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loved it. never heard of a meditation for compassion and I really like that story about the woman and her hyper kid. I'm going to try that with mine. I struggle with a drug addiction and am trying all sorts of ways to stop. one day I will be one of those people that I do meetings with that say they have been clean for 10 years 20 years I want that one day I want to beat this ugly drug addiction but they say it's the hardest to quit I know I will. I really enjoyed this book. It's given me more tools to help me in my path to recovery. thank you

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A real Piece of Work (if you know what I mean).

Just got to chapter 12 where this book which is SUPPOSED to be about using your MIND to over-come addictions starts going into how to use BIG PHARMA as part of your tool-kit. Just so I have SOME proof that this is the paradymn of a greedy materialist and therefore doomed to fail...let me go into TWO other SUPER FAILED types of therapies (one worse than the other btw) that this author lauds as effective in his treatment of his patients. The first is the super failed (yet massively financially lucrative & time consuming) programs of AA / NA type groups. Statistics show that the vast majority of people who use these programs go back to using, that only a super small percentage retain any sobriety because of the program. I would take it, just like a parasite wanting to keep the patient WEAK and yet other than dead has a similar approach to wanting to keep such businesses in play as well. So that would be the first proof of how ineffective his stance on mindfulness in this book is...

Now the other is systems therapy which was Ch11. I had watched A LOT of the psychologist on youtube who promotes this "therapy" and can only whittle it down to something a clown would want you to do (again for materialism and promoting his business sake) and please let me be CLEAR about the fact I KNOW this can AND does help THE SUPER RARE PERSON, as the author even gives example in the book. Yet here is the IMPORTANT PART, just like aa/na groups the failure rate IS THROUGH THE ROOF. So I am GLAD that this can help a rare person to stay clean/sober. Yet WHY in the world would anyone FOCUS on such when there are TOOLS THAT WORK MOST OR ALL OF THE TIME. Once again I put the authors mindset of being greedy for dollars or materialism as a strong possibility for why...just keep em coming back and paying those dollars! Let me SUMMARIZE what I refer to as (family) systems therapy in Ch11 is like...IT IS LIKE HAVING A CONVERSATION WITH ALL THE LITTLE PEOPLE IN YOUR HEAD TO TRY AND GET THEM TO TALK WITH ONE ANOTHER SO THEY CAN ALL AGREE YOU ARE JUST A NORMAL NUT :) it really is that bad...and this one comes from that stellar institution of the big DSM and its worshiper of the shrink with the psychology type mentality! So that should give you an idea of how I feel about such a book with ZERO cures in it (and new diseases added every year by the dozens). Keep them customers between real life & death just like any good parasite will try and do!

So LONG STORY SHORT. This is SUPPOSED TO BE A BOOK ON MINDFULNESS, and using THAT to overcome addiction. Yet the author must of had a few chapters to fill out with his lack of knowledge on that topic...so they went into all the other (garbage IMO) ideas he uses in his clinic, including using big pharma drugs like psychiatric drugs on addicts who may be feeling depressed or whatever...once again, I CITE the statistics towards such...that FAR MORE PEOPLE end up vastly harmed (or failed) than helped by any such usage...just type in ANY drug name as such on youtube and see the PLETHORA of users complaining about how big pharma has done them dirty and you will have the FULL understanding of what I am mentioning here...

Every other author I have disagreed with on here I have GONE EASY on because I was dealing with their beLIEfs for the most part, this one here though is a different story, this is more like having the wolf in charge of the henhouse, and when it comes to such I will go brutally hard, and let it be known EXACTLY how I feel about that!

POSTEDIT: I have decided to do my best to tough it through the rest of this book (past Ch12)...I now have only 1.5 hours left, AND I WILL LISTEN TO IT ALL. So much of this book IS beneficial, so therefore I AM UPPING my rating. All the stuff I put still stands, yet is FAR MORE balanced now, and appropriately...truth HAS to be told as best we all can, and there IS much that CAN BE BENEFICIAL in this book...and like I said about the failed programs as such. Even though PREDOMINANTLY they are more of a waste of time, ANYONE who gets benefit from them IS IMPORTANT! The man who read this audio also has done a professional job!

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