Curing My Alcoholism - Sharon Osbourne - it's not what you think!

After yesterday's weekend silliness about Simple Man (although I hope my message did filter through the nonsense!), this is something that I'd really like you to think about.

A few of you, well one really, absolutely hates that Sharon Osbourne video on the site. He's probably jealous! Ha! He says that, because it doesn't relate to Baclofen, he feels that it is of no relevance and probably just me going off on an ego trip.

How wrong he is. And the following concepts / ideas are very important to me, and people like me. People like most of you, in fact. Please read them. I believe that they should be just as important to you and your quest for life long health and happiness; devoid of that malevolent spirit.

Several years ago now, I had set up and owned a clinical centre for obesity surgery. Adolescent obesity was just becoming a hot topic, but nobody had the guts to "go for it". We were consulted by a very brave woman and her even braver daughter. They were interested in her having a gastric balloon. Even though it might have been commercial suicide for my fledgling business, I thought that it was the right thing to do for her, at that time. So, because it was new and potentially controversial, I funded the whole thing myself.

I then stuck my head up personally for everyone to fire bullets at. I was on TV and on radio all the time for about two months. There were newspaper and magazine articles all over the place. You could even Google me. I invited bullets. None came. Why?

Because we were right.

One day, I said to the girl involved - "Becky, if I was a genie, who would you most like to meet?" She said Sharon Osbourne. "That would be soooooooo cool, and my mates would be soooooo jealous". I went to my hard-nosed business partner and said "I'm gona get Becky on the Sharon Osbourne Show". As always, she just looked at me with that glorious countenance of a smile, head-shaking, and benign tolerant incredulity that I seem to bring out in everybody. "If you say so", she sighed as she went back to much more important things like balancing the books. Within ten days, we were in London filming the show.

So what?, I hear the two people that ever bother to read this TFTD ask. The "So What" is of fundamental importance here.

I didn't get Becky onto the SO Show because I have lots of contacts, or called in a few favours. I got her on because hers was a genuine, true, honest, good story.

And, when I'm not pissed, I am an extremely good, genuine, true, honest story teller.

And I seem to have a talent for opening doors. There are other examples. I won't bore you with them.

Now, here's the rub.

If Baclofen is going to do the greatest good that it can, it has got to find its way into the minds of lots of different groups of people. For example:-

You, reading this TFTD, and joining in. Those of you who go on MWO and other such sites. You think you know about Baclofen, but everybody can learn

People like you who will never get the chance to read this TFTD because they (for whatever reason) wont ever find themselves here. No money, no hope, no computer, no internet. Maybe even no home. God love them and protect them. He won't, but I can keep on asking. They probably need Baclofen the most, but like most things in this often shitty world, they are probably the least likely to get it. Unless something is done, they wont ever get to know that it is even there. And you can bet that no doctor is going to offer it to them

General practitioners / family doctors. Generally slow-minded, conservative, "I learned it all once, I don't see why I have to learn it all again" types. I've met hundreds. I do not intend to malign them all, but there are lots. Mine is one.

Politicians, who need to understand that the "toxic alcohol environment" that they have fostered will mean that this disease will ravage their populations for another hundred years if they don't act soon. It is just far too easy (and way way too cheap) to get pissed and to stay pissed. And far far too profitable for "them" to try to stop you. They now make strong liquor that looks and tastes, and is packaged, like a child's sweets. It's alcoholic pornography.

And finally, and I have left this group until last deliberately.

"Alcoholism Specialists". Dear God.

They sneak up on us under so many guises. Medics, super-qualified psychiatrists, psychologists, behaviour therapists, nurses, religious bods, charitable groups, temperance societies, private "retreats and centres", pedlars of herbal and other alternative 'therapies', cranks, the internet quack. Even other alcoholics. You name it, we attract them. Maybe I'm one of them in a not so convincing disguise!!

The point is that WE, and I absolutely genuinely mean WE, have to take control of as much of this as we can. Yesterday, a very wise woman from MWO e-mailed me with some stuff that was so correct, you would have thought that we had been sat down together for years, chewing this over.

After reading her very long e-mail, which so mirrored my own thoughts, this is what I think.

Most important of all is that YOUR salvation (and mine) from long term alcoholism requires a few elements all to work properly, and at the same time (synchronicity as Sting called it):-

Baclofen (or whatever better soon comes in its place, and it will) - first and foremost we need treatment. And Baclofen is genuine proper medical treatment. You can wait for the double-blind randomised-controlled trials if you want. I'd be pissed and dead in a ditch if I waited;

Support (in whatever form) - you would be amazed at what simple things that your lover can do for you that might be termed "Cognitive Behavioural Therapy". Get sober and find out! But we do need some behavioural support. Just find it and use it wherever you feel most comfortable. For me, it is at home. I'm not one for groups of strangers, but you might be different;

Good Nutrition - if you're going to do this, do it properly

Our immediate 'salvation' lies within ourselves and each other. I have asked before that we form a syncytium. MWO is that, I guess. And, I hope my site has great potential in this regard. They're certainly the best I have come across so far. Take as much as you can out of these forums and put back as much as you can. Think of them as a bank account of good. Try to stay in credit. At this festive time of year, just think of Bailey's Building & Loan in Bedford Falls. If you don't know what that means, shame on you! Clarence, take their names for future reference, and dispatch them to Pottersville!!!

We need a "proper" information site that we can interact with. I honestly believe that www.baclofen4alcoholism.com is as good as you will find anywhere. I am now being told regularly, that it is getting better all the time. And so it should, given the amount of time I spend on it!

We need to get the information to those who need it most, but who may never find it. There are three prongs of attack here. The media, the politicans, and the medical profession. This is very very time consuming, but a really good laugh if you like that kind of thing. It takes brave people to do something like this. I will be the very first over the top of the trenches. Please don't let me turn aound and find that I'm standing in No Man's Land on my own!! I need your help. Some of you will have really great experience and talents to make this possible.

And so, finally, back to Sharon Osbourne.

That video is there for the following reasons:-

To show me to you as a real person (clumsy English, but it does all that I ask)
That I do not need to remain anonymous like everybody else does (now that's not easy. Sorry, mum!)
To demonstrate that, within my own field, I did reach a certain level of prestige and notoriety
To demonstrate that I don't mind ruffling a few feathers and rattling a few cages along the way

What I have done for the gastric balloon and obesity surgery, I can do for Baclofen. I know that I look like a cabbage that has been not-so-strategically coiffeured and handed a suit, but if I'm let loose to do something mad, I usually manage to do it.

Just help me along the way. We will succeed. Why?

Because we are right.

To quote a long lost and much loved Irish comedian; known for his love of Irish Malt Whisky and lauded for his extraordinary generosity and charity:-

May your God go with you.
Amen to that

Pip
xx