Addictions...

There is always a method to my madness. Sometimes it pays to be a little cryptic as the best move is not always laying all your cards on the table at once. A story for another time, maybe.

I have been a fan of Chris Rene for a while. There is something about his song "Young Homie" that really appeals to me. I am not sure that it would have appealed to me in the past but age wisens even the hardest of souls.

There is something to be said for the idea that "life is short, you gotta live it long" and "if you wanna build your love up, put your hate down". The idea of seeing peace signs as I turn around translates for me into wickedly coordinated handshakes with youngsters looking to belong and to be part of something bigger than themselves, "it takes education to change your reputation". 'Can you feel me?'

I overheard something recently that I find to be one of the funniest things. Whenever I listen to people saying that 'youth is wasted on the young', I can't help but have a little chuckle to myself about the cynicism embedded in that very idea. The very simple reality that we most often neglect is that it is these very experiences that we get, or have, when we are young that creates the individuals that we grow and become. Youth is what makes the young wise as they age.

Sadly, some of us lose our battles with our addictions. Then, others of us grown because of those addictions and grow out of them. We then have a responsibility to share those experiences and make the lives of those that follow us easier, choices wiser, and lives longer.

There is a reason I returned to my roots and to teaching; to make a difference, to facilitate change, and to share experience. The rewards far outweigh the sacrifices as there is nothing quite like seeing the door open and a young person stride through that door into the brave new world of education, renewed reputation, and opportunity.

Addictions are easy; life is hard. Despite my addictions, I love life!

Facebook & 10 Years in Prison...

Cafe World and all those other games on Facebook are addictive, no doubt. However, I am not sure that they are that addictive that I would be even slightly tempted to leave a 13-month old baby in the bath by themselves while I go and cook some cakes or harvest a few crops in Farmville or even have a few 1-minute rounds of Bejeweled Blitz.

Shannon Johnson of Fort Lupton in northern Colorado was sentenced to 10 years in jail for allowing her 13-month old son to drown in the bath while she played Cafe World and check her status updates.

According to Johnson she wanted her son, Joseph, to be an independent baby and not be a "mama's boy". Also Johnson claims to have been traumatised as a child from constantly being told "no". Therefore, she was committed to never saying no to her own child. And, subsequently Johnson was claiming that little Joseph himself asked to be left alone in the bath.

Sadly, Johnson had been warned of the dangers of leaving an infant in the bath by themselves. This warning came from Johnson's own mother, but the advice was ignored and tragically it was little Joseph that paid the ultimate price.

The point of this post is not to bang on about Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg being ultimately responsible for Joseph's death because they facilitated Johnson's addiction. To the contrary, it is really about parenting and what constitutes good parenting and how we learn to be good parents. I have been wondering how, as parents, we learn to find that balance between allowing our children their independence and protecting them from the dangers that surround them?

The learning curve is steep.

Facebook, Cafe World, and Addiction...

This is a truly sad story. A mother, Shannon Johnson, in Colorado has admitted to police that she was busy playing Cafe World on Facebook, checking out her news feed, and sharing a few online videos while her one-year-old son was drowning in the bath.

According to Johnson's confession, her son was in the bath for a total of ten minutes, and she checked on him once. Then, when she did not hear any sounds coming from the bathroom she thought she better check again. When she did, she found her son with his face submerged. After that the confession to police gets a little weird. When the police asked her why she would leave her one-year-old in the bath by himself, she reportedly said she:

"didn't want him to be known as a mama's boy."

On a personal level, I find it hard to comprehend. Perhaps I am over-protective or something, but there is no way that Will, even at two-years-old, stays in the bath by himself while I go off to check my email or make a cup of tea or whatever.

Then again, maybe this story says something about the "dangers" of a technology addiction, in this case to Facebook and Cafe World. Just like any other addiction, it has a way of messing with one's priorities and skewing the understanding of what is important.

When one thinks of internet game addictions you normally think of children spending hours or days non-stop on games like "World of Warcraft" (or whatever it is that is popular now). However, it would seem that it is not only children that suffer from this.

In South Korea a couple was found guilty of starving their baby to death. What was truly bizarre in that case was that the couple were raising a virtual child in a video game and doing a reasonable job at it.

I wonder if this is going to become an increasing more acute and severe problem in the future? And, assuming that it is, I wonder how governments are going to deal with internet addiction? Legislation? Counselling?

The mind boggles.

Throwing It All Away -- Amy Winehouse

This is truly sad. It is sad to watch someone self-destruct and throw away an incredible talent. Yet, it must also be a warning to others that no matter how good you think you might be and how strong you think you are, ultimately drugs control you. Do not kid yourself that you can control the drugs.

Amy Winehouse is a perfect example of this. She is a prodigious talent and has been recognized as such with numerous awards for her singing and song writing. Yet, at 24 years of age she has emphysema. Emphysema is an incurable disease and Winehouse has allegedly developed it as a direct result of her well-known and widely publicised crack cocaine habit. This is kind of like the double whammy in the sense that probably the worst way to dabble in cocaine is to smoke it!

Her doctors have told her that "if she goes back to smoking drugs it won't just ruin her voice, it will kill her," according to her father as quoted in the Sunday Mirror. Apparently, her fainting spell and her inability to breathe properly might just have saved her from more serious damage. Not that emphysema is not serious enough, but if she is able to change her habits then doctors have offered a much more positive picture. The question is can she change her self-destructive habits. If a person ever needed a serious wake-up call then this would be it!

Winehouse is scheduled to play and Glastonbury next week and there is also a singing date for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday. I actually like her music and listen to her often. So, for selfish reasons I would like to see her beat her addictions so that she can make a few more albums and I can enjoy her soulful tunes for a little while longer.

Here's to a speedy recovery! The picture is from Getty Images.

The Dangers of Drugs

An addiction is an addiction no matter what it is to!

Depression, Addiction, and Suicide

Surfing the Internet as one is prone to do, perhaps this is an addiction in itself, I have done a little reading about depression and suicide. I guess this was because I have been thinking a little bit about when melancholy becomes depression? A good site for learning about depression is Beyond Blue, it is an Australian based organization and well worth a visit.

The key is recognizing the signs and getting treatment. Depression is a serious illness and the solution is not always "chin up, life's not that bad, things will get better".

I have also been thinking about when something becomes a full-blown addiction from just being regular use? When does binge drinking, for example, become anything more than a night out on the turps? Or is binge drinking already an addiction in and of itself. My interest in this stems from a recent Australian government announcement to direct funds to an initiative that is going to tackle the problem of binge drinking.

On the suicide front, I have not been thinking about taking my own life or having someone do it for me in the form of suicide by cop, but rather I have been thinking about the motivations for someone taking the ultimate step.

Sorry for the rather sombre tone of this post. Just feel that encouraging debate on these issues and bringing them into open discussion is a worthwhile endeavour.