Two pints of lager and a coke

How times have changed.

A couple of years ago my hypnotherapy practice enjoyed a steady trickle of smokers with the occasional cannabis user thrown in for good measure. Then, a couple of years ago, someone approached me regarding their cocaine habit. "Why not?" I thought, and adapted my smoking cessation strategy to meet this new challenge.

Well, what do you know? It worked. "A one-off" I thought. I didn't even bother to advertise it on my website, just didn't realise the client base was there. (I don't get out as much as I used to!)

I wasn't surprised when I got another enquiry about cocaine, but as the trickle has turned into a steady flow, I'm truly alarmed about the explosion in coke use, and the casual attitude surrounding it. Around many social groups it's become a regular part of the weekend scene. Go out for a few drinks, do a line of coke in the toilets, or go back to John's, he's got some at his flat.

Trouble is, it all ends in tears because, although the price has come down, it still ain't cheap, and people are wiping themselves out financially trying to keep up. When I asked the client I saw yesterday to visualise his life without coke, he could see his wedding, and a happy life with his partner and his little girl. With coke, he saw himself destitute, his relationship destroyed, living on the street, or even dead. It doesn't get much more stark than that.

Science

Well, our neighbours, the Cumbers family, are back from their extended stay in Cyprus, thanks to the intervention of a volcano in Iceland. Of course, their journey home, along with the journeys of thousands upon thousands of other people, needn't have been delayed at all, because the scientists got it wrong.

I'm not saying that volcanic ash isn't harmful to jet engines. Of course it is. But here in my corner of the UK there wasn't any. There were just clear blue skies, completely devoid of clouds, volcanic ash, and aeroplanes. Any fool would have thought it was perfectly safe to fly, but oh no! The Scientists convinced us all that those clear blue skies were actually deadly. Utter rubbish of course. They just didn't have any data to go on, so they lost the plot and went into meltdown, rather than just applying common sense.

So what do we learn from this?

i) Scientists don't have any common sense.

ii) We shouldn't be letting the cast of The Big Bang Theory make decisions.

Now we're supposed to decide who we're going to let run the country, based on their performance on The Weakest Link. God help us.

Introducing Me

Hello, I'm Peter Phelps, an integrative therapist in London and Essex, husband, and father of two lovely kids.

My approach as a therapist is no-nonsense; I believe there's a lot of wishy-washy therapy out there that doesn't hit the spot. People come to therapy because they want to change, and that's what I'm here to do.

I don't subscribe to any particular model of therapy, because I think all models have something to offer, but I believe that connecting with the person in the room with me is essential to enable them to make progress.

Come back soon for my thoughts and feelings of the day.