A matter of probabilities

If shrinking shirts is one of the most commonly-searched key phrases on this site – don’t ask me why – then drug rehab must be one of the least. I’ve just checked out HitTail, looking for a trace of this phrase, and there’s not one to be found. ‘Charity shop bolivia nc’, yes; ‘celia cromer wedding’, yes; ‘bugs flies compost pile’, yes; ‘all sort of home kitchen crowl insect’ – surely that must be ‘crawl’ – yes.

But nothing about drug rehab. Yet drugs and drug rehab is something I’ve written about a number of times, for various reasons.

The infinite puzzles of the Internet, eh? Who can fathom the mind of the Google Spider, or deduce her ways?

Plainly then, there’s more real concern about shrinking shirts in this world than about drug rehabilitation. Maybe it’s just that more people wear shirts than take drugs? I guess in terms of probabilities, that would be the case. Or maybe HitTail has a problem with drugs?

The other rather curious thing about key word phrases and my blog is that Henry Lewis Gates is fairly high on the list. Off the top of my head I couldn't recall who he was; nor did I remember writing about him. I had to go back through the blog itself to check him out and find he’s mentioned rather ironically as having misquoted Burns by saying it was Shakespeare who talked about his love being like a red, red rose.

He's rather more important than that -which might account for so many people looking for him.

Presenting the whole picture?

When I read some of the promos for drug rehab on the Net, with their pictures of luxury suites, I have to ask myself two things: just how much does it cost (and therefore who’s going to go?) and what happens when real drug addicts turn up and start making a mess in the place.
It’s fine to say that the staff have all been addicts themselves and know the problems, but presumably they also know that a clean image is probably rather unrealistic. Even people who are trying to get free of drugs are rather messy – or maybe my ideas of drug rehab are based on the film Sandra Bullock starred in called 28 Days where life was anything but clean and tidy. (Yes, I know it was about alcohol addiction, but the principle’s the same.)
All right, you can’t ‘sell’ a drug rehab place by showing the grime and grubbiness of life with a bunch of addicts. Fair enough to present pictures of beds with clean sheets and comfortable pillows. Perhaps I’d just like to see the other side represented as well.

Thirty

It’s not often I count the number of times a key word or phrase appears on the main page of someone’s site, but just out of curiosity I did it on the Cliffside Malibu page. The key phrase, drug rehab, appeared thirty times!

That’s the way to go, if you’re looking to get someone to pick up on that phrase while using a search engine. It’s obviously pretty essential to go full bore in such a way, because there are plenty of drug rehab places advertising on the Net.

That’s all a side issue. The actual front page for Cliffside Malibu is excellent. Sometimes a front page will have so little information on it you have to dig and dig to find what you want to know. Not so with this crowd. They have a host of things listed there, and all you have to do is scroll up and down. It’s not that they don’t have more pages, it’s just that the site tells you a great deal from the word go.

Addiction....and sin

In one of those I-wonder-what-that-site-is moments I took a look at a site on Drug Rehabilitation On their ‘aftercare’ page they give an interesting list of ‘relapse dangers’ that rehabilitated people need to watch out for.

Here’s the list:
1. Being exposed or having drugs and alcohol available.
2. Negative feelings.
3. Celebrations
4. Feeling or experiencing boredom.
5. Using a similar substance that reminds you of the old "high"
6. Physical pain or physical injury.
7. Remembering the "good ol days".
8. Having too much money.
9. Abusing prescription drugs.
10. Believing you are now "cured" and thus safe from addictions.

Interesting how several of these are also relapse danger points when it comes to sin! Being exposed to the sin that ‘always gets you’ and having negative feelings about life are both points of temptation, as are times of celebration (where the celebration is of the kind that leans towards sin rather than one of those fun parties where sin isn’t brought in).

Feeling bored, or flirting with something that reminds you of sins you’re trying to avoid are both dangerous. Remembering how ‘good’ the sin was (if that’s not too ironic an idea). Having too much money – as I said in another article recently, ‘retail therapy’ is a lie straight from the pit. And finally, believing you’re okay and can’t be tempted any more.

We don’t tend to call addicted people ‘sinners’ for the most part. There’s often an element in their makeup that’s given them a leaning towards the addiction. But not always. Some addictions just start out as straight rebelliousness, or even greed, both of which are sinful in themselves. It’s no surprise that AA meetings are often held in church halls and crypts. The whole AA concept is one that calls sin, sin, without somehow managing to use the word, and it often seems to lean towards its roots in the church.

Just getting back to the 4rehabilitation.com site for a moment, I thought this site focused on a particular centre, but in fact it’s a referral service. I notice on aftercare page they talk about an interesting offer some rehab facilities have available. If a person does relapse within six months, they can apply for re-admittance to the facility for free. Some perpetual sinners could do with the same ‘peace of mind’ service!