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!