SoberDreams.com

##The why, who, what, and how of SoberDreams.com — roughly.

The Internet is a mammoth, wonderfully chaotic library. It is full of the good, the bad and the dumb, which also characterizes the information carried on it. <grin> SoberDreams.com is designed to provide you with an Internet gateway to information about psychoactive substances that can cause problems (e.g., alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, etc.). The goal is to provide some order to the chaos and (hopefully) reasonable filters that access more of the good, and less of the bad and the dumb.

##The Why of SoberDreams.com

The purpose of this website is to provide you with a semi-structured way of learning about psychoactive substances. Psychoactive substances affect the brain. Their use can result in significant negative consequences.

And “Caveat Emptor”! Please be aware that there is an “editorial slant” to this website. The fellow who runs this website has been helping people with psychoactive substance problems since 1979 and one of his mottos is: “Less is probably better and nothing may well be best.” <grin>

##The Who of SoberDreams.com

The fellow behind your screen.

The fellow running this web site is no longer 30-something and thus lays no claim to the title and expertise of a webmaster. However, having run a (very) small BBS (bulletin board system) in days of yore this same fellow thinks of himself as the SYStem OPerator, or SysOp for short.

Apart from that, your SysOp received his doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, Psychology Department (you might want to take a look at the department’s humor page). He has worked, since 1987, at the Center for Studies of Addiction (a collaborative effort of the University of Pennsylvania, Psychiatry Department and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center) both treating people and helping to develop new treatment methods to help people overcome dependence on alcohol, amphetamines, cannabis, cocaine, heroin and nicotine. He is a member of the American Psychological Association, a fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association, a member of the Philadelphia Society of Clinical Psychologists and a licensed psychologist in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

And, switching to the first person singular <smile>, I (as in Dr. Mike Feeley) also have a private practise in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area. I provide consulting and psychotherapy services in my office in Havertown for people who have difficulties with substance use,depression, anxiety, and other difficulties. I also provide personal life coaching services in person or via telephone for people who would like help in achieving goals and realizing dreams.

Please feel free to contact me:
Michael Feeley, PhD
mail: POB 244, Haverford, PA 19041-0244
tel: +1 484 419 9482
email: drmike (at) soberdreams dot com

If you do send me email, please make it plain text without attachments. My spam filters have become _very_ picky. Thanks! <smile>

Cheers! Enjoy the site! Comments, questions and suggestions are welcome.

##The What of SoberDreams.com

The Site Structure

This site functions as a sort of library of links to information on other sites on the Internet. In your browser, this is a link. Move to the link and either hit return or click on it and you will be taken to another page (which is most likely somewhere else in cyberspace). Make sure you know how to use your browser’s “back” button or its equivalent. <smile> Please also note that information on other websites is under the control of those websites, not SoberDreams.

As of August 2005 SoberDreams.com is undergoing a major facelift. This website is now five years old and it was showing its age. The main change is the switch from static pages coded in HTML to pages coded using a blogging software program called WordPress. WordPress allows your SysOp to post simple text files with basic HTMl to an organized file structure. For you, gentle reader, all posts will appear on the home page. They will then "scroll off" your screen as more get added. You can retrieve "scrolled-off" articles by using the Directory on the right hand side of your screen as well as through the search function. WordPress is new to SoberDreams, so problems _will_ occur. If you notice anything odd or have questions or comments please send an email to drmike AT soberdreams dot com.

SoberDreams is organized as follows:

• The Problem: This section discusses why one might be interested in the problems caused by misuse of psychoactive substances.

• The Substances: Here one finds a series of links to articles on other web sites that provide basic information about each substance.

• Self-Help: This section has links to self-help organizations. These self-help organizations aid those with substance problems and/or those who have family members or friends with these
  problems.

• Science and the Addictions: Snake-oil abounds on the Internet. This series of links provides information on how to tell good data from bad, good science from bad science or non-science from science, links to information on prevention and treatment programs, as well as links to research institutes studying psychoactive substance use disorders. “The educated consumer saves money, time and pain.”

• Social Policy and the Addictions: Social policy on substance abuse and the animated discussions about those policies can generally be divided into three positions: Reduce harm from drugs, Reduce the supply of drugs and Reduce the demand for drugs. An emotionally charged area — shades advised! <smile>

• Current News: This section is the main page on SoberDreams.com and contains an ever-changing series of newswire and other articles on psychoactive substances. One way to stay abreast of “what’s happening” in substance abuse. Articles are generally posted Monday - Friday of the current week (sometimes on the weekend). The date of each article is the date it was posted to SoberDreams, not necessarily the date it appeared on the Internet. Previous editions are also available. The posted articles are brief vignettes of psychoactive substance new articles with a link to take you to the entire article. Web site links have an uncanny tendency to get Lost-in-(cyber)Space as web site maintainers move things around. SoberDreams has no control over the “missing links” of other sites. All the articles first appear on the home page and then "scroll-off" as more articles are added. You can always find the news articles in the News Categories and News Archives sections.

##The How of SoberDreams.com

Accessibility and Usability

Style sheets are used as much as possible in this website. Style sheets are an Internet standard designed to make web pages accessible to a wide variety of browsers (graphical, text, aural and braille), operating systems and monitors. If you are using a graphical browser and see <cough> boring pages, you might want to upgrade your browser to its most recent version and/or check to see that style sheets are enabled. Frames and tables are not used on this website. Cookies, Java and javascript are not required to read the material on this website, but may be required to enter comments.

The World Wide Web is far too often the World Wide WAIT. One of the goals of this web site is to allow you to get information quickly. To that end, the attempt has been made to keep pages very small (generally well under the 34Kb recommended per page for modem users). You will also find almost no graphics on this site. The pages may be, well, a little “dry”, but they they are designed to arrive on your screen very quickly.

You will find a simple navigation bar in the “sidebar” of each page. This bar allows you to jump to most any place on the website. To return to the main page just click on the words SoberDreams.com at the top of each page. Each page will also have a title to let you know where you are on the website. Also, since there are no frames on this site, your BACK button should be fully functional.

As far as possible, this site conforms to the accessibility guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium. These guidelines help make websites more accessible to those who must use text, aural and braille web browsers. Each page on this website has been submitted to a “validator” program to make sure it conforms to World Wide Web Consortium standards. All pages meet the standards — unless, of course, they have changed their standards since I was last there. <smile>

The web pages for the external links (to other web sites) found on the SoberDreams web site are not under the control of SoberDreams and may pose problems for one or more browser types.

There may be a question of the accessibility of the language used on this web site. The fellow who runs this site has a “Pretty high Degree”. Have pity.

The Privacy Statement

When you come to the SoberDreams.com web site, the domain from which you are coming is recorded. For example, if you are coming from the University of Pennsylvania, the site will note that you have come from upenn.edu. No further information is gathered.