Tomorrow I will be admitted into Castle Craig Rehab Clinic as an addict. For ten days I will join a community of alcoholics, drug addicts, therapists and medics – and be asked to open up about the psychological issues that caused my addiction. My mobile, laptop and Kindle will be taken away from me and I will be expected to stay on the campus 24/7. (more…)
Tag: Castle Craig rehab clinic
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My Pulitzer Prize
I published an article on Huffington Post on January 1st 2014 called Thank You Romania and it went viral. Over 11,000 people liked it on Facebook and everyone I met in Romania seemed to have seen it. Apparently it was just what was needed in Romania – a positive article to balance all the scaremongering by the British tabloids about the „Romanian immigrant invasion’. By now, almost two months later, everyone knows that story is a joke but for Romanians a bitter taste remains; it’s hard for them to accept that they’re disliked – even hated – in the UK.
When Formula AS, a leading Romanian weekly newspaper, asked me to do an interview based on my brief analysis of the British tabloids in my Thank You Romania, I jumped at the chance. (more…)
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Very Simple & Incredibly Complicated
We recently celebrated the launch of Castle Craig’s new Romanian website by having dinner at a fish restaurant in Bucharest called Happy Fish. I had the dorada. (more…)
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Alcoholics Anonymous: The Greatest Event of the Twentieth Century
Although I have never been a member of an Alcoholics Anonymous group, I have participated in a few “open meetings” (where non-members can attend) and each one has been inspiring in its own way. The best one was held in a park in Cluj — the meeting room was closed — where six of us sat on old tin cans and bits of wood and shared our stories from that week. There was a great feeling of camaraderie (or community) among them. (more…)
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Should Cannabis be Legalised?
In case you missed this article in Huffington Post, where it caused a storm of negative comments (127 at the last count), I am also publishing it here. I would be REALLY interested to know what your views are — please leave a comment below. The article was also published on the Hotnews blog called Contributors, where a lot of comments were also written, but these comments are more interesting and individualistic than the ones on HuffPost, presumably because there’s no pro-cannabis lobby in Romania telling people how to react to articles they don’t like.
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What’s a “Legal High”?
If you are not sure what a “legal high” is just click on this link and see what the Shiva Head Shop in Greenwich has to offer. You can order over the internet — in perfect legality — Snow Blow, Jungle High Energy Pills (“will bring out your wild side”), Party Pills, Happy Caps (“will have you grinning from ear to ear”) and Kratom which is a “highly potent stimulant” that they claim is “not for human consumption.” (more…)
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Gambling Kills
Since I’ve been blogging on the Huffington Post I’ve written about cannabis, alcohol and sex. This is what I would like to say about gambling… (more…)