Does Beer Make You Fat or Make You Lean? Author and Therapist Gets Involved in National Alcohol and Drug Recovery Month, September 2006

After 30 years, therapist Szifra (SHifra) Birke still brings a lighthearted touch to her work. She has counseled clients and trained and consulted with professionals on individual and group work with all aspects of substance abuse in the family. This year, she is starting some new groups and helping others across the country get similar groups started.

Chelmsford, MA, (PRWEB) September 8, 2006 -– “Beer makes you lean…lean against tables, chairs, bars and poles,” says Chelmsford therapist Szifra Birke, repeating one of the many drinking jokes she’s heard over the past 30 years. Bumper stickers and slogans like these are everywhere. Tee shirts read "One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor." “It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is I can't remember if it's the tenth or the eleventh.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve also heard too many stories of regret from moms and dads who didn’t get sober until they lost their children and from adults who grew up with alcoholism only to marry an alcoholic and raise their children in a troubled home. Many of my clients have repeated the harmful patterns of their families without any awareness of problems until their children started having trouble. None of these people are laughing; they just want to turn back time. Full of remorse, they ask, “Why didn’t I didn’t do something sooner?”

“We are still a culture with a lot of denial about the ravages of alcoholism,” says Birke, explaining why she decided to participate in the 17th annual celebration of National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), through its Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT).

“As the saying goes, denial isn’t a river in Africa,” says Birke. “Denial keeps people from seeing what others see. If you struggle with alcohol, or grew up around substance abuse, chances are you also tend to deny and minimize. People need to recognize and admit there is a problem before a way out can be found—whether the problem is alcoholism or the aftermath of growing up with it.”

Many experts believe that group therapy is an effective way to help people learn about themselves and have healthier relationships. . “In individual or group therapy, people learn to understand their feelings better, improve their parenting, be better listeners and feel more comfortable in social situations, all of which make a huge difference in feeling better about yourself and your life,” says Birke.

Birke, a certified drug and alcohol abuse counselor and co-author of Together We Heal: A Real-Life Portrait of Recovery in Group Therapy for Adult Children, (Infinity Publishing) and a leading authority in individual and group therapy, is launching several small therapy groups to coincide with Recovery Month. In addition, she is once again offering her consulting services to agencies and individual counselors, social workers, psychologists and other helping professionals.

Group themes address some of the major issues facing those whose lives have been touched by alcohol abuse, including those with ADD and ADHD and their partners. I’ll Quit Tomorrow is for women who think they should stop drinking, but haven’t yet; Sober and Clean, But Not Serene is for men and women who have been sober five years or more, but want more out of their lives; Together We Heal is for adults whose parents had a drinking or drug problem and It’s All Relative is for adults whose siblings abuse substances. Birke, who also notes a high correlation between Attention Deficit Disorder and substance abuse, runs Double Duty and Team ADDitude groups for men and women with ADD and ADHD and for those whose partners have ADD or ADHD.

Szifra Birke’s expertise in helping families of alcoholics develop a better foundation for building healthy self-esteem and lasting relationships rests on 30 years of experience in individual and group counseling, not only for alcohol-related issues but also for successful but unfulfilled business owners and professionals in high-stress situations, such as attorneys and police officers. Her work has been featured on Bill Moyers’ PBS program Circle of Recovery as well as in the Boston Globe and on numerous local and national radio and TV programs.

For anyone interested in her groups, or to discuss consulting about groups or individual counseling, Birke offers a free telephone consultation. Szifra (SHifra) Birke can be reached at 978-446-9600 or www.szifrabirke.com.

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