"Once upon a time, I walked up and down the colorful streets of Berkeley, California. It was Telegraph Avenue that attracted me most of all. The atmosphere was so bizarre that I was easily distracted from the agonizing feelings of self-loathing, self-pity, hopelessness, fear and despair. There, on Telegraph Avenue, I could forget my swollen ankles, hands and legs -- swollen from the consumption of massive amounts of sugary foods and refined carbohydrates. In Berkeley I could lose myself within unusual forms of creative expressions, some of which seemed pathological. You have to know the Telegraph Avenue of the ‘70s to understand what I mean. I spent day after day, hour upon hour, utterly consumed, obsessed, and tormented by a sugar and food obsession. Sugar was my complete ruination.

     Before the Berkeley era, I had abstained from bingeing for seven months while attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings. After relocating to California I fell off the wagon once again and gained fifty pounds in three months. Clinical depression accompanied the bingeing as I approached a non-functional existence. I went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with a mood disorder but refused medication. I awoke one morning and groggily opened my change purse only to find one penny. That was a most memorable morning! It was welfare or a psych hospital. I chose welfare and could barely get myself to the office. Along with the welfare came food stamps…a month’s worth binged away in three days. I had been accepted into an addiction treatment program but got cold feet at the last minute.

     Luckily I could sing well and also played guitar. I phoned a café and got hired but the money was binged away immediately. If I was lucky enough to stop eating I would start chewing. Transformed into a sorbitol junkie, I chewed 20 to 30 packs of sugarless gum per day …chewing gum wrappers strewn all over my room … incessant bouts of daily diarrhea. Berkeley was the place I walked aimlessly, every day trying to make the most out of a quarter.

     In 1980 I desperately searched the Bay Guardian, a small San Francisco newspaper, longing for an answer to my living Hell. I saw an advertisement for meditation and phoned the teacher immediately. When he answered the phone I asked, “Do you have peace of mind?” He said “yes” in a way that was truly genuine. I made an appointment and was on his doorstep the next day.  As he opened the door I could sense a true peacefulness about him.

    I had met lots of people in my life that smiled a lot, were energetic, charismatic, vivacious and friendly. But I had never met anyone with what I considered to be true peace of mind. I wanted what he had and knew that I would do anything for it. It was on February 24, 1980 -- my 29th birthday -- that my meditation journey began.

  I have spent years assisting clients and students in transforming their lives using simple meditation techniques. I have witnessed seemingly hopeless individuals attain peace and freedom in the midst of significant personal challenges. Since I am one of those people, I can share my experience and hope for anyone who is seeking relief from the inevitable sufferings of life. My work as a mindfulness-based psychotherapist stems not only from my personal transformation but also a deep belief in every person’s ability to discover their own inherent place of internal peace and harmony.

"When I was a youngster in Queens, New York, my usual habit was to take a candy bar, soda pop, miniature lemon or cherry pie, cookies or some other processed sugar-laden concoction with me whenever I left the house. It did not matter if I was going to school, to town with one or both of my parents, to the local playground or anywhere else my young, wiry, sugar-craving body desired to go. Sugary snacks had become such a part of my life that I could not imagine going through a day without them.
 

     This habit contributed toward my unhealthy little body becoming host to a number of dreadful, acidic ailments that persisted throughout most of my childhood. Unfortunately for me, my parents were not well-schooled in the fine arts of wholesome meal preparation or holistic health care practice. Their answer to my incessant complaints about nervous tics, upset tummy, gas, painful joints and muscle spasms was to have a local family doctor in Queens, N.Y., inject me with every new and virtually untested drug he could conjure.

  
     The result of this drug therapy, coupled with my continued sugar bingeing excesses, was the development of a serious health condition that eventually affected both inner ears. In fact, so serious were these complications that, during the late 1970s, I had to undergo a series of inner ear operations to bring lasting and welcome relief. Following those painful intrusions into my head, I resolved that I would never again subject myself to that kind of pain, distress and discomfort. (That was when I began an intensive study and investigation of how sugar and its processed byproducts can negatively impact health. That study has been ongoing for 30 years. At this point in my life I have no need or craving for sugar or any sweets, in particular, and I am the better for it in mind and body. But, I'm getting ahead of myself here).
 

     Not long after my final ear operation, my mother was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. This was the culminating result of many years of smoking, drug therapy and dietary abuse -- with a particular focus on excessive sugar consumption. Previous to the diagnosis, she had been a diabetic for most of her adult life. It seemed the grim reaper had his watchful eye on Mom for quite some years and had no intention of abandoning his claim on her.
 

   Nothing slowed or diverted the onslaught of her demise. Her body had been so compromised by the lethal cocktail of excessive prescription drugs, coal tar from her many cigarettes and excessive consumption of sugar and its many commercial by-products, that every bodily system had been adversely affected in structure and function. At a certain point, Mom’s oncologist informed my father he could do nothing further for her. Dad sent her up to a Canadian physician who thought his methodologies could help revive her ailing body. This was ill-advised, far too late and to no avail. Within two weeks Mom’s kidneys failed and she asked to be returned to New York where she could die at home with dignity amidst friends and family.

     This never happened. Instead of going home, Mom was rushed instead to a local hospital in Queens for emergency care. I visited her there. Surrounding her bed, in her bleak, private room were my father, brother and his wife, my wife Barbara and myself. A respirator controlled the ebb and flow of Mom’s breathing – her life. She had been drugged mercilessly and, consequently was barely coherent.

     Curiously, thoughts of my joyful childhood years with Mom filled my mind. She had lived a life to be envied. World traveled; a wonderfully gifted teacher beloved by her many students and their grateful parents; a caring and loving mother to her two sons, and a faithful wife to her hard-working husband. The hallmark of her presence at any social gathering was her crisp and infectious laughter that could fill a large room just as surely and completely as it filled my mind in that hospital room.

     These fond memories hovered in stark contrast to the pitiful sight of the ailing, insensible woman who lay before me in submissive repose. While the others in the room were discussing something among themselves, I sat on the bed at Mom’s right side, leaned forward, kissed her sweaty forehead and whispered the following words in her ear: 

     “I swear to you I will never let this happen to anyone again if I can help it.”

     Mom made no attempt at verbal acknowledgment but slowly, almost imperceptibly, nodded her head so as to let me know she heard and felt what I was saying to her. Tears welled up in my eyes for the first time in years. Waves of anger, sadness and loneliness rolled through and saturated my being. What happened? How did it happen so quickly? Why didn’t anyone in the immediate family inform me about the seriousness of Mom’s condition back when I could have stepped in and perhaps turned the tide? These questions kept rumbling in my head like dark storm clouds. Had I known, early on, about the grave condition of Mom’s illness I certainly could have made a difference. This story could have had a cheerful outcome. But this was not the case. I was kept in the dark and rendered ineffectual when it mattered most.

     We eventually left Mom alone, in her cold hospital bed, in that bleak room, and went back to my parent’s house in Queens. The promise I made to my mother were the last words I ever spoke to her. She passed away a few days after that. 
 
     Mom and Dad raised my brother and me to be mentally strong and resilient in the face of all adversity. But this was something I was not prepared for – the sudden and final removal of Mom from my life. The tearing away of a large piece of my heart and my life. Oh, if I had only taken time from all of my carefree frolicking as a child, thrill seeking adventures as a teenager and stubborn bullheadedness as an adult, and gotten to know her better. Perhaps then I could have earned her trust in my judgment, at a deeper level. Maybe then she would have given heed to my weekly railings against her poor dietary habits and endless cigarette smoking.

     Back at my parent’s house, the once cheerful, soft orange walls of the second floor den, Mom’s favorite room that she had once painted during one of her many inspired moods of artistic creativity, seemed dark, cold, sullen and not so inviting as they were when she graced the room. In fact, the entire house felt as though a heavy, woolen blanket had been laid over it. We were all spell-bound by the finality of what was happening. Mom was the cohesive mortar that had always kept the structure of our family together and now it was rapidly disintegrating. We would have only our cherished memories of Mom to hold onto.

     Dad was another person then. He seemed removed, distant and completely unattached to things worldly. Not at all like the outgoing, self assured and confident all American basketball star and league MVP that he was while attending Morehouse College. Nor did he have the lift in his stride and keen optimism he once exhibited while directing special programs for disadvantaged children at school district 15 in Lawrence, Long Island. This was a different man - shocked, hurt and wary about an uncertain future without the love of his life by his side.

     I cannot recall how many attempts I made to apologize to my father and brother for not monitoring Mom’s health issues more closely over the years. It was a painful experience requiring an enormous surge of courage to face either of them about how and why I missed all of the telltale signs of the impending danger that loomed on the horizon for Mom when it mattered most and may have saved her life. After all, I was the family witch doctor – or so they sometimes jokingly referred to me as. It was my job to ensure everyone in the family could and would benefit from the fruits of my learning.

     I thought about how I would cringe at the sight of Mom eating a large slice of chocolate cake with a bowl of vanilla or chocolate ice cream when my wife and I would periodically drop by to visit and how Mom could go through half a box of chocolate covered candies while watching her favorite television programs. I was concerned about it then but never imagined she would allow her craving for all of those decadent sweets to eventually get the best of her. I also thought about the deathbed promise I made to Mom and what it really meant. I didn’t know then how I would keep my word to her, but I knew that, somehow, I would keep it. 

     If you should ask what my real motivation may have been behind writing this book with Shelly, please know that I am doing this to fulfill a solemn promise I made to my mother while she lay wasting away on her deathbed. When I learned of my mother’s condition, it was already too late to make a difference. It was far too late to save her life. I have written this book with Shelly because what we have to share with you can make a difference. It can save a life – perhaps your own or that of someone you live with, work with, socialize with, love or otherwise hold dear."