She loved me enough to throw in a deep, wet inhale of snot and tears.  “The cold air will come a lot quicker on the other side of the hill!”

I hated winter.  Despised the snow.  And that depressing, one-horse, pulp-mill town, lingering the air with that caustic, every-day stench.  How was I going to make it through two years over there, alone and friendless?  I was already depressed, thinking about it and feeling like I'd settled into a choice that was second best. 

I didn’t have to leave, I knew that.  No one around here cared if I spent all of my working years as a slave at our own, one-horse saw-mill.  It was almost expected I'd stick around and my hand-full of buddies actually looked forward to the prospects of working down there for themselves. 

​"Eight to Five, every day.  Good money.  You're nuts taking on college.  I can't wait to get to work."  This was the standard spiel from my buddies, all totally willing to sign their souls over to the devil by staying behind.  Success, they say, scares the shit out of us more than failure.  That mill, for them, was a sure bet they knew wouldn't challenge them too close to the limits of their own sanity.  I knew better.

Nobody really gave a shit about anything beyond acceptance of a daily grind, for me or anyone else in town.  Rising above expected choices wasn't much on anyone's radar, growing up in ​Rural Nowhere.

Except, within his own ignorance and limits of mediocrity, my Pops.

There were times when I'd decided the mill was going to be my next summer adventure over my high-school years, Pops, every time, practically stroked himself to an early death, spouting off a tirade of rage, typical of all our Dads when they stepped in to straighten any of us out, and line us back up to their own pathetic vision of a manly life.

“I spent my whole life down there.  My whole, God-damn, miserable life.  Either pushing,  pulling, piling, sawing, or stealing God-damn wood.  For what?  For nothing!  I’ve been there from the time I was your age and I’m telling you this:  You don’t want to set foot down at that place."

"​Once your in that shit-hole, you never get yourself out.  Are you listening to me, boy?  Stay away from there.  If I so much as see you sniffing for work in that direction,  I’ll slap your nose off your twit, God-damn face.  You ever show your ass down there, I swear to Christ, I'll take you out back and kill ya, bury you in the garden before I let you do something as stupid as that.” 

The last few years before I left for school, all Mother and I heard was the same, tired, drunken man - moaning about the same tired. old, pissed-to-the-gills rants about pretty much anything and everything to do with the world we lived in.

That threat of death was enough to keep me away from the mill over those summers.  The threats kept me dreaming at least, trying to do ​something  with my own, God-forsaken life.  Threats of violence from Pops, when I was still young enough, always knocked me back to paying attention, if ever he dreamed up I wasn't paying his ways attention enough. 

He never really beat me, much.  I was lucky as far as I was concerned, looking at the mess some of my buddies brought as badges of honour to school with them some days.  We'd all learned to believe, whatever violence Dads did, was justified.  We deserved every punch and kick; every hockey-stick across the back for leaving our gear scattered across the driveways of our run-down, cruddy mansions, scattered across the mountains since time here first began. 

All the beatings, at least, weren't  anything that wouldn't heal back up over a month or so.  They weren't anything worth whining about.  We all learned too how to keep our pain to ourselves around one another.  Boys from ​Nowhere aren't allowed to be weak.  Showing weakness only serves to get us beat again at school, by angry, younger souls, taking every opportunity to force the ​shit they carried into school from home to ​run downhill.

We'd all dawned enough inner and outer bruises to make sure we  had fear of the old-men slapped rightly into us.  Like all my buddies, this was Pop's way of earning my respect.  I lived every day, we all did, with that fear-driven, messed up respect drilled in at any opportunity they all had to deliver it.  I know I carry that fear still.  It haunts me, hearing myself bully everyone around me with my mouth at any given frustration almost every day.

Pops was so much older than Mother.  To this day, I find myself wanting to beat the crap out of other old men.  All over a rage that can sometimes come on, just because they're stupid enough to wander around town with grey hair.  All that fear I still live over those beatings handed down from that shitty-old, bully of a man. 

This is how he learned to build respect for my Gramps, through his own growing-up years. Across many days of his own childhood circus of a life, there were days Pops would disappear from view for awhile.  He wouldn't turn up at school or anywhere else in town.  Like he disappeared from the planet, Pops was nowhere to be seen, most times in line with Gramps drunken pay-day binges, drunken nightmares just like all the men of his generation pulled together as some kind of reward for all their hard weeks work. 

When Pops did finally show back up as a kid to shoot some hockey in the street, bloodied as he'd sometimes still be, and staring into nothing but the dirt as if  the other kids couldn't see, everybody he hung-out with, knew exactly what he'd been put through.  Like my own buddies, they wouldn't say a thing.  They'd just get back into the play, Pops allowed back in, as if he'd never been away from them at all.  As if, nothing shitty had happened to him at the hands of dear-old Gramps. 

Mother filled me in on all of that, about my old-man's life as a kid.  The beatings from Pops towards me, were nothing like Gramps threw at Pops, driving fearful respect into my old man.  My own insides would flop back-and-forth between feeling sorry for my Pops, and hating him for how he treated both Mother and I.  I guess he did try to be a better man than his old-man was to him.  Mother got her licks too.  I wasn't ever able to feel at all sorry for him over that.  I wish, still, she'd stood up for herself.  She never did.

It sure as hell didn’t matter at all to me anymore.  None of it.  Not on moving day.  I was leaving and vowed to myself to NEVER  come back.  I was off to school.  To college.  The first in our family, bright enough to go. 

Pops and Mother, I knew, in their way they were proud.  Mother was sure to let me know about it too.  Pops didn't say a thing.  His way of showing his pride for me was always dead frigging silence.  But I could imagine, hearing him inside my head, telling the boys at the mill all about his son the pretty nurse, cracking-off​ his lame jokes about me to entertain his always captive audience in the lunch-room at the mill. 

Pops was a totally different man away from home, hanging with the boys.  Everyone out there in that blind and ignorant to reality world, they loved the man.  Mother loved him too.  So did I, deep down inside, somewhere under all the garbage memories he'd planted like weeds. 

I tried hard to ​let him know I loved him.  Tried so for years, practically begging to get close to him.  Give the old-shit a bit of a hug, and most often I'd hear the same garbage from him.

"Get off-a-me.  God-damn sissy." 

Pops cringed at the thought of affection like that from any boy.  I always wondered why.  Heading off to college, finally, all I could see inside my head was Pops making an asshole of himself, taking out his covered-over weakness on his own kin, just to get a laugh out of the other, brutalized little-grown men stuck working down at that mill. 

In the movie running in my head, I saw Pops celebrating his only son's success in life by showing my doctored-up graduation pictures around, just to get a laugh.  I watched inside as the reel played by, him having altered the symbol of my greatest accomplishment to date.

I could see him, plain as day, ​spending all that time in that cellar with the paints he had down there.  Pops was an incredible artist, back in the day.  He didn't do any painting for his own sake anymore.  He didn't draw.  I never saw the man pick up a book.  But inside this bullied-to-a-pulp little brain of mine, in the movie playing inside my head, I saw him laughing as he worked with his pencils and his paints, making sure he'd fixed that picture all up.  A picture of me, his sissy son, wearing my nice white dress and pretty little hat, holding my bouquet of roses and smiling nice with painted on lipstick for added effect. 

After he'd spent a week in the cellar, doctoring away himself at my High-School Grad picture, he rubbed it into my face, laughing and stinking from all the whiskey he drank doing is sick, hack at art downstairs.

“Get yourself in here,” Mother bellowed.  “Say good-bye to the boy!”  Pops moaned and grunted down the hall.  Predictable, as he always did when Mother barked at him from the kitchen.

“College boy’s running away, is he?  Thinks he’s something special!  On his way to college!  Sissy-Boy, decided to embarrass us by taking on a woman’s job.  What the hell does he want to go off and be something like that for, Mother?  A God-damn nurse, of all things to work at.”

“I'll be good at it, Pops.  There really aren’t enough male nurses out there.  Might even teach one day, you never know.”  Pop's let out his usual, drunken bellow-of-a-belly laugh.  Shoving Mother into her shoulder, just like he always did.

“NO SHIT!  Of course they're ain't no boy nurses in the world.  It's a God-damn girls job, ain't it Mother.”  Then he laughed even harder.  He got a real kick out of himself. 

Laughing like that at every one my ideas I brought home to show him from school, was typical Pops too.  He laughed that demented heckle at every one of the dreams my curiosity sent me hunting after, stalking the world for something new to learn.

He ​laughed like that if a cat got killed by a car.   That side of his personality, always sickened me.  Scared the shit out of me actually.  There's no way I could live with myself if I ever turned out to have that sickest side of the man living inside of me.  Always belittling me for the sake of his own dominance, he really could be a shitty little man.  When he bellowed like that, it always felt like he was laughing directly into my soul, as if I was the cause of all his pain.

“Just think, Pops.  In a couple Thanksgivings from now?  You’ll be staring over your turkey dinner at someone who decided to make something of his life.  Shitty thing you never had the balls to do that.  You excited for me?  Hey Pops?  Or are you just scared again that your little boy might grow up to be a little better than the likes of you?” 

With that little dig, he went straight downstairs, stomping his heavy feet into that stolen lumber all the way down the steps to the cellar.  Mother hung her head in shame of me when I fought him off of me like that.  That old bastard, he just loved any excuse in a losing battle like that with me, to head straight away.  As he always did, predictable old shit, down to the cellar, crawling deep, like a bear, into his broken-down-old-man cave.

I can’t remember how old I was when I figured this little tactic out.  One day, when I was still a kid, I just woke up and noticed it, I guess.  Pops started hiding out in the cellar when things got a little rough for his weakness to handle upstairs.  Too much honesty or emotion, get to any of his truth inside about himself and Pops was gone.  Down into the cellar.  His haven, I supposed.  We all need places to hide.  I had the mountains.  Pops, and many of his cronies, had private hiding spots for themselves to retreat into when reality was too much to take. 

By the time my little moving day had rolled around, Pops had learned the hard way to keep his distance physically from me.  If I mouthed him off and he stood up or moved towards me, I stood up too, pushing him back on his heels with only my eyes for weapons by then.  I didn’t take being punched around anymore. 

It only took one punch one day, he knew I’d learned to hit back.  I hit him so hard his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the floor, shaking like a chicken.  Pops hit his head on the kitchen counter too when he fell.  I thought I'd killed the little shit. 

When he came around, downstairs he went.  I scared the hell out of him.  I doubt anybody ever knocked him to ground like that.  He was known around town to put up a pretty good fight.  Actually, for me, it didn't feel right really.  I kind of felt sorry for him, after I'd got my own lick in.   Something though happens to a boy, they say, when he finally reaches that point of being tougher than the old-man.  I felt I could finally handle myself against him, sure enough.  With Mother's help, it didn't take me too long to feel only shame again, after he'd hauled his ass downstairs.

On moving day, after he stomped off and slammed his way down to his little den, feeling sorry for himself, I hugged Mother good-bye, headed straight for the back door, tossed my stuff into my crappy old Datsun Station Wagon, f​ired-up that piece of shit and drove away. 

After the first few miles into the mountains, I actually tasted a little relief.  "Bring on the dream of nursing."  I thought.  My substitute decision because I didn't have it in me to risk failing on my way to becoming a doctor.  I think I maybe even felt a smile.

I found out after Pops died why he enjoyed the cellar so much.  When I went down there finally, I was never allowed down there as a kid, after a little digging around I found he'd left behind a full case of whiskey in an old pantry cupboard.  It was crammed inside behind an empty toolbox marked EXPLOSIVES.  Sneaky, the old-man. 

Good thing I found that whiskey.  That's all I got to remember him by.  I didn't paint, so those antique brushes of his went straight into the trash.

Tricky move, I thought when I found it there.  I guess he thought by marking the box the whiskey was hiding behind with EXPLOSIVES, Mother would stay away from that side of the room, with it potentially blowing up and all.  Mother was never known to be all that bright. 

She was ​a laughing stock herself from all the bitches living in this town.  She kept away from that box alright.  She still hasn’t questioned the fact that the dynamite had never been there.  As far as Mother is concerned, there’s dynamite in that box, to this very day.  As a matter of fact, she’s absolutely convinced of it, I made sure of that.

Nursing wasn’t really my dream.  Like I said, I wanted to be a doctor, I just didn't have the guts to chase that one to death.  ​Mother dreamed of nursing when she was that age in her own life.  Pop’s dream coming out of high-school was “wiring the electricity”.  I knew, wiring for a living,  I would’ve died trying that.  Nursing was the lesser of both of their evils and the closest to my own dream. 

I've never really had any dreams, other than doctoring of my own since.  Once the move came about and I’d made it over the hill, things went as I expected.  It was a damn-cold, stinking waste of two full-out, depressing frigging months in absolute hell.  I ran back home, scared to death, broken and vowing never to give that college thing a try again.

What scared me off?  It was a simple matter of confusing what it would mean to be in a room full of gals, practicing bed-baths.  At eighteen and never brave enough even to shower with the other boys in the locker room, let's just say I was a couple inches shy of wanting to get naked in front of the female portion of the nursing class. 

Pops died six months after I came back home.  Twenty-five years ago last week. 

Pops once moaned, after reaching his own twenty-five year milestone, “You think after twenty-five years a man would get a God-damn gold watch or something.”  He screamed that out to us all through one pay-day from down in his cave.  I didn’t really understand it.  I could never figure out what he was so frigging drunk and upset about.  Not for the longest time.

I get it now.  Yep, I understand old Pops now, pretty much all the way.​​

Mother’s still alive.  She can’t remember day-to-day who I am most of the time.  But, God-damn-it, she’s still frigging alive.  How do I spend my days?  I spend them at the mill.  I started my own lumber-tossing grindstone existence right after Pops died.  It’s a little hard to knock someone’s face off or strike him down dead from the grave, I figured. 

It was one of those, screw-it-all decisions we sometimes make, the best decision about my own life I could come up with at the time.  That old bastard.  He was right.  Once a man gets himself into that saw-dust farm of living hell, it is a trap. 

There's one thing.  Pops was certainly right about that.

My nights, like Pops, I reserve those for the cellar.  It took a bit of time getting used to the idea.  Now it's the only place left on the earth, that this heathen-of-a-man feels safe.  I wander down, every night after choking down Mother's demented effort of a supper. 

Pop’s left-over whiskey aged nicely over time. Like the best of wines, I tell myself.  I learned to pour it into me from watching him over the years.  It takes away the numbness of living that shitty mill-life I fell into.  I feel that death, every second without the whiskey poured in me at the end of it.  The flask in my boot works well through my days, humping out lumber so other man's mansions grow bigger in status for them up on the mountain of ​High Hill.

​The Cellar.  That's like going to a frigging spa now for me.  A gift of genetic inheritance, planted into me long ago from a broken, drunken, pissed-off little man.  His legacy to me, I guess, certainly was the best dowry that mess of a man could provide. 

I get him now, though, like I said.  I know exactly why Pops put together his EXPLOSIVE   little treasure box.   I've lost count of how many cases I’ve stuffed into that cupboard and behind that box now since inheriting Pop's cave of a hiding place.

It’s a ​ good-enough   life.  God-granted, it's as good a life as I’ve ever deserved living.  I plan on hammering out my remaining days down in that dismal little cave from here, waiting patiently for Mother to die. 

The musty smell of the dirt walls, down below.   The damp cold, always in the air.   The webs of death strung across the dismal grey concrete.  That hole in the floor, the place Pops once did, and now I go to piss. 

Living down there at night, shook me up a bit at first.  It felt like his ghost was down there, bitching at me to leave.  The whiskey took some getting used to.  But I've grown into it.  The burn of whiskey as it first hits the tongue, what once was an effort to swallow, it sure as hell don't bother me now.

"​Believe-You-Me,"  a​s Pops would say.  I know how to finish out my life in the sanctity of that cellar.  This copy-cat existence seems perfectly natural to me, today.  No need for anyone to worry, don't  anybody worry about me, I'll be alright. 

I would have made a useless, drunken, messed-up nurse or doctor anyway.  I love it down in ​The Cellar-My Place to Reflect.  That dynamite whiskey is my best friend.  It's like a little bit of heaven to me now, down there in that dank old cave. 

And don't any one of you folks worry about that dynamite either.

"​​Believe-You-Me​," when I tell ya.  I know how to handle that TNT . . . I learned from the best.

Darren Michael Gregory.  August 12th, 2014

Willie Nelson: Whiskey River - 1974

Generational Alcoholism In The Black Community In The United States.

Dr. Allan Schore: On Inter-Generational Transmission of Trauma and Suicide

Intergenerational Trauma & Healing 1of3 Joe Solanto

Vilayanur Ramachandran: The Neurons That Shaped Civilization
(Families and Generational Trauma, As Well?: Darren Michael Gregory.  Aug. 14th, 2014)

Disclaimer: These materials and resources are presented for educational purposes only. They are not a substitute for informed medical advice or training. Do not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem without consulting a qualified health or mental health care provider. If you have concerns, contact your health care provider, mental health professional, or your community health centre.

Darren Gregory © 2014: All Rights Reserved

I'm practicing this morning, just writing.  Without my  usual need to correct myself as I go.  Another lesson from Julia Cameron I will forever be grateful for in my life.  I've learned, I can always go back and fix anything that makes a mess of the page later.   For me, this practice is symbolic of my own life.  

I address head on, in often misunderstood ways by others, any issues in my own space that need fixing.  So much of the judgement leveled on me by the only two people who really matter anymore in terms of opinion of me, my wife and my mother, is leveled against me through so much misinterpretation of my inner motivation and intent related to our experience in life with my Addiction  and PTSD.  

I'm actually still, very angry at them both, for not ever fully demonstrating the faith in me that is finally solid in my inner-space in terms of how I deal with my personal issues in life.  I share this bluntly to them both today, out of respect for both of them actually.  Letting them both know, that they were fully heard. While at the same time, letting them both know where I personally stand. 

For years now, in terms of any problem behaviour related to our collective experience with addiction, I realize and accept empathically my behaviour through it all has wounded them both, very deeply.  For years now, my precious angels,  I've loved you both more than I was able to love myself.  You've both been preaching directly to the choir for years.  I stand with my own apology to you both on this.  Forgiveness towards me, for all of it.  This remains entirely up to you.  

A more recent set of lessons came with my loyal connection to an online education service, Coursera.  An English Composition class, 'Achieving Expertise' just ended for me last week.  It is the latest in a long series of university level courses Coursera, and in this case Duke University, has blessed my journey with to help me gain up-to-date knowledge contributing heavily  to my full remission in recovery for bothPTSD and Addictions.  Co-morbid conditions, relative to trauma in my life.  Addiction developing as a self-medication issue, for me.

I thank God, every day for the gift of Coursera in my life.  Through them, lacking any financial means to pay for real university, I've found all the educational material I've needed to understand both of these menacing conditions.  Right down to the genetic and cellular level in the human body.  I plan to profile Coursera and other online education services in a future blog.  For now I'll only add that I'm finishing a course through them today, from Emory University, the title of which is 'The Addicted Brain'.

That is a good thing.  This morning, like yesterday, I discovered very quickly where I'm heading in this piece of writing.  I'm dragging us all, right into the face of the serpent we name Addiction, the true demon responsible now for the apparent demise in relationships currently standing in recovery's way.  I'd hoped my family would faithfully stand with me to the bitter-end.  I'm speaking directly of the angelic relationship I still personally emotionally celebrate with my wife.  I'm sorry, sweet angel.  No more running away.  This is the serpent, Addiction.  Together or apart, we both know in other circles it will remain a very tragic part still of your own personal life.

This is the dragon I'm here to slay this morning.  Trust me, serpent.  Like all who've stood in front of me in my past.  Today my friend you are publicly exposed.  You will die.  When I finally find courage to expose such demons to the world, I've learned that their power is yanked forever away.  It's time I exposed this demon symbolically in my own life for what it is.

My definition of Addiction, I've ultimately adopted now as a collage of sorts from the input of too many heroes in my life to name.  The ultimate hero I continue to follow, lies in the published works of Dr. Gabor Mate.  So here it is, the definition of addiction I use to ensure I fully understand the demon within myself.

Addiction is any compulsive behaviour, that in spite of us experiencing negative consequences in our lives for living with the behaviour, we can't shake of  the need for  the addictive stuff, whatever that stuff may be.  Therefore my belief stands next to Dr. Mate, who not only treated addicts for years working for the Portland Housing Society as staff physician, he also examined addiction within himself.  Experience for me remains in my life the ultimate authority on any subject.  I will continue to study out of my own innate curiosity, many things.  An additional blessing of free online university education I celebrate today.  

When we speak of addiction, Dr. Mate and I, we understand that any substance or behaviour can develop addictive patterns in our lives.  This can be the substances we spend most of our societal focus on: cocaine, opiates, marijuana and other more socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol and nicotine.  Addictive patterns of behaviour however, can form in us over compulsions to more seemingly benign drugs of choice.  When it comes to understanding our own behaviour relative to addictions, it is our thinking through ourselves and in other relationships from which the dragon nourishes itself best.

Some of us become addicted to  food, sex, money and power.  Dr. Mate shares his personal experience with his drug of choice.  Shopping.  He's written to this compulsion in his personal life now many times.  Any readers out there, who just felt their own stomachs role over in shame with this revelation of the truth?  His best work on the subject of addiction, comes through his direct experience, getting to know addicted human beings, living in so much trouble in Vancouver BC's Downtown Eastside.  The title of this profound work, for those interested in reading it, titled, In the Realm of Hungry Ghost's: Close Encounters With Addiction, is available for sale through Amazon Canada along with his many other brilliant works.

Dr. Mate and I both believe that power, drugs, alcohol even relationships can develop in us addictive patterns of use.  In fact, in my personal life, I know someone who right now is suffering through the aftermath of a relationship pattern of self-abuse in her personal life.  Dr. Mate taught me that it can be our own emotions and stories about ourselves (drama) that we become most easily addicted to in life.

Addiction is first and foremost, a brain dysfunction for us.  What I've learned is we aren't actually addicted to the substance or life choices directly.  All of the potential substances we might find ourselves addicted to, actually create a more difficult scenario for us inside of ourselves to contend with.  With any and all addictions, we end up in the end addicted, not to the substance or behaviour of choice, but to the brain chemistry that the substance or set of behaviours works on in terms of dopamine neurotransmission activity in the brain.

Take cocaine for instance, my now admitted serpent of choice.  Cocaine is a pleasure inducing chemical.  It acts in the body by blocking the re-uptake of dopamine in both the lab-rats used to study this phenomenon, and when studies are further validated, we'll soon learn this also applies  in the human brain.  

We've heard of antidepressants that are selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors.  Cocaine is actually, a very  selective, highly effective, dopamine re-uptake inhibitor in the human brain.  

Most addictive substances are now recognized as working with our pleasure centers inside.  Even nicotine does that to some degree.  Alcohol, actually a depressant drug, still acts some suggest through interaction with these same neurotransmission processes.  The only differences with any substances we might find ourselves addicted to lies in the actual mechanisms of neurotransmission, which are specific to the substances themselves.

My addiction issues are not unique.  When we get down to the medicine of addiction, all addicts are seeking pleasure or are using what ever their drug of choice might be to quell inner physical or emotional and psychological pain.  In his book, Hungry Ghosts, a must read in my opinion for any addict and their families, Dr. Mate points his finger at trauma in early childhood as the root cause of all the social issues pertaining to the lives of the most studied and marginalized among us.  Those living in BC in the Downtown Eastside.  These, I believe, are our greatest teachers.  If only we could all learn to stop throwing human-beings away 

In the Downtown East-side of Vancouver, the visibly mentally-ill and addicted are living lives of so much hardship because we continue to insist on tossing their 'sorry asses' into the street.  This continues to be society's approach.   Available Statistics from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada, points out that a very high percentage of Canadians, actually believe addicts deserve such treatment.  That they deserve in life, everything they get. 

Most of us, believe this is where they all belong.  As an addict myself,  living with a diagnosed mental-illness.  I simply don't hold the luxury of such a belief in my own life anymore.  Truth does in fact, ultimately set us all totally free.

Swallow this bitter pill, I suggest.  If you to want to find a release from your personal bondage to our societal perspective on life and addiction.  Swallowing the truth is unfortunately the only way, trust me.  The approach now of decriminalization, medicalization and harm reduction initiatives is the only means left to us to seriously combat the issues of homelessness and addiction, so highly visible to us as a problem in our streets.

As you've already likely figured out.  I have in my life, many mentors.  Some, I don't' know personally.  These are the authors and speakers, teachers in the world who I've learned from along the way.  I needed to seek my own helpers throughout most of my recovery.  Rather than simply seek counsel from an addictions counselor locally, which I've done all along.  I sought counsel through deep education and through the work of others in the field, such as Dr. Gabor Mate.

Today, I respect and value three people I've gone to for counsel locally.  Out of respect for their privacy, I will not name these people here.  Unlike Mr. Charlie Sheen or Mr. Robert Ford, I've taken my addictions issues, very seriously.  In spite of what the demon living still inside my wife and mother might be trying to get them to believe.  Even these two gentleman, in my opinion, deserve a greater amount of public compassion than our people-watchers in society seem to be willing to give.

I worked with myself through all my helpers in my own way and  in my own time to learn all I needed to know.  I did so to protect myself and my family from a lifetime of failures.  Failures so many I know make through our dysfunctional, societal approach. 

I know many who end up stuck in experiencing cyclical rejection of society.  Unable to work or participate through only judgements due to their pasts.  Rejection that long after an addict is clean, should no longer impose any punishments from society at all.  Yet, as we see in  the lives of those of us who land in prison.  With addiction many of us choose to continue punishing our addict-companions, long after they are officially released and have done their time as justice for societies benefit.  All this continued rejection serves the addict, is to reinforce the shame imposed upon his spirit from inside of himself.  Ultimately, this will cause an unnecessary relapse.  A relapse due to societal pressures, frankly WE CHOOSE TO IMPOSE.

These pressures are imposed by many faces in the world.  First of all, imposed by those following us most closely from right inside our own homes.  Most often societies more-judgmental-heathens, have never challenged themselves with the blessing of digging deeply enough into the garbage living in their own souls.  These are the seemingly dominant monkeys in our world.  Animals who use the suffering of others, to stand higher-up the hierarchy than the so-called low-life addicts their own inner-judgments allow them to bully.  

Personally, with my own experience with addiction, I was not willing to accept societies judgements.  I'm coming out of it, still unwilling to accept this fate.  Fighting-back to save myself acts now as a continued blessing in terms of advocacy and activism for this aspect of my trauma experience.  Today I'm telling-it- as-it-is, to make sure I never forget the pain of it all.

I offer up this part of my  journey for anyone else caught up in the addictions trap, and to their families so wounded by the experience themselves.  In terms of the criminal behaviour that addicts are forced to engage in to support their habit.  I point my own finger, directly at prohibition as responsible for that. Given the right understanding, compassion and support, human beings can overcome anything thrown at them in life.  I personally support initiatives such as the Housing First Strategies currently recommended by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.  

With these measures adopted in Canadian society and my own hypothesis of addictions issues now fully filtered through my personal experience.  I believe persons living withmental health and addictions challenges will have a very real shot at healing.  This is an approach long-overdue in my opinion.  I'm certain Dr. Mate and my previous counseling relationships would agree.

My wife needs to hear this, today.  My mother needs to accept these revelations of my truth too.  I didn't waste a minute of my time in recovery.  Not for PTSD.  Certainly not for addictions, the most dangerous to all of us of the two.  I've adopted a very clear position for myself.  I'm an addict, by nature.  To succeed further in life, with integrity and with no further evidence of hypocracy in my personal life.  I can't afford to hold any other position on these two issues, than I've been graced to personally adopt. 

In terms of this societal understanding, I need to tell you both that in terms of law and order, morality and criminality related to drug use.  Prohibition and judicial, punitive measures to eradicate addiction from the planet have failed.  Today, law enforcement itself is slowly starting to agree.

I direct all readers here, to take a look at a Veteran Law Enforcement organization, LEAP.   I'll simply share their convictions on the subject.  Personally, I will share only that I too support these convictions, so eloquently stated as their collective mission.  This organization represents the reasoned position of retired police veterans, in response through their own experiences battling this honourable, societal cause:

"We believe that drug prohibition is the true cause of much of the social and personal  damage that has historically been attributed to drug use. It is prohibition that makes these drugs so valuable –  while giving criminals a monopoly over their supply. Driven by the huge profits from this monopoly, criminal gangs bribe and kill each other, law enforcers, and children. Their trade is unregulated and they are, therefore, beyond our control." 

"History has shown that drug prohibition reduces neither use nor abuse. After a rapist is arrested, there are fewer rapes. After a drug dealer is arrested, however, neither the supply nor the demand for drugs is seriously changed. The arrest merely creates a job opening for an endless stream of drug entrepreneurs who will take huge risks for the sake of the enormous profits created by prohibition. Prohibition costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars every year, yet 40 years and some 40 million arrests later, drugs are cheaper, more potent and far more widely used than at the beginning of this futile crusade".

"We believe that by eliminating prohibition of all drugs for adults and establishing appropriate regulation and standards for distribution and use, law enforcement could  focus  more on crimes of violence, such as rape, aggravated assault, child abuse and murder, making our communities much safer. We believe that sending parents to prison for non-violent personal drug use destroys families. We believe that in a regulated and controlled environment, drugs will be safer for adult use and less accessible to our children. And we believe that by placing drug abuse in the hands of medical professionals instead of the criminal justice system, we will reduce rates of addiction and overdose deaths."  Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (2014).

So my own angels in life, moving forward from our experience with addiction.  This is where I will forever stand.  I'm now clean and sober, and have been now for a very long-enough time.  I can take cocaine or leave it now and am wise enough not to choose to feed my own addictions in life again.  I personally am no longer afraid. 

However, I do respect you both enough to allow you to develop your own personal position on the issues we've lived.  I want you both to remain my angels of recovery on this earth.  If I've been to much for you to handle?  You need to make your own decisions on what you need in your personal lives moving on.  If that means I'm out of your life.  Trust me.  I fully understand. 

Mom and My Sweet Angel.  I love you ahead of myself.  I've taken all the responsibility for your personal feelings towards me on this issue now that I intend to.  The rest, I'm sorry to have to say, is entirely up to you.  After today, other than any opportunities that may come to support professionally a person with either of my two available lifeboats.  I will not discuss my addictions with you further from here. 

I will support you, to improve your personal lives as best I humanly can.  Moving forward, I understand we do so within the limits that your own emotional issues related to the hell I've put you through will allow.  I leave it to you to decide, what you wish to adopt, personally understand and accept.  Just know I love you both. This will remain, the best I am able to do. 

My personal issues with PTSD and Addictions today are served notice.  Both dragons, you are today symbolically assassinated.  In my personal life, you are both now, officially dead. 

In closing, I'll leave you all with the words that developed this piece.  These words of Albert Einstein will remain forever dear to my own soul.  And, I'll leave you some additional words, from my psychologist hero in life, Dr. Carl Gustav Jung.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”  ~ Albert Einstein

"Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darkness of other people."
~ Carl Gustav Jung

Darren Michael Gregory.  August, 10th, 2014.  Darren Is A Community and Workplace Traumatologist, currently living in Creston, British Columbia, Canada.

The Power of Addiction: The Addiction to Power: Dr. Gabor Mate

Further Reading
Addictive Thinking Patterns: Lake-View Health: Internet Resource: 2014
Addictions List: Addictions.Com: Internet Resource: 2014
Allen Brain Atlas: Internet Resource: 2014
Breaking Ground in Understanding the Neuro-chemical and Molecular Aspects of Addiction: Internet Resource: Cambridge Neuroscience: 2014
Cocaine Addiction: Drug Addiction Treatment: Elements Behavioural Health: Internet Resource: 2014
Coursera: Duke University: Emory University: Online Education Resource: 2014
Depression: Major Depressive Disorder: Mayo Clinic: Internet Resource: 2014
Dopamine Neurotransmitter: Psychologist World: Internet Resource: 2014
Dopamine Re-uptake Inhibitor: Wikipedia Encyclopedia: Internet Resource: 2014
Dr. Gabor Mate: Author and Speaker: Internet Resource: 2014
How Does Nicotine Act in the Brain: NIDA for Kids: The Science Behind Drug Abuse: Internet Resource: 2014
How Drugs Effect Neurotransmitters: The Brain From Top to Bottom: Internet Resource: 2014
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: Internet Resource: 2014
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Primer Darren Gregory: July, 2014
The Truth About Alcohol: Foundation for a Drug Free World: Internet Resource: 2014
Understanding Addiction: How Addiction Hijacks the Brain: Internet Resource: HelpGuide: 2014

Disclaimer: These materials and resources are presented for educational purposes only. They are not a substitute for informed medical advice or training. Do not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem without consulting a qualified health or mental health care provider. If you have concerns, contact your health care provider, mental health professional, or your community health centre.

Darren Gregory © 2014: All Rights Reserved