Julie Duncan-Archibold asked:


I was a poster child for narcissistic thinking, which I simply referred to as selfishness. But after almost 20 years of pursuing my goals and objectives and finding myself farther than I had ever been of achieving them, I thought maybe I am missing something, perhaps I am asking all the wrong questions: “When will my day come? Why can’t I get ahead? Why does life seem to have something against me?”  Every so often I looked around and found myself trapped in the same little room alone with the same concerns and longings. Finally last year I gave up, and began to realize I had been chasing a ghost.

 

But I am not alone in the erroneous thinking that selfishness is what brings about happiness. This idea is constantly being sold to us; but we have been deceived and our society is suffering from what I have decided to name: DSS (Dead Sea Syndrome). Every great enterprise has been built on the premise of being of service to others; and the more valuable you are to others, the more valuable you become. That is the way nature operates; everything is of service to something(s) other than itself and to a great extent this is what guarantees its survival.

 

Whenever someone or something begins to self-serve it starts to die, to decay. Serving the world is what keeps us alive and functioning. Serving the world makes us natural to Nature. That was the greatest lesson I got out of my personal journey in 2008. Nothing would ever work for me, until my mind was renewed and I started looking around and finding ways to become useful. I realized that if I am not being useful, then I am not being relevant; and that was a sobering thought.

 

To be a narcissist, however glamorous the picture we have been painted, is to remain in an infantile, primitive state and be forever dependent on others and the illusive concept of “life”, to serve us what we want. But when we decide to connect with others and therefore with life, we get to realize that even when we cannot fully explain or understand how it works, often the same channel we use to be of usefulness to others, is the channel that brings our own reward back to us.

 

I wrote an ezine article in 2005 that was widely re-published throughout the web that year. I started re-writing it with the intention of updating this popular article for 2008. I was then introduced, by my husband, to a direct-marketing health company that in my opinion promotes an ideal model to hit life’s triple-jackpot (health, wealth and happiness). I believe that if we incorporated their (the Health Company’s) business model into our everyday lives, with the right perspective, we would all end up being healthy, wealthy and happy.

 

And the model is simple:

1-     Use the products to get good results and then teach others about the health benefits they can also attain.

2-     Improve your financial status by helping many others improve theirs.

3-     Always have an “up” happy attitude that you may pass it on to others.

 

Now, you can use this same model to try to sell basically any product or ideology; and yet I personally believe the only way it becomes effective is if you have a true concern for other people’s well-being. To go about anything with a selfish, narcissistic attitude will somehow cause your ulterior motives to come afloat and, therefore, sabotage whatever enterprise you are embarked on.

 

This is true on every level; even for entertainers, people in sports or other businesses. Sometimes a person may rise to fame and fortune by pouring themselves into whatever it is there are doing. But then it becomes all about them, and they start taking their craft lightly, their heart is no longer in the art or with the team or maybe they start making inferior products to make more profit. Whatever the case may be, you can always count on the fall. It may not always happen right away, but it is just a matter of time. Only being useful gets us ahead in life and only staying useful keeps us there.

 

So next time you think you will just step on a couple heads, or cut a couple throats or simply ignore a couple inferior people that are not worth your time in order to get to the top, just take a little more time to think again.



Harrison

Todd Lange asked:


If you check out the health website of the state of Rhode Island, you will find that there is a very strong correlation between substance abuse and mental illnesses. In fact, substance abuse in Rhode Island is considered to be nothing more or less than a psychiatric problem and as you read further on their health website, you will find that even the treatment program chalked out for it is in accordance with this belief. Treatment for substance abuse in Rhode Island is of a similar form and manner as it should be for some kind of mental illness. So, how far is this consideration valid?

Is Substance Abuse a Mental Illness?

For this, we need to analyze the way the body works when a person starts using a substance for recreational purposes. This is how most of them work:-

When a person consumes the substance, the substance will send triggers to the nervous system of the body, which will then increase the secretion of some chemicals that are important for the feeling of happiness that the body experiences, most notably dopamine. The main draw during the initial abuse of the substance is this production of dopamine. The person is consuming the substance actually to condition the mind to release dopamine so that that feeling of pleasure can be experienced.

Now, as the person begins consuming more and more of the substance, the mental system of the person gets immunized and does not secrete as much dopamine as it did in the earlier instances. Consequently, the person begins stepping up the dosage of the substance. This is the beginning of the unbroken cycle of addiction; the person consumes a drug to make the mind happy, but the mind is dissatisfied with that particular amount and asks more of it.

If you consider this now, you will find that the urge for consuming the substance occurs right in the brain of the person. Though the person is physically consuming the substance, the part of the body that is asking for it is the brain and the nervous system. Hence, it does seem quite logical to pair substance abuse with mental illnesses.

So how is the Treatment for Substance Abuse in Rhode Island carried out on These Lines?

If substance abuse in Rhode Island is considered as a mental illness, it is quite understandable that the treatment will be done in a similar fashion too. That is indeed the case and it is quite a helpful one at that, considering that it becomes more effective at the overall treatment. Consider the following points:-

1. The detox program, though very prominently present and used for most kinds of addiction in Rhode Island, is not the end of the treatment program. In fact, if you check out the patterns on substance abuse treatment in Rhode Island, you will find that detox is merely the beginning of the entire treatment program. While the detox aims at cleansing the body of the person from the accumulation of the substances in it, it is the later part of the treatment program that is the most relevant part. This is the part where the person is taken into a counseling therapy. The counseling is targeted at helping the person come out of the tendency of using the substance. This is definitely a method of treating the mind rather than the body.

2. If you were to check out the various therapies that are taught during the relapse prevention program in any rehab center in Rhode Island, you will see that there is definitely a focus on treating the mind. People are taught meditation and relaxation exercises to free their mind from the shackles of the addiction. In fact, in a residential treatment center in Rhode Island, you will find that the major bulk of the program consists of treating the patients in this manner.

3. There is actually a program that deals with treating the body and the mind together during substance abuse treatment in Rhode Island. This is the dual diagnosis program. Basically speaking, the dual diagnosis treatment program is meant for the treatment of coexisting conditions, but in the realm of substance abuse treatment in Rhode Island, it is mostly applies to the treatment of mental illnesses that occur along with substance abuse (which incidentally is also a mental illness). Here, the patient will be provided psychiatric counseling and the treatment for both conditions will be done on an almost simultaneous footing. This is a clear example of how substance abuse is considered to be a mental illness in the state treatment program in Rhode Island.



Jamie