If love was enough

If love was enough

By Rose Barbour

My mother wasn’t June Cleaver

She wasn’t meant to be

My childhood wasn’t perfect

But I knew she loved me.

Her laughter would light up a room

She was understanding and kind

She had a beautiful heart of gold

With a serious illness intertwined.

There were times she fought so hard

To keep her sickness at bay

At other times she buckled

And struggled to find her way.

If love was enough to save her

She’d be here with us today

Instead we’ve said good-bye

Because addiction doesn’t work that way.

She loved us and we loved her

But her battle has been lost

Like so many others before her

She paid the highest cost.

A beautiful soul with a loving heart

Has now been laid to rest

With aching hearts we will miss her

Cause our mom was the best.

Written with love for a dear family friend who lost her mother way too soon.

Can’t keep a passionate woman down

Dear friends,

I am really enjoying my retirement from addiction advocacy work. You never know how time-consuming something is until you stop doing it! It was an amazing five years, though, and I have no regrets. I learned a lot about something (addiction) that I knew nothing about, and I met some really great people along the way, many of whom will be lifelong friends, I’m sure!

I’m filling up my time enjoying the simple life. I’ve discovered a passion for baking. I love trying new recipes and seeing how they turn out. I also enjoy making double batches so that I can share with others.  It feels good to spread some love through baking.

My 4-year-old granddaughter loves our baking time. She gets to pick what we bake when she comes over for her sleepovers. One of her favourite things is cupcakes because she gets to pick what colour icing we’ll have. I always let her pick three different colours. One day, she chose pink, green and purple.  I told her that I'd never made purple icing before but that we would give it a try. I explained how we would have to mix blue and red to get purple and then hope that it turns out for us. She stirred the icing with great anticipation as it turned different shades and then eventually purple. She said, "Nanny, it worked! We're geniuses!"  This is just one of the many memories created during my first month of retirement. Life is good!

While I am retired from addictions advocacy, I did take the opportunity to do a couple of things that I felt were important to the cause. As my beautiful friend, Roni Power, says, “You can’t keep a passionate woman down.” She is right so I will continue to contribute to the conversation from time to time.

First, I was interviewed by Aaron Sankin with The Daily Dot who was doing a story on the addiction research that University of Prince Edward Island is conducting on the program CBT4CBT. Anyone who has ever followed my work knows that I am always advocating for as many treatment and recovery options to be available as possible. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. This was a great opportunity to help spread the word about a promising new option. The online program that may revolutionize addiction treatment.    

I also wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian about the legalization of marijuana because there are a lot of myths out there that keep getting spread around. I wanted to make sure that people who haven’t done the research on it themselves had an opportunity to hear from a few reputable organizations that are in favour of legalization and why. Please take the time to get informed before supporting any initiative that wants to keep things as they are. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.  Legalization of Marijuana: Good Drug Policy . Here is CAMH’s “Cannabis Policy Framework” that I mentioned in the letter. 

 Thank you for visiting.

Sincerely,

Rose