The questions I have for you to think over here are not my only ones for as i was reading q`s often came to mind and I didnt write them down and some of them where also answered anyways.

What is the origin and purpose of the word sponsor? After connecting with your discription of what a sponsor does ie. Decision Making Consultant I feel a gap in thinking `sponsor`. Would a new paradigm handle Decision Making Consultant or maybe "Coach" as an alternative. That may seem a little pedantic and maybe even silly but as a former ` sponsor `of addicts I just never felt that the word was appropriate enough. What progress has been made regarding the formation of N4A? Have you started info seminars? Have you any sort of funding? How has that been? Has anyone worked with you to set up N4A outside of the U.S.?

How is the Hypoism paradigm impacting addicts on the level of meetings or conferences?

What do you think of N4A in Australia? Funded by govt. and member subscriptions, offering meetings everyday with rooms for sponsor/coaching training. Phones for enquiries and support. Monthly seminars for members and public advertised in local press! A team employed by the assos. to run the shop inc. providing stats on recovery to the local govt. promoting Hypoism throughout the country, enrolling lawyers to represent Hypoics etc.etc. There is so much to do and I want to big a part of it but I cant see the paradigm going as far as it should in this country if it does not offer renumeration for the work that it will need to transform public view of addiction. I too am angry at the current parasitic paradigm that feeds off the disease of addicts and feigns real treatment for abuse. Yes it stinks! But good or bad it is there because it is profitable for the people who call it a career! Will N4A exist and be effective if it does not have the bucks to carry the people who make it happen and reinvest profit into broadening its possibility to all that need it so? I sense you dont care what money you make from the handbook ? I can hear in your words that if the handbook offers one Hypoic freedom, freedom (I love that word), from addiction then you will have acheived something that transcends time and suffering. I was talking to my brother yesterday he said something that I lay awake last night and thought about for hours ~If it isnt making profit it won`t go anywhere~ he wasn`t talking about N4A , he has never heard of it but those words are still ringing in my ears.

Considering above paragragh and if this predicament is true how do you think that N4A could emerge through AA? Accepting no outside contribution? Fearful of standing up and standing for something that is bigger than the fucking moon and will save their own child's life, should they be recognised by the bloke down the street? Developing a program for the coaching of coaches/sponsors was a crucial void area of anon programs I felt. What do you think? Does a Hypoic with a sponsor certify her to counsel another Hypoic emotionally attached or not? Could we explore the development of such a program while educating ourselves and others about the paradigm? I mean other than having a coach/sponsor what is it that provides recovery but knowledge of the disease via the steps and understanding the Hypoism paradigm well enough to be able to coach others?
Look forward to your reply,
John Murphy (Australia)

5/20/01
Hi Dan, I am sorry that all of your efforts are meeting with such difficulty. You are correct, that is most difficult when as you say the ideas intrenched in others....however misguided...are almost impossible to break. You show great courage and intelligence above those with which you have to deal. Such is the fate of most innovative thinkers and researchers. Yet I feel that you will be proven and accepted. If not now what else will they have to do to prove over time that the current thinking is wrong....it will ultimately prove itself...if we all speak up in some kind of unison. What a thought! Addicts speaking like real people with a real disease openly! I do long for that day...as others tell me it is here? What planet are they on. I find the more I know the more I get agitated about the BS. Really what did I think my counterparts would do....support some other idea than what was fed to them!! I am pissed at those in AA that will not look and find me a kook for trying to introduce something new and valuable to us all!! Well what to do? Just support the one knight...who jousts with the devil. I have a sponsor, but she is an RN most trained to do each other in of any profession I have ever met....including you. How do I tell her of my new knowlege....such stuff is sacraligious to the group....Nurses are not really inventive, intelligent and skilled, but not real innovative thinkers as a group...this has always bothered me....I should have gone to medical school as the "old man said" but I fell in "love". Usually a wrong decision...for the reasons explained in the book. I am glad that I did have two very handsome, truly addicted children who seem to cope with life better than I at there age. Both of my sons...need to know this and I have told them. They seem not to really believe it either...youth is marvellous in this way. On a medical note...as you are a Neprologist...my father died Renal Cell Ca....terrible death in 1990. The chills, the inability to eat....the wasting. I went to Long Beach with him for his last trip and had to return on medical flight...as he started to get much worse....it was all so tragic! What if any are my risks for this disease? I was told he got it through life style....meaning his beer drinking ....apparently people drank irradiated beer in the 50's...and 40's? Do you think this contributed or was it something else? He was #4 British Commando and was one of Churchill's personal body guards at the Berlin peace talks..they tell me that nothing can be told of what he was involved in until 50 years after his death...quite heavy for me. They even made a movie about them "The Bridge too Far" the bridge over Arnhem. The second drop to save Lord Lovat my fathers commanding officer....was my Dad...he mined and blew that bridge. My mother has all of his historical stuff...so what...he is gone to renal cell at 64 ten years ago. Not many people care or even know about this...I was born in Scotland and as a two year old brought to Canada in the late 50's. Now I am married to an American...whom without which...in the sense of a nation I would not have existed...had you all not come to help us against that terrible threat. I love this free thinking land...I am dismayed at the lack of appreciation for you and your research. Do remember what Duncan, my father said to me years ago...."I know that nothing is really known about this yet" He was nobody's fool. Just one of us. That was brilliant, and at times so crazy that he was unrecognizable. We always put this down to his intelligence and courage and the WAR! Now I wish he was alive to talk with you. All Respect Maggie
My Response:
Maggie: I deeply appreciate the e-mail. I assume you read the book. First: Please just do recovery for the next couple of years with your sponsor. Explain to her what you personally need according to the book and your understanding of the disease and the decision-making apparatus. In other words, clear direction from her, not suggestions. Make sure you have some meaningless fun each day. Don't make any major changes in your life for the time being. Don't concern yourself with the nonsense right now. Keep reading the book and follow the steps as instructed in the step chapter including writing the autobiography, the two lists from step 4. share your feelings but don't take them seriously and accept them whatever they are. No changing feelings. Let people know about the web site and book if they show a need to understand the disease better and leave it at that. If they want to debate, send them to me. Let them know about the N4A, but don't push it or argue with them. To better understand the status quo just realize these people are full of fear and are using superstition instead of rationality to deal with it. Bill wilson, the guru, made sure they would always be that way. read: http://www.nvo.com/hypoism/whypeopleareignoringhypoism/ Besides your father, Winston Churchill was a great hypoic. Hypoism has always had its great people. The world would sorely miss hypoics. In fact, it would be a very boring place without them.
Hypoism is not actually sacrilegious because the beliefs it opposes are wrong. Moreover, believers can still compartmentalize their faith from their intellect. The two don't have to be antithetical. As Galileo, a very religious man, said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." Despite this he was excommunicated for hundreds of years, only recently reversed, and under house arrest for the last eight of his life. Please keep writing. Thx.
dan

7/4/01
Dear Dr Umanoff,
I’ve just read through “Hypoic’s Handbook”. I want to read through it again more carefully but I wanted to drop a line and say thanks and to ask if you know of anyone setting up something like N4A in England.
It was fantastic for me to read your book.It has given a logical structure to a lot of ideas of my own that were not fully formed and which I sometimes felt alone with. More importantly, for my recovery, I am now checking out all my decisions with my sponsor – previously, I felt that it was what I should do, but, now I know why I need to do it. This makes it easier to do.
I relate a lot to your own personal struggles in AA. I first went to AA/NA in 1984 and over the years I had periods of abstinence (the longest was 2 years) but I never felt ‘right’ about it and certainly never felt like I belonged. I have now been in recovery for almost three years after an 8-year relapse that ended up with my left-leg amputated above the knee and kidney failure. The one idea that I have had fixed in my mind this time around was that I could not trust my own thinking and that, left to my own devices, I would convince myself that it was actually in my best interests to use drugs again.
The relapses left me more and more confused. I was highly motivated and definitely did not want to use drugs again but it kept on happening. I tried to take on every suggestion I heard, no matter how bizarre. I convinced myself that I believed in God and would ritualistically pray every morning. Occasionally, when reality seeped through with the realisation that I didn’t really believe in God, then, I would be paralysed by fear. I continued to relapse. Other members let me know that it was because I did not ‘want’ recovery enough. Eventually I drifted away completely and endured 8 years of absolute hell.
My leg was amputated in July 1998 when I somehow managed to inject in my femoral artery rather than the vein. Shortly after this I was able to detox and came back to NA – though, I had absolutely no expectation of being able to stay clean. Fortunately, I was able to make some very close friends and got myself a good sponsor.
Recovery has by no means been easy. I get almost constant ‘phantom’ pain that can leave me feeling depressed and hopeless. My partner through much of my using was murdered last year. The police know who did it but did not have enough evidence. Rightly or wrongly I suspect they did not try that hard because she was a junkie. After all, that means she asked for it, doesn’t it?
On the whole, though, I am doing OK. I still often feel like an alien, even amongst my fellow addicts but reality checks with my friends help me through this. I can see clearly now that this is a symptom of low FOKS activity and will be something that I will always suffer from – but knowing what it is helps, at least, as long as I ask for help from my friends and sponsor.
I am starting a BSC degree at university this autumn, in Psychology and North American studies. This is very much a neurologically based course and my original motivation was due to the phantom pain I suffer but I am now very much interested in possible research into hypoism as well. Though, that is obviously a few years away.
I will do the third year of my course at a university in the states but I am hoping to go to New York for a holiday with some NA friends in the next couple of months. I would definitely want to get to some Hypoics not-Anonymous meetings while I’m there. I would very much appreciate finding out when they take place.
Unfortunately, this country is following the policies of the US. So far not as harshly but give them time. We desperately need N4A here as well, so if you know of any like-minded people in England I’d love to be able to contact them.
Thanks for the work you put in on your book; it has really opened my mind up.
Your fellow hypoic
Kevin

Here's a review of my book from an AA person I just got today (10/29/01). This was a letter he wrote to CASA, an addiction research and policy center at Columbia University about one of their studies.

RE: "Malignant Neglect: Substance Abuse and America's Schools"

To Whom It May Concern:

I am a recovering alcoholic/other drug addict, clean and sober 15 years now. One of the most daunting tasks before me, upon reaching the turning point, was who and what to believe about my condition? Did I have a mental/emotional problem? Did I have an inherently flawed character, and fall victim to my own weaknesses? Did I have a disease? If I had a disease, why were some people telling me I had "low self-esteem", etc. etc.? Did I fall victim to social influences that led to my use of alcohol and drugs (including the drug alcohol), and then to changes in my brain brought on by my use (hijacked brain theory)? Was it all of these? None? Some? Or was it something else?

I felt my life depended on getting my feet on solid ground with regard to this question, but I eventually found there was no solid ground to land on. The answer did not lie in any of the above. Between 8-10 years into my recovery, during my stint as a substance abuse counselor for five years, I realized that there was something different going on, something that very few were even slightly aware of, that it was something different about the way the brains of addicts function, and that none of the current models could explain it.

In conducting assessments, I realized something else. If I asked, "is there a history of alcoholism or drug addiction in your family?," about half would say no. I found, however, if I went to say "well, is there anyone in your family that got in trouble from time to time because of drinking/drug use," or "has anyone in your family ever had the family worried about their drinking/drug use?," then the numbers came close to 100%.

I knew, from my conversations and observations, that this difference was evident before the onset of addiction, during addiction, and after recovery from addiction. I didn't know what exactly it was, but I saw it very clearly. It was rooted in brain function, and was inherited at conception.

In summary, there was clearly something different about the brain function of addicts, before, during, and after addiction, and it was clearly acquired genetically.

This discovery eventually led to my leaving the field, because I immediately became a square peg in a round hole. My knowledge was not compatible with the accepted psychological/social/religious paradigm, and I found myself in an intolerable position. I knew who would win a power struggle, since I'm not a physician or psychologist, so I stepped aside.

A few months ago I happened across a web site. The guy was obviously more than just a little angry, and my first thought was "this guy is a little nuts". Just nuts enough, however to pique my curiosity, so I started reading, I was stunned. Here was an M.D. describing why, and how, the brains of addicts function differently than the brains of "normal" people, describing the "difference" I had recognized a few years before, to a "T", and explaining why.

To make a long story short, if you want to know why "...The CASA report reveals a complete failure to achieve the year 2000 National Education Goals enacted by Congress in 1994...," get his book, and read it. It's worth far more than the price. He probably deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

I assure you, the problem is not one of "Malignant Neglect", at least not as described in the article. If there's "malignant neglect", it's the treatment industry's, and many other social institution's, failure to provide effective, science-based solutions to the problem of addiction. Failure to read and understand this book is truly "Malignant Neglect."

The book can be purchased at http://www.hypoism.com . The author is Dan Umanoff, M.D.

Thank you Dan, for all your wonderful work.

Jeff

Dan, I just wanted to let you know I received the Hypoic’s Handbook a couple of weeks ago, thanks. Due to a busy schedule I was unable to start reading immediately but am well into it now (approx. p140). I think it is an excellent and important piece of work, so far. In fact, it is the best theoretical concept of the cause of addiction I’ve studied in 15 years of abstinence from drugs. I have always felt that my problem was bigger and more pervasive than my active drug addiction and believed that in many ways that I am not recovering but have only continued and/or switched to other addictions. Your work is validating many things I have thought and opening my eyes to many more ideas and implications about addiction (and society’s role in the issue) that I never suspected. In reading the book I am often reminded of the initial unearthing of the periodic table of elements where the existence of many of the elements was predicted exactly but took some time to detect and measure because of the technology of the time. It seems that the Hypoism paradigm at this stage is very similar. I have many questions but will hold off until I finish the book, which I know already will require my careful study for many years, if not a lifetime.

Thanks
John A. Davisson

Gday mate,

Hope all is well with you. i read much of what you send. Gives me regular reality checks. It also has sparked something in me. I want to set up a meeting. A sustainable one. One that offers education and recovery using the Hypoism paradigm. i have been in idle mode for long enough. I have enjoyed many years of sobriety, largely because of what i have learnt about myself , my FOKS, under the Hypoism paradigm. My sons are adolescent now. I may have mentioned before. I see hypoic traits in their behaviour. So part of my motivation is also to be part of a group that can offer support. To my own sons if they ever need it. My other motivation is to make a difference in life. Can you suggest a structure for a meeting. I have some ideas.

Regards