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.