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Dan Waters of Revere, Mass.

Seeing The Neighborhoods perform at the Joe “Zippo” Kelley benefit last night reminded me of my old friend Danny Waters. He shared in many of the adventures — good and bad — of my youth.

Mood music:

It was Sean Marley who introduced me to Dan. It was 1986 and I dropped in on the Marley residence (2 doors down from me) on a Sunday morning. Sean and Dan had been up late the night before, drinking. Dan had a mop of blond hair and I couldn’t see his eyes.

The two were delighting in the sounds of a Randy Rhoads solo on a live bootleg one of them had acquired. That would be the first of many times the three of us would hang out like brothers. I was the little brother, and sometimes they treated me like it, laughing over and mocking something stupid I said. I gave them plenty of fodder.

At one point, Dan was living in a house at the very end of Pines Road, a street directly across from my house that ended in a boat ramp leading down to the water. I’d go there and check out his guitars. The man could play.

He was brutally shy, though, and he would be there one minute and gone the next. He also had an almost super-human ability to consume massive amounts of beer without dropping dead, though one time, after downing 20 beers, he practically spent the next 24 hours chanting, “I’m not well.”

The very first time I drank myself into a puking spree was in his apartment next the the Northgate shopping plaza on Squire Road. I sat on his bathroom floor for a long time counting the tiles. That somehow made me feel better.

I would get loaded in his company many times after that. I learned to hold my liquor, and the drinking parties would often alternate between his apartment (he later moved to an apartment off Revere Beach Parkway) and my basement in the Point of Pines.

Dan was good friends with Zane, a kid I wrote about in a previous post. Zane jumped off the top of a building in 1988. It would not be the last time Dan lost a close friend to suicide.

I always felt like Dan was more Sean’s friend than mine, and to an extent that’s true. Those two were joined at the hip between the mid 1980s and 1990s. I never would have met Dan or found common ground with him if not for the friend we had in common.

Dan and Sean also played a lot of guitar together. They eventually let me join in as singer. We wrote a few songs, but I can’t really remember them.

As the years progressed, Dan and I would hang out without Sean quite often. The three of us still hung out all the time, but at one point Sean was in an intense (some would say Sid-and-Nancy-like) relationship with a girl who looked like that singer from The Cure. The two fought as often as they took breaths, and their fights would usually start at one of the parties at my place or Dan’s.

Times where it was just me and Dan included a 1988 show at The Channel headlined by The Neighborhoods, the 1991 Lollapalooza festival with Rollins Band, Body Count, Nine Inch Nails and Jane’s Addiction, and low-key nights in his apartment, drinking and watching late-night TV.

One night I freaked out because I consumed two beers and an entire stick of marijuana by myself in the concrete storage room beneath the front patio of my basement hangout.

The fellow who gave it to me was about 500 pounds and wore a black trenchcoat, even during the summer. He died Valentine’s Day 2009 of a heart attack. I lost touch with him as I became focused on career and learned after his death that he had led an admirable life of aiding the mentally disabled. Anyway, I was freaking out because, in the midst of lying on my bed enjoying the high, I suddenly got the idea that I just might have a heart attack. That’s one of my earlier memories of an anxiety attack.

I called Dan.

He drove over and found me pacing up and down the driveway in a blue-green polka-dotted bathrobe I used to own. It was well after midnight.

He took me to Kelly’s Roast Beef and bought me a box of chicken wings. The binge-eating addiction was well under way, and I downed the whole thing in seconds. That calmed me down. I settled into a state of high where I’d let out a “heh heh” every few seconds.

Kelly’s was always a favorite place for me to binge eat away my troubles. It was as good as any drug or liquor store.

http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/2822416.jpg

Sean got a kick out of the retelling later.

Later, Dan and Sean got into a scrape and I failed to return the favor and come to their aid. It was the fall of 1991, around the time that photo of the three of us above was taken. We were at Kelly’s and as we started walking back we noticed 10 punks were following us.

I freaked and walked ahead, ducking into what was then a bar-restaurant called The Driftwood. I looked back to see the punks circling Sean and Dan, kicking the shit out of both. I had a bartender call the cops and went back outside. By then it was all over. Dan had a black eye. The two limped their way back to the Pines. I stayed a few paces in front of them.

If I could relive that moment, I would have stayed with them and taken my beating, too. It would have made me a better friend. I’d also enjoy retelling the story today, because I wouldn’t look so pathetic in the rear-view mirror.

In 1996, I was living back in The Point of Pines and me, Dan and Sean would walk to Kelly’s every Sunday morning for coffee.

They would usually walk a few paces ahead and talk about a Skinny Puppy song or whatever else I wasn’t paying attention to because I was starting a deep descent into a dark place marked by fear, anxiety and vicious binge eating. Those days, Sunday was for getting myself into a state of anxiety and depression about the upcoming work week. The job was fine. I wasn’t.

Sean was in much worse shape than I was. I don’t know how aware Dan was of just how bad he was getting, but I was all but oblivious. I was too locked inside my head to see what was happening.

Thank God Sean had Joy. She did everything she could to bring him out of his deepening depression. He took his life anyway, but I love her all the more just for being his wife and shouldering a burden I was too self-absorbed to share at the time. 

The day Sean died, I spent much of the afternoon frantically trying to reach Dan. When I finally got him on the phone, he collapsed into a pile of rubble on the other end. It’s not a stretch to say that was one of the worst moments of my life. I knew how tight they were, and Dan was more of a loner than I was, which meant he wouldn’t have as much of a support system as I had. I alienated my support system, of course. But that’s a story for another post.

Dan and I continued the Sunday walks into the spring of 1997. We always bought three cups of coffee. We always left the third cup on the beach wall for Sean.

That spring, Dan dropped out of my world. I wouldn’t reconnect with him until 2009 on Facebook. I spent all the time in between thinking he hated me for not doing enough on my end to help Sean. I eventually learned I was just being stupid.

Today Dan is doing just fine. He got married, had two beautiful daughters and lives in Texas.

He plays in a band called Three Kinds of People.

I miss him, and know we’ll never hang out like we used to. But when I think of how we both managed to survive a lot of ugly shit, it makes me happy.

Thanks, Dan.

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It Hurt Badly. Therefore, It Was Good

My cherished pal Penny Morang Richards made this comment to my “Death of a Sibling” post Friday: “It has to hurt. That’s how you know it was good.”

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPmtiLeMMow&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999]

She said it in response to my concluding thoughts:

I’ve learned that life is a gift to be cherished and used wisely. I’ve also learned that it hurts sometimes. That’s OK.

She knows exactly what she’s talking about. Go read the past year of entries in her blog, “Penny Writes… Penny Remembers.” If you can’t learn how to live in the face of horrible loss from the writings of Penny Morang Richards, I got nothing else for you. She lost her only child last year. The wounds are still gaping and bleeding for her. I’ve had 27 years to process Michael’s death and 14 to process Sean Marley’s passing.

She’s absolutely right about hurt. When loss stings, it’s because you had something good.

The problem is that we don’t always realize we have something precious until it’s ripped from us.

I thought my brother would always be around. I thought Sean would always be there. I thought Peter Sugarman would at least be there for a few more years.

There’s a lot of good in my life today. I’ll never take it for granted like I did back then.

Have I led a tragic life? No fucking way.

I’ve lost a lot of people I cared for and my body has been through the meat grinder. But that can never take away the blessings.

And it’s not over yet.

To understand this, just think about your own life. You’ve no doubt experienced sickness and death, family dysfunction and career ups and downs.

If you haven’t, you will.

In between the rough patches, I fell in love with and married the best gal on Earth, had two precious children who keep me laughing and loving, I’ve enjoyed a lot of success in my career, traveled to a lot of cool places and found God. 

That stuff doesn’t suck.

Then there’s the joy I feel every day in recovery. All the great friends I have, doing a job I love and having the OCD under control.

Would I want to go through the bad stuff again? Of course not. But the weird truth is that I’m not sure I’d change the past, either. It’s easy for someone to wish they had a lost loved one back in their life and that they were less touched by illness.

But without having gone through these things, would I be where I’m at today?

I’m not so sure.

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Death of a Sibling

Twenty-seven years ago today, my brother, Michael S. Brenner, died of an asthma attack at age 17. I can’t blame his death on the demons I’d battle in the years that followed. But it left deep scars all the same.

Mood music:

I think the end came for him at 8:20 p.m., though I could be mistaken.

That day a trend began where I would befriend people a few years older than me. A couple of them would become best friends and die prematurely themselves. It was also the day that sparked a lifelong fear of loss.

It’s been so long since Michael was with us that it’s sometimes hard to remember the exact features of his face. But here’s what I do remember:

We fought a lot. One New Year’s Eve about 31 years ago, when the family was out at a restaurant, he said something to piss me off and I picked up the fork beside me and chucked it at him. Various family members have insisted over the years that it was a steak knife, but I’m pretty sure it was a fork. Another time we were in the back of my father’s van and he said something to raise my hackles. I flipped him the middle finger. He grabbed the finger and snapped the bone.

We were also both sick much of the time. He had his asthma attacks, which frequently got so bad he would be hospitalized. I had my Chron’s Disease and was often hospitalized myself. It must have been terrible for our parents. I know it was, but had to become a parent myself before I could truly appreciate what they went through.

He lifted weights at a gym down the street from our house that was torn down years ago to make way for new developments. If not for the asthma, he would have been in perfect shape. He certainly had the muscles.

He was going to be a plumber. That’s what he went to school for, anyway. During one of his hospital stays, he got pissed at one of the nurses. He somehow got a hold of some of his plumbing tools and switched the pipes in the bathroom sink so hot water would come out when you selected cold.

He was always there for a family member in trouble. If I was being bullied, he often came to the rescue. And when he did, he was fierce.

That last day was perfect for the most part. I remember a sun-kissed winter day. I was immature for a 13-year-old and remember reveling in the toys I got on Christmas two weeks before. The tree in my mother’s house was still up, though the decorations had been removed.

My mother and I think my sister took off to run an errand. My father’s house was only a five-minute walk from my mother’s, and when they drove by, an ambulance was outside the house. I’m told Michael walked to the ambulance himself, and he was rushed to Lynn Hospital, which was torn down long ago to make way for a Super Stop & Shop. I sometimes wonder if he died where the deli counter now stands or if it was where the cereal is now kept.

While I was at my mother’s waiting to hear from someone, a movie was on in which a congressional candidate played by Dudley Moore befriended a woman played by Mary Tyler Moore and her terminally ill daughter, who was about 13. At the end of the movie, the young girl succumbs to her cancer on a train.

That freaked me out, and I went to my mother’s room to bury my head in a pillow. To this day, I refuse to watch that movie.

It was in that room that my mother, father and sister informed me my brother was dead.

I spent the remainder of my teenage years trying to be him. I befriended his friends. I enrolled at his gym, Fitness World. That lasted about a week.

I started listening to his records. Def Leppard was a favorite of his, hence the mood music above.

I even wore his leather jacket for a time, even though it was about three sizes too tight. I couldn’t zip the thing. I looked like an idiot wearing it, but I didn’t care. It was part of him, and I was hell-bent on taking over his persona.

But then there could only be one Michael Brenner. I eventually grew up and realized that. Then I spent a bunch of years trying to be just like Michael’s friend and our neighbor, Sean Marley. But there was only one Sean Marley. Unfortunately, people tend to remember him for how he died rather than how he lived.

I eventually had to learn how to become my own person. I did it, but it was pretty fucking messy. There’s only one Bill Brenner, and he can be a scary sight to behold.

The years have softened the pain, though I still have some regrets.

I regret that I often have trouble remembering what his face looked like. Fortunately, I found this photo while rummaging through my father’s warehouse last summer:

It’s a good image, but it’s in black and white. I still have trouble picturing him in color.

I miss him, and find it strange that he was just a kid himself when he died. He seemed so much older to me at the time. To a 13-year-old, he was older and wiser.

At the wake of a friend’s mom right after Thanksgiving, I found myself thinking of Michael and others who died too soon.

In a bizarre game of mental math, I started thinking about how long it took me to bounce back from each death. It’s a stupid game to play, because there’s no science or arithmetic that applies. The death of a grandparent is part of the natural order of things. The death of a sibling or close friend, not so much. Unless, perhaps, everyone is well into their senior years. Even then, you can’t put a measuring stick on grief.

But I tried doing it anyway.

With Michael and Sean, I’m not sure I ever really recovered. To this day, I’m cleaning up from the long cycles of depression and addiction that followed me through the years.

Along the way, good things happened to fill in the black holes. I married the love of my life. We had two beautiful children. My career hummed along nicely for the most part.

As you might expect, I failed to emerge with a general timeline of the grieving process. It turns out we’re not supposed to know about such things. That would be cheating.

I do know that it gets better.

Understanding that as I do, I have the following advice for those trying to get through the grieving process:

–First, go read the past year of entries in “Penny Writes… Penny Remembers.” If you can’t learn how to live in the face of horrible loss fromthe writings of Penny Morang Richards, I got nothing else for you.

–Take a moment to appreciate what’s STILL around you. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. If the death you just suffered should teach you anything, it’s that you never know how long the other loves of your life will be around. Don’t waste the time you have with them, and, for goodness sake:

–Don’t sit around looking at people you love and worrying yourself into an anxiety attack over the fact that God could take them from you at any moment. God holds all the cards, so it’s pointless to even think about it. Just be there for people, and let them be there for you.

–Take care of yourself. You can comfort yourself with all the drugs, alcohol, sex and food there is to have. But take it from me, giving in to addictions is nothing but slow suicide. You can’t move past grief and see the beauty of what’s left if you’re too busy trying to kill yourself. True, I learned a ton about the beauty of life from having been an addict, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever wish that experience on others. If there’s a better way to cope, do that instead.

–Embrace things that are bigger than you. Nothing has helped me get past grief more than doing service to others. It sounds like so much bullshit, but it’s not. When I’m helping out in the church food pantry or going to Overeater’s Anonymous meetings and guiding addicts who ask for my help, I’m always reminded that my own life could be much worse. Or, to put it another way, I’m reminded how my own life is so much better than I realize or deserve.

Like I said: This isn’t a science.

It’s just what I’ve learned from my own walk through the valley of darkness.

I’ve learned that life is a gift to be cherished and used wisely.

I’ve also learned that it hurts sometimes.

That’s OK.

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A Year in the Life

This isn’t a post about New Years resolutions. I don’t need a holiday to make changes in my life. IT IS about lessons I’ve learned in an effort to make resolutions.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNUU8jHXLMg&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

There’s been plenty of unpleasant stuff this year. I’ve watched two marriages fall apart. We had a couple months where money was painfully tight. My recovery has never been easy. But that’s life.

A big fistful of goodness slammed down on me, too. Me, Erin and the kids took two drives to the DC area and back. During the first trip we got a private tour of the White House West Wing, seeing the Oval Office, Rose Garden and press briefing room. I got to meet up with good friends in San Francisco, Toronto, New York and Chicago, among other places. My recovery was tested daily, but I held it together.

Making New Year’s resolutions used to be a compulsive activity for me. I was always so desperate for something better that I fiendishly and feverishly made lists of what I would do in the coming year:

–Stop binge eating

–Stop worrying about what other people think of me

–Stop trying to please everyone

–Stop letting my mind spin with worry

–Face down my fears

I used to go crazy about all that stuff, all to no avail.

By the end of the first week of a new year, these resolutions were cast aside. The eating resolution went first, then the bit about worrying about what others think.

Thing is, I eventually tackled everything on the list. But it was a much longer process than the instant-reset fixes we have a habit of pursuing at the start of every new year.

As far as I’m concerned, there is no reset button. The journey begins when you’re born and ends when you die. Case closed.

In that spirit, I promise to KEEP AT the following:

–I will keep drinking coffee and savoring the occasional cigar. I put down the food and have sworn off alcohol. We all have a collection of addictions, and my approach is to hold firm against those that cause me the most dysfunction. Coffee suits me just fine, and the cigars are infrequent.

–I will keep listening to metal music, because it keeps me sane.

–I will keep enjoying a good humorous tale, especially the off-colored variety. 

– I will keep up and increase the devotion to my wife and children. In doing so, I will keep up and increase my devotion to my Faith.

– I will keep feeding my appetite for history and learning from the hardships of those who came before me.

–I will write a TON of articles in the world of cybersecurity because it’s what I do and what I love.

–I will keep trying to be a better friend and colleague, regardless of the date on a calendar.

–I will keep working the 12 Steps, because it is essential to my well-being.

– And I will keep writing this blog, because it’s good for me and many of you have told me it’s good for you.

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From Confusion to Wisdom

I’ve crashed many times while blasting down the road of life. The car is in one piece now and I’ve learned to throttle back some. And when I hear the following words of wisdom, I KNOW it’s the truth:

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agn4y-M1rjA&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

ACCEPTANCE

?”Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and expecting it to kill someone else.” – Matt Baldwin, Snow Rising (thanks, Cheryl Snapp Conner, for pointing this one out.

“People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.” – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.” – Carl Rogers

“The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.” – Warren Bennis

FAITH

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” – Helen Keller

“We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.” – Marian Wright Edelman

“Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active.” – Edith Hamilton

“Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.” – Mary McLeod Bethune

FEAR

“Hate is a disease. It is fear’s messenger and it makes us do terrible things in a shadow of our better selves, of what we could be.” – Colin Farrell

“The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief.” – William Shakespeare

“Every time we choose safety, we reinforce fear.” – Cheri Huber

“Worry gives a small thing a big shadow.” – Swedish proverb

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” – Rosa Parks

“I’m not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.” – Louisa May Alcott

“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

FORGIVENESS

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee/And I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.” – Robert Frost

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.” – John F. Kennedy

“In the Bible it says they asked Jesus how many times you should forgive, and he said 70 times 7. Well, I want you all to know that I’m keeping a chart.” – Hillary Rodham Clinton

“It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” – William Blake

ADDICTION

“A grateful heart doesn’t eat.” — Over-eaters Anonymous saying.

“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” — George Carlin

“when you can’t climb your way out of such a hole, you tend to crouch down and call it home…”
— Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star)

“What’s worse? Being strung out or being fat?” — Nikki Sixx (The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star) 

“When You’ve lost it all….thats when you realize that Life is Beautiful.”
— Nikki Sixx

“If God brings you to it, He will bring you through it.” -AA saying

“I spent a lifetime in hell and it only took me twelve steps to get to heaven.” -AA saying

MENTAL ILLNESS

“Stress is nothing more than a socially acceptable form of mental illness” -Richard Carlson

“Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but stigma and bias shame us all.”
– Bill Clinton“My friend…care for your psyche…know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves” – Socrates

“The main symptom of a psychiatric case is that the person is perfectly unaware that he is a psychiatric case.” – Oleg P. Shchepin in the New York Times, Nov 1988.

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.” – Carl Jung
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Done Eating by 3 p.m., Christmas Day

It was a good Christmas for me, for more than all the usual reasons.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eFiNud6fbU&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

There was the usual joy: Being around family, getting the chance to lie around much more than usual, watching the kids go Christmas crazy.

Mass was good, with a homily that pointed out that Jesus was as human as they come during his 33 years of living as a mere mortal. He got scared, angry, enjoyed friendship, passed out exhausted after a hard day’s work.

One of the joys of the day was that I didn’t make it about binge eating like I used to. I had a normal breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was actually done eating for the day by 3 p.m.

To some it would seem like I deprived myself. After all, one of the things we like to do at Christmas is stuff ourselves. For the average person that’s fine. Most of the year they eat in the normal fashion and can afford to indulge on holidays.

But if you’re a compulsive binge eater like I was, chances are you stuff yourself holiday-style every day. Holiday eating becomes just another day in the dysfunctional neighborhood.

As part of my recovery from this crippling addiction, the holiday eating has to be reigned in considerably. To indulge is to fall off the wagon into relapse. I came close to doing that on Christmas Eve, 2009. Not this time, though.

And while that might seem like deprivation, to me it’s a gift.

I don’t have to pollute myself and fall to my eating disorder to have a Merry Christmas. In fact, it was a Merry Christmas BECAUSE I didn’t eat.

If you’ve done what I’ve done in the past, you’ll understand why this is so important to me. Especially since my recovery has been on shaky ground for awhile. 

I’ve kept it together, but got sloppy. I’m about to make some significant changes in my program as a result.

But for now, I sit here by the glow of the Christmas tree listening to old-school Van Halen and drinking coffee as my kids play with their new toys.

I’m not a bloated mess with a head possessed by flour and sugar.

And I’m grateful.

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12-25-10 Blessed

Yeah. Christmas really doesn’t suck like it used to. And I’m the luckiest guy on Earth.

Life isn’t perfect. It never will be. Not supposed to be. But I’m finally starting to move past the idea that Christmas is supposed to always be perfect, sparkling and free of pain and strife.

I’m looking at a lot of painful, hard work in the rear-view mirror. Years of intense therapy, the decision to bring my addictions to heel, letting God in and going on medication. In the last couple of years, all that toil has been starting to pay off and I’ve felt joys I could never feel before.

I think the biggest reason I’m not dreading Christmas this time is that my perspective has changed. I’m not craving a “Pleasantville” atmosphere where everyone kicks back and smiles all jolly. I’m not expecting things to be idyllic. I guess you can say I’ve lowered my expectations.

People are still going to fight. Cars will still break down. Loved ones will still die. That no longer means Christmas is destroyed.

A lot of this is based on my deepening Faith.  

This time of year is about celebrating the birth of Christ. I love the glow of a lit Christmas tree as much as the next person. But I don’t care so much about all the gifting back and forth. It feels good to give, but I’ve realized the best thing I can give is my time for a friend in need or a family that’s always there for me.

If not for the sacrifice Jesus made for us sinners, I’d be in a world of shit. For all I know I still am. Purging evil behavior is a complicated task and I very much doubt I’ve mastered it.

Celebrating His birthday is wholly appropriate, regardless of the twists and turns life will inevitably take. Because that birth was our second chance — my second chance.

If you’re a skeptic and think I’m getting into crazy talk, I don’t care. I know I’m no better or worse than you, though in my delusional moments I like to think I am.

This is where my road has taken me, and I’m grateful for it.

Have a Blessed Christmas, everyone.

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Facebook Follow Friday: Christmas Eve

Welcome to the latest edition of Facebook Follow Friday. Each Friday there’s a tradition on Twitter called Follow Friday, and I decided to do a Facebook version here. What’s it have to do with OCD and addiction, you ask?

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grwP8QvI1jY&fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0]

Simple: A person in recovery needs the people around him/her to stay sober and abstinent. Most important are your family and closest friends. But the friends on Facebook can be helpful too, especially those who brighten up the wall with positive, witty, thoughtful posts. That stuff rubs off on the reader, and if that reader has fought depression, addiction, anxiety and all those other things, the mood gets a needed lift.

This week I go way back to my Revere roots and acknowledge a few faces from childhood.

Let’s get to it:

Tina Doria-Yahiaoui: As far as I can remember, Tina and I didn’t get along too well in junior high. But she was never mean, though I probably was. I did have a big chip on my shoulder back then. We reconnected sometime this year and I’m always cheered by her posts about family. She clearly loves being a mom. And as I’ve noted before, good moms are important.

Stevie Hemeon: I recently wrote about what a turd I was to Stevie back in the day, but I want to acknowledge him again because there’s something about his posts I find pretty special: The guy has a lot of health challenges these days and posts about it regularly. But he always does so with a positive spin. He maintains some cheer and never gets bitter about it. Take it from someone who had his share of health problems in the past, staying positive is exceptionally difficult. Stevie pulls it off, and that’s gotta be rubbing off on other people who need it.

Joe Nugent III: When Joe and I first reconnected on Facebook earlier this year, the first thing he did was apologize for being a punk when we were kids. I laughed, because we were all punks and I never held it against him. Grade school kids can’t be expected to be angels, especially if they’re from Revere. 😉 In junior high, Joe was actually one of the more polite, scholarly and popular kids in the building, and I remember that more than the other stuff. It turns out we’ve followed similar paths in adulthood, pursuing careers in journalism. His work appears to have rocked the boat up in Maine, and if you are a journalist who sees wrongs that need to be righted, rocking the boat is exactly the way life should be. 

Jayne Chick: Jayne was one of my schoolmates from the Roosevelt School in the Point of Pines. She was always a sunny personality. On Facebook, I’m cheered by her posts about family. Like Tina, she shows her love of being a mom. She also stays positive in a world that can make that difficult at times.

Maria Cole: Maria was my third-grade teacher at the Roosevelt School. She was one of everyone’s favorite teachers at that. I absolutely love being reconnected with her and having grown-up conversations. And, by the way, if you live or work in the Wakefield, Mass. area, you should drop by her office. She’s a Reiki practitioner, which is, as she says in her profile, “a simple and holistic method of healing the body and reducing stress.” I know quite a few people who could use some of that.

Joyce Coluntino: She was my English teacher in 7th and 8th grade, and despite all the adversity that was going on in my life at the time and the bad attitude that experience gave me, she never gave up on me. I took note of that, and it boosted my morale enough to make it to high school. Her help there can’t be overstated, because back then I really didn’t care what happened to me.

That’ll do it for this week. Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Facebook Follow Friday: Dec. 10

Welcome to the latest edition of Facebook Follow Friday. Each Friday there’s a tradition on Twitter called Follow Friday, and I decided to do a Facebook version here. What’s it have to do with OCD and addiction, you ask?

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6JufyuBcSY&fs=1&hl=en_US]

Simple: A person in recovery needs the people around him/her to stay sober and abstinent. Most important are your family and closest friends. But the friends on Facebook can be helpful too, especially those who brighten up the wall with positive, witty, thoughtful posts. That stuff rubs off on the reader, and if that reader has fought depression, addiction, anxiety and all those other things, the mood gets a needed lift.

So here are the folks I want to acknowledge this week:

Anthony DeVito: I just recently connected with him and I remember him from back in the day. I’m finding that we share many of the same musical tastes and he shares A LOT of music. As readers know, music has been crucial to my recovery, so I always appreciate his posts.

Violet Lopez: Violet is engaged to my cousin Andrew, and I finally got to meet her during a trip to NYC in September. Not only is she a perfect match for Andrew, but her Facebook posts are always filled with sunshine. I like sunshine.

Melanie Segal: Andrew’s sister. My cousin. This gal has been through much of the same family drama I’ve been through, and she fights her share of health battles. So it always blows me away that she keeps her chin up the way she does. She’s always made me laugh, and she continues to do so on Facebook. I miss the time when we were at Salem State together and I took her lunch money on a regular basis.

Meredith Warren: I used to be her editor. I’ve remained her friend. She babysat Sean and Duncan for several Tuesdays during Lent so I could go do some RCIA stuff. Now she’s writing a political blog called “For Attribution” and posting regularly on Facebook. Which means I can critique her political views AND her writing style. It is a well-written, insightful blog. You should check it out. 

James Harris Winters: I was introduced to James through his wife, Lisa, a friend from the security world I work in. They both bring a lot of positive energy to Facebook. James does a lot of writing you should check out. There’s his blog, and his commentary on a range of social issues. And there’s humor. Not stupid humor. Witty humor. There is a difference.

I’ll end this week with a plug for the “Machine Man” Facebook page. When this film comes out you’re going to have a whole new understanding of what OCD is really about.

By the way, the maker of this film is bypassing the Hollywood bullshit and financing this project with a grassroots campaign, so please help her out if you can.

By the way, that filmaker has asked for .PDF copies of the posts I’ve written about “Machine Man” but I can’t figure out how to copy-convert a WordPress blog entry into a .PDF file.

If anyone knows how to do that, please share.

Thanks!

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Facebook Follow Friday: Thank Ya Edition

Welcome to week five of this new tradition of mine: Giving the nod to some of my Facebook friends for giving my spirits a lift and teaching me new things.

Mood music:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIUJg8-W5RE&fs=1&hl=en_US]

A reminder on what this is about: There’s a thing we do on Twitter called Follow Friday, where we list people we follow and suggest others do the same. I figured Facebook should have something similar, so here it is.

There’s a lot of crap on Facebook. Some people might consider me part of the problem and unfriend me over it. That’s OK. My brand of insanity isn’t for everyone. But there are a lot of giving folks on there as well; friends that lift the spirits and teach me something daily.

Shira Brenner: The kid sister. I’ve told you about her before, but I got to see her yesterday and she made me an excellent cup of coffee.  She lives life to the full and inspires the hell out of me.

Sara Corthell Croft: The middle of my three sisters-in-law. She’s gone through a tough year, but she’s done it with class and good humor. She also watches her nephews almost every time I ask, and her daughter — my niece — is just so stinkin’ adorable. She deserves some extra gratitude from me, so here it is.

Ann Ball: She’s been my friend for almost 20 years. Well, we lost touch for several years in between but so what? Her Facebook posts are always upbeat and full of love for her family. With so much shit on Facebook, it’s refreshing to see.

Les Masterson: A former colleague from my Community Newspaper Company days. The man has always had a wit I connect with, including his most recent observation that “Alice’s Restaurant” is the work of the devil. He’s also an editor for Patch, a community news organization you will surely be hearing a lot more about. 

Bob Connors: Fellow Haverhillite and cigar buddy, he’s the man to check out for emergency preparedness and full-throttle patriotism. He’s also good natured about the trouble I sometimes get him into by quoting him.

More to come next week…