Home
Sign Up for e-Newsletters
Follow us on
Body/Mind/Spirit
Cartoons
Guest Columnists
Letters from the Editors
Letters to the Editors
The Final Word
12 Questions
Work, Career, Money
About Us
The Together Family Foundation
Media Kit
Resources
Privacy Policy
Contact Us
Home
>
Special Features
>
Special Features
Lighting Up When Lit Up
Smoking and drinking commonly kill together.
A group of smokers outside a 12-step meeting is as predictable as the coffee pot inside. The accepted wisdom among those in recovery and at rehab centers is that it’s best to deal with the alcohol or drug addiction first and that addressing smoking at the same time may hinder that. Current research is indicating otherwise. From The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Alcohol...
Going All In: I Can’t Stop Gambling
05/07/2012
By Jeffrey C. Friedman Recovering gambler Leo D. has a suggestion for everyone who suspects he might have a gambling problem. “If you eat one meal a day and it’s a buffet,...
Stopping Both At The Same Time
05/06/2012
There are many reasons to provide concurrent tobacco and alcohol dependence treatment: the serious health effects of smoking, the synergistic adverse health effects of comorbid...
Beginning the Ascent to Recovery
04/05/2012
By Janice Blair At a recent intervention, the “intervenee” called me the Blair Witch Project. It’s hard not to take that personally. At my age I don’t immediately go to...
What Else Is Wrong With Me?
03/07/2012
By Terry A. Kirkpatrick Anthony had always suffered a vague anxiety that would spill over into frustration, constant worry and anger at his wife and children. Despite it he...
Addiction: It All Adds Up
02/20/2012
By Pat S. It has been said that alcoholics possess above average intelligence, which is a bit of a puzzle given the depths to which we sank before seeking help. Great minds have...
When Beauty Becomes a Beast
01/24/2012
For years, child beauty pageants were fairly benign: girls wore frilly party dresses and satin ribbons. That innocent vision was permanently shattered in 1996 with the murder of...
What’s Wrong With My Brain?
01/03/2012
By Suzanne Riss In 12-step meetings people are always saying, “After five years, you get your marbles back. After ten, you remember how to use them.” You also hear,...
Sex, Drugs & Rehab
12/14/2011
By John Dyben and Juan Harris A nearly 66-year-old CEO complaining of abdominal pain, vomiting, nausea and excessive sweating showed up at a trauma center, where doctors could...
Holiday Gift Ideas from the Together Staff
12/05/2011
Experience has taught us that last minute gift shopping can cause us to be irritable and unreasonable even though we know it! So, we put our heads together to come up with a dozen...
Learning Who I Really Am
11/09/2011
By Rob Lowe Rob! Rob! Pick up, it’s your mother!” I’m standing over my answering machine with its seventy-three unanswered messages. “Rob, please. Are you there?” begs...
Is Your Teen at Risk?
11/09/2011
By Rudy Ruggles They found his lifeless body on Main Street in our picturesque little town an hour north of New York City. It’s a town of tree-lined streets and...
Have Yourself A Healthy Power Trip
10/13/2011
By Steve Hauptman If you love an addict, or live with one, or depend on one in some way, you are probably in, as the old saying goes, nine kinds of pain. And I’m guessing...
What If The One I Love Is An Addict?
09/01/2011
By Janice Blair You’d have to have ice running through your veins if you didn’t cry when Leonardo DiCaprio died in Kate Winslet’s arms at the end of Titanic. I...
No Child Should Be Buried in a Prom Dress
09/01/2011
Mary Bono Mack has seen the danger of prescription drugs first hand – her late husband, Sonny Bono, her son and her stepdaughter were abusers. Today, from her seat in...
EBLAST CONTEST
09/01/2011
What if I’m Not Happy?
07/10/2011
By Darrin McMahon I think it is probably fair to assume that most Americans today consider happiness not only something that would be nice to have, but something that we really...
What Do You Want, Really?
07/05/2011
By D. John Dyben The man sitting before me in my office was 41 years old, a successful business executive, a family man with a wife and three children. His face was washed out....
Seeing Ourselves in TV’s Female Addicts
07/01/2011
By Suzanne Riss Women are providing some of the most complex and provocative portrayals of addiction on television, helping broaden awareness and understanding. Unlike Mad Men...
Wilson House celebrated Bill W. Day, June 11, 2011
06/12/2011
The Wilson House celebrated Bill W. Day on June 11, 2011, an annual event. This year's keynote speaker was Ron P., a long time friend of Bill W., and a sober member of AA since...
Recovery and the New American Dream
05/02/2011
BY AMES K. SWEET The new American Dream may no longer revolve around owning your own home with a white picket fence or having two cars in the garage. America’s quintessential...
Teenagers and Treatment, Is the Fun Over?
05/02/2011
BY JOSH AZEVEDO For a teenager staring down the doors of a treatment center, fun isn’t the first word that comes to mind. In fact, he or she is more likely thinking, “This is...
Sex Addiction in the New Media Frontier
05/02/2011
BY ROBERT WEISS While texting his mistress “not to call his house” at the very same time he was home fighting with his wife about infidelity, Tiger Woods demonstrated how...
Well-Being Caribbean Style
03/31/2011
For the person new to recovery or someone simply looking to enhance their daily life experience with some R+R amongst the palm trees and cooling breezes, the options in the...
Together Warmline Provides Callers Someone to Talk to About Addiction
03/31/2011
Coming up with the right solution for an addiction problem can be a challenging task, particularly in the digital age where mountains of information can be found at the click of a...
The Two Sides Of Paradise
03/24/2011
By David Blacklock The Caribbean is one region of the world where certain intoxicating substances – rum, marijuana, cocaine – are so deeply associated at a national level...
High Stakes Addiction? A look at gambling
03/08/2011
BY BOBBE MCGINLEY When you read the words "gambling addict," what is the first image that comes to mind? A mob type male, puffing on a cigar in a dark room playing poker with...
Love Those Lyrics
02/22/2011
We here at Together had great fun listening to, talking about and choosing our favorite love songs for this game. Our list keeps growing and the 13 songs represented here are but a...
Smoking and Recovery
01/14/2011
Smoking and recovery used to go together like Sonny and Cher. Those who attended AA meetings 15 or 20 years ago will remember when “the rooms” were almost entirely...
Sex Trafficking and Addiction
01/12/2011
Rachel Lloyd dropped out of school at the age of 13 and hit the streets, which she found preferable to a home where her mother drank heavily and her stepfather was abusive. A...
Top 10 Addiction Myths And Myth Busters
01/09/2011
Myth 1: Drug addiction is voluntary behavior. You start out occasionally using alcohol or other drugs, and that is a voluntary decision. But as time passes, something happens, and...
Are You In Sickness Or In Health?
01/03/2011
Chapter 9-Couples in Recovery Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope as couples that they may solve their common problems and...
The Final Frontier of Recovery: Intimate Relationships
01/03/2011
For our first issue of the New Year, we chose relationships as our theme. We talked to some couples we knew who were in recovery and asked if they wanted to write a few paragraphs...
5 Ways To Do Holidays Clean And Sober
12/21/2010
It's the holiday season, and a time to be merry and spread good will. But for many people in recovery, the cluster of holiday parties that start with Thanksgiving and end with a...
Travel to Another Dimension This New Year’s. Again.
12/20/2010
As I have for the past decade or so, I intend to spend New Year’s Eve in front of the television, watching reruns of “The Twilight Zone” on the SyFy network. A 48- hour...
Back to “Celebrity Rehab”
12/11/2010
Dr. Drew is at it again. Season 4 of Celebrity Rehab is in full swing over at VH1, and the reality hit is chock full of druggies and drama. [caption id="attachment_972"...
The Sugar Monkey
12/02/2010
By Dana Kennedy Without even realizing it, I became a slave to sugar as a little girl in Marblehead, Massachusetts in the late 1960s and early ’70s. As soon as I could ride my...
What Would Buddha Say About Christmas?
12/01/2010
By Barry Magid Zen Buddhists have a big holiday on December 8th called Rohatsu, which commemorates the moment that Buddha was enlightened. They celebrate by meditating for a...
Inner Peace: Anytime, Anywhere
11/26/2010
By Nancy O'Hara Two tips to help you stay calm in the midst of holiday or everyday chaos: 1. Don’t Breathe If you experience moments of stress, anxiety, or just plain “I...
Don’t Blow a Fortune This Holiday Season
11/25/2010
By Jerrold Mundis The holidays are hard on nearly everyone at some level or another – especially financially and especially on people for whom money is already tight (which is...
Healthy Recipes From A Cancer Survivor
11/22/2010
By Nancy O'Hara Healthy eating helped save Ann Ogden’s life. Cooking and teaching others how to cook now gives her life meaning. T: 5 Ways To Get Through The Holidays Clean And...
The Truth and Lies About Mad Men
11/10/2010
By Kurt Brokaw Poor Don Draper. We’re deep into the fourth season of AMC’s Emmy-winning “Mad Men” (AMC, Sundays, 10:00 p.m. EST), and Don’s drinking is on a...
How Not To Quit Smoking
11/08/2010
Now out in Delta paperback. QUITTERS NEVER WIN Day 1: Wake up and put on nicotine patch to once and for all quit pack-a-day habit. Write a list of reasons: Live 15 years...
Keith Richards Wants To Leave Behind the “Addict” Label
11/05/2010
By Lisa L. Kirchner [caption id="attachment_793" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Image courtesy of the St. Louis Tribune."][/caption] Keith Richards has just...
Is AA on Its Last Legs?
11/03/2010
By Steve F. The following is a response to an online essay by a Cliff B. that decries the current state of AA, online here. I write as someone who hasn't drank for 25 years,...
Craig Ferguson Talks Straight
11/01/2010
By David Blacklock Backstage at Carnegie Hall The world of late night television is generally an orgy of cliché. Cookie-cutter white guys in business suits tell the same...
Have a Good – Not a Goods – Holiday
11/01/2010
By April Benson With the holiday season upon us (and retailers lathered up for it), I want to remind us all (as I remind myself): a good holiday doesn’t have to be a goods...
A Response To Being Glenn Beck
10/01/2010
Co-opting the principles of recovery for personal gain is antithetical to the humility upon which the 12-step modality is based. Glen Beck did exactly that when he told the...
Judy Collins “Headlines” Musicares
09/16/2010
WHAT: A panel featuring Judy Collins and other artists and recovery experts WHERE: Sony, 550 Madison Avenue, New York, NY WHEN: Tuesday, September 21, 10:30 am to noon...
September Is Recovery Month
08/31/2010
Addiction affects millions of people every year, with 69 percent of Americans reporting that they know someone who struggles with alcohol or drugs. This year alone, more than 23...
Cutting Down Vs. Total Abstinence
08/29/2010
“Treatment sucks.” No, those aren't the words of some grizzled, chronically relapsing heroin addict griping about being mandated to rehab for the...
Where’s Our Recovery High?
08/28/2010
As anyone who has been through in-patient treatment for alcohol and drug abuse can tell you, the most upsetting time emotionally is not when you enter rehab, but when you come out....
Booze: Marketing to Kids
08/28/2010
By Ames K. Sweet Raised in an electronic culture saturated with cell phones, social networking websites, information outlets, and the promise of perpetual connectivity,...
Sober Dorms of Higher Education
08/27/2010
Buried in that stack of college acceptance letters that sobriety helped to secure for recovering teenagers is a ticking bomb: the threat of relapse. In college, sober teenagers...
The Kids Are All Right: ICYPAA
08/26/2010
In a...
Fit to Be Sober
07/20/2010
By Angela Dews "When I ran my first marathon after getting sober, I wasn't able to get an official number so I ran around the reservoir, 17 times instead [the reservoir is 1.58...
The Bridge of Listening
07/20/2010
When I met Rafael, he was in the cardiology unit complaining of chest pain and very worried. "This time," he said, "I'm going to change my life."...
Recovery Kids
07/20/2010
Some people grow up with religion; some with strong family traditions of sports or the great outdoors; others have board games, cherished books, or new age retreats. Growing up...
Hope in Hard Times
07/01/2010
Although there are some who say the recession is lifting, the aftermath we're left with isn't very pretty: record high unemployment, escalating taxes, increasing...
Galloping Hobbyhorses
07/01/2010
By Lesley Logan Around the recovery campus, we refer to it as "switching seats on the Titanic." It's the delusion that if you change your drink of choice from, say, rum to...
Most Popular
Lighting Up When Lit...
A group of smokers outside a 12-step meeting...
May 07, 2012
Going All In: I...
By Jeffrey C. Friedman Recovering gambler...
May 07, 2012
A Conversation with...
By Barbara Nicholson-Brown Together: Your...
March 07, 2012
News
Special Features
Interviews
Reviews
Departments
About
Ask the Interventionists
Body/Mind/Spirit
Cartoons
Guest Columnists
Letters from the Editors
Letters to the Editors
The Final Word
12 Questions
Work, Career, Money
About Us
The Together Family Foundation
Media Kit
Resources
Privacy Policy
Submission Guidelines
Contact Us
© Together Group, Inc. 2012
Privacy Policy
