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. 

Getting Clean & Sober With Betty

My 'Clean Date' as they say in some 12 Step Fellowships, is Memorial Day 1977. Betty Ford went into the Long Beach Naval Hospital following a family intervention sometime in 1978.

We never met each other, but in a sense, we got sober together. While I may have had a few months on Betty, in terms of time, it's safe to say that she definitely had me beat flat in terms of accomplishment!

Before Betty went public with her addiction and recovery, there was very little said about the subject in the media, and what was said was much more likely to be negative, than not. Alcoholism was portrayed as comical or tragic; drug addicts were social degenerates. Recovery was unknown territory, and very few Americans had the least idea how it worked. There were a small handful of individuals who had gone public with their recovery, but they were generally considered a freak show--Hollywood people, show biz types. Certainly not a First Lady, wife of the President of the United States.

And a good Republican, as well!

Betty turned on the lights, opened the closet door, and coaxed addiction and alcoholism out of the closet. She identified the elephant in the living room, pointed out that the Emperor's New Clothes were seriously lacking in taste, and above all, made it safe for thousands of middle-class people to talk about their problems and okay for them to seek help.

And she did it clean and sober and with style, grace and her trademark candor. 

So, RIP to my fellow 70's graduate from the school of hard knocks, or as the old-timers used to say, 'John Barleycorn University'. I am grateful to have gotten sober during the 'Betty Ford Era'.

I would have voted for you for President.