In 1986 I had an opportunity to learn about addiction by participating in Mount Sinai Hospital’s In-Patient Addiction Treatment Unit in Miami.  The purpose of this Externship was to teach therapist’s about the disease of addiction.  I attended group therapy session as a quasi-patient and then as a co-group leader. I attended lectures,  watched films, sat in on staff meetings with and   without patients and participated in meetings with families.

For several months I was the Family Therapist at Mt. Sinai’s newly formed Out Patient Program. At this time I decided to learn   more about the 12 Step program and so I immersed myself in the program by attending Al-Anon meetings. Through the years I attended many open AA   and NA meetings, and have done the steps several times in different programs and have since gone on to teach the Family Disease of Addiction for the   University of Miami in their Addiction Certificate Program.

Addiction Recovery is hard work.  It means changing some habits, some friends, some places, things, substances and behaviors that we have used to soothe our emotional pain.  It means living life differently, changing our thinking, making peace with our past, and learning to tolerate feelings that we have tried so hard to avoid in the past. It means learning to be of service to others, learning to live in the moment and most important, it means connecting with some power greater than ourselves. This is difficult to do alone. Let me support you.