Too Important To Fail

The kid with the black eye showed up for group, as usual. He had tried to pour his dad's bottle of liquor down the kitchen sink drain. Dad had caught him in the act.

Dad wasn't happy, hence the black eye.

This wasn't the first time, but hopefully it would be the last.

My experience working with children from families with histories of addiction and alcoholism, has been frustrating, illuminating and sometimes terrifying. It has also been rewarding, beyond anything I could have imagined.

Each week, somewhere between six and ten young teenagers meet with myself and co-facilitator Lacey Chandra Macauley to share their experience of living in in a family dominated by the disease of of addiction.

There are sad stories, angry stories, frightening stories and sometime bizarrely funny stories.

There are tears, sorrows, joys and fears--some shared for the first time--in an environment that puts the lie to the addictive message "don't tell anyone." Here, it is safe to tell.

The group was originally funded by a small grant, but in this economy, grants have become scarce. The funding ended years ago, but the group does not. It continues to run during the school months, at no charge.

I believe that it is too important to let it fail simply because money has dried up. Miracle of miracles, this year some funding came through the Delaware County Office of Behavioral Health, (Division of Drug & Alcohol) that has allowed Lacey to come to this group and be the valuable asset that she has been to other groups in Delaware County. She is a most welcome addition.

So, we begin another year of Children from Addicted Families Group. There will be sad stories, but there will also be warmth and tolerance and support. There will be scary stories, but there will also be reassurance and hope. There will be black eyes, but also some help for them to heal.

Please support us.

If you have a young teenager you feel would benefit from this group, please contact us:

Ken Williams  484 431 2931   kenwilliamscac@gmail.com

Lacey Chandra Macauley   484 444 0412   lmacaule@holcombbhs.org

Excuse me, I've got a couple of questions.

There's another Republican debate tonight. If I was there representing the Recovery Community, here's the questions I'd want to ask. Any serious candidate for President should have some plans or ideas to address a national health crisis.

Do you believe addiction is an illness? Or do you believe it's sin, or a sign of a weak character?

Do you believe that treatment for substance use disorders really works?

What is your own experience with addiction? Have you used mood changing substances? Do you still? If you stopped, how did you do it?

Do you have an addicted family member?

Would you end the so-called War on Drugs?

Would you present a bill changing the legal status of marijuana to Congress?

What policies would you enact to deal with the rising number of fatalities caused by prescription medication?

Those are some of mine. What are your questions?

You're Kidding, Right?

So, I did the August lament blog and voiced a muted optimism for September, and promptly wound up in the hospital.

God has a weird sense of humor. Subtle like a mule.

My pooch, Serenity, has a simple sense of acceptance.

I can look at the obvious and read not a thing from it.

She can look at a hurricane lamp during a storm and see.......

I wish I knew.

August sucked.

There's no other way to describe it.

Poor Amy Winehouse's death seemed like some screwed-up harbinger of death and dysfunction, and boy, oh boy, did it ever deliver. The whole month was like a high speed ride down some axle-breaking washboard dirt road, with the rising waters behind and the dark of the moon ahead.

Anxiety became the new normal.

The earthquake and the hurricane, I think everyone knows about them. Power was out for days; for some, it was out for weeks.

The other incidents, far too private to discuss here, were just as devastating. No, they were more devastating. The power outage left in their passing couldn't be reactivated by moving a tree limb and pulling a switch, it was permanent.

I am grateful that the lousy month of August has passed. Here's to new beginnings in September.

Amy Winehouse : 14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011

If you can think of something clever, or deep, or profound to say that explains this, please post it it. I've got nothing. 

For Amy Winehouse, and all the unknown amys that disappear into addiction each year, and all of their families, my heart and prayers go out to you.

Peace.

Hate to say it (well, not really!) but looks like I scooped the NY Times.

The New York Times reporting on the Bath Salts story. Grateful for the coverage, but gotta say, The Interventionist had the story first!

What's next? Celebrity Intervention?

Sure I hated shows like Celebrity Rehab and Intervention! 

What moral and right-minded elder statesman of the Recovery Movement wouldn't? Crude, exploitative, unethical, profit-motivated manifestations of the worst of Schlock TV that they were! I decried them as morbid and voyeuristic, as they depicted addicts and alcoholics at their worst; the perpetuated the stereotype of the addict as the composite of society's phobias and ills.

And also, eminently watchable.

I look back on some of the criticisms I voiced a few years ago and find the little voice inside saying, "lighten up, will you? It's only tv."

And maybe the little voice is right.