Florida Agenda

WILTON MANORS – An outpouring of responses met the announcement of the death of Paul Holland, longtime Wilton Manors business owner and reported victim of a death at his own hands last week. The death of Holland, who owned Wilton Drive clothing store Zoo Two, was confirmed on Wednesday, July 25. The reasons for Holland’s apparent suicide are unclear, although police records indicate that he was arrested on July 2 for Driving Under the Influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs for the second offense, leaving the scene of an accident involving damage to property, and other charges.

Holland’s friends mourned his passing online. In a post at guymag.net, Brian C. Connelly said of Holland, “you were always kind to me, thank you,” and noted “the effects of addiction, and the people it touches, the drama it causes, the alienation & isolation,” adding that “all this emotional stinking thinking dominates a person with above average intelligence, who can be kind, loving, generous and can contribute greatly to the community.”

Holland opened Zoo Two on Wilton Drive in 2001, selling a large selection of higher-end clothing apparel for men. Holland is survived by sisters Peggy Holland and Robin Holland Alourdas.

A Facebook post on the latter’s page is asking for donations to help transport Holland’s remains for burial in Baltimore.

HOLLYWOOD, FL – Florida Agenda News Writer Bob Kecskemety lost his long-time battle with bone cancer late last evening, dying peacefully at Hospice by the Sea in Hollywood. He had been a patient at the healthcare facility since May 25.

Kecskemety, 60, graduated from Fort Lauderdale High School, and briefly attended Broward Community College. He first became well known to the gay community through his entertaining column in Scoop Magazine in the 1990’s, titled “Shut Up and Focus,” published by former Agenda advertising executive Brad Casey.

A longtime Poinsettia Height resident and Cleveland, Ohio, native, Kecskemety was aware of his terminal condition, yet continued to write for the Agenda until the end of March. “Even when he was no longer able to write, he faithfully attended every editorial staff meeting,” Agenda publisher Bobby Blair said, “and he remained on our masthead. He was a consummate professional and friend, and all of us at the Agenda extend our condolences to his close friend and caregiver Tim Yatteau.”

In a New Year’s piece in the January 7 issue of Agenda, Kecskemety wrote, “Each year, I write a feature in the last issue of the year for whatever publication I have worked for, getting New Year’s resolutions from people in the community, and though I would have liked to have gotten many more for last week’s issue of the Agenda than I did, I was too weak to continue. One person, who I asked for his resolution a week ago, turned the tables on me and asked me what my New Year’s resolution was. I simply replied, ‘2013.’

While Bob Kecskemety died before reaching his goal, his written words will forever continue to voice his message of tolerance and acceptance for all.

Internationally renowned gay artist Steve Walker, who died from a reported heart attack in his home in Costa Rica on January 4 at the age of 50, will be eulogized at a funeral service this weekend in Canada. The service will take place on Saturday, February 25, at Our Lady of the Visitation Parish, 5338 Bank Street in South Gloucester, Ontario. Walker was an Ottawa native.

Walker’s paintings are immediately recognizable by both seasoned art lovers and novices alike, and some of them were completed in South Florida. The majority of his work depicts men interacting with each other or with nature. Fort Lauderdale Beach, including the famed Wave Wall, served as the setting for several of his pieces.

Art consumed much of Walker’s earliest childhood. Friends say that he started
drawing at the age of three or four. Self-taught, Walker began painting after
a trip to Europe when he was 25, where he spent much of that time touring
the great galleries and museums. It was the first time he was exposed to classic
work, and the recognized the potential power of the art form.

“As a homosexual, I have been moved, educated and inspired by works that
deal with a heterosexual context,” the outspoken artist once said. “Why would
I assume that a heterosexual would be incapable of appreciating work that
speaks to common themes in life, as seen through my eyes as a gay man? If the
heterosexual population is unable to do this, then the loss is theirs, not mine.”

While recognized worldwide for his universal themes, Walker’s work has
been exhibited in galleries in Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, Key West, Florida,
and Provincetown, Massachusetts as well as Fort Lauderdale where his work is
represented by Gallery XO. “Any minority wants and needs to find artistic voices
that reflect their own personal situations,” Walker said, “and, in doing so, validate
and record their lives and cultures for themselves and for the larger world.”

The universal themes he depicted were done without respect to race, gender,
socio-economic class, culture, or sexual orientation. However, his work is unique
because he conveys these themes through the subjects in his paintings: young
gay men. “Remove the gender of the painting’s subjects and what we have
is human relationships in general, and one’s relationship to the world itself,”
Walker explained.

The focus of his paintings often depicted sadness and loneliness, to reflect
the reality that much of life is sad and lonely. Walker often portrayed people in
relationships as separate entities; that is the way he viewed them. He also used
a small and consistent palette of colors with which he was comfortable and
which became associated with his signature style.

When news of Walker’s death reached art collectors, demand for his work
increased, according to Tommy LaFashia, the owner of Gallerie XO, who has
four Walker originals. Walker’s family, who initially wanted to keep news of the
artist’s death a secret, has placed an embargo on further sales of his work until
his estate is settled. Walker’s original pieces at Gallery XO are titled “Platano
y Pipa,” “Sculpture Series No. 1,” “Two Umbrellas,” and “Vintage Twilight.”

Walker is survived by his parents, Gloria and Gilbert Walker, his brother, Kevin,
and sister, Marjorie. Another brother, Bruce, predeceased him.

By Jarrett Terrill

“Little white boys in Indiana don’t sing Whitney Houston songs… They play kickball.” That is something I likely heard in the 3rd grade when one of my all time favorite celebrities landed on my radar with the insanely bubbly (and GAY) video for “How Will I Know.”  How would I know, indeed.

Over the years, Houston would fade in and out of the present tense until just this last Saturday night where she burst full throttle into the omni-present tense and onto the tip of everyone’s tongue.

It was heartbreaking to say the very least – soul crushing, in fact.

I won’t antagonize her during this long awaited and well-deserved restful sleep with my opinions about her personal decisions and recreational activities. Those are concepts for the living to struggle with.  What I will address is the enduring spirit, which has been released, phoenix-like, from the heavy bondage of public opinion and crass tabloid journalism.

Don’t expect Whitney Houston to  get the “Michael Jackson treatment” much longer in today’s media.  She’s  no mystery to most of us.  She’s  every woman.

Like most Americans, Whitney had financial problems. Related to those, she had family problems.  Beyond her struggles with independence from her parents and her feisty rebellious marriage to Bobby Brown was an uphill battle with addiction that would end in a kind of truce with Whitney waving a white flag.

None of these descriptors should have been shameful to the songstress who was admittedly a “Queen of the Night.”  Neither should they shame the countless other Americans who struggle with the exact same problems even in broad daylight.

Sadly, Whitney DID feel deep shame.  I could see it on her face.  I wanted to burst into Whitney’s living room and save her from the wrath of Diane Sawyer on that fateful December evening in 2002 when she was being interrogated, not interviewed.

Since that point, the very concept of a “celebrity interview” has changed.  Certainly, Houston herself never rebounded after Sawyer’s awkwardly aggressive profile.  Even in 2010, Caroline Sullivan wrote in the UK’s Guardian newspaper that the media, “[most] of whom were not even there,” were blindly trashing Houston’s UK tour as “the worst thing they’d ever seen.”

Celebrities are now easy prey for sensationalist reporters and counter-intuitively, our politicians are given the benefit of the doubt.  There was a time, during the George H.W. Bush Administration, where this would not have happened to Houston.  Whitney Houston brought our nation together with a performance of our National Anthem (during the Persian Gulf war). It likely still brings tears to the eyes of many who remember the performance itself, as well as to those who associate it with September 11th 2001–since it was re-released afterward and Houston donated 100% of her royalties to first responders, victims and their families.

Fast forward to a few wars later and Houston was once again used to rally everyone under a common cause: distraction.  Houston tried her best to roll with the punches and aside from drugs, she took solace in new clothes, new hair and new friendships. She and George Michael made a quirky yet classy video together, set in a dark nightclub. It wasn’t exactly the biggest hit but it was a fun little tongue-in-cheek track that marked the beginning of the new Whitney. The Whitney who let it all hang out.

Human Whitney.

The Whitney Houston who lay under water in the bathtub of her suite at the final hour before Grammy Night was the Whitney who would probably have been further humiliated and taunted by the press, her family, her husband and her own inability to be what everyone expected of her. Jennifer Hudson, who is now also far more familiar with pain and humanity than she would like to be, graciously gave this particular Whitney a befitting farewell at the Grammy’s with her own performance of “I will Always Love You.”

The other Whitney – the Whitney who laughs, fights, sings and knows how to have a good time is still with us.  This is the Whitney that gave Bobby Brown some semblance of sex appeal (he’s still not right but it’s ok).

She’s not perfect but she’s damn close –with the Billboard top selling single of all time, praise and accolades from other superstars across the spectrum (Dolly Parton, Smokey Robinson, Simon Cowell), at least a whole page of her own in every karaoke book from here to Tokyo, and near constant rotation with DJ’s throughout gay clubland.

I love the Whitney she left in our care. She’s messy and aggressive but she’s also inspiring and legendary.  She may have been an “unfit mother” in some people’s estimation – but she’s our child forever now. Let her laughter remind us of how we used to be.

Sony (Almost) Cashes in on Singer’s Death Party Doesn’t Stop for Whitney’s Colleagues

In what is being viewed as a major PR gaff and money grab, Sony Music has officially apologized for raising the price on two Whitney Houston albums during the first hour after the legendary singer’s death.  Calling the price hike “unintentional,” the label issued a statement saying, “Whitney Houston product was mistakenly mispriced on the U.K. iTunes store on Sunday. When discovered, the mistake was immediately corrected. We apologize for any offense caused.”

By coincidence—or maybe not– the two albums struck by the pricing mishap, Ultimate Collection and Greatest Hits, were Houston’s compilation discs, the two most likely to be purchased by nostalgic or mourning fans. Ultimate Collection jumped 60 percent above its regular list price (from $7.85 to $12.50), while the Greatest Hits album saw a 25 percent increase in its cost (from $12.50 to $15.67).

The record company was already under fire for “insensitivity” over the fact that its Chief Creative Officer, Clive Davis, went ahead with his planned pre-Grammy party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, site of Huston’s demise, mere hours after her death. Davis is expected to attend the singer’s funeral, to take place in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday at the New Hope Baptist Church, where the icon first performed as a child.

While Houston’s ex-husband, singer Bobby Brown, has been reportedly banned from attending the funeral, va roster of other celebrities are said to  be among the guest list of 1,500 who will attend. Among them: gospel singer Marvin Winans (who will give the  eulogy), Houston’s godmother  Aretha Franklin (who will perform), Houston’s cousin, singer Dionne Warwick, singer Chaka Khan, and  the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

LOS ANGELES, CA – The shock of learning the news of her mother’s sudden death proved too traumatic for Bobbi Kristina Brown, who was hospitalized last weekend at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. In a sad coincidence  to the death of her mother, entertainer Whitney Houston, the teenager was staying at the Beverly Hills Hilton, the same hotel in which Houston was found dead on Feb. 11.

Bobbi Kristina was in the hotel lobby when she learned of her mother’s death at  3:55 p.m. (PST). Police officers on the scene refused to allow the teenager into her mother’s suite, and, according to People magazine, Houston’s daughter had a “complete breakdown.” Bobbi Kristina was treated in the hospital for a stress-induced panic attack and later released.

Her father, singer Bobby Brown, issued a statement that read, in part, “My daughter did visit with doctors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She has been released and is presently with my family including her siblings. Obviously  the death of her mother is affecting her. However we will get through this tragedy as a family.”

Internationally- renowned gay artist Steve Walker passed away unexpectedly at his home in Costa Rica on Jan. 4. The news of Walker’s death was released in a written statement by his estate last weekend. No cause of death was included in the written statement by representatives of his estate in Canada.

The work of the artist, who was only 50 when he died, is immediately recognizable by both seasoned art lovers and novices alike, and some of them were painted in South Florida. Most of the Ottawa-native’s work depicts men interacting with each other or with nature. Fort Lauderdale Beach, including the famed Wave Wall, served as the setting for several of his pieces.

Art consumed much of Walker’s earliest childhood: friends say that he started drawing at the age of three or four. A self-taught artist, Walker began painting after a trip to Europe when he was 25. He spent much of that time in Europe touring the great galleries and museums. It was the first time he was exposed to great painting, and the first time he recognized the potential power of the art form.

“I was moved by something that I was capable of doing,” Walker would later recall. His first paintings were done in a somewhat secretive way, as he had no intention of exhibiting or selling them and had no aspirations to becoming a professional artist.

The universal themes he depicted were done without respect to race, gender, socio-economic class, culture, or sexual orientation. However, his work is unique because he conveys these themes through the subjects in his paintings: young gay men.

“Remove the gender of the painting’s subjects and what we have is human relationships in general, and one’s relationship to the world itself,” Walker explained.

The focus of his paintings often depicted sadness and loneliness, to reflect the reality that much of life is sad and lonely. Walker often portrayed people in relationships as separate entities; that is the way he viewed them. He also used a small and consistent palette of colors with which he was comfortable and which became associated with his signature style.

“We started carrying his originals about one-and-a-half years ago,” said Tommy LaFashia, the owner of Gallery XO and himself an artist. Gallery XO is the exclusive Broward County gallery for Walker’s original artwork.

“About four weeks ago, we got a call at about seven one morning from the person who handles Steve’s artwork, telling me that he passed away. He has a sister who is acting as executor and is taking care of the estate and creating a foundation in Steve’s name. They want to make sure they preserve Steve’s legacy and keep his artwork out there.”

LaFashia explained that the estate initially wanted to keep Walker’s death secret until arrangements could be made, and an inventory of his work taken.

“We have four original works at the gallery,” said LaFashia. “We were told by the estate they are not to be sold until [the estate] gets everything together and they can talk to all the galleries. The original artwork will be available at some point, but I’m not sure when that will be.”

Walker’s original pieces at Gallery XO are titled “Platano y Pipa,” “Sculpture Series No. 1,” “Two Umbrellas,” and “Vintage Twilight.”

LaFashia said that he expects the estate to raise the prices on Walker’s artwork, and that the original works will carry a premium price.

Walker is survived by his parents, Gloria and Gilbert Walker, his brother, Kevin, and sister, Marjorie.  Another brother, Bruce, predeceased him.

AJ Cross

I was asked to re-run my award winning column from August 2010 titled “Visiting Hours” by a reader who just lost his partner and was dealing with the partner’s family and possible loss of his home after 15 years because it was in his partner’s name. The Florida Agenda and I want to express our sincerest condolences for the loss of “Frank.” I hope this story helps.

1947 was such an important year for so  many people as Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play in major league baseball. For African-Americans, this news was so important because it placed all eyes on the great talent and ambition possessed by minorities in the United States.

It was a great year for John Clay Morris as well, but his achievement never made the headlines and his story or name was never known. It was the year that he fell in love. He fell in love with Anthony Walker, his long time business associate and his love was not unrequited. They could not allow anyone to know how they felt about one another, share public moments of affection, or declare a vow of lifelong commitment in front of friends or God.

On the contrary, they had to hide any signs of what they felt for one another. They had to speak to one another plainly and without emotion at work and both were constantly in fear that someone would read into their body language or even thoughts and everything they had would be ruined.

It was not a time where two men loving one another was understood or accepted. It was a time when such a love being exposed could bring an end to not only the relationship they had, but their very lives.

Many years had passed and they both successfully kept hidden their affections and would travel on so-called business trips to other cities and places where they could be with one another. They shared such happiness when they were alone with one another. Year after year, for over twenty-five years, they never strayed, nor opened their hearts or beds to any other person. They eventually found a small house on the outskirts of town where they felt no one would know and they began to collect photos of trips and memorabilia of things they did together. John started a collection of spoons from all of the places they had visited together and eventually the spoons covered an entire wall in their kitchen. John had never loved anyone more and Anthony made so many professional sacrifices to accommodate the needs of the relationship.

On September 18, 1972, after just getting home from work, John noticed Anthony sitting in his favorite chair with no lights on and he sat down next to him and asked what was wrong. His lover grabbed his hand and, with a few tears in his eyes, told him that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. It had developed for so long that there was little the doctors felt they could do for him and now it was just a matter of time. As months passed and Anthony became more ill, it became necessary to hospitalize him.

It was decided that his remaining days would be in the hospital and one night around 8 p.m., John arrived at the hospital to spend time with Anthony. The nurse at the front desk greeted him and when he told her that he was there to visit Anthony Morris, the nurse asked what his relationship to the patient was. It was then for the first time in over twenty five years that he had ever been asked that question and the only answer he could give was that he was his friend. The nurse apologized and told him that only family members or his spouse were allowed to visit. He paused for a moment and asked if an exception could be made, and the nurse told him that it was hospital policy. He barely made it to a waiting room chair and fell hard into the seat. How could he not be able to see his lover?

Not be able to hold his hand and comfort him.

John was devastated and he went home. A few days had passed and though they spoke on the phone, it was not enough and they missed one another desperately. On a cold morning in the early part of August, someone knocked on John’s door. When he opened the door, it was the local Sheriff. He informed John that Anthony’s sister became his executor and due to the mounting medical bills foreclosed on the mortgage to the house they had shared for so many years. You see the house was in Anthony’s name and as such John had no legal rights to the home or its contents.

The next day, Anthony’s sister arrived at the house with movers and for the first time John was confronted about his relationship with Anthony. She told him that she had known for years of what “they were” to one another. She told him that she couldn’t stop her brother from living the life he chose, but she would make sure that his memory would not be disgraced. Anthony had no choice but to watch as box after box of his belongings and memories were taken from the house. He cried as the spoons on the wall began to disappear and he simply looked at Anthony’s sister with tears in his eyes. He was not only going to lose the love of his life, but everything that they had together.

As the last box was being packed, she looked at him and said the last thing she would ever say to him. She told him that he could pick one spoon out and keep it, because she knew whatever her feelings were, he had made her brother happy. John died a few years later, never having said goodbye to Anthony. He was buried with the spoon.

Pittsburgh, PA – Walter C. Righter, a retired Episcopal bishop of Iowa who was absolved of heresy charges after ordaining a non-celibate gay man as a deacon in 1990, died Sunday at his home outside Pittsburgh after a long illness. He was 87.

In 1990, Righter ordained Barry Stopfel, whom he knew to be gay, as a deacon, a rank below that of priest. The next year Stopfel was ordained as a priest.

Church conservatives focused their outrage on Righter but did not file formal charges against him until 1995, when a five-year statute of limitations was set to expire. He was tried in 1996 by a panel of eight bishops, who, in voting 7 to 1 to dismiss the heresy charges, ruled that there was no church doctrine forbidding the ordination of gays and lesbians who are in a committed relationship.

In 1997, the church’s triennial General Convention issued an unusual apology to lesbians and gay men for “years of rejection and maltreatment by the church.” Although the church continues to struggle with issues involving the full inclusion of homosexuals, it ordained its first openly gay bishop — New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson — in 2003.

In a statement Monday on Righter’s death, Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said: “His ministry will be remembered for his pastoral heart and his steadfast willingness to help the church move beyond old prejudices into new possibilities.”

Righter wrote in his memoir that in ordaining a gay deacon he was not trying to make a revolutionary statement. “I was, instead, agreeing to ordain a person who had met all the tests every other person is expected to meet before ordination. In a sense, it was more than time for this ordination to occur, honestly and publicly.”

In addition to his wife, Righter is survived a brother, four children and four grandchildren.

By Alex Vaughn

A Rhode Island woman who pleaded with state lawmakers to legalize gay marriage before she succumbed to cancer has died.

Marriage Equality Rhode Island says Johnston resident Patricia Baker died Sunday at Kent Hospital. She was 55.

Baker was struggling with the final stages of lung cancer when she testified on behalf of gay marriage legislation this year at the Statehouse. Occasionally using her oxygen tank to breathe, the retired corrections officer told lawmakers she was angry that her wife would receive no benefits from the government after her death.

Baker and Deborah Tevyaw (TEV’-yah) married in Massachusetts, but wanted their relationship recognized in their home state.

Baker’s testimony made her a spokeswoman for gay marriage advocates in the Ocean State.

As the gay-rights debate intensified nationwide, Pat Baker emerged as a face of the strife on the local front.

Battling terminal lung cancer, Baker spent sleepless nights urging lawmakers to repeal a law that forbids the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages.

Twice, the longtime corrections officer at the Adult Correctional Institutions dragged herself, oxygen tank in tow, to the State House in March to testify for equal rights for gays and lesbians.

“I worked for those benefits,” Baker said then. “ And when I say worked, I worked hard.

You name it, it’s happened. I’ve found inmates hanging; I’ve found inmates dead from suicide. I’ve been traumatized mentally and physically, only to get to this point in my life when I’m terminally ill … and I find out my wife is being begrudged $1,861 a month.”

“This kind of bigotry has to be rectified,” Baker said in an interview at her home, vowing to fight until her last breath.

Baker, is survived by her wife of six years, Deborah Tevyaw, whom she married in Massachusetts; two brothers, Richard Baker and Frederick Divers; a sister, Deborah Baker; and her beloved dog, Hooch.

“She had the biggest heart in the world,” Tevyaw, who met Baker about nine years ago through mutual friends, said Monday. The two married in Provincetown on Aug. 4, 2005, and had planned to renew their vows there this month, but called off the plans as Baker was hospitalized.

“I’m so devastated and so heartbroken,” Tevyaw said, her voice breaking. “I lost my best friend, my partner, my confidant and my wife, and she died without her wish.”

Tevyaw vowed to “fight for the dream that Pat worked so hard” for — her promise to her wife.

“I know it’s a long, hard road, but I don’t think anybody should tell anybody [else] who they should love,” Tevyaw said. “I don’t know what’s ahead of me, but I’m willing to fight it.”

Marriage Equality Rhode Island, a group that works for same-sex marriage, issued a statement mourning Baker’s death.

“Rhode Island has lost a great champion for civil rights, and we have all lost a dear friend,” said Martha Holt, Marriage Equality Rhode Island Board chairwoman. “Pat Baker personified courage and demonstrated remarkable strength in her lifetime. Her gentle, determined voice became synonymous with the equality movement, and she demonstrated to all that love truly does make a family.”

ALEX VAUGHN

This past Saturday, I was told the sad news that Amy Winehouse had been found dead in her London home.

I had the pleasure of meeting Amy a few times and she was very charming and very fun. I was so saddened to hear news of her passing and every report I read, including mine, mentioned her troubled life with addiction.

Sadly, that almost eclipsed a unique and heart wrenching vocal style and writing prowess that was striking in contrast to the pop factory styles that are being produced.

Other reports cited that, at 27, she was the same age as Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin when they left us.

One has to wonder what pushes the talented to self-destructive lives. They have fame, money and get to go to work to do what they love.

Heath Ledger and Brittany Murphy, two other young people whom we lost too early. Michael Jackson, Elvis and Marilyn, too, all gone before their time.

Now, though Amy’s passing is at the time I’m writing this still unexplained, just the mention of her past provides light on a troubled soul.

Yet worryingly we don’t have to look to the rich and famous to see addiction and its disastrous consequences.

No, meth, heroin, rock, pot, coke, “e” and all manner of other ‘legal’ substances, such as a oxycodone, oxycontin and vicodin, are part of a large sector of the communities lives in our back yard. Miami, Tampa, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando … it doesn’t matter, there is a serious issue of addiction to drugs.

We see them in bars and clubs and even just walking down the Drive. They are sketchy – they look ill and like they haven’t slept for 2 days, which is highly likely. Times have changed, drugs of choice have shifted but the disastrous effects haven’t.

I wrote an opinion my second week at the paper and found that the LGBT community was more prone to addiction due to both their lack of self esteem and because they tended to be alone, and often aligned themselves with similar people.

I have unquestionably met people here who are under the influence of something other than a tini or two. I, too, have stood back watched, judged or, as is the London way, ignored.

Yet I have to reprimand myself … really? Knowing that someone two years younger than I has passed and the ‘assumption’ of how made me think, and I hope you too, if you know someone who is abusing any substance, it won’t make you popular, but get involved. You can help them and, at the risk of sounding preachy, you should.

As a community, we need to stick together. Party people may not think it will happen to them, but there are so many variables when doing drugs that many don’t know: quality, dose, what it’s cut with, adverse reactions, etc., and yet people blindly go aheadnot realizing the potentially fatal consequences.

Just think about it: In so many cases, people who OD have been doing drugs previously – often for many years – all it takes is one bad trip, one mistake and that’s it.

Not to mention, like alcohol – or even antibiotics – your body adjusts and the effects lessen, so one needs more and more; and, as we have all seen and read, that one more could likely spell the end of a talent, a star … A human being who didn’t need to be taken, all for one more hit, that ended being their last.

Drugs maybe fun; they may enhance sexual gratification, etc., but is that worth your life? If not for you, what about your friends, family, people who care, is it really worth it?

We have seen people letting drugs take over their lives, missing work, appointments and, unfortunately, the immediate reaction is the judgement ‘well what do you expect of a meth head?’ This is wrong – particularly when it comes from those who have been strong and wise enough to beat addiction. These people in many ways, more so than those of us who haven’t been affected by addiction need to stand up. Sadly, the reality is that you must work every day to keep away from drugs. Rehab is the best course of action, as the person can receive treatment across the board to help them change their mindset. If you are a recovering addict, don’t judge or be harsh to people you know. Remember, you were there once and, hopefully, someone reached out to you. Now is the time to pay it forward.

Sure they are in charge of their own lives, but as their friends, colleagues and even acquaintances, we need to reach out. Even a recreational user is in danger; you don’t have to be a tragic addict to die.

If you or anyone you know is affected by drugs there are a wealth of resources available to help you:
• Narcotics Anonymous, www.na.org, this comprehensive site enables you to find local NA meetings
• www.soberrecovery.com offers a range of recovery resources
• The Pride Institute of Fort Lauderdale Hospital offers a range addiction services. www.fortlauderdalehospital.org
• Lambda South, Fort Lauderdale Provides a meeting place primarily for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders in recovery from a number of different addictions, www.lambdasouth.org
• The Pride Center offers a range of services for people in recovery, www.glccsf.org