fashion clothes

Last night, my husband and I went to see Gravity. I've been wanting to see it since it came out, but we don't get many opportunities to see movies without singing cartoons in them, so we have to plan accordingly. Thankfully this is still in theaters, and allowed me to check off one of the nominated films.


One of these years I will see them all before the Academy Awards. One of these years. Probably not anytime in the near future...but it's good to have a goal, right?

Anyhow, we went to see it. He found a theater locally still showing it in IMAX 3-D. Apparently, when we haven't seen a grown-up movie in a while, we need to overcompensate. I was a bit nervous since IMAX movies tend to make me nauseous, and I did have to close my eyes a few times, but I made it through the movie without running from the theater, so I will call it a win.

The rest of this post will contain spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet and will yell at me for ruining something, please stop reading. 

The rest of this post may seem to ramble a bit. I apologize in advance. There is just a lot going through my head after seeing it. I laughed a bit after it ended, remembering all the posts I had seen when it was first released questioning the science of the film. Are there pieces that might not hold water? Of course...but at the end of the day, you have to remember that it's a movie. A stunningly gorgeous one, at that.

Speaking of which, I knew what the movie was about before we saw it, I even knew about the background of the main character and how it ended. Still, nothing was spoiled.

The Loss of a Child
When it first came out, a dear writer friend of mine went to see it in an attempt to escape her reality. After all, that is what movies are supposed to be for, right? As it turned out, though, it was anything but an escape and instead became a reminder of where she is, where she has been.

Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, lost her four year old daughter in a freak accident years before the story in the film takes place. At some point, the information about her is revealed, and I can't even begin to imagine what a blow that would have been for Mary Tyler Mom, my friend who also lost her daughter when she was four, though to cancer instead of an accident. She wrote about her experience with the film here in an attempt to prevent other parents in similar situations from being blindsided with the background story. 

The loss of her daughter, as you come to see during the film, was a large part of why Dr. Stone was who she was then, why she did what she did, why she felt comforted by the silence of space, why she was afraid to die but welcomed it anyway, and finally, what gave her the motivation to fight to survive.

It's profound, this emotional struggle that you see play out on the screen. I would think it would be moving for anyone. For those who have lost children, exponentially more real.

I anticipated that seeing the film would probably tap into my anxiety issues, but knowing that going in seemed to help. The scene when she is untethered and spinning uncontrollably further and further into space was abjectly terrifying. I don't think any other word could possibly do it justice.

To be so helpless, to know that you are being pushed away from life and that you are powerless to do anything to stop it is something that I've only truly experienced once in my life - in the moments right after I was told that my baby had died. It is something visceral and raw and it takes the breath from you and squeezes it out.


I'm glad that I knew about that part of the movie going into it. I don't know that I would have been able to watch it otherwise.

Death Can Be Beautiful
George Clooney's character, Matt Kowalski, is a veteran astronaut on his final trip when tragedy strikes. His final moments, when all you can hear is his voice as he drifts further and further away, were hard to hear. The words, hard to process. In those last moments, he knew what was coming, he was well trained for the inevitable and he seemed to face it without fear or hesitation. Instead he turned on his favorite music and admired the beauty around him while he still could.

It was beautiful.

Death can be beautiful, which is something we refuse to see in our society. Though almost none of us will ever be astronauts that meet our end drifting though space, our ends will come. The only thing certain in life is death, and yet it is something that too many of us fear. Because of that fear, we often find ourselves desperately trying to save people at the end. Life saving measures, surgeries, tubes, ventilators, all inflicting more pain but rarely saving anyone. And for what?


Death can be beautiful when it is welcome. When it is surrounded by love and peace and calm and friendship and family. I know this because it is how my father died. He was prepared, as much as he could have been, like this fictional man floating away. Enjoying what time he had left, and then letting go.

Fear and Courage
For almost the entire movie, the characters are in danger. Mortal, immediate danger. Though they are well trained, the fear is still there. The fear can still take hold. The fear does take over at times. Eventually, Dr. Stone fights through the fear and finds her inner strength.


What are we afraid of? It may not be something as overwhelming as an impending debris field, but is there something out there looming in the distance, keeping you on your toes?

Is it something that keeps you from doing what you should, what you must in order to not just survive, but thrive?

Can you power through the fear? Courage isn't about the absence of fear, not at all. It is about being afraid and doing it anyway.

Insignificance
Films like this one that include shots of the Earth from space, almost by definition, are supposed to make us ponder our place in the universe. Our smallness. Our insignificance.

When life overwhelms me, I try to remember that I am but one of over 7 billion people on this planet. My problems are inconsequential when compared to what most of those 7 billion people have to face every single day. What is huge and even life altering for me is just a drop in the bucket of humanity.

Do you ever just think about that? The hugeness of the universe? How little we know?

Do you ever stare up at the night sky and wonder what it all means? If there are planets full of life out there pondering the same thing?

I do. All the time. I marvel at it. It humbles me, keeps me grounded.

It tells me that no matter how much I think I know, I really don't know anything. Seeking knowledge only makes me want to seek more of it. The more I absorb, the more I realize how much more there is to know and understand the truth that I will never be able to learn it all.

Movies are for entertainment. They transport us somewhere we may never be able to visit, take us to a time and place far and away. They use lighting and images and music and sound to immerse us somewhere else entirely. Sometimes they take us all the way there just to bring us inward, to make us feel, to make us think.

The best movies do it all. They leave us asking questions, not just of the filmmakers, but of ourselves.

This?

One of those.

Yesterday was my birthday. Though it was one of those days that I legitimately needed several extra hours to get everything done and was running around all day, it was a good day. A really good day.

Probably the best birthday I've ever had.

There was no celebratory dinner. It was waiting in the crockpot when we got home from all the other things we had to do.

There was no cake. Which is fine, because I really don't like cake anyway. (Gasp! I know, right?)

There was no party. Unless you count the singing of Happy Birthday as we crammed chicken cacciatore into our mouths.

There was no hurrah. My youngest didn't even realize it was my birthday until last night.

And you know what? It was still awesome.

I resisted joining Facebook for a long time, telling myself (with real reason) that I didn't want to be on a social media site, that I didn't need to connect with classmates from decades ago, that I didn't need to be wasting my time there. I pushed it away because I was afraid I would like it, if I am just being honest with myself.

I eventually gave in and joined.

Over the years I have reconnected with people I never thought I would, forged friendships with people I never would have had the chance to, and met some of the nicest people I've never actually met.

Then there is this. Most of you came by way of Facebook.

All day yesterday, I received posts and messages from these people that live in my computer. I laughed at a few, teared up at others, was touched by everyone that took time out of their day just to write to me.

It's fairly fantastic, this internet thing.

A few times, though, I saw people posting memes and links to posts whining about the 10th anniversary Facebook movies. In case you don't know what they are, earlier this week, Facebook celebrated their 10th Anniversary. To thank their users, they created an app that generates a one minute look back video of your time on Facebook. The first posts you wrote and pictures you shared, the items that people interacted with the most, the things that some algorithm decided were worthy of being included in that little snippet of life.


Most people loved their video. Some didn't, usually because it included pictures of painful reminders, posts having to do with heartbreak or loss, people who aren't here anymore.

Even if people loved their own video, eventually the snark about everyone else's videos began. It seems in this world we can't ever just let people have their moment without making it about us, can we? We seem to think that our opinions are important enough to voice them, even at the expense of others.

If you don't want to make a video, fine. No one required you to do so. If other people do, leave them be. Chances are that video means something to them that you could never possibly understand.

My video made me cry. In it, pictures of my parents who are both gone now, of my babies when they were little. Images from some of the worst days in my life where I was trying to hold it together and smile for the camera. Others that show the moments when I started to emerge from the tunnel. When life turned around, when there was genuine joy again. Pictures of the things I love, the people I love, the things I am proud of.

My video was an absolutely accurate representation of what my life has been like, perhaps because I am absolutely authentic, even online.

The trouble with social media is that it's easy to portray ourselves as something other than who we really are. It's easy to get caught up in comparing yourself to the images everyone else puts out there. If you can take it for what it is, though, be real about who you are, and stop worrying so much about what everyone else is doing, it can be a truly beautiful thing.

First of all, let me just say thank you from the bottom of my heart for the response to the original post I wrote earlier this week about addiction.

I wanted to clear up a few things, answer a few questions and address a few issues in the wake of it. I wrote it initially because the words just needed to get out of my head. I've told quite a few people that I really don't even feel like I wrote it, I was just the person attached to the fingers that typed it out. It came from my soul.

The difficulty in writing something like this is that I wrote it for my own reasons, which are related to my own personal experiences with addiction in many different forms. I never wrote it thinking for even one second that it would go viral. It was not done to capitalize on the moment, it was not even a celebration of PSH as an actor, though I will miss his contributions to the industry. It was a response to the way people reacted. The assumptions made about him. The assumptions made not just about him, but about everyone out there struggling the same way he did.

It wasn't about him at all, really. It was about the addicts I have known and loved. It was about the people I have known, the struggles I have witnessed. The demons in my own head.

His death just forced all that to the surface for me.


There are a few things that I wanted to clarify, that I probably should have written more in depth about at the time but didn't either because I didn't think about it at the time, or I did and chose to try and condense my words.

The greatest of which is the issue of what causes addiction, something we may not ever have clear and convincing scientific evidence of. We see what we see, though. We observe what we observe. I did not state in the post that every case of addiction has mental illness as a precursor, though I believe many of them do. There will certainly be people who don't relate to it at all. It's not intended to be all-inclusive, nor would I ever presume that it could be.

There most certainly appears to be an element of genetics involved when it comes to addiction. Some people are just more inclined to be drawn toward drugs, alcohol, food, whatever it is. Some families seem to have clusters of addiction. Whether it is an actual issue of genes or just the force of habits and learned behaviors from a lifetime of living with and around other addicts, I can't say. I just know that some people have a predisposition to it.

I know this because I am one of them.

I walk the line.

I have been forthcoming about my personal issues in the past.

There are people who may not have that predisposition, who can use drugs socially, who can drink without hesitation, and it never causes a problem. For some of them, though, these people without the predisposition, they may find themselves addicted anyway simply because the item they use creates its own physical addiction.

Nicotine, heroin and cocaine are the ones that come to mind immediately. These drugs are inherently addictive and create dependence in people who might otherwise be able to fight it off, purely because of the chemical compounds involved and their effect on the body.

Along with all that, there is the underlying issue quite often of mental illness. I say this only because it has been the case in every single addict I have ever known, most commonly depression. In many cases, because of the stigma about mental illness in general, people are resistant to believe they have a problem, resistant to seek help, and in turn seek out ways to self medicate...which can lead them down the path of addiction.

Some of the comments left indicate that people misread my words. I never intended for anything in the post to be an absolution of responsibility on the part of the addict. Quite the opposite, in fact. Attempting to understand why people become addicts and why it is so hard for them to get clean doesn't equal helplessness at all. They are without a doubt the most essential piece of the puzzle. Without a desire to get better, without the determination to get up and fight the fight every single day, no amount of resources, no amount of support will ever make a difference.

Those of us who have been there understand that. Those of you out there who haven't been there should consider yourselves lucky. Honestly.

Do addicts choose to use? Yes, of course they do, at least initially. Once they are in it, though, the issue of choice isn't clear cut anymore, it's not cut and dried, it's not black and white. Some drugs mess with the messages in your head. Some drugs force your body to get more. It's not as simple as just deciding to stop, particularly for people with severe addictions that can only quit safely with the help of detox.

The physical aspect of addiction is only one piece, and most would argue, one of the most inconsequential, at least in the long run. The reason people relapse is precisely because addiction isn't just physical. It's bigger than that. It's more complicated than that.

Our mental health system isn't equipped to help addicts. Even where there are services available, the resources are usually lacking to help pay for it. Not all insurance covers rehab, for those people who even have insurance. One of the lesser discussed aspects of the Affordable Care Act is that all plans sold on the exchanges are required to include coverage for substance abuse.

This is huge, and might finally be a step in the right direction.

We need to do a better job for addicts in this country. We need to do a better job for all mental health conditions in general. We need to have a better understanding of the co-morbidity often present between them. We need to stop believing that drug use is simply a criminal issue.

Mostly, though, we need to remember what it's like to care about people.

We need empathy and compassion.

They, the addicts, need it maybe more than anyone else does.

Does that mean that I am claiming you should always be there, be subjected to abuse, throw money at treatment centers for people who refuse to try? Of course not. In all of this, you have to understand that all the help in the world won't help someone who doesn't want it, someone who isn't ready, someone who won't get up and fight every day.

You can't love them enough to fix them.

You can't love them enough to keep them clean.

You can't love them enough to make it all better unless they want it to be better.

It's a painful realization, one that I've had to come to before. It sucks backwards and forwards. You can only do what you can do until you can't do it anymore. Then you have to do what you have to do to protect yourself.

No one will fault you for that if they understand what it is like. Those who would can't possibly know.

Another of the topics I wanted to clarify a little here is the subject of religion, which is something mentioned quite often in the comments. I didn't talk about it because I am not a religious person. I am spiritual, but not within the confines of a religion per se. I have known addicts to get clean even without a belief in God. I have known people with all the faith in the world who didn't make it. My opinion is a simple one - whatever works for you, cling to it, but don't think that it will necessarily work for someone else. Each person has a different path, a different inspiration, a different reason.

I honor them all. I respect them all.

I think that is all the issues I wanted to clear up. I think. I'm probably missing something, but I can count on you all to let me know.

Again, thank you for sharing this important message.

Peace and strength to you all.

Yesterday was World Cancer Day.

This past Sunday, as I was watching the Superbowl, a commercial for World Cancer Day, paid for by Chevrolet came on the screen. I fought back most of the tears but couldn't hold them all. What I wouldn't give for one more drive with my Dad. He was a car guy. He taught me to be a car girl. Some of the best times I had with him in those last weeks were on a drive.


I was with him the last time he sat in the driver's seat...
the last time he gripped the steering wheel...
the last time he felt the accelerator grab...
the last time he rolled the window down...
the last time he shut the door...

Last week, the Surgeon General released a comprehensive report on the use and danger of tobacco over the past 50 years. Since the first report was issued, more than 20 million people in the United States have died from tobacco related illnesses. Smoking continues to decline, sitting at 16% of the population today. There are more former smokers than current ones here in the US now.

A week before the report was issued, Eric Lawson became the fourth Marlboro Man to die a tobacco related death, succumbing to COPD caused by a three pack a day habit stretching back decades.

Tomorrow is my birthday. That morning in 2011, though he was getting weaker by the moment, my father announced that we were going to breakfast to celebrate. He was the one dying, I was the one having the birthday, and he told me that it all seemed wrong because I'd given him the gift that year by coming to help him at the end. Around the table that morning, him and I, my mother (also gone now, in part because of cigarettes), my brother, his wife, their son and my virtually adopted brother. I had no idea it would be the last time. I had no idea he'd be gone four days later.

February 10th will mark three years here without him. Without his wisdom, his guidance, his love. Three years since I have heard his voice, his laughter. Three years.

My father didn't saddle up and ride off into the sunset.

Neither did The Marlboro Men.

I don't care what the ads promised.

They lied.

My father, these ad men, thousands more each year, all their lives ended too soon, ended painfully.

Gasping for air.

Quite often still addicted to the very thing killing them.

For my Dad, it was lung cancer that spread to his blood, his bones, his liver...and then everywhere.

The Marlboro Man was invented in the mid 1950's, when smoking was advertised to every man, woman and child as something sexy, something desirable, something social. The Marlboro Man was created as an advertisement for Philip Morris in an attempt to sell Marlboros, which were filtered cigarettes and at the time, considered feminine. The reason they started pushing the filtered cigarettes was a simple one, really...they knew that cigarettes were dangerous, they just mistakenly believed that filtered ones were safer. 

The tobacco companies knew cigarettes were dangerous then in the 1950's. They knew it before they created this advertising icon. They knew it before they packaged it, distributed it and sold it. They knew it before they told an entire generation of men that the only way to truly be rugged, manly men was to do it with a piece of paper containing addiction and poison rolled up between their lips.

The executives knew cigarettes were addictive before smokers and their families started suing the tobacco companies. They suppressed documents, they escaped liability in countless lawsuits claiming that cigarettes were safe, that they did not cause cancer, that the smokers assumed the risk anyway.

How that all wasn't deconstructed just doesn't make sense to me. If there was nothing dangerous, what exactly could the smokers be assuming the risk of? The companies themselves said their products were safe.

And an entire generation of smokers believed them.

By the time smokers realized just how dangerous smoking was, they were addicted. Hooked. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine.

And the tobacco companies knew.

And they denied it anyway.

They denied it because they made money from their lies. They became rich at the hands of people crippled by addiction to a product they vowed was safe. They profited from sickness, from death, because even in their last days, most smokers can't quit.

The companies weren't able to completely escape liability in later cases and have been forced to pay out billions of dollars to compensate states for health care costs.

That won't bring my father back.

Nothing will.

If I sound angry, it's because I am.

I want to go on another drive with my father.

I want to sit around a breakfast table one more time.

I want to hear his laugh, see his smile, just one more time.

Most of the time, I am a writer who vigorously advocates for others, who tries to raise awareness, who shares stories, who exposes injustices.

Sometimes I'm just a girl who misses her Dad. 



I love you, Dad.

I miss you every day that goes by.

I miss you more right now.

You guys. There is a lot to cover this week, made infinitely more complicated by the fact that I'm not at all in the mood to rant and rage this morning. The reason? I wrote a post yesterday about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Well, it was sort of about him, but it was more about how he is just the most recent public face of addiction. The post quite literally wrote itself, and I put it up not having any idea what to expect.

It went viral. Unlike the last time I had a post do this, the response has been quieter. I haven't been dealing so much with random strangers yelling at me and telling me what I stupid asshole I am. I've had a few critical comments, all obviously from people who love someone with an addiction they can't kick. I expected far more people to tell me that I'm completely off base, but almost everyone has been grateful for my words. I've received a ton of messages from addicts, those in recovery, family members and friends who thanked me for getting it and for actually writing it down.

In light of that, I might be a little less edgy today. A little more soft around the edges. A lot more teary and emotional.

I'm super pissed at my douchebag neighbor, so I will channel that rage instead. He shoveled the street right in front of his house, throwing the snow into the middle of the street...where my car is currently stuck. Asshole.

Off we go.


Have a Coke and get over yourself
There is a commercial that Coke aired during the Superbowl featuring the song America the Beautiful sung first in English, then in several other languages, all spoken within the boundaries of this country. Then the internet exploded, full of outrage that our national anthem would be sung in foreign languages, full of vitriol towards Coke at their audacity to include anything but our national language, full of angry people frustrated that their country is full of  _________, _________ & ________. I'm not writing what people said on purpose. If you want to see the comments, they aren't hard to find.

Anyhow, here's the thing.

- America the Beautiful isn't our national anthem. The Star Spangled Banner is. *bangs head on wall*

- America the Beautiful was written by Katherine Lee Bates, who happens to be a lesbian who left the Republican party after being disgusted with the growing xenophobia in the party. *how do ya like them apples*

- There is no national language of the United States. Never has been. *bangs head on wall again*

- The US is a country composed almost entirely of immigrants. Europeans weren't the first ones here.

- If you want to get technical with a "we were here first so we get to decide what language everyone will speak", we should be speaking one of the indigenous languages spoken by the native population, not English.

I thought the commercial was beautiful. Diversity is a beautiful thing. I've never understood why it threatens people so much.


I believe Dylan Farrow and by the way, why is disbelieving her even a thing?
Dylan Farrow, the daughter of Mia Farrow, came forward and wrote, in her own words, about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of Woody Allen.

Her story is disturbing to say the least, and one that has been the subject of lawsuits, media fodder and speculation for decades. She chastised Hollywood for celebrating this monster of a man and felt like it was finally time to share her story after being sickened by the praise lauded over him in recent weeks.

Allen's lawyers immediately took to the press denying her claims. It wasn't just his attorneys doing the denying though, as some celebrities had to throw their comments into the universe. The most mystifying one from Alec Baldwin, who seemed to discount her statement then simultaneously claim that it is no one's business when he tweeted this, "What the f&@% is wrong w u that u think we all need to b commenting on this family's personal struggle?"  Then again, he's not been known for tact or for treating his own children well, so we'll just chalk that up to the wonder of Alec.

I have to wonder why anyone doubts the validity of her story. The abuse allegations were part of a custody fight decades ago and are not new claims. Dylan stands to gain nothing from telling her story and yet people are doubting her. Why?

Why do we live in a society where we refuse to believe allegations of child molestation? Why do we care what a woman was wearing when she was raped? Why? 

I believe her. If you don't, you need to ask yourself why you don't. 

Throwing away food won't fix anything, nor will shaming kids who can't pay
Last week a story hit the news that made me so angry I couldn't even see straight. Lunch workers in an elementary school took lunches from children with account deficits and threw them in the trash before they could be eaten in front of the entire cafeteria. They claim it is district policy. People were outraged, and rightfully so, particularly since the food was already in the hands of the hungry kids and throwing it away was nothing more than a waste. The children were publicly shamed for financial issues that aren't within their control. 

The problem though is that this is not an isolated incident. School districts all over the country have rules like this in place, though some give more leeway to elementary student accounts. These were young children, not high schoolers, that had their food taken.

There is a story here locally that is similar, of a principal who was fired recently. She alleges that her firing was not because of lack of performance, but because she refused to comply with a district policy that required stamping the hands of children with negative lunch accounts. She did not want the children to be shamed.

The school claims she was not fired over the issue, but has stopped the stamping since she went public with the story.

What the hell is wrong with us? I wish that all these people making these policy decisions, all inevitably based on bottom lines and dollar signs, were forced to go without food for a few days before they voted. For some of these kids, school is the only place they are going to get a meal on any given day. For many of them, their parents are too ashamed to apply for free or reduced lunch programs. The answer isn't to starve the kids. That can't be ever be allowed to be the answer.

The bullying the media ignores
Just in the past few hours, some larger media outlets have begun to pick up the story of Michael Morones, an 11 year old boy who attempted suicide by hanging himself because he couldn't live with being bullied anymore. He is on life support in North Carolina, and it is feared that he may have permanent brain damage if he survives.

The reason he was being bullied? He is a Brony.

Is it possible that is also the reason the media isn't covering the story? I'd certainly make the argument it is. He attempted well over a week ago, and stories like his usually hit the news right away. This time though, crickets. I didn't even hear about it until a fellow blogger, Portrait of an Adoption, wrote about it earlier this week.

It hurts my heart to know that this little boy felt so helpless. It hurts my heart to see bullying in any form, to see children ridiculed for what they love, to see a society look the other way when the bullying is for something most people don't understand.

You can contribute to a fund set up in his honor here if you are interested.


My love and support to you and your family, Michael. All the Bronies and Pegasisters in the world are rooting for you right now.

Philip Seymour Hoffman died yesterday. He was found with a needle still wedged into his arm, heroin believed to be the culprit.


When I heard of his passing yesterday, it hit me in the gut a little bit. Not because I know him, not because I know his family members or friends. Not, much to the dismay of what some may believe, because he was an award winning actor.

It hit me because he isn't the only face of addiction, he is just the most recent one. He's just the face that most people recognize, the one that we were familiar with, the one that we came to love through his work on the screen.

Whenever someone famous dies, there seems to be this immediate attempt by far too many people to make their life and death insignificant, as though the death of a celebrity somehow negates the death of all the other people who died on that given day. People attempt to place more value on the lives of some people, less on others, claiming that the celebration of the death of a celebrity is a misplaced outlaying of our efforts. I argue the opposite, obviously, particularly in situations like this one where there is so much opportunity for us to learn about addiction, about mental illness, about why lives end this tragic way.

The opportunity is there, without question. The issue is whether we, as a society choose to seize it, or whether we chalk this loss up to drug use and wave it off indifferently as another selfish life wasted.

It seems we do the latter.

Plenty of opportunities have been presented to us in the past, of lives abruptly ended this way. Of people who happen to be famous, but also struggle with the same demons that many of us ordinary folks do, meeting sudden death in this way.

Philip became addicted to heroin after struggling with abusing prescription pain medications, an all too familiar and increasingly common path to this addiction. This is not the addiction we want to think it is, the sordid one that happens in alleys, nor is it one reserved only for those in positions of privilege. Heroin doesn't discriminate. Its use is up 75% in the past few years, and the demographics of the users have shifted. 

It's easier to think that drug addiction happens to other people, to them, over there. Reality tells us that it happens far more often than we want to believe. It's a false sense of security.

Chances are that someone you know is addicted to drugs right now, you just may not realize it.

Or you do know, but you hide their addiction because of the social stigma. 

Or you don't hide it, but you shame them instead. 

Or you don't shame them, but you slowly phase them out of your life because you don't want to be around them anymore or because you just can't do it anymore. 

Or you keep them around, but talk about them behind their backs, discuss how sad it is that they refuse to get help, vow to be better than they are.

Or they do try to get help and sometimes they get better for a while. 

Or they relapse and die just like he did yesterday.

The trouble with drug addiction is that it really isn't about the drugs, no matter how much most people seem to believe that. Drug addiction is a means to an end. It begins usually as a way to try something new, to try and get high, to try and transport yourself somewhere else, to try and just feel better for a minute.

Most drug use is self medication for the things that people either can't or won't cope with in real life. The root of most of all that? Mental health conditions, the huge piece of this issue that we find ourselves ignoring all too often every time drugs are involved.

Nancy Reagan taught us all that drugs are bad. D.A.R.E. programs taught us that users are criminals, they are bad people. No one ever bothered to tell us that the vast majority of them were in need of help from a mental health system that largely doesn't exist.

And you know what happened?

People believed them. I can't even begin to tell you all the things I saw flying through my newsfeed yesterday in the wake of his death. Proclamations that he was selfish, that he was a waste, that he should have been happy because he was rich and famous. People who decreed from the mountaintops that if he would have just tried harder, he would have been better. That it's his fault that he died.

In reality, he struggled with depression most of his life. He got clean. He was recently in rehab.

Addicts don't want to be addicts.

Addicts don't want to die.

Addicts don't want to throw their lives away.

Addicts don't want their children to grow up without parents.

They just want to feel better. They just want to feel normal. They just want to stop feeling everything else for a little while.

Addicts are people, just like you and me.

Addicts come in all forms, dependent on many different things, drugs just being one version of dependence.

The problem is that our system is limited, laboring under the illusion that drug addiction is a criminal issue, a medical issue on the fringes that can be fixed with proper rehab. That all ignores the fact that drugs aren't the problem...what led that person to drugs in the first place is the problem. The drugs are just a means to an end.

Rehab doesn't fix addicts. It primarily treats the physical symptoms of withdrawal.

Prison doesn't fix addicts. It just puts them in a cage for a while.

Even death doesn't fix addicts. It just leaves the people who love them here, forever wondering how different things might have been.

The only way to really deal with addiction is one that is multi-faceted, one that makes us uncomfortable. It is messy and complicated and takes a lifetime of effort. It sometimes involves relapses and second chances and third chances. It involves support, sometimes sponsors. It involves therapy and counseling until whatever the root cause is has been revealed and addressed. It involves consideration of not just the physical withdrawal, but the emotional withdrawal, the social withdrawal, the psychological withdrawal. It requires a mental health system with adequate resources, which clearly doesn't exist. It requires us to do better. It requires support instead of judgement.

And sometimes, even when all those things exist, it fails. It fails because addiction can take people and swallow them whole. It can rob them of everything they value, everyone they love. It can strip them of everything they care about, rob them of reason and logic. It can convince them that they aren't worthy, that they have failed not just themselves, but everyone else. It tells them that they are broken and irreparable. Then it shoves them back down and does it again.

Our society says it failed because they didn't try hard enough, because they were selfish, because they were stupid.

How exactly is saying things like this going to help anyone?

The short answer - it isn't. It just allows us to believe that if we try hard enough, if we care about other people enough, if we are smart enough, we can avoid addiction. Our false sense of security hurts those who need help the most.

Never mind the damage done to the people they leave behind.

To those who claim Philip's death isn't tragic, I ask you to think about his children. I'm sure they would disagree with you.

Until you've been there, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've watched someone you love try and claw their way out only to be dragged back in again, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've seen someone throw everything away just to feel better for a moment, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've dealt with someone desperately in need of help who turned to self medicating instead, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've had to tease out where the line between believing in someone and enabling them is, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've had to make choices no one should ever have to make, you can't know what it is like.

Until you've done all you can to help someone who doesn't want it, you can't know what it is like.

We all have our demons. We all have our issues.

Many of us are closer to being addicts than we would ever admit out loud.

Some of us know how easy it would be to turn.

Some of us are addicts already.

Some of us already walk the line.

I have been writing almost every day now for five years, as of yesterday. Ironic, at least for me, that the day that I crossed that threshold was one where I didn't even open up my blog to do anything more than check for comments.