Myrina Addiction Counseling & Life Skills Consultant Services Ltd.

Myrina is OPEN!

Well here we are. Finally after all the trials, tribulations, time, and effort; Myrina is functioning and ready for public use! To initiate contact all you need to do is click the 'Log In Session' button then select 'Register.' You are on the way to initiating contact with a counselor who will understand you and take the time to know and help you.

Now we spread the word of why we exist and what we want to do. Thanks to our many friends we have seen our traffic expand dramatically to monthly levels in one day. Thank you to everyone for having a look, and thank you for the wonderful words of encouragement and praise for taking the time to do the right thing for the right reason at the right time.

We at Myrina have a very simple reason to exist: We want to help you reach out and grab hold of balance in life. For some people this comes naturally, but for others nature seems out of place and happiness is misplaced. That is the imbalance we strive to find.

If we wanted to get rich while doing this we would charge a lot more than we do, it is not every day that you can communicate with a counselor for 75€ and no one has seen that level of bill to see a Psychiatrist for ages. But that is what we offer. Eventhough our services are more secure than anyone providing this service, eventhough we have set a new standard for information security in the E-Counseling industry, we are dedicated to maintaining the same standard of quality of service you should expect in face to face counseling situations.

We will have problems. You may experience an error with our web site, but you will not with our services!

Myrina

Woman Charged In Boy's Alcohol-Poisoning Death

According to an article in the Salt Lake Tribune, a woman has been charged with homicide after a 14-year-old boy died of alcohol poisoning in Uintah County, Utah, USA.

Very sad article about what can happen if you do nothing when anything will do!

The link is slow but does open.

Myrina

Latest Drug and Alcohol News From The UK

Dead Heroin Addict's Video Diaries To Be Aired In Sky1 Documentary

According to guardian.co.uk, in an article posted August 21 2008, Sky1 is to screen the intimate video diaries of a heroin addict in the months leading up to his death as part of a hard-hitting new documentary.

Sad but POWERFUL!

Myrina

Most in the substance abuse prevention field are familiar with the term "binge drinking". Defined by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), binge drinking is a minimum of 4 drinks for women or 5 drinks for men per occasion.

However, in more recent years, the term "extreme drinking" has been used to describe the drinking habits of some high school and college-aged youth. Extreme drinking goes way beyond the minimum threshold for binge drinking, notes Dr. Aaron White from Duke University Medical Center. He adds that extreme drinking doubles or even triples the usual minimum amounts of binge drinking we are familiar with.

Myrina

To understand the gravity of the attached BBC News article you must understand what they talk about in the later portions of the article first.
A few years back the UK Government decided people who drink and do stupid or illegal things, were simply ignorant (and I mean 'nobody had ever told them') how much alcohol most people drink when they drink. So these bright lights within the government decide to pour millions of £'s into the "Know Your Limits" campaign.
Their main goal was to reduce the socially harmful ways drinkers behave when they are drinking. So they hired all these advertising execs and created this grand campaign that was supposed to reduce overall incidents of physical and sexual assaults, robberies and muggings, vandolism, truancy, ect... by telling people how much alcohol is socially and medically acceptable to drink when you drink. If I remember correctly they also increased the maximum penalties if the crime was alcohol related, you know a little added negative incentave to "Know Your Limits". For those of you who do not know, THIS is exactly what they mean when they talk about "Harm Reduction."

The only smart thing the UK did was to ask a group called "Alcohol Concern" to periodically check the results of the campaign.

The following article is part of the absolutely tragic results, in all age groups, of this foolishly designed attempt to save society from the dumb stuff drinkers do.

Hospital Alcohol Admissions Soar

Please read, and share, this Article! The fantastic work done by Alcohol Concern in this matter should finally demonstrate that "harm reduction" does not work! Very few people will stay within the limits you provide them because it is not human nature to do so. If it was human nature to stay within our known boundries, we would still be eating meat off a stick cooked over a fire inside our cave.
It is possible for me to go on with this topic forever! but I will allow the reader to come to their own conclusions with the information in the article, and close for now.

Myrina

Men and women with managerial jobs were the most likely to have drunk alcohol in the previous week, says the survey.

The findings of the survey will ring true for Christina, a married professional.

Stones in My Heart Forever

Stones In My Heart Forever: 9-11: A Journey Through Courage, Strength and Hope

At Myrina we believe in friends. Kathryn Bedard, a good friend to Myrina, has published a book of her experiences as a Family Trauma Relief Worker in response to the September 11, 2001 tragedy in New York City.

"Stones in My Heart Forever" was written as a journal in the field as events unfolded, giving us a rare glimpse into the internal operations of a disaster relief site. Stones in My Heart Forever is much more than a description of events: it is filled with soul-searing multi-sensory images of what the author witnessed and experienced alongside other responders who suddenly found themselves in the midst of this historical event.

This book will likely become required reading material for those studying to work in relief of emotional trauma. Please support Kathryn as we do, and have a look.

Myrina

Finally A Positive Update!

We have been fighting a fight that we knew we could win. Just like every other fight worth fighting we knew it would take exactly what we were looking for. All the cogs had to match exactly, and I think we have done it.

I knew for a long time that I would have to find not only a person who was capable of building the specialized communications platform, but, that person would have to believe enough in our true mission to take this chance with us. I have worked with every link that I can find. Every network that I knew of and subsequently found out about to find that person and I think we finally did.

There were people all around us who said you are asking too much. You want too much. It is impossible! For a time even I began to believe they were right, then I finally got a positive response that included an extremely large amount of money with no guarentee of success.

Then about 3 weeks ago all the stars alligned, and the universe opened to reval a chance. The person agreed to the depth and complicated nature of the challenge, but he saw in our hearts that we were not fighting for ourselves, rather all the people we can help. He saw the chance that he has been looking for, the chance to make a difference for people who want and need it. He agreed to try something he had not done before, but knew was possible. He challenged himself and his team to expand their horizons and their achievements.

Last week I had the opportunity to assist in the first test of the application his team built. Humble as the test was, we achieved a milestone. Although the video display was a mere square inch and the audio was a little hard to hear sometimes, we all had huge smiles, cheered loudly, and hugs went around the rooms we were in. Personally I felt like Alexander Graham Bell must have felt when he heard a voice from the other end of the telephone line and knew he had achieved his goal.

Now, here we are, closer to our initial goal than ever before. We got to where we are now because we refused to believe we were asking the impossible. We are not completely functional - YET - soon!

Peace and Love

Myrina

Another Good Update

I have to tell you this has been tough, but it looks like we have finally got something we can trust.

Over the last three weeks, yes over the holiday season, we have been working feverishly to get the site operational. Recent tests have gone pretty well. We have had tests that included up to 8 users connecting to each other from different nations and maintained the security we want. The only issue has been the control mechanism for the application, but it looks like that will be completed this weekend.

The new static controls for the application should be uploaded to the site by Monday and we have scheduled Beta testing to begin in house on Monday night. If that testing goes well we will do extended Beta testing for about a week. If that testing goes well, we are able to fix all the issues we can find, we will take the system live and stand the E-Counseling industry on its ear!

Please be patient with us. We know we have been very picky, I call it detail oriented, but we did it for you!

Peace

Myrina

We want to welcome you to the Myrina Web Site. Although The site is not fully functioning as of the day I am writing this, we hope the operational portion of the site will be complete very soon.

This process has been an extremely complicated process. Both technologically and personally for everyone involved. In the beginning I made a promise to everyone that this company would be based on the highest standard of integrity and personal ethics, unfortunately I have had to enforce that twice in the last 18 months.

As many of you have seen, the static website is here. We know you have seen it because our server tells us we have now been reached by at least one person on each Continent! That we are very proud of!

What we were not proud of was the communications application we originally received. It was not secure, nor was it sturdy enough for us to conduct more than one consultation at a time, and that one connection was only stable enough for us if we were text chatting only. This application was delivered as a final product, and 6 months late. We had no option but to look for a new programmer capable of the same vision that we established early on, and who was capable of creating the communications application that met our requirements.

It is possible that I asked too much too soon, but I don't believe so. Originally, my focus was on the static web site, making sure it was secure, informative, and as easy to use as practical. All the feedback I have been given is very positive, and I am proud of how it looks and the depth if information. But, the site is so secure we cannot make changes to it. Therefore, I will have to deal with the typographical errors that exist until we can have the entire site rewritten. The appearance will not change and users will only be able to tell by the corrections to several errors that currently exist.

I invite anyone to contact me regarding either the website or if you wish to initiate contact with a consultant. The best way to contact me right now is through our main Email address: info@myrinaconsulting.com or you can go to the Contact Us link.

I personally check this email box several times a day and I answer every message immediately.

Again, thank you so much for visiting the site! We really are here to help you no matter where or when you are!

I have to thank Lance Armstrong for posting this on Twitter (you can follow him at @lancearmstrong)

This is a true "what were they thinking" move! Please the Gong'an County government ORDERED their civil servants to smoke 230,000 packs of locally produced cigarrettes to generate tax income! Gratefully they have backed off the order, because someone was able to convince them that slowly killing their population was counterproductive.

Independent Study of On-line Counseling

New way to treat drug addicts -- online

The idea that addicts need to physically go to treatment may be becoming obsolete,

"Virtual" drug treatment -- online therapy sessions conducted by home computer -- works, according to a study released last month.

A 50-patient pilot study published by the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment showed that participants in online drug addiction counseling were more satisfied with their treatment overall, compared to traditional group sessions.

Myrina has added a new service for the information seeker. We have introduced Live Help . This is not robot, all you need to do is click on the online help logo and you will be sent to our live help window. We cannot promise we will be there 24 - 7 - 365, but we will be there all we can.

This is a good way to try our communications server! The programming is exactly the same and the speed is similar, our counselking services have faster services than the live help.