A few days ago I received an envelope of letters from a group of young people in recovery I’d taken out and introduced to the sport that literally saved my life. It’s always been my intention to share my love of ice so that it may help others. I think I might be on track……
I don’t have heroes; most of the people put up before us for admiration simply don’t impress me. They may be rich, beautiful, or exhibit a superb level of athletic prowess. But they cannot command my attention for possessing such superfluous traits. And so it came as a surprise to me yesterday when I met…
Like most great street sayings, this one originated in the African American neighborhoods in the late seventies and early eighties, in conjunction with the crack epidemic that swept their demographic. Nothing will ruin a neighborhood, or an individual life, faster than a cheap, hard drug. And nobody uses these drugs more than the marginalized segments…
“If you are dependent on something outside yourself to feel good, you are addicted.” When I was offered the choice of trading in my cocaine habit for a lithium habit, I knew the only difference was a legal one. I knew in my bones that I needed to face the uncomfortable feelings I had been…
People often ask me why I can have a glass of red wine with dinner if I am a recovered addict. I tell them that substances are not the problem; the psychological state underlying the abuse is. Once I dealt with the underlying issues, and healed from them, the substances became irrelevant. Like most things…
A recent Harvard study dovetails nicely into what Dr Gabor Mate has been asserting for years. In the words of the researchers themselves, “childhood abuse leads to permanent changes in a seahorse-shaped area of the brain that can cause adult depression and drug abuse.” It also dovetails nicely into a recent surge of anecdotal evidence,…
In one hundred years, will the treatment of mental illness with a vast array of psychotropic drugs be seen as a success story, or a vast human tragedy? When I was diagnosed with Bi Polar Disorder in my early twenties, I spent less than thirty minutes in the psychiatrist’s office where I was given a…
It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that insanity could be the antidote to culture. Perhaps people with a mental illness are tapping into something that the rest of us don’t and can’t see, not because we’re not capable of it, but because we are too programmed by the belief system of…
Pink is the colour most associated with womanhood, femininity, glitz, glamour, and fun. It’s also used as a symbol for one of the deadliest diseases that kills countless women and men. I wouldn’t have a problem with this, except that the foundation in question seems to be a lot better at finding funding sources than…
I like to describe the void as “the insubstantial netherworld where you are trapped in your own grief and pain”. The void is not fun; but it is infinitely compelling. There are things you will learn from it that you could not learn from any other experience. But like Hades, you don’t want to get…