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Forgiveness Is a Choice is a self-help book for people who have been deeply hurt by another and caught in a vortex of anger, depression, and resentment.

As a creator of the first scientifically proven forgiveness program in the country, Robert D. Enright shows how forgiveness can reduce anxiety and depression while increasing self-esteem and hopefulness toward one's future.

This groundbreaking work demonstrates how forgiveness, approached in the correct manner, benefits the forgiver far more than the forgiven. Filled with wisdom and warm encouragement, the book leads the reader on a path that will bring clarity and peace.

Enright is careful to distinguish forgiveness from “pseudoforgiveness” and to reassure readers that forgiveness does not mean accepting continued abuse or even reconciling with the offender. Rather, by giving the gift of forgiveness, readers are encouraged to confront and let go of their pain in order to regain their lives.

Forgiveness Is a Choice is a post from: Recovery Coaching

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In his earthly ministry, Jesus preformed many miracles. In particular, he healed numerous diseased and disabled bodies. But perhaps his greatest miracle was the healing of people's souls — the forgiveness of sin. Jesus still offers that miracle today, and on the same terms as formerly: sincere repentance. This book is a penetrating explanation of repentance and forgiveness that is illuminated with a bright hope for those who are searching for peace and security. It is a landmark work that has spoken with authority and insight for thirty-five years, bringing to bear President Kimball's rich experience and the inspiration of his calling. Elder Richard G. Scott, in his October 2000 conference address suggests reading the last two chapters first.

The Miracle of Forgiveness is a post from: Recovery Coaching

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Total Forgiveness Revised and Updated

R.T. Kendall has given us a treasure…the hope and possibility of experiencing incredible freedom and peace that can only come when we walk in total forgiveness.

One of the core messages of the gospel is that of total forgiveness…not only that we can be totally forgiven by God, but also that we must, in turn, totally forgive others. Our culture is bound up in bitterness, resentment, and wallowing in wounds inflicted upon us by others, wounds that we all too easily accept and even cling to!

This revised and updated best seller lovingly challenges believers to look within and root out those hidden and hardened places where subtle resentments and areas of un-forgiveness have been allowed to remain.

Author InformationR. T. Kendall was the pastor of Westminster Chapel in London, England for twenty-five years. He is well known internationally as a speaker and teacher. Dr. Kendall is the author of more than forty books, including The Thorn in the Flesh, Grace, In Pursuit of His Glory, The Sensitivity of the Spirit, Total Forgiveness, Pure Joy, Just Say Thanks! and The Anointing: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Visit Kendall’s Web site at www.rtkendallministries.com.

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True Stories from Real People

We all have a story to tell. And that's what this book is about. It's a collection of 35 true stories of forgiveness to inspire and encourage you. These stories come from 33 different people from various walks of life. So, no matter where you are at in your journey of life, we believe you will find hope within the pages of this book.

Unshackled and Free

Freedom…isn't that what we truly want? To be unshackled and free from whatever holds us back and imprisons us. The good news is freedom is available to each one of us. No matter where you've been or what's happened to you in your life, freedom is available to you through the transforming power of Christ.

Join Us on This Journey

Come join us in this journey where you'll meet real people with true stories of forgiveness whose lives were forever changed. You'll be inspired, encouraged and then changed as you apply what you're learning to your own life.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

Unshackled and Free: True Stories of Forgiveness is a post from: Recovery Coaching

Can a hallucinogen from Africa cure addiction?

By Stephanie Hegarty BBC World Service

Since the 1960s a disparate group of scientists and former drug addicts have been advocating a radical treatment for addiction – a hallucinogen called ibogaine, derived from an African plant, that in some cases seems to obliterate withdrawal symptoms from heroin, cocaine and alcohol. So why isn’t it widely used?

For nearly 15 years, Thillen Naidoo’s life was ruled by crack cocaine. Growing up in Chatsworth, a township on the outskirts of Durban in South Africa, he was surrounded by drugs.

After a troubled childhood and the death of his father, he turned to cocaine.

Though he held down a job as a carpenter and could go for days or even weeks without a hit, his wild drug binges often ended in arguments with his wife Saloshna and sometimes even physical abuse.

By the time he met Dr Anwar Jeewa at the Minds Alive Rehab Centre in Chatsworth, Naidoo had tried to quit several times and failed. “Those were dark, dark days,” he says.

Jeewa offered a radical solution, a hallucinogenic drug used in tribal ceremonies in central Africa that would obliterate his cravings.

But Naidoo was anxious. “I didn’t know what this ibogaine thing was,” he says. “I never expected it to work.”

After several medical tests he was given the pill.

A few hours later he lay in bed, watching flying fish swarm above his head. He felt the room move around him and a constant buzz rang in his ears. Scenes from his childhood flashed up briefly before his eyes and each time someone approached to check he was OK he felt a rush of fear.

The hallucinogenic effect wore off overnight but for the next few days Thillen was in a haze. When he returned home a week later, he realised he no longer craved cocaine. Six months later, he is still clean.

He attends a therapy group two days a week, where he learns the skills necessary to maintain a lifestyle without drugs.

“My mind has shifted now from what I used to be,” he says. “I can look back at my childhood and deal with those issues without sobbing and feeling sorry for myself.”

Jeewa estimates he has treated around 1,000 people with ibogaine but it remains largely unacknowledged by the medical mainstream.

The drug, derived from the root of a central African plant called iboga, had been used for centuries by the Bwiti people of Gabon and Cameroon, as part of a tribal initiation ceremony.

But it wasn’t until 1962, when a young heroin addict called Howard Lotsof stumbled upon ibogaine, that its value as an addiction treatment was uncovered.

Lotsof took it to get high but when the hallucinogenic effects wore off, he realised he no longer had the compulsion to take heroin. He became convinced that he had found the solution to addiction and dedicated much of his life to promoting ibogaine as a treatment.

As far as scientists understand, ibogaine affects the brain in two distinct ways. The first is metabolic. It creates a protein that blocks receptors in the brain that trigger cravings, stopping the symptoms of withdrawal.

“Ibogaine tends to remove the withdrawals immediately and brings people back to their pre-addiction stage,” says Jeewa. With normal detox this process can take months.

Its second effect is much less understood. It seems to inspire a dream-like state that is intensely introspective, allowing addicts to address issues in their life that they use alcohol or drugs to suppress.

Ibogaine is derived from the bark of the root of the iboga tree

Howard Lotsof’s early campaign had little success and ibogaine was banned in the US, along with LSD and psilocybin mushrooms, in 1967.

In most other countries it remains unregulated and unlicensed. Lotsof set up a private clinic in the Netherlands in the 1980s and since then similar clinics have emerged in Canada, Mexico and South Africa.

These clinics operate in a legal grey area. But a small group of scientists is still working to bring ibogaine into the mainstream.

In the early 1990s, Deborah Mash, a neuroscientist and addiction specialist at the University of Miami, came upon the work of Dr Stanley Glick, a scientist who had researched the effect of ibogaine on rats.

Glick hooked rats on morphine, an opiate painkiller, by allowing them to self-administer it through a tube. He then gave them ibogaine and found they voluntarily stopped taking morphine.

Around the same time, Mash was contacted by Howard Lotsof. They began working together and in 1995 secured full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate its potential in humans.

But these tests cost millions of dollars, and Mash applied for five separate public grants but each one was declined.

Usually, this money would come from big pharmaceutical companies but drugs like ibogaine offer little potential for profit.

It only has to be taken once, unlike conventional treatments for heroin addiction such as methadone which is a substitute and addictive itself.

“One very cynical reason they are not being developed is that there is no patent on these drugs anymore so there is no pharmaceutical company involvement,” says Ben Sessa.

Pharmaceutical companies make money by patenting new chemicals but ibogaine is a naturally occurring substance and is difficult to secure a patent on.

It also comes with some risks. Ibogaine slows the heart rate and when administered to rats in very high doses, it has been proved to damage the cerebellum, a part of the brain associated with motor function.

There are 10 deaths known to be associated with the drug and its unregulated use has prompted some horror stories. Online forums are littered with stories of unscrupulous practitioners administering ibogaine in hotel rooms or in the patient’s home with no medical support.

One alcoholic says he paid $10,000 (£6,279) and it didn’t work at all. His respiration was not monitored and he didn’t have any physical or psychological check-ups beforehand.

“The ‘visions/trip’ were so excruciating I never wanted to be altered again. I felt I was near death during the trip because I was having trouble breathing.”

Ibogaine also has something of an image problem, says Glick.

“It has too much political baggage associated with it. By the time everybody became aware of it there was already scepticism because this was not something that came from a drug development programme.”

After failing to get funding, Mash opened a private clinical research centre on the island of St Kitts in the Caribbean in 1996. There she collected data on 300 addicts detoxed through ibogaine.

She says all patients showed an effect on their addiction, 70% went into remission for several months and many for years. The clinic’s first two patients are still drug-free 16 years later.

“Cocaine addiction is a terrible addiction,” she says. “Getting people off crack? Good luck. We did it, we were able to break out intractable addicts.”

Determined to bring the treatment to more people, Mash is now working with the private sector to create a version of the drug that will be more attractive to pharmaceutical companies.

She is working to isolate noribogaine, a substance created by ibogaine in the liver, which she believes is responsible for inhibiting cravings, taking away the hallucinogenic effect. But she continues to push for research into the whole drug.

Glick doesn’t believe noribogaine will ever be approved in the US. “If for no other reason than that it is too closely related to ibogaine,” he says.

He is developing an alternative but he regrets that significant testing into ibogaine has never been done.

According to a psychiatrist and addiction specialist, Dr Ben Sessa, the timing for this research could finally be right.

The past two years have seen the first scientific study published into the use of MDMA on trauma victims and psilocybin for psychotherapy, and a similar study into LSD is expected this year.

“Radical options are needed,” says David Nutt, head of the UK’s Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, but he maintains some scepticism about so-called wonder cures.

“The history of medicine is littered with people doing interesting, challenging things, but when you do proper control tests they reveal a massive placebo effect,” he says.

What is needed, he says, is a single blind study in which one group of addicts takes a standardised dose of the drug and another group takes a placebo, both followed by a full 12-step detox treatment plan. He estimates that would cost about $2.37 million (£1.5 million).

Clinicians like Jeewa would like to see the drug licensed but says people need to understand its limits.

“Once you have a patient that is drug free and whose brain is back to its full potential then you can help them change their lifestyle,” says Jeewa.

“Ibogaine helps to interrupt addiction but it’s not a cure or a magic bullet,” he says. “It has to be taken in the right setting and treatment has to be followed up with psychosocial care.”

Thillen Naidoo and Dr Anwar Jeewa spoke to Chevron Chetty for Your World on the BBC World Service. First broadcast at 12.05GMT on 14 April. Listen to the programme here.

Also check out 1960s drug ‘alcoholism cure hope’

Ibogaine: Is it a Cure for Addiction? is a post from: Recovery Coaching

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The recent renaissance of the concept of the Therapeutic Community acts as a challenge to orthodox psychiatric management. It propounds a radical group-based therapeutic approach which is fundamentally opposed to many current policies and approaches, such as the reliance on medication for containment of distress.

This volume, which describes and develops the theory behind the concept of Therapeutic Communities, emphasizes the caring aspect of psychiatric work, and explores the question of what is therapeutic and antitherapeutic about care in institutions.

The book focuses on the historical and social background to the communities; good practice for those working in them; the different types of community; and future developments in this growing area.

Therapeutic Communities: Past, Present and Future is a post from: Recovery Coaching

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"Asylum to Action" offers an alternative history of a libertarian therapeutic community at Paddington Day Hospital in West London in the 1970s. Helen Spandler recaptures the radical aspirations, as well as the conflicts, of the early therapeutic community movement, radical psychiatry and the patients' movement. The author's account of the formation of the Mental Patients' Union, the first politicised psychiatric survivors group in the UK, raises questions about the connections between the service user movement, therapeutic communities, critiques of psychiatry and psychoanalytic models of intervention. In particular, Spandler challenges Claire Baron's dominant account of the subject in her influential book Asylum to Anarchy. She points out that some of the key difficulties that beset Paddington Day Hospital persist in modern therapeutic community practice and, indeed, in mental health services in general. Arguing that these dilemmas require sustained attention, "Asylum to Action" also informs a wider analysis of the significance of social movements, social action and critical social theory.
This book will be of interest to practitioners, researchers and service users in the mental health sector and to anyone with an interest in therapeutic communities. Community, Culture and Change encompasses a wide range of ideas and theoretical models related to communities and cultures as a whole, embracing key Therapeutic Community concepts such as collective responsibility, citizenship and empowerment, as well as multidisciplinary ways of working and the social origins of distress. The ways in which our social and therapeutic worlds are changing is illustrated by the innovative and creative work described in these books.

Asylum to Action: Paddington Day Hospital, Therapeutic Communities and Beyond (Community, Culture and Change) is a post from: Recovery Coaching

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A major question facing psychiatrists today is how to treat psychosis effectively while maintaining patients' dignity, self respect and, as far as possible, their psychological and social functioning. The authors of Beyond Madness have all been associated with the Arbours Crisis Centre in London, a unique facility established in 1973 where therapists and patients, or guests, live together in order to establish a space where extremes of distress can be tolerated, understood and ameliorated. From the psychological and social care offered by the Arbours Crisis Centre, the treatments demonstrated in this significant and exciting book have developed.

The authors discuss team, group and community settings for interventions, and the five stages a guest passes through when at the Centre. They examine special provisions for guests who self-harm, describe the experience of living and working in the Centre, and provide specific examples of interventions at the Centre. The effect of power and money is explored, with a focus on authority, staff relationships with guests, and cost effectiveness.
At a time when biological treatments predominate, Beyond Madness illustrates and argues for a humane, useful and cost-effective alternative to traditional, physical, psychiatric interventions.

Beyond Madness: Psychosocial Interventions in Psychosis (Therapeutic Communities, 7) is a post from: Recovery Coaching