I’m now 84 years old, ambulatory, monogamous, cheerful, perspicacious, self-funded and drug-free. My life’s been interesting: conversations with Albert Einstein in Princeton before he died; drug trips with Timothy Leary at Harvard before he died. Professor and pot-head, genius and … Continue reading
(Isa 53:5) But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. We Christians know to whom that verse refers. But many … Continue reading
Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. (James 4:10) It’s easy to get the wrong idea about humility in the Bible. People think God wants to make us humble. Wrong! He wants to … Continue reading
Mother Teresa is Number One on Gallup’s List of Most Widely Admired People of the 20th Century. In the 1980s, early in my recovery from drugs and alcohol, it seemed that I and my cohorts, now that we had renounced … Continue reading
Charles Slack, Ph.D. Princeton University 1954, was an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology at Harvard University at age 26. He is also a recovered drug addict, abstinent from all drugs and alcohol since March of 1976. “With fame I become … Continue reading
I’m not the only one who prays constantly for knowledge of God’s will. Most Christians are eager to know what He wants. (As a recovered drug addict, I really need to know.) Yet the Bible states God’s perfect will clearly … Continue reading
They are not the same. Depression is a lingering state of mind (often assumed to have a neurological basis) whereas grief is a more acute state of emotional pain caused by a specific loss. In grief, we temporarily mourn the … Continue reading
Physicians generally prescribe medication for “clinical depression” which is assumed to be physiological in aetiology. Grief, on the other hand, is caused by the complete, permanent loss of a cherished person, place or thing. Self-pity, which involves bitterness, is more … Continue reading
Upper academia has its unforgivable sins. Fudging data, plagiarism, and faking credentials are certainly on the list along with cheating on exams. Still my ego and my conscience went round and round in an endless debate. Why should I feel … Continue reading
1929 was the US stock-market crash and the start of a world-wide depression. Jobs were scarce but my father had one at the Westinghouse plant in Bloomfield New Jersey. When I became aware of where I lived it was in … Continue reading
I thought I would know how to be an engineer but I didn’t. In 1947 my sophomore year my grades were low. Engineering drawing was the worst – penmanship again. Math was integral/differential calculus which private-school boys learned in high … Continue reading
An ex-addict attends a professional drug therapy conference and has something to say about it. Professional treatment for drug addiction is now known to be successful only around five percent of the time. Relapse is far more common than abstinence. … Continue reading
In September 1905 Albert Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 appeared in the German Annalen der Physik in a paper titled, “Does the inertia of a body depend upon its energy-content?” The equation appears in a different form on the last page of the … Continue reading
At age 26 I was a proud psychologist with a Ph.D. from Princeton, teaching in Clinical Psychology at the Department of Social Relations of Harvard University and drinking heavily on weekends. In the early 1960s, when it was still legal, … Continue reading
Psalm 37 says that God “will give you the desires of your heart”. Not just at Christmas but throughout the year! It’s a promise repeated often in the Bible and most believers attest to His faithfulness. Yet some desires seem … Continue reading
Evaluating drug treatments “Success rates”, what do they mean? How should treatments be evaluated? Here are some stories about how God’s will plays out in drug rehabs and programs. Our first case is R, a man unable to remain clean … Continue reading
These concepts came to me bit by bit over the years. Although I can’t believe these notions have never either been proved wrong or better explicated by Bible scholars, I have not found them in anything like this form anywhere … Continue reading
The Australian May 01, 2010 “Psychedelic drugs including LSD, demonised since the 1960s, are back on the medical research agenda as treatments for depression and trauma.” By Chris Ayres. {link not found}. Charles Slack got a PhD in Experimental Psychology … Continue reading
Severely depressed people and their doctors generally agree there is no cure for severe “clinical depression”. Medications are prescribed to temporarily cover over some of the symptoms but the underlying cause is not well understood and therefore assumed to be … Continue reading
Miraculous Hebrew Words: relief from even the worst depression lies in some special Hebrew words. The Old Testament has at least seven such words describing worship. They are: YADAH – A verb with a root meaning “the extended hand, to … Continue reading
Charles Slack, Ph.D. ([1]) To make an informed choice to commit myself to any drug-treatment program, I am entitled, perhaps obligated, to know in some detail whether and in what way the program will reduce my chances of relapsing into … Continue reading
Do you know that even if you are 99% accurate in judging a person to be a certain kind of sinner that, if only one per cent of the population has that particular sin, you will be wrong in about … Continue reading
At meetings of the American Psychological Association in my day members asked each other, “Where are you now?” meaning “where are you teaching these days?” or, “under what aegis do you conduct your research?” As my career went in to … Continue reading
After Adam and Eve disobeyed Him, God called to Adam, “Where are you?”[i] Adam replied that he hid himself because he was naked. God then asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of … Continue reading
The Bible on addiction We can summarise by saying that, in one sense, the entire Bible is focused on the general problem of what we now call “addictions”, including compulsive behaviours and obsessive thoughts. However to unlock its secrets, a … Continue reading
More of my story In 1961, when it was still legal, I began experimenting with LSD. I had just concluded a five-year appointment as Assistant Professor at a prestigious university and my initial drug use could be called genuine research. … Continue reading
Hooked So by taking drugs we become the slaves of drugs. This happens no matter what our reasons. The act of taking, not some “underlying cause”, begins the slide into slavery. No matter how or why, whether our motives are … Continue reading
There is nothing like the joy of the Lord “Felicity” is a word for happiness rarely used nowadays. It is found in the old Anglican Book of Common Prayer as a companion expression to “everlasting joy.” The adjective felicitous means … Continue reading
The First Lesson This lesson comes from a drug abuser in the throes of heavy addiction. He arrived early to one of my favourite recovery meetings. Clearly this was his first venture into a room full of clean ex-addicts and … Continue reading