The Agony Of Watching Alcohol Addiction Decimate A Loved One:

Most of us know someone who drinks too much. Our society romanticises and celebrates those who can drink others under the table. We don’t like the street drunk or those caught in a never-ending cycle of social welfare but we do have a blind spot for what is called the functioning alcoholic. Our movies and popular culture, it seems, almost worship them and their antics, and our big businesses and governments profit from the proceeds of their excesses.

But who is there at 3 o’clock in the morning witnessing shouted nonsensical slurred instructions down a phone line.
– “Come and get me!!!”
– “Where are you?”
– “I am sitting on a park bench.”
– “Where?”
– “I don’t know!”
– “Can you get a taxi?”
– “No. I can’t see one.”
– “How can I come and get you if you don’t know where you are?”
– “I’m sitting on a bench. I lost my bag and coat.”
– “What bench? What can you see around you? Describe it to me.”
– “Are you coming to get me or what???”
– “You’ve got to help me here… is there a street nearby?”
– “F**k you then!!!”

Clunk, she drops the phone, ending the call. Only to ring four more times between 3 a.m. and 5.30 a.m. for further circular exchanges and you’ve got to be able to function at work that day by 8 a.m. and you have already spent most of the night worrying. Continue reading The Agony Of Watching Alcohol Addiction Decimate A Loved One:

“To This Day” A Very Powerful Poem About Bullying & Depression

“To This Day” – This wonderful poignant, emotional and at times humorous poem by the beautiful Canadian poet Shane Koyczan addresses the crushing, and often life-long,  effect of bullying on a young tender heart. Here he gives us a brief overview of the beginnings of his own journey when he was invited to present “To This Day” at a TED Conference, and then sit tight for an emotional roller-coaster as he delivers this haunting piece.

Sadly, bullying is something that most of us have experienced and not all of it took place at school or in our communities, many of us have lived through the experience at home. Bullying is something that needs to be continually pulled out into the light and all aspects of it highlighted and examined then extinguished with courage and a no-level-of-tolerance attitude from us all.