I also in recent years wrote a track called “While You’re Dreaming” which was written as a result of a conversation I had with a friend of mine’s teenage daughter who a few years later took her own life as a compounding result of bullying and depression. She told me that the only time she is actually happy is when she is asleep, words that still carry serious weight for me after quite a few years.

The painful truth is we all are affected either directly or indirectly by the devastating hand of suicide. Its reach is inescapable in modern society and it seems we all have a painful story to tell of loss and avoidable deaths.
We all fully understand what it is but to be fair we know very little about it as I feel Irish people are programmed to personally censor such social minefields as we find it easier to pretend is does not exist rather than educate ourselves on how we can tackle the problem.
I feel with the weakening foundations of the social stigma wall regarding mental health in this country now is the time to start focusing on how we can help people dealing with suicidal tendencies rather than isolating the people dealing with them.

Recently I met with an incredible man who contacted me after my blog outlining that I myself struggled with mental health issues for many years. One of the core reasonings behind my blog was to bring people together and show that it can affect anyone and more importantly you are certainly not alone.
Jim Breen sat opposite me in The Raddisson Hotel and I could not help being hypnotized with his presence, charisma and passion for helping anyone struggling with such issues as suicide or mental health.
He spoke with education and humanity about the topic making it clearly evident to me that he himself had experienced mental health issues too.
We originally pencilled in a half hour meeting but ended up sitting there and talking for almost two hours as when you meet someone you can relate to on this level you take advantage of it.

Jim is the epicenter and main driver of the charity movement “Cycle Against Suicide” in which I am privileged to be apart of.
Let me explain and summarize the fundamental messages and goals attached to this charity.

Firstly, what is the Cycle Against Suicide?
It’s over 1200 cyclists, cycling over 100 km a day around Ireland for 14 days which means 3,000 days between them all covering over 300,000 km all done shoulder to shoulder to “Break the cycle of suicide In Ireland”.
This will entail 28 schools and colleges where both myself and other charity leaders will give a presentation on how we believe we can help break the cycle of suicide in this country, 1200 home stays, boot camps around Ireland and last but not least a few parties (if we can still stand up after 1400 km of cycling).

Secondly, why is the cycle happening and how can it make an impact?
- connection between physical health and mental health
- awareness building of supports that are available locally and nationally
- creating more cohesion between the various mental health organizations
- born from the massive response Jim’s “Secret Millionaire” programmed received
- getting people, especially men, talking about mental health on a normalized way. “It’s ok not to feel ok and absolutely ok to ask for help”
- communities need to feel more empowered to deal with the problem and find solutions

I will be joining the team on as many legs as my schedule allows and also speaking in schools and colleges on the way to do my bit for this amazing cause which I am personally so attached to.
Ask yourself, what you guys can do?
It would be great if you could all share this blog with as many people as you can to help spread the word. Re-tweet, share, send, whatever it takes because I can guarantee you one thing, there will be someone who takes comfort in the fact that there are people who care and more importantly that “It’s ok not to feel ok”
If this cycle manages to reach as many people as possible it will save lives. That’s not an idealistic romantic vision but reality. We can all contribute and I hope I see you all out supporting the cycle in your local area over the next 14 days.
Take care

www.cycleagainstsuicide.com
www.facebook.com/CycleAgainstSuicide

Scheduled for Sunday July 28th at 12pm on Dun Laoghaire’s west pier in County Dublin, the Rainbow Run is the first of its kind in Ireland, a unique 5k run that involves people of all ages and abilities being doused from head to toe with coloured powder paint, as they run, jog, or walk the beautiful 5km seaside route.

The Rainbow Run is entirely focused on fun, so there is no competitive atmosphere, no recorded times, and no age restrictions. All that matters is that participants enjoy themselves and finish covered in loads of colour!

Whether an Olympic athlete, or someone entering a run for the first time in their life, the real winners will be the people who have the most fun!

There is a free concert by ‘80s Supergroup, Spring Break, at the race finishing line, as well as other family entertainment, and a major multi-­‐coloured powder shower to negotiate in the finish area!
Online registration for Dublin’s Rainbow Run is now open at www.rainbowrun.ie. Rainbow Runners will receive a sachet of powder colour and their race bib on the day. The powder used is a non-­‐toxic, natural corn-­‐starch based product that doesn’t stain hair or cause injury, and does wash off clothing, eventually!
Advance registration for this unique family event costs from €14.99 for children and €24.99 for adults. Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult, while those under the age of 7 participate for free.
A percentage of profits will go to LARCC, the Lakelands Area Retreat and Cancer Care Centre in Multyfarnham, County Westmeath. Nominated by Bressie as this year’s Rainbow Run charity, LARCC offers psychological and emotional support to people living with cancer, with services including counselling, complementary therapies, nurse support, and a telephone helpline.
Start the race dressed in as much white as possible, is the advice from the Rainbow Run organisers! “At intervals along the route you will be bombarded with different colours, until you cross the finish line to a further riot of colour in the powder shower” says Dave Foran.
The Rainbow Run is being organised by events manager Dave Foran and Rob Smyth, a personal trainer and owner of Lets Train, Dublin. Detail is available on www.rainbowrun.ie.

But last Christmas was different, I had been putting off hand surgery on an old rugby injury for years, but decided enough was enough and I went into the Bon Secours Hospital in Galway to finally sort out my gimpy fingers (I miss ye guys).
I went in on the 22nd December knowing my Christmas would be spent recuperating and pretty dosed up on pain killers and other medication, but I was prepared for it and figured it was as good a time a year as any to get it sorted.
What I didn’t expect was a grade 1 chest infection and flu, talk about getting a full throttle kick in the balls! This dose left me in bed for 8 days solid where my only comfort was to rewatch the entire Sopranos box set and lived on dry toast and Lemsip.

As you can imagine being bedbound for over a week left me with a lot of time to think.
Usually we leave all the thoughts about new goals and targets until NYE, but lavish having Christmas as a blow-out beforehand, aversion therapy always works well to motivate humans. I had, as I previously versed in other blogs been suffering from anxiety for a number of years and had worked through various different treatments in order to deal the the issue, most of which did not really help. While lying in bed I decided I was going to train and enter a triathlon in 2013 as something I wanted to achieve outside my career goals and also something that physically challenged me as in recent years I felt this was the part of my life I was missing. That mind over body ability to take on something I would never dream of doing and achieving it . Perhaps it was my fever talking, but either way in my head I was going to make it happen!

Since I made the decision I became very aware of the positive and optimistic attitude that there is in Ireland’s attitude towards physical activity and keeping fit. There is an abundance of information at our fingertips about the benefits of physical activity, but also as importantly the risks that lack of phyiscal activity can have on our bodies as well as mental well being.There are more and more publications and television segments aimed at getting people active and even more information on nutrition (however sometimes this is abused and counter productive ex diet fads).

We as a country often gets tarred with the “they are a great shower of people on the piss”, but nowadays there is so many amazing fitness events being organized for people of all fitness standards around the country, I’m so impressed that we are now exchanging pint glasses for runners and seeing the benefits.
This is fantastic, we will always be that culture that loves a good time a few beers and nights out and there is nothing wrong with that, in fact it should be encouraged, but what also should be encouraged is the balance of looking after your body while enjoying yourself as well. Getting the right balance is easier than you may think it just requires a little bit of will power and drive.

For the last 14 weeks I have been in training for a triathlon which consists of a 2 km swim, 40 km cycle and 10 km run. Up until Jan of this year I was not a swimmer. I could paddle and slap my way around a pool, but certainly in no shape to compete in the sea as part of a triathlon. The last time I used a bike it had stabilizers and mickey mouse sticker on it and running was something I only did if something or someone was chasing me. I have to admit that I am the kind of person that if I commit to something I try everything within my power and ability to do it properly, so I sat down with an array of amazing coaches and athletes to ask them what it was I had to do in order to get into a position where I could (1) finish a triathlon and (2) compete in a triathlon; their advice and knowledge both scared the shite out of me and impressed me massively. If I was to do this I was going to have to sacrifice a large amount of time, effort and dedication towards the regime. The science of it was slightly lost on me, but I was advised to do it for a cause that meant something to me in order to focus and motivate my training. That decision was the easy bit, as I’m the ambassador to LARRC, a charity of which my mother is a director. LARRC is a holistic cancer treatment centre outside Mullingar that deserves all of the potential awareness I could create for it by competing in triathlons in its name.

After sitting down with all these coaches my respect and admiration for professional athletes in this country and around the world whether they were swimmers, sprinters, cyclists etc…Exploded.
“How do these swimmers get up at 5am every morning and train for 2 hours then go to the gym then swim again?” I asked my swim coach as I tried to catch my breath after just 50 m.
“How the hell to these cyclists endure 200 km cycles daily over mountains and in insane conditions” I screamed at my cycling coach as I tried to pull my arse up the Sally Gap in Wicklow.
Through these experiences I started learning an insane amount of respect for Irish professional athletes. Let me tell you why.

I was lucky enough to live in London during the spectacular Olympic games and even luckier to attend some of the events. I spoke to some of the Olympians and even some of the gold medal winners, I asked them about their regimes and training plans and was blown away by the investment and funding they received in order to train at the level they had to in order to win a gold medal in an Olympic games.

I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about sports funding in this country and I am very much open to information on how it works, but one thing that seems evident is a lot of our elite athletes are not receiving the same type of funding as their counterparts around the world.
From where I am standing they are not on a level playing field.
I am absolutely aware that we are in a deep recession and departmental budgets are extremely limited and tight, but I can’t help thinking we tend to spend quite a large amount of money on tribunals and Seanad committees, to my mind these seem like a massive drain on taxes.
I would love to know the relative amount of money the British Sports Council put into their athletes compared to here in Ireland. I know the elite boxing guys In Ireland are being funded very well and this is evident in their achievements, but how about the swimmers, the track athletes etc…

The reason I believe this is important is not just because we are a patriotic country and we want to be able to cheer our athletes in the Olympics. It’s because we are at a new era of health and fitness shining through in modern Irish culture and with this spotlight shining brightly on keeping active we should have heroes for our kids and teenagers, they need to be inspired by Irish athletes winning gold medals. A case in point would be the huge participation in rugby that ignited in Ireland when our provinces and country started winning European cups and Grand slams.

As I mentioned above. I am not fully versed on the Irish Sports Council’s mechanics and I know they work under severe budget restrictions. I would love to know more about how their cogs turn as sport has, and always will be, a monumental part of my life.
I think the Irish mentally is built for competition. It would be great to see our athletes given the same support other nations receive (I suppose this is slightly idealistic). In order to train at an elite level, athletes must have the best of nutrition, sports science , facilities etc… and even from my amateur status as an athlete I can tell you that this requires a lot of funding.

Sport needs heroes to create more heroes in the future.

Where: Xtra Vision, Parkway Shopping Centre, Limerick
When: Thursday 18th April
Time: 5pm – 6pm

**NO WRISTBAND REQUIRED**

Address:
Xtra Vision,
Parkway Shopping Centre,
Dublin Road,
Limerick,
Co Limerick.

NOT TO BE MISSED!!

Wed 8 May
LETTERKENNY, An Grianan – GAVIN JAMES

Thu 9 May
GALWAY, Radisson Hotel – CRY MONSTER CRY

Fri 10 May
NAVAN, The Palace – CRY MONSTER CRY

Sat 11 May
LIMERICK, Milk Market – CRY MONSTER CRY

Sun 12 May
CORK, Opera House – GAVIN JAMES

Thu 16 May
KILKENNY, Set Theatre – GAVIN JAMES

Fri 17 May
DUBLIN, The Academy – ORLA GARTLAND

Sun 19 May
WATERFORD, The Forum – CRY MONSTER CRY

If you haven’t got your tickets yet, please go to Ticketmaster.ie

Golden Discs
Yard 2, Unit 7
Mahon Point, Shopping Centre,
Co Cork
Ph: (021) 451 1110
Time: 12-1pm

Trax Music
Unit 1
Carlow Shopping Centre,
Co Carlow
Ph: 059 9136044
Time: 5-6pm

I am sincerely touched and humbled by your supportive response to my recent blog and interviews on anxiety, which was a topic that I was very nervous about coming forward to discuss.

Unfortunately, there are times where my frankness and openness in interviews can be taken by certain people in the media and twisted and turned into a negative story in order to create a controversial headline to grab people’s attention and sell newspapers.

A case in point is a front page story in a tabloid newspaper today, where a journalist that I usually do not give interviews to, has taken excerpts from my interview with Hot Press magazine to promote my new album out of context. The original interview was with the highly regarded journalist Stuart Clarke, a man who I trust implicitly and know respects my honesty in interviews.

I try to give honest and at times revealing interviews as I believe that too many people in the spotlight hold back from giving their true opinions for fear of having their thoughts manipulated or taken out of context.
Unfortunately in this circumstance this is exactly what has happened to my Hot Press interview.

In order to set the record straight and to reassurance any fans who may have questions about my opinions on cannabis and the legalization of drugs, I would like to use my blog as an outlet to clarify the situation

Firstly, I would never advocate the legalization of Class A drugs such as Cocaine, meth etc, Stuart and I were discussing the use or cannabis and I said to him that I advocate the legalization of it for the following reasons:

In my opinion Ireland has a head in the sand approach to the commonplace use of the serious “legal” drugs alcohol and nicotine and I have read many articles which claim that we have an even bigger addiction problem in this country to prescription drugs; yet in general these issues are largely ignored by the government as the tax that they yield from people’s purchase of these legal drugs highly contributes much required income into the Irish tax system to aid and run the nation.

Our current government, under serious fiscal financial restrictions, decided to introduce a property tax on people’s homes as an income stream to help pay off our sovereign debt. This was a highly controversial decision, as they are taxing people who have already paid stamp duty on their homes and more often than not are in negative equity. I believe that a potential alternative consideration would be the taxation of cannabis. By decriminalizing this drug, we could take the money out of the hands of the criminal gangs who sell it and control its use like the governments of Holland and certain states in America have done successfully.

To clarify my point on our addiction to legal drugs, it is well known that if you binge drink alcohol you run the risk of liver failure, alcoholism is rife in this country, a problem that needs to be addressed and dealt with more openly. If you abuse food, you may become obese, run the risk of heart disease and different forms of diabetes . If you smoke 40 fags a day, you run the risk of lung cancer and if you decide to smoke copious amounts of cannabis, you run the risk of potential mental health problems and lung cancer.

It’s my opinion that cannabis is no more harmful than alcohol when taken in absolute moderation and there are many studies taken from around the world which prove the same. In fact I believe alcohol has a far more destructive ability than cannabis ever has, especially in this country.
The question is often asked as to whether cannabis is a gateway drug? I believe that it depends on the user. If you have a pint of beer, does this mean that one day you will become an alcoholic? Not necessarily so.

I do not smoke cannabis or take any form of drugs. In fact I detest the use of cocaine and other class A drugs .
However, I have smoked cannabis in the past and it was not a substance that agreed with me. I did not enjoy it and have never consumed it since. I discussed the negative effect it had on me in the Hot Press interview, I think anyone who reads the interview will plainly see that it is a substance that did not have a positive effect on me. However, I have some close and very successful friends who have taken this drug in complete moderation for years without any obvious side effects and they live full and well rounded lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I value statistics on offer regarding drug use, they can be very helpful in terms of answering certain questions, but from my own personal experiences (after all, this is all that one can speak from with absolute certainty) cannabis has never proven to be a substance that I have encountered to cause massive issues when taken in moderation. In fact, there are many people suffering from illnesses and diseases who credit cannabis as alleviating their pain and helping them live a better life.

To summarize, I would love to recommend that we all exercise strong will power and avoid all drugs such as alcohol, cigarettes or cannabis, but this for many including myself is an unrealistic and perhaps a slightly romantic request in today’s modern world.

Instead a more realistic approach that I would like to endorse is to be responsible when making decisions about what you put in your body, be it food, alcohol or drugs and do it with care and full education on what it does to your body and mind.

I believe that living a healthy and balanced life leads to a positive mental attitude, this was the point that I made strongly in the Hot Press interview. I have started training for triathlons, eating healthily and only drinking occasionally, the effects that this has had on helping me overcome my anxieties has been remarkable, I only wish that the journalist who wrote this feature in today’s paper could have focused on this rather than twisting my original interview in order to create a unnecessary shit storm, but if he feels that this is his responsibility as a tabloid journalist then who am I to question him?

Take care

Brown Thomas
88 Grafton Street Dublin 2

On Thursday March 28th you can Pre-order your copy of “Rage And Romance” and obtain your wristband to secure your place for Friday March 29th to have your CD signed and attend an EXCLUSIVE Fan Q&A with Bressie. This is stricitly a wristband only event so get down to Brown Thomas early to avoid disapointment. You can also visit www.brownthomas.com for more info.

Golden Discs
16 Harbour St, Co Westmeath, Co. Westmeath

Bressie returns to his hometown on March 30th to sign copies of his new album in Golden Discs, CD signing will be from 12pm sharp!!

Bressie looks forward to seeing you there!

FULL TRACKLISTING:
Rage & Romance
Show Me Love
Her Every Flaw, Her Every Virtue
Silence Is Your Saviour
I Preferred The Original
Never Gonna lose Its Luxury
Write The Headlines
Pity Party
Fight To Midnight
Two’s A Crowd
A Morning Without Words

PRE-ORDER \"Rage And Romance\" HERE!

Bressie will also be going on a tour in support of the album, which sees him embark on a nationwide tour with tickets available through Ticketmaster Ireland