It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do for a living. Life is more than just finding people who adore you or want to work with you.
It gets a lot more complicated along the way.
We all carry burdens and sometimes they weigh us down more than other people recognize.
Robin Williams – recollections – twitter post
— Sarah Michelle (@RealSMG)
Robin McLaurin Williams
Actor, Comedian
21 July 1951 – 11 August 2014
I’ve read a few articles concerning Phillip Hoffman who died of a heroin overdose. He reminded me of some of my relatives who struggled with their addictions. As I’ve gotten older my tolerance for understanding has increased markedly. It was difficult for me to understand alcoholism because it was my own fathers problem. He was essentially taken out of the equation of life through this addiction. I too saw alcoholics in the worst possible light and drug addicts no better. If nothing else, I can use my prior intolerance, which I believe typifies society. That is to say, anyone that has a drug or alcohol addiction is someone who is considered defective and deserving of scorn. Perhaps that’s too harsh, but our laws reflect this thinking.
Rather than figure out ways to assist the individual addict, we expect somehow they will manage on their own to seek and find help. Even if they find it, possession of an unlawful substance means you’re likely to end as a criminal and tossed aside in a prison where there’s even less hope for you.
When you think about it, the reality for most addicts are a life of hell and then death. Of course it also affects friends and family. I know this painful truth first hand. I examined my own life’s course at an early age and designed my own intervention, I enlisted in the Marines. Of course that was no guarantee of a release from habitual drinking, but it did serve it’s purpose. 13 weeks of boot camp were enough to get my head on straight and find an alternative. Other people can’t solve it so readily.
What are we going to do about addicts? Do we let this reminder of the personal tragedy which so many of us either have or find in close family or friends, slip away into another faceless statistic? Is it appropriate or sensible in the 21st century to continue to look at people with addictions as if we still live in the middle ages? Maybe we think we’ve advanced ourselves from witch trials and stockades, but in effect we are still public shaming people who need our help. Instead of finding new slogans to say no, or another cruel punishment, can we insist our legislators review how ineffective our present laws are and abolish the current methods of substance and addict control.
Believe me, the addiction is enough punishment. Let’s find another way.
Chris Barfoot
July 23, 2011 at 3:25pm
I once met Amy Jade Winehouse. It was in the Green Room of the Jonathan Ross show back in 2004. Ian Cunningham and I had been invited onto the show, because they had requested the short movie we’d shot starring Shane Richie and Andrew Sachs called ‘Dead Clean’. 
They wanted to show Shane in an acting role which preceded and instigated his career shift from Television game-show host to charismatic movie/TV player. Shane had just found new worth and very welcomed fame as Alfie Moon in the BBC’s flagship drama series (though horrid like ghastly Marmite to me) East Enders… and so, Ian and I accepted their hospitality.
Back then, Amy wasn’t widely known, but for those that did know of her, it was for her music, not the awful destructive sleazy drug induced daze that we all came to know. She was clean of all that, she was a fresh, chubby, cheeky/bubbly yet slightly nervous and very polite little Jewish girl from North London. I liked her. We shook hands, I coiffed upon champagne while she sipped on bottled water. A stark contrast to what she later became. We were all witness to the very public humiliation and gradual demise of this young lady, we watched as her innocence was stripped away until all that remained was the grime and the sublime.
People blame the dealers, because it’s easier to handle, than the truth… Do you remember that first cigarette, the peer pressure? My first cigarette came from my best friend at the time… just think about it, dealers represent supply and demand, who gave you your first smoke, your first snort, your first needle?
Bye Amy, I’ll just think about you, the way you were.
Way back when…
Note: Amy wasn’t a friend, but she represents that pain… to a wider, slightly wiser audience.
slack tide: Before any turn of the tide, there is a time of slack water or slack tide.
slackitude: When slackers give you attitude because they actually have to do some work they ask you for information, then when you give it to them, act put out because they have to write something down and give you slackitude.
Lethargy can be a force of resistance to “right action”. If there is a presence of lethargy, it’s difficult to follow the inspirations, within you. It’s as if your body is not being co-operative with your mind.
Set yourself free of the mindset of high anxiety living. Move from a place of fear or the lack of something in your mind. Lethargy can lead to a soul-less disconnection, misaligning your actions from your thought. It does not mean that you choose a life of detached inaction. Return to your true inner productive self by taking risks and allowing failure. Each step toward your desire to design or create means you leave the disconnected mind behind and achieve your dreams.
Some people keep busy out of a fear of inaction. In this situation the activity suggests fear of being inactive or a fear of feeling unproductive, rather than from a place of inner freedom to live your expression.
Connel Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans Loch Etive at Connel in Scotland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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