Tag Archives: change

May7

Heroin rears it’s ugly head in suburbia

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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

May15

Advice to the young and the young at heart

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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

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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

May13

Addiction

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I’ve alluded to the last year as being one of growth, and seldom is there growth without pain, I’m sorry to say. The skill of finding the lesson in the event is what, I believe, separates those that sink from those that swim, pull themselves up on to the shore, and then write a book about the experience.  Watching one of my own as they struggled and continue to struggle with addiction, because really all you can do is watch no matter how much you want to help, has shown me that I’ve raised a swimmer. It doesn’t hurt to have a few people on the shore with a life raft cheering you on either, I suppose.

Keep swimming baby. I’m treading water right alongside you.

“One small crack does not mean that you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart.” -Linda Poindexter

May9

Patience

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Some of you who have been following for awhile may recall that I was starting a nonprofit along with a business. Magnolia New Beginnings was/is focused on creating educational and entrepreneurial opportunities. Well, it was focused on that for about two years in my head while we waited for approval of the 501c3 status with the IRS.  I have to tell you I had all but given up. But as they say, good things come to those that wait…or forget they even wanted something because it took so long….and yesterday the approval finally came in. It’s official! Now to insert another 24 hours into the week and I’ll be all set.

“Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” ― Molière

Jul12

Grief

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There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.
Aeschylus

It’s been a year. In the day leading up to the year I told myself “he was alive this time last year.” Or “ He saw the fire works, even if it was just out of his window, this time last year” and worst of all “I could have called and heard his laugh this time last year but I didn’t”

But the year has now passed.

He always told me I’d bounce back, forget all about him, He was wrong and he hated to be wrong and I miss that I can’t rub it in.

When he left this world he took some part of me with him and left a hole I plug with memories, but there is still an ache that hasn’t dulled even though it’s been more than a year.

I saw a woman on the side of the street carrying a case of beer and a stuffed pony. I wanted to call and ask him where he thought she was going.

You were wrong Bobby. There is no forgetting you.

Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Jul7

The Moment of Truth or Holy Crap What Have I done?

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“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”  ~Aldous Huxley

I started this blog on a whim. This is absolutely untrue, of course, because I have been  writing, throwing my writing away, and dreaming of writing, since I was able to hold a pencil. Why do I want to pretend it’s just a silly thing I’ve given very little thought?

A whim by Dictionary.com definition is:

1.A sudden desire or change of mind, esp. one that is unusual or unexplained.

2.A windlass for raising ore or water from a mine.

So the need to write is most definitely not sudden, a change of mind or unexplained. Judging by how many others are writing, the desire is not all that unusual either.

It does feel a little like raising ore from a mine. You know that it’s in there but sweet mother it’s not that easy to get it out is it?

So now all I need to do is to find a psychological windlass that will dredge my soul of all of the homeless characters and the sadistic need to tell a story so that it is out of the mine, much like the monster in Alien, and on to this screen.

As proof that my sadistic tendencies run deep I currently have 27 days to produce a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 pages fit to present to ten others in addition to a published author at week long class I am taking at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Now, I signed up for this sucker on a whim, I can promise you that!!

The moment of truth has arrived. It’s now or never. Shit or get off the pot, as my dear mother was fond of saying.

The countdown begins. Any and all encouragement is appreciated and needed.

I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.  ~Peter Altenberg
Jun19

Eating your problems?

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When women are depressed, they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.

Elayne Boosler

I eat my problems.

I never had this problem when I was younger, or maybe I didn’t notice, but as I get older I can clearly ‘see’ that I do this.

Okay, what do I mean by this you may, or may not, ask?

I eat when I’m depressed. I swallow my words too. I stuff down my emotions. I ingest the pain I’m in and hold it all inside and then I have a sundae. It then appears on my hips. Voila! Just like magic; but not.

I never knew this about myself because it never showed up on the outside until lately.

Friggin’ 50!

So, is the answer to go to the gym more or is it to tell everyone to fuck off? Make myself happy instead of making myself ice cream? Take a break from making everyone else feel good and regurgitate all this negativity; shed the burdens; lose the weight of everyone else and have a salad instead?

Definitely time for a change.

Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us.

Peter De Vries

Jun11

Take that chance…go ahead, I dare you!

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Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

Mark Twain

It’s true. You can’t go home again. I tried and it didn’t work. I am not the same person and the house didn’t fit me anymore. I actually wonder what contortions of personality I had subjected myself to in order to make it fit the first time. Well, I obviously didn’t like it or I wouldn’t have left in the first place, right? 

Have you ever romanticized your past? Thought longingly that, given the chance, you’d do it all so differently. You’d be kinder, patient, more appreciative with the known and familiar.

Think again, my friends. The unknown, as scary as it might seem, is ripe with possibility. The past, while comfortable, lacks potential. That well-worn path leads you in the same direction each time you follow it.

To the house that didn’t fit, that you discarded, or that discarded you.

Forge a new path. Build a new home. Be brave. Take a chance.

Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Mary Tyler Moore