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May8
May7
Heroin rears it’s ugly head in suburbia
Dear Friends,
The experience of writing this blog has proven to me that as different as we all may think we are we are all remarkably similar as well. The problems and concerns that hit me in Boston are also having the same effect on someone across the world. Records gathered from police, courts and the medical examiner shatter stereotypes about who gets sucked into this deadly vortex. It’s not all young adults. The median age of overdose victims is 41. And they’re not the dregs of society. They are homemakers, professionals, students and laborers. (Patriot Ledger) . One person every 8 days dies of a heroin/opiate overdose in my area and the numbers keep rising. I am impressed and encouraged by the actions of a small Massachusetts town Police Chief. I encourage you all to share/reblog this story with the hope that the approach will catch on. There may only be small things that anyone can do but sometimes the small ripples create the huge wave of change. Thank you.
https://www.facebook.com/GloucesterPoliceDepartment?fref=nf or http://gloucesterpd.com/blog
Gloucester Police Department (Official)
May 4 at 10:55am · Edited ·
PLEASE READ THIS POST:
On Saturday, May 2, the City held a forum regarding the opiate crisis, and on how Gloucester has many resources for help. We are poised to make revolutionary changes in the way we treat this DISEASE. Your Police Department vowed to take the following measures to assist, beginning June 1, 2015:
– Any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc) or drugs and asks for help will NOT be charged. Instead we will walk them through the system toward detox and recovery. We will assign them an “angel” who will be their guide through the process. Not in hours or days, but on the spot. Addison Gilbert and Lahey Clinic have committed to helping fast track people that walk into the police department so that they can be assessed quickly and the proper care can be administered quickly.
– Nasal Narcan has just been made available at local pharmacies without a prescription. The police department has entered into an agreement with Conleys and is working on one with CVS that will allow anyone access to the drug at little to no cost regardless of their insurance. The police department will pay the cost of nasal narcan for those without insurance. We will pay for it with money seized from drug dealers during investigations. We will save lives with the money from the pockets of those who would take them. We recognize that nasal narcan is not the answer, but it is saving lives and no one in this City will be denied a life saving drug for this disease just because of a lack of insurance. Conleys has also agreed to assist with insurance requests from those who do not have any.
– I will personally travel to Washington DC, with the support of Mayor Theken, the City Council, Sen. Bruce Tarr, and Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, on May 12 and 13. There I will meet with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton. I will bring what Gloucester is accomplishing and challenge them to change, at the federal level, how we receive aid, support and assistance. I will bring the idea of how far Gloucester is willing to go to fight this disease and will ask them to hold federal agencies, insurance companies and big business accountable for building a support system that can eradicate opiate addiction and provide long term, sustainable support to reduce recidivism.
I am asking for your help. Like this post, send it to everyone you can think of and ask them to do the same. Speak your comments. Create strength in numbers. I will bring it with me to show how many voters are concerned about this issue. Lives are literally at stake. I have been on both sides of this issue, having spent 7 years as a plainclothes narcotics detective. I have arrested or charged many addicts and dealers. I’ve never arrested a tobacco addict, nor have I ever seen one turned down for help when they develop lung cancer, whether or not they have insurance. The reasons for the difference in care between a tobacco addict and an opiate addict is stigma and money. Petty reasons to lose a life.
Please help us make permanent change here in Gloucester.
Thank you,
Chief Campanello
May7
Detach with Love
Whenever life takes a nasty turn I try to ask myself how did I contribute toward it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither a victim nor am I (any longer) the over responsible person who must blame themselves for everything. I just know that in order to change the route you must be aware of the place you came off the road, onto the bumpy dirt path, that led you into the swampy ditch. Then you can drag your muddy ass up out of the hole you find yourself in and never take that road again. This doesn’t happen if you don’t take responsibility for that first (or the second) wrong turn and learn from it.
The question is what do you do when you are watching someone else heading for the ditch and you can tell the hole they will be in might just swallow them up and they have no idea where they got off the road? You might think to jump in, waving your hands and screaming, “Save yourself” or “Watch out ahead.” Maybe you even throw yourself in the ditch a few times so they can step over your back avoiding most of the mud. But then how will they ever learn to change the route?
Sometimes, as painful and dangerous as it feels, the only answer is to let go and detach with love, standing to the side while letting your heart fly from your chest, into the ditch, and hope that somehow all the love you have in it will provide the strength to that lost soul to get back on the road that leads somewhere better.
The three things I cannot change are the past, the truth and you.
Anne LaMott
May6
Be Real
May6
Strength
How much can one person handle? I always wonder what choices are there. Giving in, giving up, seems to yield additional troubles.
Why are we all so afraid to feel the emotions associated with heartbreak in whatever form it takes? Why is it so acceptable to medicate our feelings into submission, instead of standing up and saying I will not be defeated by them? Saying it over and over until we believe it and it becomes true.
“Fall down seven times, get up eight.” – Japanese Proverb
May29
Hope
Each day, on my way to work, I walk past an SRO (single room occupancy) building. My office is located in a very cool building with exposed brick and $1500 studio apartments, in an area that is being slowly transformed from a rough area full of not always legal immigrants and people who live outside of the mainstream into high rent apartments ,brew pubs and cupcake shops. Just beyond a comfortable stroll away, houses sell in the millions of dollars and people try to decide if they should head to the summer house for the weekend or spend the weekend sailing and at the yacht club. The men standing outside of the SRO, smoking, chatting, or just killing time make different decisions. They coordinate which kitchen is open on Sundays for lunch or dinner or perhaps how they will avoid a demon that whispers to them periodically, if not constantly. I have no illusions that the demons don’t call to every class of people but when I pass those men on the corner I see a loss of hope in their eyes. The ability to see the other side or perhaps to have seen it and know it may be possible to arrive there again. If we can hang on to hope, then there is always the possibility that life can be better.
My great hope is to laugh as much as I cry; to get my work done and try to love somebody and have the courage to accept the love in return.
Maya Angelou
May17
How’s your Now??
The thought passing through my mind that I can’t turn off was not as eloquently put as Anne’s, but the point was the same. What if I had postponed my happiness and waited to enjoy my life until that perfect time when everything was in order and everyone else was taken care of and I find out that I’ve waited too long and run out of time?
This concept has been weighing on me and I saw this Anne LaMott quote on my friend, Mimi’s, from http://waitingforthekarmatruck.com/ wall and it made me feel so good to know I’m not the only one having this thought. Well, especially if Mimi and Anne LaMott were too!
When I was a child and old enough to realize that not every family had a drunken brawl every Saturday night I thought I’d be happy when I moved out and had a family of my own.
And then I did.
When I married and had a family of my own I thought I’d be happy when my divorce was final and he was finally out of the house.
And then he was.
Then I thought I’d be happy when I found love again, and then I did, and I was.
And then it ended
When I was alone with my children in my own home I thought the time would be right to be happy when it was easier and they were all in school, when the oldest could help by driving, when the older two were in college, when the youngest drove, when the youngest was in college.
And then they all were
And I looked around and saw how much time had passed and asked myself why I didn’t enjoy the trip instead of focusing on the destination.
It’s something about turning 50 I think. Each day I remind myself that this very moment is the most important moment in my life. I may still have many years to do all that I want to do but I have only this instant to enjoy what is already in front of me.
Take inventory of all of the wonderful things you have to be grateful for and celebrate right now. It’s all you really have.
Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.
Denis Waitley
May15
Advice to the young and the young at heart
If you could give one bit of advice to your younger self about relationships what would it be?
Oh, c’mon all of you out there, shouting, “Run!” Think way back or think back to yesterday depending on your age and just how much you’ve had your heart twisted out of your rib cage and stomped on. You know what it’s like when you look across the room and your eyes meet. Everything is aquiver and they say all the right things in just the right way.
STOP!
My advice would be to pay attention to what they do and not what they say. Oh, the heartache that would have saved me. I’m not saying that words aren’t important or necessary. What I’m saying is if you find someone that consistently does what they say they will do, never less but sometimes more, you have a keeper. In my younger incarnation I fell in love with potential. I loved to hear the plans for what would be, it was so wonderfully distracting from what wasn’t happening.
Now, I watch carefully for actions. I don’t have enough time in my life for potential. I probably never did.
When deeds speak, words are nothing. ~African Proverb
May15
Finding something to be thankful
So, have you ever woken up and thought it’s going to be ‘one of those days’ without even really knowing why? But, you try to shake it off and talk yourself into running or working out even though your work out partner cancelled today. Then, you think that if it already feels like that maybe today is a good day to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee, relax, and then get into work early. Determined not to give in to the feeling, you make your way to the kitchen, fill the pot with water and as you are pouring it in one of those absolutely horrible little million legged bugs comes flying out of the coffee pot. Of course, not to be defeated you grab and smash the little bastard with your bare hands and only afterwards realize that you’ve actually touched it.
Sweet mother of God….it’s only 6:30 and now there’s no coffee! I’m afraid this isn’t going to end well but I am going to find one thing, even if it’s that the million legged nasty mutant of a bug didn’t fight back, to be happy about damnit! Ahhh deep breath…
Have a great day!
There are good days and there are bad days and this is going to be one of them. Lawrence Welk
May14
Stephen Sutton: Lemonade and £1,000,000
Just LOVE this. JUST love.
The last few days have been tough. If I am being honest, 2014 has been tough. I’ve been handed lemon after lemon. However, when life has handed me those lemons, instead of making lemonade, I have got into a rather self-destructive rut of letting the lemons rot on the sideboard whilst blogging about my hatred of them.
Yesterday, I was attempting to distract myself from thinking about the loss of my little friend by trawling about on the internet, hoping to be inspired. I didn’t have to look very far. What I found wasn’t just inspirational, it jumped out of the screen and smacked me in the face.
Stephen Sutton is a 19 year old from the UK, who is dying from terminal cancer. As I write, he is in hospital and still fighting.
When Stephen was diagnosed he created a bucket list and started to blog about his life…
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Magnolia Beginnings 