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Christopher Kennedy Lawford's new book Recover to Live will be a force with the power to educate as well as motivate transformational personal change. Recover to Live may alter the way broader society looks at the disease of addiction and those who are suffering from it.
People now know of the word intervention and think they understand what it means, but more often than not they go about intervening the wrong way. I see people staging things on their own. But discussing the nature of somebody's condition over breakfast isn't an intervention.
We need more physicians on air. We understand the human being, experience and condition, and we need to be using media to deliver that. We cannot be afraid to entertain. Experiential phenomenon that entertains, educates. It changes peoples' ideas and culture. I believe that strongly.
For me, addiction exposes all of the brain mechanism under the influence of a profoundly distorted primary motivation. It's such a window into how we function as human beings. And the patient doesn't know that's happening! Doesn't believe that's happening! That's the fascinating part.
When I run on the treadmill, I read. But I have found that the only way to read while on the treadmill is to hold the book, since it moves around too much on the stand, you move around too much. I've gotten very good at holding a book and running, which tends to screw up my neck a little bit.
It's so self-evident that I have to live my own history, to remind people the fact that I got into radio back in the early '80s was because of AIDS and HIV. It was what motivated me - that was the topic that I felt was so important that I had to talk about it, educating young people about it.
Back in the day, I was the first non-recovering doctor working in recovery. People would say, 'You can't do that! We need recovering guys in this.' But usually recovering doctors have a lot of baggage and so there's a certain amount of liability with a recovering doctor. But of course it can be ideal.
The experience we all share and the outcomes, which have been remarkable in a way I never could have predicted. Taking unmotivated people - maybe marginally motivated to get on TV and make money - and ending up with a group that values and is changed by the treatment process and wants to share it with other people.
Trauma survivors have a deficiency in their capacity to regulate emotions - they're too prolonged and too intense and too negative. As a corollary to affect regulation, self-esteem, sense of self and inter-personal functioning all goes downhill. And that's a chronic thing that's solved in an-inter personal context.
Here's the acid test for appropriateness: Pretend that someone near and dear to you is witnessing what you are writing or sending, or knows what you are thinking about sending. If, say, your partner saw this behavior, how would he or she feel? That you are asking yourself this question could mean that you shouldn't be doing it!
You can educate people about politics, criminality, the law, but not about medicine? It's just silly.... I really don't want to hurt anybody, but to say the truth and to offer words that might be helpful in understanding what some of these conditions are. I can't see any reason not to do that. That's changing things for the better.
I grew up in a Christian home, but was nearly 17 before I realized I had to make my own decision to place my trust in Christ. Salvation cannot be earned by doing good works or going to church, and can't be automatically passed on from Christian parents. Salvation is a free gift from God, who sent His Son Jesus Christ to die in our place.
I'm climbing into a vehicle that has a powerful influence on our culture. I'd like to make it do something good. The media is populated with attorneys, psychologists and pundits but there are only three physicians: me, Dr. Oz and Sanjay Gupta. We are the only MDs who practice medicine and have board certifications in one or two fields. That's it.
We start with people who are motivated to get paid and be on TV, and we end up with people who have been transformed by the experience and go on to embrace sobriety. If they relapse, like most of my patients do, we continue to support and treat them. I'm thrilled that five out the eight [Celebrity Rehab cast members] showed up for after-care, and two more committed to coming back.
I'm not a Twitter fan. I do it because I feel responsible to the two million people that follow me, but Twitter to me is just another thing I have do. And it's mostly a place for people to attack and abuse you. I don't really get much out of it, personally. I get hundreds of demands to answer the kind of medical questions that require three years of treatment to assess, yet people are furious when I don't solve their problems in 140 characters. It's really stunning.