I saw Roger Waters and The Wall Tour in Phoenix last week and it was spectacular; the most astounding concert production and I have ever seen, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

On the morning of the performance the front page of the morning paper featured stories about the cozy (albeit illegal) relationships presidential campaigns have with the Super Pacs who raise cash for them. The other was about the CEO of J.P. Morgan, Jamie Dimon who apologized for a $2 billion trading loss, which happened because Wall Street is still fighting regulatory changes, in spite of its responsibility for most serious recession in 75 years. Reading this infuriated me! We do not live in a democracy; we live in an oligarchy, a form of government in which power is invested in a few, the moneyed class. That was my general mood when I went to the concert that night.

Roger Waters and Pink Floyd first performed it 30 years ago, about Roger’s personal journey of pain and outrage at his own losses. This “Wall” was a story about the seduction of power, and a lament about the loss of our humanity. This was a wake-up call about watching carefully those to whom we relinquish our control. This “Wall” was about how power and greed are destructive forces in the world, and it moved me deeply.

The production was a technical extravaganza; the Wall appeared brick by brick, it could be taken apart, written upon, and was a giant video screen featuring powerful warscapes; rockets bursting, helicopters roaring, searchlights exploring, and giant puppets dancing on stage. Gliding overhead was a remote-controlled blimp in the shape of pig, covered with $$$ signs. The scene was intense… and magnified by the music

Roger Waters is an aging wizard who has mastered the message and the medium to tell a story I believe in. I was carried away in the end, standing with 15,000 others, my fist raised, and chanting Rise Up. In that moment I felt it was still possible to believe, that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…our time has come.

So that’s what I’m thinking.

Schlagbyte Webinar
We’ll talk about what’s bringing us hope and what threatens to steal it.

The New York Times just featured an article in its Sunday Magazine (4/22/12) on the effectiveness of a psychedelic drug in quelling fear and anxiety in patients facing death. It talked about psilocybin (the psychoactive agent in magic mushrooms), and how it helped 12 anxious/fearful/depressed people find a peace that allowed them to enjoy the time they had left.

This is not new information; thousands of papers have been published about the beneficial effects of psychedelic drug therapy involving tens of thousands of patients suffering from addictions, stress disorders, depression, and end-of-life anxiety. I have been a strong supporter of the use of these drugs at end-of-life ever since I prescribed Ketamine for a patient dying with metastatic cancer ( http://www.healingdoc.com/blogs/2012/04/seeing-in-the-dying-light-a-ketamine-case-study). He was an angry, anxious 62 year-old man with liver cancer that had spread; his experience with Ketamine was very much the same as the patients described in the NYT Magazine article. My patient came into a consciousness that allowed him to appreciate the remainder of his days. (You can read the whole story in my book Kindling Spirit).

The real question is whether one needs to be dying in order to find such peace? I’ve worked with Native Americans for most of my professional life and can tell you that the most effective treatment program for alcoholism among American Indians has been participation in the Native American Church, which uses peyote as its holy sacrament. Studies are now being conducted on the use of psychedelics in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorders, chronic depressions, and acute anxiety states. With professional/ceremonial supervision I can see psychedelic assisted therapy as an adjunct in couples therapy, and with teenagers in identity crises…(the problem of course is the potential for its abuse.)

At the very least, I strongly believe that we need to make these drugs more available at least in palliative care settings. They should be a standard part of the choices available to patients in hospice care. At the end of our lives, psychedelic therapy can provide a light at the end of the tunnel.

NEXT WEBINAR

If you want to pursue this subject further, join me at the next Schlagbyte Webinar Thursday, May 17 at 5 PM on the West Coast 8 PM and the East Coast.
You can also submit questions before the webinar to webmaster@healingdoc.com.

Ketamine induces a dissociative state that causes subjects to lose track of time and place, and to detach from awareness of external stimuli, including pain. Professionals in the treatment of alcoholism, anxiety disorders, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have effectively used ketamine-assisted psychotherapy to treat patients. Before treating Steve, the patient described in this case report, I had never used ketamine-assisted therapy in my practice.

Steve was 64 years old when I first met him in October, 2004. Ten years earlier, he had been diagnosed with nonalcohol related cirrhosis. In early 2000 he was diagnosed with liver cancer, and two years later he learned that he had metastatic disease to the bone. At that point, his doctors told him that he had about 6-9 months to live. He had been treated by chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, but his cancer continued to progress. By the time I saw him, he was no longer eligible for a liver transplant.

However, Steve was unwilling to give up the idea that he could heal himself. He was searching for healing methods and not prsseparing for death. Steve believed that he had been a shaman in a previous life, and wanted to regress back in time to speak with his previous incarnation. Steve believed that, by accessing this ancient knowledge, he could learn to heal himself. To this end, he wanted to take peyote in a Native American healing ceremony, hoping that it would facilitate his vision.

Steve first contacted me at the recommendation of a friend, since I have experience in the sacramental use of peyote in Native American ceremonies. During this initial meeting I advised Steve to consider alternatives because peyote is irritating to the G.I. tract, and not dosespecific. Peyote use often causes vomiting, and if Steve vomited, he could bleed internally, which had already happened to him once. Steve and I talked and discussed alternatives that might be helpful, like hypnotherapy and past-life regression.

Steve and I had quite a bit in common and resonated with one another. We were both originally from New York City and had graduated from city high schools and colleges. Steve went on to law school, and became a distinguished attorney and later a federal judge. He had been married and divorced, with two grown children to whom he was close. Angry with doctors, he held them responsible for failing to diagnose sooner the extent of his metastatic disease. If they had found it earlier, he would have been eligible for a transplant. Despite his limited options, though, Steve was not ready to die.

Steve was rational, without evidence of thought disorder; moreover, he was an intelligent critical thinker with a quick wit. He described his spiritual life as ethnically Jewish, by which he meant he liked pastrami on rye and matzoh ball soup, but that he had no personal relationship with God, or any interest in developing one.

After our initial visit, Steve decided to explore hypnotherapy. During his second visit, he proved to be an easily inducible subject and was able to regress in time to Neanderthal days. At one point, Steve described seeing cavemen from afar, but felt reluctant to join them. I told him to open his hands, put them in front of himself, and approach them. He did so, and they made room around the fire. He sat down cross-legged in the circle but understood nothing they were saying. He did not speak to a shaman and was unable to go back any further in time.

When we talked about it later, he said he would love to go deeper into trance and asked if I could intensify the hypnotic experience. That’s when I told him about ketamine-assisted therapy, and explained that ketamine could be legally prescribed and had been used clinically in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorders (PTSD) and chronic alcoholism. Used in controlled conditions, there is strong supporting evidence that it can be helpful in making healthful changes, since it activates a portion of the brain that makes it possible to move beyond ordinary conceptions of time and space. I told Steve that I had not yet used it in my clinical practice but was willing to try, if he wanted. I told him to review the literature and talk about it with his children. By the next visit, he had done his homework and had decided to try it.

Steve had experimented with psychedelics in the 1960s and wasn’t frightened at the prospect of working with them in a controlled setting. He only wanted to be sure that I would stay with him during the experience, and I told him that I wouldn’t leave him and would be totally involved. I wanted to speak to his children, so I met with his son, who happened to be a local physician, and he told me that both he and his sister were fine with whatever their father wanted to do. He added that it didn’t surprise him at all, and that he would provide the syringes and needles to cut his father’s expenses.

Ketamine session 1:
October 21, 2004

For the first session, Steve brought along some crystals and stones from sacred Mayan sites in the Yucatán. I told him to place them wherever he wanted, and lit the oil-lamp on my coffee table and some fragrant sage. I explained to him that we were preparing the space to receive the healing energy that will flow once the ketamine is administered.

Once these preparations were completed, I gave him a small dose (25 mg.) intramuscularly, to test his tolerance. Within three minutes, he described a warm tingling in his ears, which then spread to his face and lips. He appeared very comfortable and then described a sense of overwhelming peace and wellbeing. “It’s like an endless orgasm,” he exclaimed.

During guided visualization, Stevc returned to the same Neanderthal cave. This time, when he approached the group, they recognized him and made room for him around the fire. He could not understand a word. Looking around he saw that the cave walls were covered with beautiful artwork. He saw handprints on the wall and got up to touch them. Watching him, a Neanderthal came over and put his hand on the wall and showed Steve how to make his hand print by spitting a chalky liquid over his hand. Steve put his hand on the cave wall and did the same. When he removed his hand he said, “Only this piece of me stays here.”

Later, when I asked Steve what he meant, he said he’d left the handprint behind, but he was “flying out of here … people leave their mark in the cave but their spirit moves beyond those walls.” He marveled that primitive man had time to spend on art and not just survival issues. Then, he commented that although they were gone, and the animals they drew were gone, their spiritual power was still here for all to see and feel. He thought he had spent far too much time exploring the rational world, and far too little exploring this peaceful spiritual world. Steve noted with a smile that his natural tendency was always toward skepticism.

When we talked about it later, I was interested in whether his cave vision and flying away might have something to do with the direction in which he felt himself moving. I was hoping that he might see comfort in something other than his frantic pursuit of a cure. He said, “I know you want me to talk about my soul with God, but that’s not me. I’m just happy that I am moving in a direction that feels so peaceful.”

Ketamine session 2:
November 18, 2004

I injected 50 mg. and within 3 minutes Steve felt the same enveloping warmth and peace. He described himself floating in the cosmos– “I feel light, I am light, there is a light inside me, I feel like I’m floating with the angels.” He began humming and I joined him. He moved his hands over his body, asking his shamanic self to make itself visible so that he could heal himself. Then I followed his hands over his body, and together we spread this divine light all over. I pressed my fingers deep into the right upper quadrant of his abdomen to direct the energy into his liver. The intensity of the experience and the energy coursing through his body made my fingertips tingle. After this session, Steve began going regularly to his health club and said he felt stronger.

Ketamine session 3:
December 14, 2004

Using 75 mg., Steve again entered a state of peaceful bliss, and he described sensing a harmonic chorus of celestial angels. Following Steve’s wishes, I tried to guide him to a place where he could communicate with his shamanic soul. Enveloped in a sense of heavenly peace, I noticed tears rolling down his cheek. When I asked him what the tears were saying he said, “These are tears of joy, I have never felt so in tune with the whole universe. If this is God, I believe, but I don’t want to talk to him.”

By January, 2005, Steve was feeling stronger but his tumor markers were rising and his alphaphetoprotein (AFP ) level was astronomically high. That month he learned of an ssexperimental program at the University of Pittsburgh where researchers were injecting drugs directly into the liver. Desperate for a cure, he flew to Pittsburgh and they accepted him into the program on the condition that he discontinue his ketamine therapy. Steve wanted to participate in this research program, even though he knew it would cause weakness and nausea. I told him that I would support his choice, and that he could take a break from ketamine-assisted therapy. Steve felt strong enough at this point to take a vacation with his girlfriend before beginning the new treatment. .

From April through October, Steve returned to Pittsburgh monthly. On his last visit, though, the research doctors told him that they must stop the treatment because his tumor markers were continuing to worsen. He returned to Phoenix feeling quite depressed, seeing only darkness. He hoped that another ketamine- assisted therapy session would help him find some light and peace.

Ketamine session 4:
October 18, 2005

For this session, I raised the dose to 100 mg. Like last time, when Steve heard the “cosmic chorus”, I hummed along with him. It happened to be the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur and, unconsciously, my hum became a tune from that day’s liturgy. Steve recognized the melody and hummed along with me. The Torah portion for that day was the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. While we were humming Steve had a vision of Abraham, dressed in flowing white garb. When he got closer, though, he saw that the flowing robe was actually a doctor’s white coat. In front of Dr. Abraham was an altar on which Steve saw himself stretched out and bound. He saw Dr. Abraham with the dagger in his raised hand, and, just as he was ready to plunge it, God called out to Abraham and he stopped. Steve looked up at the knife, and it had been replaced by a beam of light. Steve felt the presence of an overwhelming sense of peace.

When we talked about the experience later, he said, “The knife is less scary,” and then asked, “Do you think the light is my shaman talking to me?”

Over the next two months, Steve was hospitalized twice after fainting, leaving him with several bad bruises. He told me that he knew his health would continue to worsen but that he wanted to “bathe in the light one more time.” I found myself wondering if he had finally come to peace with the imminence of his death.

Ketamine session 5:
December 13, 2005

At Steve’s request, I gave him 125 mg of ketamine. Like before, he felt immensely peaceful, heard celestial angels singing, and soon we were humming together. I asked him if he could see the light at the end of the tunnel and he said, “There is no tunnel, there is only light. I am surrounded by light, I feel love and peace.” He wondered if this was the healing conversation he had been looking for with his shamanic self.

After this session, Steve continued to grow weaker and soon he was unable to get up without feeling wobbly and dizzy. referred Steve to hospice, an option he had previously resisted. I explained that the hospice community is a place where one surrounded by caretakers of light, and shortly after this discussion he moved into hospice treatment.

The week before Steve died, he told me this story. “I thanked my hospice nurse when she left the other day. I told her what a great job she was doing. She thanked me and said no matter how much money she was making (ha, ha, ha), that she loved this work and that to be with me inspired her to live her life with joy. There were tears in her eyes when she spoke to me and I had tears in mine.” Then Steve said, “It’s all about flying into the light and seeing your imprint on the cave wall.” He thanked me for helping him see that light, and I told him I felt pretty much as his hospice nurse did, appreciative for having been with him on this journey.

Steve died on March 14, 2006, 10 years after his original diagnosis and five times longer than any of the doctors had estimated. At his funeral service his son said, “We all called my father the Energizer Bunny. His attitude inspires me.”

Steve believed that if he could communicate with his ancient shamanic self, he might learn how to heal himself. The shaman he sought turned out to be a tribal ancestral messenger who turned the dagger of impending death into a beam of light. Through the use of ketamine, Steve realized that the shaman he sought was not in the lost continent of Atlantis, but within. When granted the opportunity to suspend ourselves from ordinary consciousness, we can make connections that may have previously eluded us. Steve was able to go to a place beyond our everyday conceptions of time and space, allowing him to make peace with himself and the cosmos.

I think the ketamine-assisted therapy allowed Steve to hang on to the idea that he could be healed, and, indeed, I believe he was. But there is a difference between healing and curing, and you can be healed even if you’re not cured. Healing is about making connections to something other than yourself, something that reminds you that you’re not alone on the journey. At the end of life, the connection to others who love us is priceless. Those connections are imprinted in the hearts of others and on the cave walls of the mind that endure, even once we are separated from our physical bodies.

Dr. Hammerschlag is an internationally recognized psychiatrist, who for 16 years was Chief of Psychiatry, at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center. He is a faculty member at the Univ. of Arizona Medical School, speaker, author and healer. His journey from doctor to healer has been chronicled in three critically acclaimed books, The Dancing Healers (Harper-Collins, 1988), The Theft of the Spirit (Simon & Schuster, 1993), and Healing Ceremonies (Putnam/Perigee, 1998). He can be reached at www.healingdoc.com.

Bibliography

Jansen, K. Ketamine: Dreams and Realities. MAPS, Sarasota, 2001
Krupitsky, E. “Ketamine Psychedelic Therapy: A Review of the Results of Ten Years of Research,” Journal of Psychoative Drugs, 29 (2):165-183, 1997.
Jansen, K., and Darracot-Cankovic, R. “The Non-Medical use of Ketamine,” J. of Psychoactive Drugs, 33 (2): 151-158, 2001

I rewired my brain last week, and finally faced my fear and certainty that I couldn’t tell my stories effectively on the computer. I thought the computer was designed for people who wanted to access information, and get quick solutions to their questions. In the Computer Age, if you can’t share what you know in a sound bite or brief video people will move on to a more exciting app.

I’m a storyteller and need to set the stage for listeners; my preference would be at night around a campfire. I was sure the computer didn’t promote an intimate connection with the audience. I couldn’t see or hear them and I needed that energetic connection to be able to come from a truthful place within.

It’s also clear to me that there is a whole generation who only gets information around this new fireplace, and unless I can adapt to this medium, what’s been passed down will die with me. Why do I lament this? Because I believe that listening to the myths/heroic journey’s/mystical insights/miraculous happenings are how a culture transmits its values, and those stories help us make sense of our lives.

Last week I faced my old certainties, and did a webinar for the Gesundheit! Institute (where I hold my most prized academic credential as Chief of Community Mental Health). I spoke for 20 minutes about my new book Stop Your Sh*t Shoveling, and for the next 40’ responded to audience questions and comments. 37 people showed up at the appointed time, and 36 of them stayed to the end (in spite of the technical difficulties). The participants asked questions and made comments, they were open, funny, probing, and even though I couldn’t see or hear them, it felt like an intimate exchange to me.

I want to do it again, because I know it’ll reinforce my new brain wiring, get easier and I’m hoping to like it even better. I’m considering in addition to my twice a month Schlagbyte, on the weeks there are none I’ll do a Schlagbyte Webinar, using the previous weeks subject as the launching point for discussion. Let’s plan on at least 30’ together and see how the first one goes.

Join me and get bitten!
Schlagbyte Webinar
Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 5 PM
in Arizona and the West Coast
(8 PM on the East Coast).

We’ll talk about how to rewire our brains, creating new paths that allow us to see the familiar in new ways.
Register here

P.S. If you didn’t catch my coming out on the Gesundheit! Premiere, here’s the link (which includes a riff on pubic hair).

Sally, a fifty-ish year old businesswoman who suffers from panic attacks. The kind of fear that comes from not being able to breathe, crushing chest pain, call 911 terror. The paramedics would take her to an emergency room and sometimes she was admitted, but the tests are always negative.

I’ve seen Sally over the years, and she understands that her panic attacks are most likely to occur when she’s feeling alone and vulnerable. She knows they stem from lingering childhood fears about being abandoned. As a 5 year old she was taken to the ER for what were thought to be asthma attacks. These episodes were often triggered when her parents left her in the care of a nanny on their long business trips.

Sally understands the unconscious dynamics of her behavior, but having insight doesn’t necessarily change it. When she sustains a significant loss (two husbands/lovers/business setbacks), she finds herself getting trapped on the old panic highway. Insight into a problem doesn’t necessarily change the behavior. To change behavior you must give your brain a new set of instructions, otherwise you get swept up in the traffic of well-worn path of old patterns; you have to create detours on the highway of destructive habits.

In order to get out of old ruts, those familiar almost reflexive reactions, you must find a way to get out of what’s familiar and see from a new perspective, alter your consciousness. Your brain has the capacity to create new neural pathways, a quality called neuroplasticity. And the good news is, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been repeating dysfunctional/hurtful habits, you can always choose to change; by finding the will, and getting some training and support.

When you feel weak and faltering, here’s how you go about creating detours and getting into a different consciousness. Humans have been doing it since the beginning of time. Ancient healers might drum, pray and light incense, yogis alter the way they breathe to induce meditative states, monks chant, dervishes dance; these are all trance states and allow the brain to see the familiar in new ways. They all are detour signs that give the brain new instructions.

One of my favorite ways to alter people’s consciousness is through the use of guided imagery, stories, and rituals. I created such a new path for Sally. She learned how to make a rest stop on the panic highway, smell the roses and wrote a new ending to her old story.

If you want to hear more about how I help people create new endings to old stories, join me at the Gesundheit! Institute Webinar Series Premiere this Tuesday evening April 17th. at 5PM on the West Coast (8 PM on the East Coast, and check your time zone). Register, it’s free.

Or if you’d rather read about it, get my new book, Stop Your Sh*t Shoveling at the healingdoc.com store.

I was in Washington DC last week during the historic Supreme Court deliberations on the national healthcare overhaul bill. The Court’s ruling in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) may be the most important one it decides in this generation, and it could redefine the federal government’s power and congresses authority to solve national problems.

The streets and parks in front of the Supreme Court building were filled with hundreds of people, both supporters and protesters. The energy was electric, with each side trying to out-shout the other, competing as to who could parade their signs in front of the cameras first, or sing God bless America louder.

When I was there protesters far exceeded the bills supporters. Most of them were older, white and had arrived in church sponsored buses. There were anarchists, socialists, libertarians and tea partiers, all stridently proclaiming the rightness of their views on liberty, freedom and justice.

My wife and I stood with signs supporting the bill (see photos). I was labeled everything from socialist to Dr. Kevorkian. But my discussions were conducted in a normal voice, and we listened to each other. Walking through the crowd with a smile was the Statue of Liberty, who announced happily that this is what freedom of speech looks like.
If the Court throws this back to Congress to create a better bill, I don’t think they can do it. There is no more divisive a community in this country than the U.S. Congress, whose partisanship only intensifies all that divides us.

It’s clear that we’ll never, not all of us, ever going to be on the same page. The question is can we bridge our divides to come together as Americans and make a decision about what’s best for most of our citizens? Surely we can’t leave 40 million Americans uninsured because it’s fundamentally immoral.

We the people, can find a place in the midst of the tumult where we can turn down the volume and listen to each other; a place where we can see the glass as half full, so that we can sing God Bless America better not louder.

A year ago Japan was devastated by a magnitude 9.0 quake causing a tsunami that claimed over 20,000 lives. In the city of Kamaishi, 30 foot waves destroyed the inner-city killing 1,000 of its 40,000 inhabitants.

When the waters receded, rescuers entered the city’s devastated streets and started pulling the dead from the rubble. They carried the bodies to the gymnasium of a vacant middle school that had escaped damage, which became a large morgue. Atsushi Chiba, a 72-year-old retired undertaker went to the gym to look for friends and family, and was struck by the mounting numbers of bodies. Most of the dead were wrapped in plastic, still in muddy clothes with their rigid limbs sticking out.

Mr. Chiba, well trained in the ancient Buddhist rituals of preparing the dead for cremation looked at them and thought “if the bodies were left this way, the families who came to claim him wouldn’t be able to bear it”….in Japan we treat the dead with respect as a way of comforting the living”. So the first thing he did was wipe their faces clean, then he massaged their stiff limbs so the bodies looked less contorted. He wanted every family to know that somebody had taken care of their loved one, until they had arrived.

Mr. Chiba’s attempts to honor the dead quickly caught on; people put together school desks to build a makeshift altar, and each time the body was carried out workers lined up with their heads bowed to pay their last respects. Mr. Chiba said it didn’t make any difference whether people were religious or not mourning for the dead is a fundamental need… this simple gift of humanity offered comfort to the living.

In our culture, we dramatically underutilize rituals and ceremonies in the pursuit of healing. Rituals and ceremonies provide the structure by which people get in touch with their feeling hearts and souls. When we share our humanity in community, it reminds us that we do not face our sorrow alone. Gathering in this way creates a passionate energy that lifts the human spirit and renews the bonds that bind people together.

This year’s Grammy awards were especially poignant; first there was the honoring of Whitney Houston whose tragic death happened the previous day, and then there was the moment Glen Campbell’s appearance. Almost a year ago Glen told the world that he was in the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease. When they invited him to the stage, I had this pang of fear, maybe he’d space out and forget the lyrics to his own songs. But he performed beautifully, no painful pauses, brought tears to my eyes. The following week he came to Phoenix; three of his kids were in the backup band, and you could feel his joy, when there was a pause the audience sang with him.

My fears about his performance were a projection of my own terrors. Getting old is bittersweet; we can appreciate our accomplishments, but we also have to come to peace with our limitations. The awareness that I was losing my mind has to be among my greatest fears. If (God forbid, ptui,ptui,ptui) I was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s, could I face that truth with Glenn’s courage; could I share my vulnerabilities that publicly, and could I find a way to come to every day with his joy

I want to get older like Glenn Campbell, to practice that kind of radical self-acceptance to:

• Own the truth of who I am now, and appreciate what I have left
• Let go of what I once thought I had to do, and be, in order to feel good about myself.
• Get out of my head where fear dwells and emphasizes my losses
• Get into my heart, sing my song as long as I can because this is where I feel fully alive

Thank you Glenn Campbell for showing me how you play your hand. You inspire me to tell my stories as long as I can find an audience… who I hope will help me when I lose my way.

Last Saturday, Whitney Houston’s funeral was held in the same Newark church where she sang in the choir as a child, and Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey ordered the flags lowered to half-staff. Critics deluged him with mail and tweets’ saying it was wrong to honor a drug addict; that it set a bad example for youth saying you can be an abuser and still be idolized.

I applaud the governor’s decision, and I am saddened by her early loss. This astoundingly talented woman could not stop killing herself; she never believed she could live happily without the substances she abused. As hard as she tried she could not escape the seduction of drugs as answers to whatever she faced. I lament that she gave up her freedom; if we are to be successful in life it’s because we took responsibility for finding the right solutions to our problems.

Whitney Houston is not the first idol to have died from chemical addictions; the seduction of drugs and alcohol took Billie Holiday, Elvis Presley, Jimmy Hendricks, and Janis Joplin (among many others). They all died from their addictions, but it doesn’t diminish the brilliance of their contributions, nor does it minimize what they leave behind.

On the day they buried her in New Jersey, I sat back and listened to her sing Amazing Grace, she belted out the tune and it brought tears to my eyes.
Reminded me not only of her wonder, but her message; we don’t have to be blind before we can see, and we don’t have to die to have our fears relieved.
A flag at half-staff for Whitney was a wonderful tribute; I would have liked a bagpiper…Thank you Whitney, you were an Amazing Grace.

It’s been almost a year since I gave up my 50-year habit of drinking 5 cups of coffee a day. And as soon as I did my reflux got much better. Although I gave up coffee, I didn’t change my eating habits. I love sweets; carbs from pasta to pastry call me by name; I approach a buffet line like a contestant participating in a sporting event. In the last year I gained 15 pounds and this winter I discovered I couldn’t button my suit pants.

I told myself it was clearly time to do something about it, but I’d been saying that for 6 months. When my massage therapist /yogini/vegetarian/ daughter said to me while pinching my belly fat said “when are you finally going to do something about this?” I bet I could do it, and she encouraged me by gifting me with an appointment to see a nutritionist. Simin (her name means “silvery” in Persian) is a 5-foot dynamo who had my number from the beginning. This is not about winning a bet, she said, it’s about making a choice to eat healthier and live stronger. She delivered a PowerPoint presentation about how to eat less but to do it more often, drink lots of water, eat foods that were higher in protein and less in carbs. When she was done she said it was my choice to make, but it had to be a sustainable commitment. Could I get into a mindset to look at the food I put into my mouth and see it with new eyes?

It’s been a month and I’m looking at food in a different way, that’s not to say my mouth doesn’t water at the thought of a hot fudge sundae, but I have found that it’s possible to savor the sweetness of fresh raspberries with a sense of awesome delight.

The Silver Food Angel turned out to be the gift that got me to stop my shit shoveling; to stop talking about it and do something. If you’re a shoveler, or you know someone who is you’ll want to read my new mini e-book “Stop Your Shit Shoveling”. Go to shitshoveler.com… chuckle at the video, take the quiz and download these potentially life-saving 45 pages for less than the price of a cup of coffee