateen help each other and their family members by living the Twelve Step program that was established by Alcoholics Anonymous.

I once visited a senior community in Maryland that was a shining example of affordable housing. I believed – and believe – that there isn’t enough affordable housing in America so I was pleased to trek through small but charming apartments while folks peered at me as if I was a visiting Emu. Soon, white haired folks were taking me in tow. They wanted me to meet a newly wed couple. And the happy newly weds, arm in arm, wanted to crow a bit. They met at this community; they shared meals at the senior center nearby; they talked and gardened together and fell in love. The entire community filled their flower-filled wedding chapel. The entire community threw rose petals at husband and wife. The entire community felt the hope the two gave them. Mr. Smith is 77; Mrs. Smith is 76. He drags an oxygen tank behind him. She proudly leads a tour of their new cottage; she is delighted with their huge king-size new bed.

A neighbor, 82, starts her day with crossword puzzles. Another gal, age 78, actively campaigns for her favorite presidential candidate. A former mechanic volunteers to teach youngsters how to change a tire, check their car’s fluids and keep their tires inflated properly. Another couple, the wife 82; the husband, 92, won’t move to a senior community. The wife says, laughing, “Oh, we’re not ready for that.”

Most aging experts say being youthful is mostly “attitude, attitude, and attitude.” A Centenarian study from Harvard says these 100 years plus folks not only have good health, they have a sense of humor, a sense of hope, are involved in work or a hobby or volunteer, and they have stress reduction abilities. They also have an ability to deal with any losses that come along. No wonder most of them are donating their bodies to science for study after their deaths. We could take a hint from them, for sure.

My mom, who returned to college and earned her master’s degree at age 62, then built a professional career on it, says she stays young because she eats well, reads and writes constantly, does not smoke and is insatiably curious. She laughs when asked how she manages to look almost 20 years younger, “I’m too busy to get old.” I believe her.

Meditation for the Day

“When we die, do we want people to exclaim, ‘She looked ten years younger,’ or do we want them to say, ‘She lived a great life!’ ” Unknown.

Action for the Day

Today is the first day of the rest of my life. My great life!