Month: August 2023

Scenes from our AT&SF Steam Locomotive Field Trip – Albuquerque, New Mexico, August 26, 2023.

Stand Up To Stigma had a rippin’ cool time at Tractor Brewery and the AT&SF 2926 event. Later this year the 2926 will be at the Albuquerque Trainyards for a full weekend of events. Yes, we’ll be going to that event, too!

AT&SF Steam Locomotive Event -Albuquerque, New Mexico – Saturday, August 26, 2023

It’s time for another field trip! Do you like trains? This Saturday we’ll be meeting at Tractor Brewery on 4th Street in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to view AT&SF Locomotive 2926 in action!

New Mexico Heritage Rail is having their second outing for the fully restored historic locomotive. STS peers met at the first 2926 event last spring and we had such a stellar experience we’ll be there again!

What:
AT&SF Locomotive 2926 Event

When:

12PM Saturday, August 26, 2023

Where:

Tractor Brewery
1800 4th St NW
Albuquerque, NM 87102
@ 4th & Hannett
We’ll meet at the tour ticket booth (you aren’t required to purchase a tour) at noon. Parking is curbside on 4th St. and adjoining city streets. 4th St. is closed at the train tracks for the event.

For more information:
Text – 505.310.5070
Email – info@standuptostigma.org or sutstigma@gmail.com

What was funny then is cringe-worthy now thanks to growth, evolution, and wisdom.

Do people change over the course of a decade or more? Let’s explore this with a joke I wrote about recently deceased musician Amy Winehouse in 2011.

When this joke was posted to Facebook in 2011 I laughed myself silly at how clever a comic I was. At the time that iteration of myself had limited experience with co-occuring peers, as in no experience with co-occuring peers at all. I read the post now in 2023 and I cringe reflexively and morally scold myself.

It’s never too soon for a joke and someone being offended by my joke isn’t a mitigating control. What makes this cringe-worthy now is I’ve had many co-occuring friends in my life since 2011, many peers at odds with addiction and mental illness. Five years of presenting Laugh It Off to peers inpatient at Turquoise Lodge Hospital gifted me insight into what it’s like living with addiction, and, yes, while it’s excellent to laugh at the horrible experiences of being a peer (the crux of Laugh It Off, that laughing at the horrible stuff takes back the power the horrible stuff holds over us), it’s simply never acceptable to take joy in a peer losing their life to their addiction.

So I’m morally scolding myself through the lens presentism. This isn’t the same as apologizing for the Amy Winehouse joke because the notion “I should’ve known better back in 2011” holds no weight or relevance. It’s like Disney firing James Gunn (writer and director of Guardians of the Galaxy) for a rape joke he made on Twitter over a decade before. Because he should’ve known better as a younger version of himself that joke would be cringe-inducing a decade later. And he should’ve known he’d be working for Disney. And maybe this isn’t the best example because Disney had to eat racist Dumbo crow and hire Gunn back to do Guardians 3 under threat of boycott by the principle cast. And now Gunn is the head of the DC Cinematic Universe. So he came out great with opportunities never presented had Disney not fired him over a flippant decade old post.

Okay, backtracking out of the rabbit hole, the point to laser in on is people’s attitudes and beliefs evolve over their lifetime, and this is borne of life experiences reshaping bits and pieces of their worldview. And often upon retrospection – in my case here because Facebook Memories remember forever and every year remind me of this – I’ll revisit a prior version of myself and think, “Dude, it’s sure a good thing I don’t think like that anymore, and thank every star above I’ve grown as a person.”

In 2011, a celebrity succumbing to substance addiction didn’t register in any real way. It was an abstract to riff upon as something jokey and fun. Twelve years later in 2023, I’ve witnessed too many friends and their lives impacted by addiction to ever find mirth in their pain. Growth and evolution of attitudes and beliefs is the core of the human experience. Poking fun at addiction isn’t acceptable joke fodder for me any longer, because my life experiences over twelve years are now wisdom unavailable when Amy Winehouse lost her life to her addiction.

Proof positive: The majority of Hunter Biden memes fall flat with me. Good on you, Steve. Here’s a self-earned self-administered pat on the back. Keep up the good work and I’ll see you in twelve years for the next round of “Dude, wh

The COVID-19 lockdown and our children

This post is from August 2021. American history and the fallout for our kids is now manifesting. Over the coming year we’ll have parents sharing their – often heartbreaking – stories of how the COVID-19 lockdown detrimentally affected their children’s mental health. For now, let’s just say it’s good fortune we have as many child therapy providers as we do.


To a five year old child, 1.5 years of forced lockdown is 30% of their life to that point. Extrapolating:

30% of a 10 year old child’s life is 3 years.

30% of a 15 year old teenager’s life is 4.5 years.

30% of a 20 year old adult’s life is 6 years.

30% of a 30 year old adult’s life is 9 years.

30% of a 40 year old adult’s life is 12 years.

30% of a 50 year old adult’s life is 15 years.

30% of a 60 year old adult’s life is 18 years.

30% of a 70 year old adult’s life is 21 years.

30% of an 80 year old adult’s life is 24 years.

Remember how summer vacation seemed to last forever when we were kids? It’s because as kids three months of our lives was a very large percentage of our living experience. Recognize this when in a few years we have the result of socially crippled kids needing tons of psych services for missing out on 30% of their social lives because of forced lockdowns.

And consider how we would turn out if we – as adults – were forced to stay at home for a decade or more. How socially crippled would we adults be after one decade of forced lockdown?

STAND UP TO STIGMA: Mental Health Support Groups & Community Education