VI AAEP News August 2019
FOUNDATION My Mentor program giving exceeds $100,000
The AAEP Foundation’s My Mentor Honor Program, which allows people to express gratitude to influential figures in their lives and careers, has surpassed $100,000 in gifts thanks to generous nominators and donors.
There are 13 mentors on the Honor Wall and another 22 nominees. To be listed as a nominee, $500 minimum in gifts must be reached. A nominee is added to the honor wall when $5,000 minimum in gifts is attained. The gifts are not required all at once; you may nominate a mentor and then find others to help honor your mentor.
My Mentor gifts can be designated among three endowments: (helping working equid programs, at-risk horses, and disaster preparedness and relief)
Visit
aaepfoundation.org and click the “Giving” tab to learn more about how you can honor someone important to you.
WELLNESS
Healthy Practice: The slippery slope of alcohol use and abuse By Kevin Foote, LMSW and Ted Fish, Ed.D., MBA
You always know from the tone.
The question I asked was simple: “Could you go without a drink?” And imme- diately she grew defensive and tense.
Kevin Foote
“Of course, I could,” came the reply. “But why should I? It’s the way I let off steam.”
Alcohol lives on a slippery slope. There is the full-blown alcoholic who slips the canteen of whiskey underneath the seat; the high-functioning professional who likes a can of beer to get through the day; and the evening addict. This is the person who takes a glass of wine with dinner or a stiff drink after the meal. The one who makes the evening’s drink a ritual in order to let off steam. The one like my client.
Each of these three has a problem. The clinical sign of a dependency on alcohol is when you suffer a mood change from either drinking or from not drinking. This is the point when the substance uses you, not the other way around.
Perhaps it is the long hours, the demanding clients, or the physical exertion. Perhaps it is the stress of always being on. Whatever the cause, self-medicating through alcohol is something I see regularly among equine vets.
Most would never admit there was a problem. Most would say as my client did: “It’s just what I do to ease the stress.”
What I ask is: “Can you leave it? Can you leave your drinking for a night, or a week, or even a month? Can you leave it without becoming irritable?”
I told my client that I was concerned. She was a brilliant doctor, completely devoted to preserving her health. She was in terrific shape, relying upon the sharpness of her reflexes to dodge those kicks. And she was a mother who was committed to modeling a good life for her daughter. She was violating her values and perhaps endangering her career. Additionally, I had heard from others in the practice that she was prone to fits of temper, one potential sign of alcohol abuse.
We spoke about her goals in life and her need to take those drinks, and the next week she made a decision: She took her addiction in hand, reducing her consumption by 75%. It was an act of courage and strength. The changes were immediate. Her blowouts at work got better, she had more energy for her job and she regained her self-respect.
My client was lucky, because we know there reaches a point of a full-blown alcoholic response in many drinkers. This is when changes are triggered in the brain, and a person cannot moderate their habit. When this occurs, in-patient or outpatient care, along with 12-step counseling, is a must.
As you stop reading this article, I want to ask: Where would you put your drinking on the scale? Could you leave alcohol today? Could you leave the beer or the wine for a week, or a month? Would it change your sleeping habits or your mood?
Be honest, and if you need, get help—it’s out there.
Kevin Foote, LMSW, is President of Footeworks, a company in Mattituck, N.Y., that helps business owners and their staffs produce the results they want in their professional and personal lives. Ted Fish, Ed.D., MBA, formerly with Footeworks, is executive director of the Gardner Carney Leadership Institute in Colorado Springs, Colo.
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