TRIUMPHANT TIMES

What a year 2011 has been, one of those crossroad years that the world seems to reach every few decades or so, when amidst the gloom and worry, opportunities for freedom lie.

In the midst of financial crises, Syrian despots, collapsing currencies, corrupt journalists and persecuted victims of press intrusion is a flowering of courage, honesty, integrity and perseverance.

The current state of the world is strikingly similar to the drama of recovery from addiction, and the similarities are so close, that perhaps there are broad human truths that run through both narratives.

As a society we have been debased by the narcissistic culture we have adopted in the past few decades, and 2011 was the year Britain's chickens came home to roost. We learned the real cost of endless spending and indulging. We learned the real cost to human beings of our gawping and prurient celebrity culture. We learned the real cost of marginalising our young people, and felt their anger boil over in the streets.

There will be many tired, ill, lonely and despairing people this Christmas who will be counting the real cost of 'good times' gone terribly wrong, people who are waking up to the realities of their addictions, just as society has started to wake up to its problems too.

For them, the sense of prevailing gloom and fear will be greatly amplified, and for a moment, for every addict who has reached the end of their ability to cope with their illness, a terrible moment of fear and powerlessness will envelop them.

In the midst of this, however, there is hope. The addict has a chance of a fresh start, the realisation that previous behaviours do not work any more, that old ways that seemed like solutions have only led to crisis, can give the addict a much yearned for doorway to freedom.

Sometimes it takes a disaster, the loss of a job or a relationship, to wake the suffering individual up to the truth of their situation and give them a new direction.

As with the addict, we have all had the truths of our societal addictions revealed to us, we have been shown the toxic nature of a society based on egotism and self obsession, and we too have an opportunity to get well.

The heartening fact is that many of us are taking that opportunity; banks, media barons and dictators the world over are being challenged and in many cases overthrown.

We must not only take heart in the knowledge that in the most difficult times that the world is in many ways actually getting better, but also that in every generation people seem to be becoming more caring and thoughtful, not less.

We must transfer our sense of optimism, of hope and of new beginnings to addicts and sufferers everywhere, and demonstrate to them that they can fight their own struggles for freedom, independence and sanity, and by just staying in the fight, day after day, they will inevitably triumph.

Tree of Hope takes root in Cardiff

The decking of the traditional fir tree is one of the highlights for young and old as part of the Christmas preparations. However, there is one Christmas tree in Cardiff which will have more significance than most this year. The Tree of Hope, located in the newly opened Stafell Fyw Caerdydd – Living Room Cardiff, is launched at 6pm on Tuesday, 20 December 2011. The tree offers an opportunity to attach a star enclosing a message of hope as a way of celebrating freedom from addiction, honouring persons successfully achieving
recovery, to dedicate rays of hope to those still struggling in their illness and those working in the field, and to commemorate lives lost to this tragic and misunderstood disease

The idea for the Tree of Hope came from a visit to a ground-breaking Philadelphia Treatment Centre by Living Room Chief Executive, Wynford Ellis Owen, as part of his Churchill Fellowship in America. The concept of the tree is to demonstrate recovery from addiction is a reality and does happen.

Bev Haberle, on behalf of Philadelphia’s Recovery Community Centre, Pro-Act, said, “It’s great to know the Tree of Hope has crossed the Atlantic as a positive beacon of what is possible if we all pull together. I would encourage as many people as possible to take a minute out of their day in the run up to the Christmas celebrations to help those who are recovering whilst also remembering those who were not so fortunate.”

Wynford Ellis Owen, added, “I was struck at the simplicity of the Tree of Hope concept when I visited the States and thought it a great idea to bring to Wales to mark our first Christmas at the Stafell Fyw Caerdydd – Living Room Cardiff.

“I hope as many people as possible will help us to be a shining beacon of hope in the darkness to those still struggling or to send a message of thanks by placing a star on our Tree of Hope.

“Everyone is welcome to join us for our celebrations on 20th December 2011, where they can collect their individual stars to place on the Living Room Tree of Hope. Visitors are also free to tour the centre, speak to people who work here and enjoy mince pies and sing Christmas carols. I would also like to personally thank Pugh's garden centre for their generosity in supplying the beautiful Christmas tree.

“To have a special message inscribed on an individual star of hope, please call Living Room Cardiff on 029 20493895 or email info@welshcouncil.org.uk by 12th December 2011.”

ENDS

Stafell Fyw-Living Room Cardiff is a new charity set up by the Welsh Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs (WCAOD) and based in Richmond Road Cardiff. It aims to offer support for anyone experiencing difficulties in relation to alcohol, drugs (prescribed or illicit) or any other dependency or harmful behaviour.

The Living Room Cardiff Concept (LRC) is like no other rehabilitation service currently offered in Wales. The community based day-care Recovery Centre will provide a safe, easy access, non-judgemental space offering a range of interventions including peer-based individual and group psychosocial support.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7TpeptRFEg&feature=player_embedded

We've got to be prepared to loose everything

I don't think people realise how serious addiction is and that we have to be prepared to loose everything, absolutely everything, in order to recover. We don't necessarily HAVE to loose everything - but we've got to be PREPARED to do so.

Recovery has to becone THE PRIORITY in our lives. More important even than my children, my spouse, my career, my religion, my sport, my hobby, my finances....etc, etc. For if I loose my recovery I'm going to loose all those anyway. Today I'm going to committ to my recovery and do everything - absolutely everything - in order to achieve it, and to maintain it. And don't let PRIDE get in the way. Ask yourself "How important is it?" If it ain't life threatening, don't bother about it.

Rhoi'ch adferiad yn gyntaf, uwch POPETH yw'r nod er mwyn gwella o ddibyniaeth. Rhaid bod yn barod i golli POPETH er mwyn ei ddiogelu. Popeth.

FRANKIE COCOZZA

What happens when you take an impressionable teenager, propel him to the heights of national fame, applaud him for his talents as a singer, encourage him to think of himself as a latter day Keith Moon and leave him to the tender mercies of the tabloid press?

This week we all found out when the antics of eighteen year old Frankie Cocozza led to him being dropped from X Factor, the show that he had been a contestant in.
His behaviour finally became unacceptable when it was revealed that he had taken cocaine, but for weeks there had been a slew of ever more tedious stories about his alleged excesses. True to form, Simon Cowell was quick to drop Frankie when the revelations came to light.
The Sun newspaper reported him as saying: ''Frankie's blown a wonderful opportunity. It's very sad, but he has no one to blame but himself.''

To take Simon Cowell seriously (and it is likely he doesn't care whether we do or not) we have to ignore most, if not all the context of what has occurred, he seems eager to profit from the successes of his protégés, and all too keen to abandon those who are deemed to have failed.

Firstly, Frankie Cocozza has been consuming a powerful, addictive and frequently lethal drug in massively dangerous doses with the full glare of publicity upon him for weeks on end. The fact that the drug in question is alcohol relegates it in news value to a story about youthful exuberance and harmless fun.

Secondly, the publicity machine that surrounds Frankie and other teenagers like him facilitates much of his behaviour, in order to craft a certain persona, in order to guarantee column inches in the tabloid press, in order to boost the show's ratings, in order to please advertisers, Frankie must make a spectacle of himself.

The X Factor has shown us a degree of naked mercenary greed and selfishness, not to mention monstrous hypocrisy, that few other programmes have ever managed. The moment this admittedly foolish young man has become damaged goods, he is abandoned; there was no question that Simon Cowell, Gary Barlow or anyone else on the show might have felt slightly responsible about his wellbeing at all. To do so might have accidentally apportioned some kind of culpability to the show and the culture that surrounds it, lethal in these times; one only had to look to the example of the News of The World to see what happens when an organ of celebrity culture is held accountable for something.

But the X Factor should be held accountable for failing in its care of Frankie, and there is an interesting parallel thrown up by reality TV this week.

On Saturday, Frankie arrived at the show after having had one hour's sleep. He had been on a long drinking and drug taking bender. Any addiction professional (or layman for that matter) should easily be able to see powerlessness over substances writ large in this scenario; where were the responsible adults around Frankie, where was the guidance?

On Monday night, Junior Apprentice was broadcast, where Lord Sugar reluctantly had to fire yet another hopeful looking to start a business career.
The house where the contestants in this programme were staying was undoubtedly supervised (it was a spotless mansion in an exclusive part of Chelsea or some other salubrious location, with ten teenagers inside it, the chances that they were left to their own devices are next to none existent).

In this scenario, the duty of care that the production company has towards other people's precious beloved children is fulfilled, the idea that they are human beings and worthy of some degree of concern and safety, and not simply commodities to boost advertising revenue or ratings has been implicitly understood.

Why do we have these two different approaches to young people who generate entertainment for us in the two biggest shows on TV? In case of Junior Apprentice, drinking, inappropriate sexual behaviour or drug taking would destroy the show, but in the case of the X Factor, it positively makes the show.

We are left with two wreckages before us, firstly, the wreckage of a young man's life, he has left the X Factor, badly in need of treatment, publicly shamed. Whilst he is certainly not blameless, the true extent of the show's responsibility will no doubt be conveniently ignored.

The second wreckage is that of the state of public discourse about drugs and alcohol, once again a magic, invisible line has been drawn between the two, hiving drink off as a special exempt class of substance, not really a drug per se.

The effect of this is to help mythologise drinking for a whole new generation, and Frankie has unwittingly done this, propagating an unspoken but tacit message: "Don't do coke kids, but drinking is fine."

Some handy hints on how to recover

I was asked if there was anything practical one could do, apart from pray, to turn ones will and ones life over to the care of God (Step 3 in AA’s programme of recovery). Well, yes there is.

First you count to 10 – and don’t do anything rash. This gives you time to respond (to be responsible) as opposed to react.

Then you look for something positive lurking underneath whatever’s happened – no matter how hopeless, bleak or desperate that something may be. When you look for something positive you’ll ALWAYS find it. And once you’ve found it you’re found the key to your problem. You’ll be living in the solution.

Thus you’ve found a practical way of turning your will and your life over to the care of God without you understanding him. The above encapsulates the 1st three steps of AA’s programme of recovery.

Simples! Click!

The Power

On email today I received a brilliant essay quoted below.

In his groundbreaking book “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,” Frederick Engels explained the evolution of the state this way: “The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from without; rather, it is a product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of ‘order’; and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and alienating itself more and more from it, is the state.”

The role of the state as a repressive apparatus that includes the police, the prisons, the courts, the big business media and more should be studied and understood by every activist and revolutionary not only theoretically but practically.'

I think about for how many years I would not ever consider reading anything by Engels, or even worse, his buddy Marx. Communists, Marxists. My brain was washed to firmly believe that we were the goodies and they the baddies. I guess it was a gradual change. For one thing it was more hip to be liberal, but eventually it was the glaring inequity of our system and my forced-by-my-addiction return to God and then to a very progressive church, that really changed my thinking.

I look at Engels quoted paragraph above and realize how devastatingly accurate it is in his description of a power that is necessary as well as necessarily abusive; I think of another quote.

'Lack of power that was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves.'

The quote is from the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous known as the Big Book. And the power the alcoholics would eventually find and that would deliver them from the oppression of their addiction to alcohol; was a Higher one - that would usually end up being God.

Even now though as the protests are going on all over the world against the repressive and unfair system and state, I wonder exactly what they are asking for….just as I always wondered what was the solution for Engels and Marx and Marxism. The end of the so-illuminating essay regarding the whole breakdown of our system provides it.

'Besides deepening this solidarity, the next important lessons are that the capitalist state stands above the people, cannot be reformed, and must ultimately be smashed and replaced with a state that represents the interests of the majority of humanity based on the socialist reorganization
of society.'

Smashed. There’s going to be a revolution hey, hey.

Below is an excerpt from a poem I wrote about a brilliant Marxist author and playwright, Bertolt Brecht

But if you had lived you would have seen your dreams go up in smoke
For folk whether Red, White, Green or Blue will always horde their own
You rightly scoffed at righteous lords who used God as their tool
But with the filthy bathwater of their man-made faiths you also tossed the Babe
And perhaps it is right there where you erred For such brotherhood as you espoused
is perhaps beyond the grasp of mere flesh
To take only what's needed and nothing more is something the soul-less simply won't do

The 'socialist reorganization of society' will not hold up if it is a function of purely secular altruism. My brother, who must not starve so that another can join an even-better county club next year, is bound to me via a soul that will last forever. His and mine are parts of this Higher Power that is the only force strong enough to guide us to truly, and beatifically, even things out.

Inside the walls on Wall Street, the god of greed remains supreme. On the streets outside; God waits patiently and longingly to guide us in the non-violent charge that must be coming soon… '

Let me introduce you to a new approach encapsulated in the acronym, RKRTS

I’ve been asked how recovery from drug and alcohol and other addictive behaviours can be instigated and maintained. Well, one way is captured in the acronym, RKRTS:

R - is for Recognising our need of help. That's where suffering comes in - possibly the greatest creative force in Nature. Quite often it's the only thing that will get us to change our ways. (Targeted, specific counselling interventions can also augment and help gently unveil the truth to us about our need of help.) This R also stands for Realising that we can't do it on our own. We need the ongoing help and support of others if we are to recover. Additionally, R means that we take Responsibility for the consequences of our actions and for Repairing the damage resulting from our behaviour.

K – is for Knowledge - in particular self-Knowledge. We discover how we became psychologically and physically dependent once we'd found, through our alcohol, drug or behaviour of choice, a short cut to feeling good - a short cut that bypassed the normal cognitive process of thinking ourselves into a good mood. Addiction is an illness of ignorance, one of a few that tells us there’s nothing wrong with us. This Knowledge helps reveal the truth to us about how we’ve used denial, delusion and compulsion to try to preserve some kind of equilibrium in our lives and within our families.

R – is for Risk. The juiciest, ripest fruits are always to be had on the highest, most difficult branches to reach. In order to get to them we have to Risk. Recovery from drug and alcohol and other harmful behaviours is the same; in order to recover we have to Risk. And the biggest Risk for people in recovery is to become vulnerable – to be authentic, to be real, to be true to Nature. To lower the mask and remove the façade we’ve been hiding behind for so many years - to accept our humanness. And being human is acknowledging that we don’t always know the answers to questions; sometimes we don’t even understand the questions; sometimes we feel lonely; sometimes we feel shy; sometimes we fall flat on my faces and make fools of ourselves. And it’s OK to be all these things. It’s OK to be human. It’s OK to be perfectly imperfect! We don’t have to pretend to be something we’re not any longer.

T – is for Toughening up. On the one hand we have to become vulnerably but, paradoxically, we also have to Toughen up. And Toughening up means accepting that we’re survivors and not victims - that we have the wherewithal, the ability, the guts, the wisdom, and the stick-to-itiveness to overcome our problems and emerge victorious. It’s like throwing a switch from the “can’t do” to the “can do”. We CAN recover. There’s hope for us - we need never drink, take drugs, or engage in harmful behaviours ever again. This Toughening up places the responsibility on us to train ourselves to adopt a positive attitude towards life. No matter how dark, bleak or hopeless a situation or condition is there’s always something positive lurking underneath. If you look for the positive you’ll ALWAYS find it. And once you’ve found it you’ve discovered the solution to your problem. Thenceforth, you’re living in the solution. This T also gives us Time to consider whether we want to remain “bitter” or get “better”.

S – is for Sharing with others. It’s about becoming “givers” instead if “takers”. It’s about putting a face and a voice to recovery and being attractive advocates for the reality of recovery. It’s about engaging in the Recovery Movement and playing whatever parts we’re meant to play. Now that the genius in us has been unleashed we get to contribute our uniqueness to life’s rich tapestry. S also stands for Staying connected – to like-minded people and to our support networks.

Many will no doubt ask, where’s the spiritual component of recovery in all this?

It inevitably follows, as night follows day, the first R (Realising our need of help) and the K (self-Knowledge). By recognising our need of help we’re basically saying “I can’t do this on my own. Please help me.” Unwittingly, therefore, we’re accessing the spiritual realm irrespective of whether we’re agnostic or atheistic. And the prerequisite to forming healthy relationships with ourselves, our fellow men and with the Source, is a knowledge and acceptance of ourselves (warts and all). Thus spiritual progress is achieved - and without our being aware of it almost - as we engage in the K stage of recovery.