Diseases can be our spiritual flat tires - disruptions in our lives that seem to be disasters at the time but end by redirecting our lives in a meaningful way.

I truly feel the best doctors are ones who are criticized by nurses, patients and family. They do not make excuses and learn from their mistakes.

Several of our children have married outside my faith. Would I prefer they marry within their religion? Yes, because I know that marrying outside the family faith will very likely bring them more problems-but not from me. My job is to accept them and love them, not to criticize them and make their lives more difficult.

So to me, what the drugs and addiction are saying is that I deserve to feel good, I'm allowed to take this because look how I was treated as a child. Our authority figures, particularly our parents are hypnotic. Their words are hypnotic literally to small children because of brain wave patterns.

Feel your feelings. What you bring forth will save you.

When you accept that you are not in charge of everything, you can begin to work with the one who really is in charge. This has been my experience; when I accepted that I was not in charge and started to work with someone else's plan, the Boss showed up. Now we are a team and I have less to be concerned about. He organizes my schedule. I just follow it, and when He is taking a day off my wife steps in.

So you grow up with those messages, "You're a failure, you embarrass me, that's why I dress you in dark colors etc." or even when parents commit suicide, the child may think they were a failure as a child causing that. The majority of those people who weren't loved turn to drugs and alcohol and suicide.