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Letters to People Helping People
Mail to: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com
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This is the letter which originally appeared Thu, 10 Nov 2005 in the Stratford (Ontario) City Gazette. Listener response when it was read on People Helping People was overwhelming and it is reprinted here...
CRYSTAL METH IS WORSE THAN ANY OF US REALIZE
I am meth I destroy homes, I tear families apart, I take your children, and that's just the start. I'm more costly than diamonds, more precious than gold, The sorrow I bring is a sight to behold. If you need me, remember I'm easily found, I live all around you - in schools and in towns I live with the rich, I live with the poor, I live down the street, and maybe next door. I'm made in a lab, but not like you think, I can be made under the kitchen sink. In your child's closet, and even in the woods, If this scares you to death, well it certainly should. I have many names, but there's one you know best, I'm sure you've heard of me, my name is crystal meth. My power is awesome, try me you'll see, But if you do, you may never break free. Just try me once and I might let you go, But try me twice, and I'll own your soul. When I possess you, you'll steal and you'll lie, You do what you have to - just to get high. The crimes you'll commit for my narcotic charms Will be worth the pleasure you'll feel in your arms. You'll lie to your mother, you'll steal from your dad, When you see their tears, you should feel sad. But you'll forget your morals and how you were raised, I'll be your conscience, I'll teach you my ways. I take kids from parents, and parents from kids, I turn people from God, and separate friends. I'll take everything from you, your looks and your pride, I'll be with you always - right by your side. You'll give up everything - your family, your home, Your friends, your money, then you'll be alone. I'll take and take, till you have nothing more to give, When I'm finished with you, you'll be lucky to live. If you try me be warned - this is no game, If given the chance, I'll drive you insane. I'll ravish your body, I'll control your mind, I'll own you completely, your soul will be mine. The nightmares I'll give you while lying in bed, The voices you'll hear, from inside your head. The sweats, the shakes, the visions you'll see, I want you to know, these are all gifts from me. But then it's too late, and you'll know in your heart, That you are mine, and we shall not part. You'll regret that you tried me, they always do, But you came to me, not I to you. You knew this would happen, many times you were told, But you challenged my power, and chose to be bold. You could have said no, and just walked away, If you could live that day over, now what would you say? I'll be your master, you will be my slave, I'll even go with you, when you go to your grave. Now that you have met me, what will you do? Will you try me or not? It's all up to you. I can bring you more misery than words can tell, Come take my hand, let me lead you to hell. - - Judy West
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: some advice |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: some advice |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: A Message |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: A Message |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Stonehenge |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: My Anti-Drug Positions Are Straining My Relationships |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Sexual Abuse Survivors/Partners |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Re: Confidence... |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Need Some Advice |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: You |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: You |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Radio Show |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Addictions March 12 |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Mary |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Re: Mary - March 6th program |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: your show |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: My brother |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: WHAT A SCREWED UP LIFE YOU'VE HAD |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: I think you're great! |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Followup |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Thanks and will be in touch |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Hey, not really a question |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: To Mark |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: To Mark |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: To Mark |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: Hello |
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To: peoplehelpingpeople(NOSPAM)@cfrb.com Subject: URGENT |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Mark, a quick question please |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Star Article |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: August 14th broadcast |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: shocked |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Any Suggestions? |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Thank you |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Desperate Help for Father. |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: One addict to another. |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Valium and Booze |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: ...an avid listener... |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: Hello |
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To: feedback(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: what |
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To: "'mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com'"
<mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com> Subject: Moreland Centre |
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To: <mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com> Subject: Women For Sobriety |
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To: "Mark Elliot - CFRB"
<mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com> Subject: Fw: MICHAEL JACKSON'S FACE OVER THE YEARS |
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Subject: (no subject) To: FEEDBACK(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com |
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I find it interesting to be wanting
to write you without any feeling of 'scathing animosity.' You would
remember me if i gave you the name i used on one letter i sent a long
while back when i first started listening to you. I don't really know
what it was that was bothering me ...i think your openness might have
had something to do with it. and your real casual way of discussing your
life stories . I would like to be so open i suppose. or to be so free in
my ways. I guess that comes with laying it all out on the line. I
thought of you as cocky at times and not repentant whatsoever. although
i don't know what you would have had to repent for or about. and with
that i smile. and think to myself well now maybe that's the problem. and
i do have one i know that. But that was not the intent of this letter.
This letter was more to clarify (in my own mind! . the reasons for such
disdain that i get from listening (to some people And i am digressing now and thinking of the first letter i read when i opened up this web site. (from the guy who's homosexual ). and how i thought it was curious that he thought himself as 'hiding from life' when he went ahead and got the pleasure he wanted. What's so hidden there? That he didn't get what? What was he actually wanting? He says he's wanting acceptance but for what and from where and why An amazing writer i thought he was . Made me think a lot about myself and how i gave up a long time ago fighting for what i believed in or fighting period against people and just started fighting with myself. and getting more and more volatile all the time with just me and losing sight of just what the hell was wrong. and just what the hell was me. I could relate a lot to what he was saying (even though i'm not homosexual (lesbian) or at least never thought of myself that way. who knows maybe i am. I think what i deny is pleasure. period. the real kind of pleasure there is. sharing your story. your life (with someone. making it known. And this guy has the balls ! to go to different people (for sex. and complains about it. Now i'm not judging or anything but i'm just curious. what the heck is the problem?. I mean if he likes guys he likes guys. if he likes to do it that way he likes to do it that way. His only problem is Aids. He's worried about getting AIDS. When all he should be worried about is getting himself protected. There's condoms he could be wearing. Decisions he could be making about who he's doing it with. And whether he really wants to do it 'with them.' Sounds like he has no options in his own mind. But he has all kinds of them. And he chooses to go the route of getting it right away. now. And he calls that a problem. And you say he's not getting any intimacy. I don't think he asked for that anywhere in the letter. That was not part of his demise. You labeled it loneliness. But i wonder about that. I think he 's just a greedy (old soul.... if in fact ! he's old and i doubt it. By the sounds of things he's not going to make it to a ripe old age in his mind. He's going to be dead with Aids. At the rate he's going. Getting it on with every tom dick and harry at the bath house. What is it with Homosexuals they have to hang out like that. ? There has to be a public place like that? Why can't they be private people like everyone else with their sexual practices?. I never could comprehend that. Do they feel that have so much love they have to spread it around? . or what And this is not meaning to be derogatory. or judgmental. I'm just curious about some people and what they have to deal with. And what their problems are . And what they think they have to do with them. Acceptance is a hard thing to come to grips with. when you don't like yourself. I know. I don't like myself most of the time. or at least i say i don't. and i don't act like i do a lot of the time. One would wonder why. What terrible thing happened to me.? Well a lot of terrible things happened but i never really thought of them as terrible. And in actual fact i don't think they really were. I think the only terrible thing that happened to me was that i got married at one time and it was game over from the very beginning. and i guess i just never got over it. but i'm starting to. and letters like this one guy's are something i am really thankful for . for seeing that someone can put down in print what he's going through or dealing with and i wish him luck. All the luck in the world. |
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To: FEEDBACK(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: you are very fortunate mark |
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Mark: It's Saturday night and I'm lying by the radio listening to you speak about grieving. I listen carefully to your words and I feel like telling you how blessed I think you are. Many of my brothers were drug addicts. They traded that addiction in for religious addiction of the worst kind. I was the over-achiever. There was nothing I couldn't do. At the height of my career in the entertainment industry I was making 6 figures a year. I now make barely enough to scrape by. What do I grieve?...I grieve the pain and unacceptance of being gay. Why do I feel you are fortunate?...because when you are suffering from substance abuse you have a sponsor...someone to "go to the wall for you". My experience in the gay world is one of such unacceptance. And so now, I too have turned to addiction...I have spent what little money I have going to places to have sex...over, and over and over again. I'm aware that it is an illusion of acceptance, yet it allows me to hide from my life. What do I grieve? I grieve the loss of the most amazing person that was once me. I grieve the loss of my ability to care, to fight. I get to see a professional once a week, and the rest of the week I chow down on anti-depressants. They loose their effectiveness rather quickly. Its so ironic..it is at this stage, as a gay man, when I need someone to "go to the wall for me" the most. And sadly, my actions may one day cause me to get sick..and then the walls will open up and there will be support for me all over the place...groups for HIV men everywhere! It is iron that we give out clean needles to drug users as prevention, but that we have no prevention available for gay men BEFORE they get sick physically. We have no way of caring for the souls of gay men before they get so dark and despondent that they don't care. I look at the faces of the men walking the halls of the bathhouses and I see people giving up. And I grieve for me, that I am among them. David
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I'd like to commend CFRB for having a show
like Mark Elliot's.
It is much needed and informational. This last show about legalizing marijuana was wonderful. I agree with decriminalizing it but NOT legalizing it! I'm listening to it during the replay at 2am but I couldn't help rushing to send this email. One point I'd like to add onto the many good points of Mark Elliot against legalizing it, also regarding comparing it to alcohol. If I walk into a room and someone is having an alcoholic drink, it won't affect my head, but if I walk into a room and people are smoking marijuana, I would get high if I stayed in that room. People put alcohol into their own body, but pot smoke gets into everyone in the room. Why is second hand smoke of regular cigarettes bad and not second hand pot smoke? Along with all the other health risks Mark Elliot pointed out, this is the most obvious one advocates make a point of ignoring. Again, thank you CFRB and Mark Elliot for "People Helping People".
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Subject: Thank you! To: Mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com |
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Dear Mark, I try and listen to your show every Saturday night on CFRB because I think that you give a wealth of knowledge and inspiration to your listeners. I am a 25 year old female who graduated from University last June and like many student I did not know what type of career field I was going to enter. I started working at an insurance company and soon realised that was not the job for me. While it was staring me right in the face I just was unable to see that I would be excellent working in the field of addictions. Upon examining my options, and with your influence and inspiration I decided to become an Addictions Counsellor. Currently I am taking the Addictions Counsellor course at Durham College and even though it is only the first week, I am enjoying it immensely. I think that the way you speak about addictions and counsel people on your talk show is amazing and I too would like to gain that knowledge and expertise. Your words of advise sometimes come close to home for me because my Dad was an alcoholic and the only reason that he is not drinking now is because he has dementia which has out him at the stage of a 7 year old child thus he is unable to handle money therefore he is unable to purchase the alcohol. However, if the bottle was put in his hand he would have no objections to drinking it, even though he is aware that it is harmful to him and can possibly cause another seizure. Whether he is not able to register this information now, or he is not willing to, which would not surprise me because even before the memory loss started he denied he had a substance abuse problem it has illustrated to me what it is like to be an alcoholic and live in an alcoholic family. Listening to your show has helped me to confront my fears where my Dad's alcoholism is concerned because we were the typical alcoholic family that did not talk about my Dad's addiction to anyone. Now I realize that what needs to be done is not hide behind the problem along with the alcoholic but confront it head on and I wish that my Mom and I did that earlier because maybe my Dad would have stopped drinking on his own. I am very excited about becoming a counsellor and as I listen to you I hope that I will be as effective as you are with your clients. I thank you for your inspiration and know that because of your commitment to helping people with addictions it has made me want to do the same also. Jen |
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Subject: alcoholism To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com |
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Hi Mark, I have listened to your show several times over the last months. I have listened with interest because I consider myself an alcoholic. I drink 3-6 drinks a day. I don't make a lot of money, so I have some financial trouble as a result. My question to you is since I am not a terribly social person, I am not really comfortable with the idea of a help group such as AA, what is your opinion on a medical solution such as ANTABUSE? Thanx R.J.
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To: <FEEDBACK(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com> Subject: anonymity |
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can you tell me how you get around
the whole anonymity at the level of press, radio and television thing? its a great show, and it helped me a lot ... but i just dont get how you get around that anonymity thing...... andrea
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Subject: What the hell is going on
here ? To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com |
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Hey Mark ! I've been listening to your show & CFRB for about 2 years now. I think you're doing a great job. I catch your show every Saturday unless I'm working. I just got connected online and your site was on of the first places I visited. I don't drink or use drugs, although my dad has a history of alcohol abuse in the past. He's been sober now for some years, quit cold turkey. His prior drinking has had an effect on our family life, as you can imagine. I've been able to steer away from picking up the same habit myself, seeing the damage that it can cause to loved ones. My problem seems to be that in my own relations with other loved ones, it seems that I end up hurting them, feeling resentful and angry, not trusting anyone, followed by loneliness and unworthiness, and an urgent sense of dependency. Its like I've inherited the problems of alcohol abuse without the alcohol. I just recently started to see that this behaviour has been with me throughout my life, not allowing me to establish, what would be nurturing relations with either my family or others. Rather than alleviating some of the pain that I thought this insight would allow for, it seems that it has become more troubling to me. I have become increasingly angrier in all aspects of my life. If you could share any light on this I would be greatly appreciative. Sincerely yours Frank |
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To: mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com Subject: after effects |
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I came across your website and you appear
to be very knowledgeable about drug addictions and so i have a
question I hope you can help me with. I married a man who is a
recovered crack addict. He probably has about 4 years clean
right now, but I do know that he does drink alcohol about once a week
and has on occasion used pot since he stopped smoking the crack.
I have never been around or used any kinds of drugs so I am concerned
about his bi-polar type of personality. He refuses to even
acknowledge there is a problem, but he is like two different people.
He goes from hot to cold in a
split second. He can be violent, he will eave sometimes for days
or weeks and comes back blaming everything on some look I gave
him or some though that he knew I had or even the context
of what I say is taken to a level so as to
blame me for every action he makes. I wonder if the 8 years of
smoking crack (so badly that he actually had to move away from
the state to get away, he stole, traded his body and had nothing when
I met him he was at the bottom) CAN that kind of drug abuse
affect your emotions this long after getting clean??? If he is
sick, I don't want to bail on him without trying to get him some
help, but I am at my wits end at this point. If you have any
info PLEASE help
thanks Bonnie
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To: "Mark Elliot" <mark(NOSPAM)@markelliot.com> Subject: Re: Is it too much to dream? |
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Dear Mark, I read and really enjoyed your article re: World Youth Day. It said exactly what I felt as I watched the week on TV. I know two young people, friends of my son, who actually attended and when they came over to tell us about the events, the glow that surrounded them and the sparkle in their eyes told me they had truly been invited to experience maybe the most profound event of their young lives. One brought a rosary for my older son who had nearly died in a motorcycle accident a few years ago, (I thank God every day for sparing him-his best friend died.) You mentioned the Pope's admission of abuse in the Church, I nearly fell off the couch when I heard it! Finally, the Catholic Church is opening the dark secrets. I am a strictly raised "cradle Catholic" but had given up going to Mass as I was so discouraged by the abuse issues. I had been severely abused as a child and teenager so those things really hit a nerve. Now, given the wonderful example of our young with their hopes and dreams unsullied by the past, I might head back to Mass. I have truly missed that spiritual aspect of my life, but was really repelled when the priest who had married my husband and me and baptized our children, was arrested and imprisoned for long-term abuse of altar-boys (some of whom I had gone to school with). This priest was just passed from parish to parish until some brave child blew the whistle. I had admired and trusted this priest (because that was what we were taught)-boy did I feel stupid!!! I hope my marriage wasn't a farce. Now, Cardinal Law of Boston is disclaiming any responsibility of the many abuses in his Diocese and may declare it bankrupt so the $30,000,000. won't have to be paid out to the victims-what a coward!!! However, I am putting that out of my mind and taking on the spirit of your wonderful article and believing in the strength, love and future vision of a world I hope I will live long enough to be in. Also, I was very proud to be both Catholic and Canadian last week-we "did ourselves proud"! I listen to you every Sat. night on CFRB, you did a super job with your part of the coverage! Well, gotta run-keep up the good work! God Bless, Sunny PS: I had a question for you on addiction, do you think Anorexia and its attendant personality disorders could come under the umbrella of addictions? Maybe you could address this on one of your shows. Thanks! S. |