The View from a Drawbridge

Tag: addiction

  • That Freshly Foreign Feeling

    That Freshly Foreign Feeling

    The musical cadence of Italian voices echoing down the canal lulled me to sleep.

  • Alcohol Stunts Your Emotional Growth

    Alcoholics have a lot in common with immature adolescents.

  • Stop Calling Alcoholism a Disease

    Take responsibility. Take back your power.

  • A Rant About Smokers

    I’m sure that the very people who need to read this the most will be the very people who will not do so, but I feel the need to get this off my chest. I hate smoking and everything about it. I’m tired of soft-pedaling that attitude simply because it’s an addiction. I’m quite sure…

  • Permission to Fail

    A friend of mine had been in a dark place for many, many years. He had been struggling with addiction, depression, and isolation. I had been worried about him for quite some time. And then slowly, little by little, over the course of a year, I started to notice positive changes in him. He got…

  • My Own Personal Dallas

    The other day I had a unique opportunity. I attended a friend’s extended family gathering. The thing is, no one there knew me except my friend, and they didn’t realize how much I knew about their family dynamics. I’ve been friends with this person for decades, and he confides in me. I know all the…

  • Another Rant About Alcoholism

    One of my most popular blog entries is Why I Hate Alcohol, and I genuinely thought I’d gotten all my anger about the subject off my chest when I wrote it. It turns out that that is not the case. Far from it. The other day, someone who calls himself “Dad” commented on another one…

  • Why I Will Always Shop at CVS Pharmacy

    I’m not someone who sets great store in brand or company loyalty. I don’t even buy American necessarily. Nor do I subscribe to the concept that large conglomerations care about the consumer. The only thing they care about is that our money continues to flow in their direction. But something happened recently that will make…

  • Why I Hate Alcohol

    I haven’t had a drink in 30 years. Not even a beer. Suddenly one day I realized that I had never left a bar feeling better about myself. And then there was the time when I was 17 and woke up in the trunk of my car. No idea how I got there. Fortunately the…

  • Habits You Didn’t Even Know You Had, or “Who’s Driving This Body, Anyway?”

    When you get dressed in the morning, do you do sock, sock, shoe, shoe, or sock, shoe, sock shoe? Most people don’t know without taking their shoes off and trying it. And even THEN they won’t be sure that they’re doing it the way they usually do. Unless you’re extremely obsessive, your body is on…