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The Priest Who Failed

Father Keith LeBlanc, a former priest at my parish and most recently pastor of St. John’s across town, left in a hurry earlier this year after it came to light that he was being investigated for mishandling church dollars. It turns out he was using the money to feed an addiction to porn.

Here’s the story from The Eagle-Tribune:

HAVERHILL — The Rev. Keith LeBlanc is charged with stealing $83,147 from St. John the Baptist Church when he was pastor there. Much of the money was spent on a pornography habit, police said. LeBlanc had a credit card that he used for online pornography, and the card had a $25,000 balance, according to a police report on file at Haverhill District Court. “Father LeBlanc admitted to Dunderdale that he has an addiction and needs help,” police Detective Glenn Fogarty wrote in the report, referring to Mark Dunderdale, an attorney who directed the Archdiocese of Boston investigation that led to LeBlanc’s removal as St. John’s pastor in June. Comcast bills from the church rectory were reviewed, according to the police report, and “adult” movies “started the day Father LeBlanc came to the parish, at a total of $4,021.14.” The police report on the investigation became public after LeBlanc’s arraignment on charges of forgery and larceny over $250 by continuous scheme. He has been released on personal recognizance bail.

This is particularly sad for me, because he ran the RCIA program the year I became a Catholic. If he did indeed steal parish funds, he deserves to be punished. He’ll have to do whatever time is prescribed by the justice system.

As for the porn factor, I’m going to piss some of you off and take a different position.

Everything about Father Keith is sad. He failed as a priest and he failed as a human being. Some might think that’s cause to damn him for eternity. But we forget priests are human, prone to all the mistakes the rest of us make.

In this case, he was under the spell of one of the most insidious addictions a person could have.

Here’s the other thing: When the addiction has you by the balls, you do terrible things to feed the habit. Stealing money, for example.

My most destructive addiction was compulsive binge eating. I always knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. And I used a lot of money that wasn’t mine to feed that addiction. It was money from the family account, but it could have easily been money from someplace else.

My kids have been selling popcorn for the Cub Scouts and I recently took the order form and cash envelope to work to sell some for them. For a good three weeks I had an envelope full of cash sitting in my laptop bag. Five or 10 years ago, chances are pretty good that I would have burned through some or all of that money to get my fix. Thank God I don’t have to face that danger today.

Addicts of all stripes: Food, booze, drugs — know exactly what I’m talking about.

Father Keith LeBlanc, photo from The Eagle-Tribune

You know it’s wrong. You badly want to stop. BUT YOU CAN’T.

Some of us are lucky enough to find help before it’s too late.

I really feel for people who get hooked on something like porn.

You can be accepted as a drunk.

You can be accepted as a compulsive binge eater.

With porn, there’s much less tolerance.

Especially if you’re a priest.

Some people take their sexual addictions over the edge and scar other people, like my childhood friend, who went on to be thrice convicted as a pedophile.

The thing is, in the eyes of God we all get a shot at redemption. But back in the real world, among mortals, it doesn’t work that way.

I’m going to pray for Father Keith.

He took a bad turn, and the high and mighty among us will be all too happy to laugh about his failure.

We do love to catch people who are supposed to be better than us in an act of hypocrisy, don’t we?

But, believing as I do that we all get a second chance, I’ll just hope he gets the right help and uses his experience to help other addicts in the future.

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Asking to be Assaulted?

Sometimes people say things that make me feel sorry for them. A few years ago I might have called them an idiot or something more Revere-like. Today I can only shake my head and feel pity. Here’s an example from the NerdChic blog.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3NinwlX6A&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Noirin Shirley writes in her blog, NerdChic.net, that she was sexually assaulted during a conference late last week. She names the guy who allegedly did it to her, and goes on to explain a lot of things that has netted her post 150-plus comments.

Here’s an excerpt:

At some point, it was too late and too loud to reasonably continue. Everyone cleared out (Nick, you are a *god*, for spending the extra five minutes to clear the carnage, so that I could wake up in a room that showed no signs of what had happened the night before!), and we headed to the Irish pub next door that has become our local.

Some food, a few more beers. Squeezing everyone up so I could sit next to someone I wanted to talk to. Laughing at the events of the week, and the night.

And then I went to the loo, and as I was about to go in, Florian Leibert, who had been speaking in the Hadoop track, called me over, and asked if he could talk to me.

I’m on the board of Apache. I’m responsible for our conferences. I work on community development and mentoring. If you’re at an Apache event and you want help, information, encouragement, answers, I will always do my best to provide. So this wasn’t an unusual request, and it wasn’t one I expected to end the way it did.

He brought me in to the snug, and sat up on a stool. He grabbed me, pulled me in to him, and kissed me. I tried to push him off, and told him I wasn’t interested (I may have been less eloquent, but I don’t think I was less clear). He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling.

Now, if this did happen, it sounds horrible. But since it’s currently her word against his and everyone has a right to be deemed innocent until proven guilty, the fact that she mentions the guy by name is unfortunate. The place to name names is with the authorities, not the blog-reading public. That’s my opinion, anyway.

On to the comments:

A lot of people have dissed this woman for her own bad behavior that night, for dressing in a supposedly provocative way, putting herself in a situation for this to happen, etc.

Let’s look at the comment from “LOL@you” —

“Get over it, some jerk groped you and now your whole life is ruined? You’re an attention whore who got the wrong sort of attention, that’s how it is sometimes. Calling this guy out is fine if you want but recognize that you’re clearly an idiot. There is “what’s right” and what is smart, as an adult you ought to know the difference by now you big baby. Keep waiting for the law to intervene and clear away all the jerks and pervs and you’ll live a long, sad life only to learn in the end that the cops, lawyers and politicians you think give a shit are the biggest pervs/jerks out there and will only help you to help their career. Just stop being such a drama queen/attention whore and you’ll be fine … “bicycle shorts under my skirt” …LOL. Do you realize what a social misfit you are?”

Whoever you are, LOL@you, I feel sorry for you because you lack the stones to say who you are. When you call someone a whore and say she deserved it for how she dressed, at least show yourself. Failure to do so makes you a coward.

I don’t care how Noirin was dressed. You simply don’t touch another person without their permission, man or woman. If this guy really did what Noirin claims, he deserves to be held accountable — in a court of law, should she choose to press charges.

To suggest she was asking for it is a clear indication that your understanding of right and wrong is severely underdeveloped.

That’s how I feel about her claim and some of the responses. Now that I got that out of the way, I have a bigger point to weigh in on.

Some of those who commented called her a baby for bringing up something like this. My view is that she could have done it more tastefully, mentioning all the details but not naming the guy, but if she was traumatized, she should be able to express herself.

If you don’t like that she did it in her blog, you don’t have to read it.

I can’t claim to be better than her when it comes to naming names. I’ve done it before, with disastrous results.

When my friend Sean Marley died, I mentioned in a newspaper column less than a week later that it was a suicide. I went into too much detail about how he did it. The price is that most of his family won’t talk to me today.

In that case, I could have handled the telling of the tale better.

I could have let a certain period of time pass before naming him and the nature of his death like I did, for all to see.

I’ve mentioned him a lot in this blog, and by now everyone knows he took his life. But the dust was left to settle for several years in between. I write about him now to honor his memory. 

In fact, in the last few years I decided there was a stigma around depression and addiction and that I had to try and break it.

In doing so, I’ve told you things about myself that some have deemed risky. I’ve been asked if I worry about losing my job for acknowledging my struggles.

Acknowledging that you were sexually assaulted is risky, too. If you in fact were assaulted and you refuse to be quiet about it, you are taking a risk. But it’s a courageous risk, which is hopefully done with class.

Since she chose to name names, I hope she is telling the truth. If she is, I commend her, despite some of the sloppiness in the process.

If all this is a lie, then I can only feel sorry for her, too.

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Little Things That Count

After a moody Friday, things are looking up. It’s kind of a big deal because usually one day of feeling low was never enough. It always had to be several days of feeling low.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spAs1b6x_qQ&fs=1&hl=en_US]

This time of year is usually tricky. As the days get shorter and the weather gets gray, it gets to me. It’s one of the many byproducts of having OCD, and it has often led to vicious spikes in my addictive behavior.

People like me, who suffer from chemical imbalances in the brain, are directly impacted by daylight levels.

When the weather is dismal, cold, rainy and the days are shorter, a lot of folks with mental illness find themselves more depressed and moody. Give us a long stretch of dry, sunny weather and days where it gets light at 4:30 a.m. and stays that way past 8 p.m. and we tend to be happier people. This summer was hot and dry, and I loved every second of it.

There are lessons to be had in the history books:

– Abraham Lincoln, a man who suffered from deep depression for most of his adult life, went from blue to downright suicidal a few times in the 1840s during long stretches of chilly, rainy weather. [See Why “Lincoln’s Melancholy” is a Must-Read.]

– Ronald Reagan, a sunny personality by most accounts, was a man of Sunny California. Once, upon noticing that his appointments secretary hadn’t worked time in his schedule for trips to his ranch atop the sun-soaked mountains of Southern California — and after the secretary explained that there was a growing public perception that he was spending too much time away from Washington — Reagan handed him back the schedule and ordered that ranch time be worked in. The more trips to the ranch, he explained, the longer he’ll live.

The WebMD site has excellent information on winter depression. Here’s an excerpt:

If your mood gets worse as the weather gets chillier and the days get shorter, you may have “winter depression.” Here, questions to ask your doctor if winter is the saddest season for you.

Why do I seem to get so gloomy each winter, or sometimes beginning in the fall?

You may have what’s called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. The condition is marked by the onset of depression during the late fall and early winter months, when less natural sunlight is available. It’s thought to occur when daily body rhythms become out-of-sync because of the reduced sunlight.

Some people have depression year round that gets worse in the winter; others have SAD alone, struggling with low moods only in the cooler, darker months. (In a much smaller group of people, the depression occurs in the summer months.)

SAD affects up to 3% of the U.S. population, or about 9 million people, some experts say, and countless others have milder forms of the winter doldrums.

So this worsening of mood in the fall and winter is not just my imagination?

Not at all. This “winter depression” was first identified by a team of researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health in 1984. They found this tendency to have seasonal mood and behavior changes occurs in different degrees, sometimes with mild changes and other times severe mood shifts.

Symptoms can include:

  • Sleeping too much
  • Experiencing fatigue in the daytime
  • Gaining weight
  • Having decreased interest in social activities and sex

SAD is more common for residents in northern latitudes. It’s less likely in Florida, for instance, than in New Hampshire. Women are more likely than men to suffer, perhaps because of hormonal factors. In women, SAD becomes less common after menopause.

Here’s where the Prozac comes in for me:

As I mentioned in The Bad Pill Kept Me from the Good Pill, Prozac helps to sustain my brain chemistry at healthy levels. Here’s a more scientific description of how it works from WebMD:

How Antidepressants Work

Most antidepressants work by changing the balance of brain chemicals called neurotransmitters. In people with depression, these chemicals are not used properly by the brain. Antidepressants make the chemicals more available to brain cells like the one shown on the right side of this slide:

Photo Composite of Neurotransmitters at Work

Antidepressants can be prescribed by primary care physicians, but people with severe symptoms are usually referred to a psychiatrist.

Realistic Expectations

In general, antidepressants are highly effective, especially when used along with psychotherapy. (The combination has proven to be the most effective treatment for depression.) Most people on antidepressants report eventual improvements in symptoms such as sadness, loss of interest, and hopelessness.

But these drugs do not work right away. It may take one to three weeks before you start to feel better and even longer before you feel the full benefit.

I’m convinced the drug would NOT have worked as well for me had it not been for all the intense therapy I had first. Developing the coping mechanisms had to come first.

I’ve also learned that the medication must be monitored and managed carefully. The levels have to be adjusted at certain times of year — for me, anyway. 

Since last winter, my Prozac has been adjusted twice. I dropped back 20 milligrams for the summer and went back up in August, to get ahead of the shorter days. It hasn’t been perfect, but I seem to be in a much better place than usual.

The happy lamp Erin bought for me and Duncan seems to be having a positive impact as well.

All this allows me to enjoy the little things in life.

Yesterday me and the kids hung out with the grandparents and visited Erin at work. It beat the crap out of sitting on the couch.

Today I have a reunion with my Cursillo friends.

Life does not suck.

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Saturday Soundtrack: Mood Swing Edition

Been having some mood swings the last 24 hours, and my musical selections reflect that. These are songs to listen to when frustrated.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGhZ6mH7P-g&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGSw9zNw8Y8&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxrd_jZJxkg&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8SUqzB94lQ&fs=1&hl=en_US]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukHqzqZOe7g&fs=1&hl=en_US]

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The Voke

A few days ago my friend Kevin Littlefield coaxed me into a little field trip to our old high school, Northeast Metro Tech — the Voke, as we call it. It was my first time back in about 20 years, and it gave me more than a little hope about the future.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43WrkfnoISc&fs=1&hl=en_US]

I have good and bad memories of the place.

–It’s where I grew my hair long and cemented my love affair with metal music.

–It’s where I really started to understand, for the first time, what a punk I can be.

–It’s where I studied drafting and design. I didn’t become an architect, but I use the skills I learned there EVERY DAY in my writing.

–It’s where I once swallowed a worm in the court yard for a pack of cigarettes. You can’t smoke there any more, by the way.

–It’s where I tortured and later befriended a kid everyone called Stiffy. I still shudder when I think of how mean I was to that kid.

My time in this place included my last serious bout with Crohn’s Disease, sophomore year, 1986. I wasn’t hospitalized that time, but I pretty much lived on the living room couch. On that couch, I read “Helter Skelter” twice. I also got daily visits from childhood friend Mark Hedgecock, who went on to become a thrice-convicted child molester.

I remember the teachers putting down the kids all the time. The jocks and super nerds were embraced and nurtured. Everyone else was pretty much written off as damaged goods. This was especially the case in my shop. Visiting the shop this week, the current department head — himself a former student there — noted, quite accurately, that one of the shop teachers back in the day would do that. If you had a drug and-or behavioral problem, for example, you were as good as dead. The new department head points out, also quite accurately, that the focus should have been the other way around — on the kids who really needed guidance.

The kids in that shop today are polite and appear to work well together. The big drafting boards have long since been replaced by flat-screen computers.

It was a joy to see the progress made there.

We also met some kids we graduated with who now teach there. The current department head of drafting is one of them. One former classmate is a dean of students, and then there’s John Spagnola. Seeing him as a teacher was a real trip. The kids really seem to connect with him and his humor is as sharp as ever.

Visiting your old high school gives you an appreciation for how some things never change. Kids still cause trouble and the adults still worry if the next generation can keep civilization going. 

But you can also see how things change for the better.

Twenty-one years ago it would have been inconceivable to think that some of my contemporaries would come back to teach.

Yet there they are, nurturing the next generation and pushing them toward great things.

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Facebook Follow Friday, 11-5-10

I know it’s only Thursday, but since I put a lot of time into the Twitter Follow Friday thing, I wanted to take care of this first and keep my new tradition on track. Here are some folks I follow on Facebook and why…

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukbbPJirTaE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Greg Walsh and Harry Zarkades: Harry I only recently connected with, but I’ve seen him play his bass and sing many times over the years. Greg has been a friend for many years, starting with our time working together at The Swampscott Reporter. I’ve been a fan of Pop Gun (Greg’s the drummer; Harry does bass and vocals) for a long time, and loved seeing them play again at the recent Joe “Zippo” Kelley benefit.

Steve Lambert: My former boss at The Eagle-Tribune, Steve writes a weekly column that I rarely miss. The gift of finding him on here is that I can enjoy his writing again — and maybe share a memory or two.

O’Ryan Johnson: Another old friend from The Eagle-Tribune, OJ was my night reporter for awhile. He used to get in trouble with the local cops for walking too close to accident and murder scenes, and he got in deep trouble one night for mouthing off to a PR lady at Phillips Academy. He’s at the Boston Herald now, and I enjoy his updates from the front lines of scrappy journalism.

Donna Swift: She graduated with the Class of 1989 at Northeast Metro Tech, and we’ve always had the same musical tastes. Many of the song selections I put in this blog are songs she posted first on Facebook. 

Kevin Littlefield: One of my closest friends. I’ve written about him in this blog a few times now.

SHATTERED HOPES: THE TRUE STORY OF THE AMITYVILLE MURDERS: This is the page for the new film being made about one of my obsessions, The Amityville murders. The film makers are very accessible on this page and I’ve had the pleasure of talking to them a few times via their wall.

More Follow Fridays next week…

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Me and My Wall

When I get tired and angry, I have this wall I put up. Erin is usually the one who crashes into it.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpAbUvl3eTk&fs=1&hl=en_US]

She’s been building a freelance editing business for the past year, and the hours she puts in would kill a lesser person. I’ve taken on a lot of extra things around the house to help, and for the last week or so the fatigue and frustration has set in.

Not frustration with Erin. Frustration over the situation.

This is a much better situation than what we faced several months ago, when all the freelance work dried up and we couldn’t figure out how we were going to get all the bills paid. Now there’s a ton of work, and at the end of the day we’re both wiped out.

The problem is that I don’t immediately catch on that I’m frustrated. I figure it’s just me going into OCD mode. I’m just tired, I figure.

That’s when I become a prick.

Erin will try to engage me in conversation and I’ll shut down. I put the wall up. I don’t realize I’m doing it, and that’s a problem.

For all the sharing I do in this blog, sometimes it’s still ridiculously hard to open up to those closest to me. I’ve worked hard on fixing that in recent years, but I’m far from there.

One reason is that I’m still a selfish bastard sometimes. I get so wrapped up in my work and feelings that it becomes almost impossible to see someone else’s side of things. That eventually blows up in my face.

I also don’t like to be in a situation where there’s yelling. There was plenty of that growing up, and I tend to avoid the argument at all costs.

I’ve gotten better at this stuff, but I know I still put that wall up at times. Putting up a wall can be a bitch for any relationship, because sooner or later bad feelings will race at that wall like a drunk behind the wheel of a Porsche and slam right into it. Some bricks in the wall crack and come loose, but by then it can be too late. The relationship is totaled. 

I’ve come to realize this will always be a danger we have to watch for. It’s a danger in any marriage. Carol and Mike Brady never really existed. If they did, they could have used a few good fights. They wouldn’t have wasted so much time sitting up in bed reading boring books.

Now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, it’s time to put the big-boy pants on and get back to work on that wall.

Maybe one of these days I’ll tear it down once and for all.

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The Bright Side of This Election

A lot of people are depressed or elated about last night’s election results. I’m neither, because I’ve learned a few things about politics I didn’t understand in my youth.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t43VgJ4U9_Q&fs=1&hl=en_US]

For me, the fate of the world always seemed to hang on the next election. In 1994, when I was a lot more liberal than I am today, I felt devastated and depressed when the GOP swept both chambers of Congress. Two years before that, when Bill Clinton was elected president, I thought all would be right with the world. A lot of people had the same emotional jolt two years ago when Obama was elected.

But, you see, I’ve found in more recent years that my personal happiness has absolutely nothing to do with which way the political winds are blowing. What says it all are the lyrics from the Avett Brothers song I started this post with:

When nothing is owed, deserved or expected

And you’re life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected

If your loved by someone you’re never rejected.

Decide what to be and go be it.

My life has taken turns for the better and worse regardless of who is in office. Government can’t change me. Only I can.

I touched on this a bit after health care reform was passed in March. At the time, some of my liberal friends  on Facebook hailed it as the Second Coming. My conservative friends cried treason. If anyone out there is wondering what the law may or may not do for those suffering from mental illness and addiction, I have an opinion. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the fine print of the law. All I’ll say about the law itself is that it’s not what either side thinks it is. It’ll probably do some good and cause unintended problems. That’s how it is with every law. Is this the end of bad behavior from insurance companies? To think so is to be naive.

Which brings me to this election. The important things in my life won’t change either way because the Republicans took the House. It sounds mighty apathetic of me, but that’s not the case. I used to be so keyed in when it came to politics. But I was beyond apathetic about the things I needed to do to be a better man.

I still care about politics. I vote every year without fail. And I always vote for both Republicans and Democrats. I’m moderate in my political views, which is to say I dislike extremes be it to the left or right. In the long run, Clinton having a Republican Congress to deal with worked for everyone, because nothing extreme was allowed to happen. Republicans who think the last two years were a disaster forget that when George W. Bush had a Republican-controlled House and Senate for nearly  six years of his presidency, pork-fueled spending went way out of control. That will always happen under one-party control, no matter who lives in The White House.

I’m not at all upset about the election results, because we’re back to the kind of divided government that can do the least harm.

And even if that weren’t the case, I know the results would have no bearing on what I need to do for me and my family.

Some of my indifference comes from my being a student of history. Mid-term elections come and go, but much bigger events usually define whether a president succeeds or fails in the eyes of history.

Had it not been for WW II, Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency would have gone down in history as a mixed bag. Had it not been for Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson might be a revered historical figure today. 

My own struggles have revealed a simple lesson:

Nothing the government does or does not do can help those who are out of their minds and slowly killing themselves with addictive behavior. Government funding for more addiction treatment centers? All well and good, but if you’re locked in your crazy head you’re not going to go to one. Making it illegal for insurers to deny coverage to someone with pre-existing conditions, including mental illness? Sounds great. But someone bent on self destruction isn’t going to be going to the doctor.  They’ll go to the emergency room when the chest pains and paranoia become too much or they’ve overdosed on something.

You’re not going to find God’s Grace at the local polling station. You’ll only find it in your own willingness to change and in the people who help you through it.

Those who love you and help you through your struggles are Republicans and Democrats. And they don’t care what you are as much as they care about who you are.

I didn’t stay up until the early-morning hours watching election returns on TV like I used to. Getting a full night’s sleep was more important.

I’m not going to spend the next several days in front of the TV listening to all the talking heads on CNN and Fox News.

That’s all just a bunch of noise that no longer has meaning for me.

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Alcohol Deadlier Than Heroin?

I love studies that state the obvious. Especially when the no-brainer conclusions still manage to shock people . Latest example: “Alcohol More Deadly Than Heroin, Study Finds.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSih4o2YfmA&fs=1&hl=en_US]

According to the Associated Press report, “British experts evaluated substances including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and marijuana, ranking them based on how destructive they are to the individual who takes them and to society as a whole. Researchers analyzed how addictive a drug is and how it harms the human body, in addition to other criteria like environmental damage caused by the drug, its role in breaking up families and its economic costs, such as health care, social services, and prison.”

The report says booze scored so high because it’s legal and, therefore, much more available than the hard drugs it was compared to. When abused, alcohol damages nearly all organs and is connected to higher death rates, higher crime and higher rates of collateral damage (the families devastated by living with an alcoholic, for example).

I don’t take issue with the folks who conduct these studies. There is a lot for the masses to learn from them. The reason I’m feeling snarky about it is that the results are always so painfully obvious to someone who has struggled with addictive behavior. And to me, it’s painfully obvious that addictive substances that are legal will always kill more people than the illegal, harder-to-get stuff like heroin.

Anything will kill you if done to excess.

Drink a lot of alcohol every day and it’ll destroy your organs quicker than it will for the person who drinks in moderation.

Binge eat all the time and you’ll get heart disease, colon cancer and other maladies more quickly and severely than the guy who eats everything in moderation.

If you’re a recovering addict as I am, you know that it’s really the compulsive behavior itself — not the substance — that will kill you eventually.

You can’t solve the problem by outlawing the substance. Prohibition didn’t work. I don’t think it works with pot and harder drugs either.

Smokers understand. They know cigarettes cause cancer, but they do it anyway. It’s a compulsion they can’t control, and they can’t stop until push comes to shove. Even then, it’s not always enough.

You have to find whatever is at the core of your soul, the pain that makes you abuse the substance. Then you have to address that core problem. Otherwise, it’ll kill you someday. I did this with intensive therapy, medication and lifestyle changes.

But saying “just do it” or “just say no” oversimplifies things. If you’re under the spell of whatever you’re addicted to, those statements are a joke.

Some of us are lucky enough to get beyond the joke and take action, but man, it’s hard. One of the hardest things ever. 

I guess my point is that these studies, while valuable, are never the definitive, final word. It’s easy to declare one substance more lethal than another.

But in doing so, we skate over the more insidious beast at the heart of the matter.

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Passing Insanity to Your Kids

This weekend a friend asked if I worry about passing the “crazies” on to my children. The answer: Every day. But here’s why I don’t despair about it like I used to.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZeybYbTblM&fs=1&hl=en_US]

First, a few facts: Some of my quirks were definitely passed down to me from my parents. The OCD comes straight from my mother, and the emotional wall I sometimes put up to deal with it comes from my father. That binge eating would become the root of my addictive behavior should surprise no one. It runs deep in the roots of the Brenner family tree.

I see signs of my defects in Sean and Duncan every day.

Sean has more than a few OCD characteristics. When the boy gets into something, be it a computer game or Legos — especially Legos — he goes in deep and lets the activity consume him. In other words, he approaches these things compulsively.

Duncan, like me, gets a bit crazy when the daylight recedes. His mood will swing all over the place and he has the most trouble in school during winter time. To help remedy this, Erin recently bought me and Duncan happy lamps — essentially sunshine in a box. Despite the skepticism Duncan and I shared over it, the things actually seem to be working.

I don’t curse the fact that the kids inherited some of my oddities. As far as I’m concerned, those quirks are part of what makes them the beautiful, precious children they are.

Here’s the thing: I don’t want to purge this stuff from them. I just want them to know how to control it in ways I never could at their age.

To that end, they have a lot going in their favor: First of all, the traits they’ve inherited from their mom will be priceless weapons in whatever fights are before them. She has given them — and me — a spiritual foundation that can’t be broken.

The other big win in their favor is that I’ve gone through a lot of the pain and hard work so that they hopefully won’t have to.

I’ve developed a lot of coping tools to manage the OCD, and I can pass those skills on to them.

There’s also not as much stigma around this stuff as there used to be. There IS some, to be sure. But my kids won’t be written off as behavioral problems and tossed into a “C group” like I was. I won’t permit it.

There are no certainties in life except that we all die eventually. I can’t say Sean and Duncan will never know depression or addiction. A parent can put everything they have into raising their children right. 

But sometimes, despite that, fate can get in the way of all your hard work.

It’s not worth worrying about those unknowns, though, because you can’t do anything about it. All I can do is my best to give them the tools I didn’t have at their age and pray for the best.

One reason I don’t worry as much as I used to about these things: Sean and Duncan are much smarter than their old man was at their age.

That has to count for something.