|
Hello,
I have been privileged to be one who has had the opportunity to listen to your SHARE CD, and I can't tell you how much I enjoyed listening to the songs. I am a child of alcoholics, who went through hell growing up, and I decided a long time ago because of what I went through I would not drink. I thought that would be enough so that my children would not drink or use drugs. Unfortunately my youngest son began using marijuana when he was about 14. He also began drinking, and by the age of 19, he already had liver damage. Because both are depressants, he became severely depressed, so the doctor put him on medication. Unbeknownst to me, when you ingest marijuana and you take prescription drugs, the marijuana just sucks up the effects of the medication, and the combination is lethal.
On February 6th or 7th, we don't know which, 2001, my son took a shotgun and shot himself under the chin. We don't know the day he died, but he was found on the 7th. They would not let me see him, hold him, touch him, they would not let me say good-bye, so to me he is just gone. My son had everything going for him - was highly intelligent, and in fact was reading "War and Peace" when he died. To get through this, I have been speaking all over even as far as North Carolina and I am from Wisconsin and telling Adam's story. A powerful story, I talk about his struggle with the drugs and alcohol which led to his suicide. I am asked over and over to tell the story, and you would not believe how it affects people. But at the end of the presentation, I play a song, T. Graham Browne's "WINE INTO WATER". I tell the audience how I found the song, as I have only heard it on the radio once, and it was long after I heard it the first time. You see, I was on my hands and knees washing the floors, and I always watch Good Morning America, and after that came "Regis and Kathie Lee". Now I never really liked Kathie Lee, but I was too engrossed in my cleaning to get off the floor, so when the show came on, T. Graham Browne came on and told his story of how he was a really bad alcoholic and his wife said that he needed to quit drinking - that they had a son, so he wrote the song, and it is a prayer to God, that You have already turned the water into wine, but he needed help to turn the wine into water. I bet I have given the presentation probably 60 times since Adam died, and every time I play that song, people come up to me and ask me the name of it and how they can get it. Please let Mr. Browne know what his song is doing for others. I am a probation and parole agent for the State of Wisconsin, and many of the places I go into are the prisons, (I also do it for schools, churches,AODA programs, hospitals, and just anywhere people ask me to go), but especially my presentation is a powerful wake up call to the prisoners, You should see the responses I get - I have stacks and stacks of letters and cards in appreciation. Adam's picture is on the unit of an AODA program and it is in a display case, and the caption is "Alcohol and Drugs Took This Young Man's Life At the Age of 24". They don't know who he is, and then when I come in and tell his story, they can put it all together. I tell them I wouldn't have a job, and we wouldn't have prisons if there were no drugs and alcohol. I tell them I work with very nice people who have done stupid or awful things because of alcohol and drugs. I have a 4 and a half minute video of still pictures of Adam set to the song John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy". Recently there was a man who was in the program who just couldn't get me or Adam out of his mind for the three and a half months that he was there and he said he just HAD to do this - he sketched the picture of Adam in the Unit in pencil. It is just awesome!!!!! I am trying to turn a negative into a positive by doing what I do, and I am so glad that Mr. Browne wrote such a powerful song, because it surely enhances my presentation. If it is OK, I would like to pick another song to play off of your CD and then maybe that will get people interested in buying it. The song "When the Bartender Cries" is really something. You really selected some wonderful songs to get the point across, there is so much emotion in all of them.
|
