Revisiting a great piece of writing on addiction by Russell Brand...

Russell Brand: Philip Seymour Hoffman is another victim of extremely stupid drug laws   

The Guardian, Thursday 6 February, 2014

In Hoffman's domestic or sex life there is no undiscovered riddle 

– the man was a drug addict and, thanks to our drug laws, 

his death inevitable. 

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.....But Philip Seymour Hoffman? A middle-aged man, a credible and decorated actor, the industrious and unglamorous artisan of Broadway and serious cinema? The disease of addiction recognises none of these distinctions. Whilst routinely described as tragic, Hoffman's death is insufficiently sad to be left un-supplemented in the mandatory posthumous scramble for salacious garnish; we will now be subjected to mourn-ography posing as analysis. I can assure you that there is no as yet undiscovered riddle in his domestic life or sex life, the man was a drug addict and his death inevitable.

....In spite of his life seeming superficially great, in spite of all the praise and accolades, in spite of all the loving friends and family, there is a predominant voice in the mind of an addict that supersedes all reason and that voice wants you dead. This voice is the unrelenting echo of an unfulfillable void.

LINK TO ARTICLE HERE....

Great radio show on parenting in today's world...

Why you make excuses for your kids

www.cbc.ca

What Does It Feel Like to Have Bipolar Disorder?

I have bipolar disorder, as does my mother and as did her mother. I am the sort of person who "seems" bipolar to people—that is my energy, creativity, instability, mercuriality, and easy gregariousness confirm many of the popularly imagined stereotypes about bipolar people.

That said, I think only in their extremes are mania and depression actually unintelligible to ordinary folks. That is: At their utmost intensity, they are unlike anything a normal person ever experiences (mania is, in particular, qualitatively different at the end than any healthy mood state), but at most times, they are not at all different from the maximally intense moods everyone knows—just more so, longer-lasting, and disconnected from normative causes.

To understand what having bipolar disorder "feels like," keep in mind the following:

First, bipolar is less about short-term mood instability than about long-term mood cycles, which can last months, years, or in rare cases even decades. (See F.M. Mondimore for more on cycles and durations.) Instability is part of it, but not the only part.

Second, the cumulative effect of these cycles on the formation of a personality is significant. After a childhood of radically changing interests and attitudes on such a timeline, one develops a certain excitability, flightiness, distractibility, or perhaps that's just me. But this is a major part of bipolar: the personality that is shaped by a lifetime of intense, fluctuating moods.

What it's like to have Bipolar disorder...

Rising youth homelessness a crisis we mustn't ignore

A new survey confirms that youth homelessness is on the rise. It's a complex problem that requires a concerted solution.

If you wanted to find me in the summer of 2000, I was most likely at a service for street youth — like the now-shuttered Street Outreach Services (SOS) and Youthlink Innercity in Toronto, or Covenant House in Vancouver. I was doing research on street youth suicide for my PhD.

During that summer, I met a young woman who was only 18, but had already been working in the sex trade for years. She was tack sharp.

Through the skilful persistence of the staff at SOS, and her own tough mindedness, she had left the sex trade, crack addiction and had a job and boyfriend who wasn’t involved in the streets. She was able to imagine a different life for herself. She was tough, funny and made light of a past that was nothing but violence and disappointment — at the hands of parents, through holes in the various so-called safety nets, until she hit the streets and entered a new landscape of violence and exploitation. I had interviewed her as a research participant, learned a lot about her life and hung with her and others in the SOS waiting area cracking jokes and talking nonsense for hours.

Then came a moment I will never forget. I was sitting in the staff area chatting with the employment counsellor when one of the outreach staff came in and told us that this girl who had dug herself out of hell had died of a drug overdose in the bathtub of a crack house.  READ MORE HERE.....

Young Ones Gala pics! Oh what a night....

Kristen & Mhairi

Darka & Susan 

Mhari, Dennis & Brooke

Mhairi, YO Educator and Peer Facilitator 

Kristen, YO Peer Facilitator 

Sarah