On this day in 2011 Betty Ford, First Lady to US President Gerald Ford died. During her husband’s terms of office, she was a well-liked and outspoken figure on subjects such as the feminist movement, human rights and civil rights Perhaps what she will be remembered for most is the establishment of the Betty Ford Centre for Addiction Recovery, following her admission and successful treatment for alcoholism and substance abuse in 1978. Betty Ford did much to alleviate the stigma of addiction by talking openly about her experiences in a sensible, no nonsense manner. Today’s poem is by Parisian Charles Baudelaire, a man familiar to the bottle, Be Drunk:

Nothing else matters:
That is the only matter.
If you would not feel
Time’s horrible burden
Weighing on your s...

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