Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: dogmatic, gingrich, government, health care, idiots, morons, sanford
The health care reform debate is getting on my $%&#*@# nerves!!!
Even those without health care, or business owners who can’t afford to provide health care to their employees have somehow been talked into this fear-driven, egotistical, cock-fighting battle. The equation is simple: Letting your health become a commodity is a concept that only makes sense to Americans. Want to know why? Because the haves in this country have persuaded you all that free enterprise will allow you to “life yourself up by your bootstraps.” Idiots.
Do you really not see that they’re screwing you left and right? If we had half a brain, we wouldn’t turn Republican, we’d just figure out that you are alla cting like little children and tell you to shut up while we make your life better! You’re afraid of your taxes gonig up because of health care reform? Morons, you’re paying for the broken system now through your own taxes and sky rocketing insurance costs, or if you don’t have insurance, you’re paying for it with you health.
Stop being little babies, eat your pride, admit that your dogmatic stance has failed on “democracy spreading,” on endless greed, and on health care!
Have you all noticed how hypocritical your entire party is?!?!? You call for reform of corruption and moral missteps on the liberal side constantly, but even when you’re caught with your pants down (Gov. Sanford cheating, Gingrich’s addiction and illegal prescription runs) you think that by going on the attack, you’ll save yourself.
Do us all a favor, and get out of your own way. Government is here to make our lives better, not to let you own all the assault rifles you want and do whatever you think you should be able to. That’s called anarchy. Shut up.
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: cancer, democrat, expensive, health care, healthcare, idiot, insurance, medicine, moron, obama, reform, republican
We all know life isn’t fair, but it doesn’t really hit you until something happens that turns everything upside down and shakes it really really hard.
My dad having cancer is doing just that.
He can’t work, my parents are running out of money, and this stupid country is arguing about whether or not health-care should be more easily accessible.
Even with coverage my father just went from the upper-upper middle class to somewhere towards the bottom. In about a year, he and my mother will probably be outright poor. It costs a lot of money to beat cancer.
And I can’t do anything to stop it. In the meantime, I have to listen to idiots comparing the Obama health-care reform proposal to Nazi ideology.
You know what?
Fuck you and the high-horse you came riding in on. If you had half a brain, you’d realize that it’s your own party that is slowly pushing you aside telling you to pull yourself by your boostraps while they’re applying super glue to the bottoms of your shoes.
I get that there are stupid people, but why do they have to do what is bad for them more often than not? Shouldn’t mere probability say that once in a while they’d help themselves out too?!?!?!
In the meantime, families like mine are torn apart because people with no money are getting life advice from the uber rich.
Morons.
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: all about addiction, allaboutaddiction.com, dissertation, school, sos addiction, sosaddiction.org, UCLA
I haven’t written here in a long time. I’ve been focusing most of my work on school (trying to finally finish my dissertation), my other blog: All About Addiction, and setting up this new addiction treatment hotline in Los Angeles (which you will soon be able to see at sosaddiction.org).
Anyway, my life’s been keeping me super busy, but I hope to soon get my head out of work and at least a little bit back into life.
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: addiction, blog, fundable, fundraiser, help, hotline
My main blog, over at allaboutaddiction.com crashed last week and disappeared for 5 whole days!
As self-indulgent as the idea of blogging originally seemed to me, I realized that I had grown to really cherish my ability to help addicts, and those close to them, by providing them with the latest, most objective, most relevant research and stories.
There aren’t necessarily a whole lot of worthwhile things I’ve done in my life, but my quest to help as many addicts as possible before I die feels like one of those.
I hope it works.
To that end, I’ve started an addiction placement hotline that will use actual research to put people in the most appropriate, not necessarily most expensive, treatment available for them!
If you think you can help us out, we’re fundraising for some small startup costs over af fundable.com.
Anything helps,
Much love
adi
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: awareness, caring, difficult, love, relationship, risk, teen
Relationships are the basis of human interaction.
Caring about another at a level that approaches how much I care about myself is what makes life worthwhile as far as I’m concerned (along with attempting to better the world somehow).
Still, for all the benefits that being so intertwined with someone else can provide, there’s a built in risk, a hazard, a danger.
The first time this became obvious was when I turned to a teenager; suddenly, having my parents know eveything about me felt like a weakness. I was sure that they were somehow holding me back as I tried to figure out who I was, which meant testing boundaries, examining realities, figuring out life. Unfortunately, the boundaries were ones they had helped me construct only recently…
Now, the same process occurs as I attempt to enmesh my life in that of my love.
Bringing two people together can offer so much good, so much happiness, that it is surely worth any impediment. Still, when I’m by myself, I get to reinvent my own rules without having to answer to anyone. It’s not that simple with someone walking by your side.
When I’m strong, I need to think of her before exlaiming too strongly. When I’m weak, I can’t simply retreat and reemerge. When I’m critical, I must weigh my words, even if such a thing had never been true before. When doubt hits, all the honesty in the world can’t prepare one for the other’s reaction.
I’m sure that the same is true for her, but that’s the nature of awarenesss, it exists within the confines of my concious mind, impossible to truly translate yet necessary for everything else to occur.
I’m sure we’ll figure this out soon enough, but in the meantime, it can certainly be frustrating…
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: cohen, israel, jill, katy, kissed, marc, memphis, music, perry, sobule, talent
I have a weird talent for recognizing singers on the radio.
On the way home right now, I heard an interview with a songwriter. It was a woman with a slightly high-pitched voice. During the interview they played some clips from her new album. I immediately knew it was Jill Sobule.
How many of you remember Jill? Probably not many. She had that song “I kissed a girl” long before the now popular, horribly annoying version by Katy Perry.
Anyway, this has happened to me before, once when I was about 13, still living in Israel, picking out Marc Cohen’s song “Walking in Memphis.” I wasn’t even aware that I knew who the hell he was.
I haven’t exactly figured out what to do with this talent yet, but it’s pretty cool when it happens, so I though i’d share it.
I love music.
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: addict, beautiful, help, progress, psychology, research
Last week I took some time off to attend a friend’s wedding on the east coast. The 5 days of relative relaxation did wonders for my mood, though by the end, I was ready to come back and get back to work.
Unfortunately, my research isn’t moving as quickly as I’d like for it to, but I’ve learned to let that go a bit and allow things to move at the necessary pace. When I try to force things, they move just as slowly with the added benefit of additional stress on me.
I’m excited about the group of people I have working on the toll free number. My hope is to get the ball rolling on that within a few months, hopefully going live by the end of this year with the ability to help addicts in need. I’ll keep you updated.
In the meantime, I’m finding it pretty difficult to find therapists who are looking for help right now. With the economy as horrible as it is, getting position as a psychological assisstant is proving nearly impossible. Still, you know me, I don’t give up easily.
So for now, I’m doing the best I can, scheduling everthing so it barely fits into my days and yet allows me to feel accomplished AND well rested. It’s a goal; a work in progress.
Hope you have a beautiful day!
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: addict, bull, dream, house, marriage, rehab, sun, treatment, yard
Sophie (oops, I guess I just semi-outed her) had wanted us to write down our 1 and 5 year plans a few months back. Someone told her it would help make things more real, and therefore more likely to happen. We only got halfway through, but maybe if I put things down here, sending them out into the world, it’ll make them even more real.
So here goes:
In 1 year, I’ll be done with my degree, and a few months into my new job. Though I can’t even come close to complaining right now given the state of the economy, it’ll be nice to be a little more financially secure. My toll-free number, aimed at helping addicts get the best treatment they can in the most efficient way possible will be picking up steam in southern California. Also, my career as an addiction therapist will have started. Sophie and I will be married and coming back from our honeymoon (Bora Bora).
In 5 years, my toll-free number will be going national, having already helped place thousands of addicts. I will have secured a good academic teaching-and-research job, though I’ll only be doing it part time because my book (which is coming out in 2011) will have allowed me to make my mark in the addiction treatment field. I will have already opened my first treatment facility in Los Angeles and will be getting ready to open a second. My research will result in a significant advance in addiction treatment that will help make treatment easier for nearly everyone seeking treatment. Sophie and I will have had, or be expecting, our first child. We’ll also be living in a house with at least 4 bedrooms and a big enough back yard to play in and run around with our dog(s).
That all I have for now. I told you the sun would shine again! I’m back holding the horns and ready for the next day!!
Filed under: Thoughts
I don’t normally like sharing this kind of stuff, but I think that if the point of the blog is be truthful, I need to cover all bases.
I don’t always wake up ready to take on the day. I know that what I’m doing is important, and I know that if I keep going I’ll be successful. Still, sometimes I wake up and feel like there’s really no point; like getting out of bed is useless and that I’m doomed to be nothing.
At least part of this is probably due to the fact that I may suffer from depression. I’d had one major episode before in my life, during college, and it was extreme. It was the point at which my drinking and weed smoking reached new heights. I used to do nothing but wake up late, get drunk and stoned, pass out, and repeat. This was also the point where I started trying out new drugs, first acid (LSD), then cocaine, and finally ecstasy. The rest of the story I’ve told in fragments on here, but I’d never mentioned the depression before.
Nowadays, the depression doesn’t hit often, but when it does, it’s debilitating.
I don’t believe in god, so for me, the faith has to do with my own abilities. I’ve been down this road for long enough now to know that if I just keep walking, the clouds will clear. Still, that wasn’t always true. When this feeling used to hit me, I would often retreat to drugs, to isolation, and sometimes, I would inflict some physical pain on myself, to numb the emotional pain.
My point is that these days, I can talk myself out of believing that this feeling is here to stay. At first, its shameful, it embarrasses me. I’m ashamed that after everything I’ve been through, I can still feel hopeless. Still, whether this feeling is universal or unique to me, I recognize that it’s probably not going anywhere, so I have to deal with it. Period.
The sun comes back every time.
Filed under: Thoughts | Tags: argentina, book, break, dissertation, presentation, school, vacation
I’m ready to go on vacation.
It’s been more than a year and a half since the last time I took time off to do nothing important.
I miss it.
By the time this quarter in school is over, I’ll have put in easily 60 hour weeks for the better part of this last year and some. I’m also one of those people who never feels like they’re accompishing as much as they should be. This in spite of my blog, my dissertation research, the 3-4 articles and book chapters I’ve written in that time, my conference presentation, my teaching, my book project, and my (almost non-existent) social life.
Okay, I feel better putting all that down in the same place. I guess I have done quite a bit.
Still, it’s time for a break, and Argentina is going to be it.
It’s gonna be fabulous.
Argnetina is going to be grand
