When did I start to fall apart?

When I kept on taking psychedelic drugs, even though I hated most of my trips? When I carried on drinking until the bottom of the bottle arrived, with no accompanying revelation? When I had my first breakdown? Or when I chose to ignore it? When I developed chaotically fluctuating […]

Ala’imalo Lua Maynard
The message I got growing up as a Samoan boy was that violence was necessary to discipline and to get things done. I carried that message into future relationships which all seemed to end prematurely.   It took a while before I decided to seek help. Today my relationships with loved ones have improved and I?m now learning […]

Everybody has a breaking point when the pressure of worry or grief overwhelms you.

This has happened to me twice, the last time in my late 40’s when my alcoholic wife divorced me to get her share of our matrimonial assets. Over a period of a few months I lost my wife, our home and finally […]

The Saga of the Stone is a short story I wrote back in 1997 (although it’s been revised a bit over the years).

To me it’s a very personal story – because the events and people in it are real. It covers a series of events that happened to me when I was 20, which very […]

In numerous ways, I can’t help but feel that telling my story is a little premature. I can recognise the problems I’ve had and that I continue to have but too frequently still choose to take the path of least resistance and give in to negative, destructive thoughts and emotions rather than choose to fight […]