Not An Angel

Sometimes, I am not sure how much of myself to "put out there". It is always a risk, to let others see us as we really are. Yet, there is something therapeutic about about letting the light in, letting it illuminate those dark recesses within us...letting go of secret things. They say our secrets keep us sick. That may well be true.

I sat today with a man and began to let the sun in. Sitting across a desk from him, he typed the beginnings of this story in to his computer as I told him, "I am an addict. I need help."
Thus begins a journey, one I have been on before.
I first got sober was when I was nineteen years old.I had been drinking for a couple of years and it had steadily become more out of control. Finally, I knew-I just knew this was not normal. Social drinkers did not do the things I was doing. Social drinkers did not intend to have one beer and then drink a six-pack alone. Social drinkers did not think all day of getting off work so they could get hammered. Social drinkers could remember what they did the night before. I was not a social drinker!
I asked a counselor, "Do you think I'm an alcoholic?"
He replied, "If you think that you are, that's good enough for me."
I stayed sober for a while, then relapsed with pills. I was twenty when I had my first full blown blackout. I woke up with no recollection whatsoever how I got to bed the night before. It scared me, and I made the decision to go to AA.
A year later, without having taken a drink or drug, I was suicidal. What I did not realize was that I also had clinical depression. I was lying in bed one night, planning my own death. The next night I asked some friends for the help I needed and they drove me to a treatment center, after I had taken some pills. I woke up, barely able to remember signing myself in. I spent the next 30 days there and left, feeling I had everything under control.
That has been my worst problem for years-the illusion of control.
I "controlled" alcohol until it nearly killed me, "controlled" depression, narcotics, and now, amphetamines, to the very brink of complete insanity.
No-social drinkers and sane people do not overdose and awaken in the ICU on a ventilator, wishing they could still drink. Casual drug users do not lie in bed and pull their own hair out by the roots. But even more than that, those people can stop. I have not been able to stop for a very long time.

As they say, "this ain't my first rodeo". But, the ride gets more difficult every time I come out of the chute. I am truly afraid. I have a little boy who needs me. I have to survive this-how will anyone be able to explain it to him if I don't? Giving up is not an option. Suicide is not a thing I can do and complete insanity is not a place I can go.

So there it is, my friends- my soul and its struggle today. It may be a little while before I have the energy or ability to write again. I know what withdrawal is going to do to me. I know it may be weeks before I come out of the fog. Bear with me, please. With any luck, I will soon let more light in and feel less pain. Inshallah (God willing), I will be back.

She Talks To Angels-Counting Crowes

Stop the Blank Check to Israel

Stop the Blank Check to Israel

My dear friends,
I am going to speak very plainly here.Please hear me out! I have nothing against any religion or race of people. I have everything against the violation of human rights, by any government, anywhere in the world.
I speak out against my own government when it is doing something wrong. Why would I not hold the government of Israel accountable for their abuse of the Palestinians? To me, this is just basic.
Unfortunately, the American people have been sold a bill of goods, by our government, by the media and quite frankly, by many Christian churches, for decades. We have been told that Palestinians are violent, militant, Muslim extremists. That is the picture that has been painted for us and shoved down our throats.
We are told that Israel is victimized daily by rocket attacks and suicide bombers, bent on killing Jews at every opportunity. They only strike back in self-defense, right?
There was a time when I believed all that. Why wouldn't I? I'm told how America is a champion of human rights around the world. I hear that we have a free press that accurately reports world events. I saw what "Muslim extremists" did to us on September 11th. I have seen the video footage of the carnage brought on Israel by terrorists.
Well folks, let's remember that, in the words of Paul Harvey, there is "the rest of the story".
We are taught from grade school on about the Holocaust. We are never told about al-Nakba (the Catastrophe). We are not told about the 750,000 Palestinians who were forced from their land in the late 1940's. We are not shown what their refugee camps look like. We are not told that our F-16's and drones are killing children in Gaza. We are not shown settlers attacking Palestinians in their olive groves and farm fields, even attacking Palestinian children as they try to walk to segregated schools. We are not shown accurate maps of Palestinian land loss. We are not given accurate casualty counts. We are not told that Palestinian women are forced to give birth at military checkpoints and that some of them(and their babies) die there.
No-we are told to never forget the Holocaust. We are told about an Israeli child who has to sleep in a bomb shelter. We are told that in Operation Cast Lead(Dec. 2008-Jan. 2009), 13 Israelis were killed. The truth is that 2 of those people were civilians. On the Gaza end? Oh! Sorry-they forgot to mention that 1,400 people died there, 1,200 of whom were civilians. You see, they have no bomb shelters.
We are not told that a Palestinian cemetery was bulldozed over to make way for Israel's "Museum of Tolerance". The American media will not tell you about the Gaza fishermen who are routinely fired upon(some of them killed) by Israeli naval forces. No, you will hear only about Israel's navy intercepting aid ships that are going about helping people "unlawfully". You will not hear that the Gaza blockade itself violates international law. The media will not tell you that something as basic in America(and Israel) as a chemotherapy drug is not even available in Gaza.
No, what you will hear is how the Palestinians don't want peace. We are told they avoid negotiations. We are not told about the many thousands of Palestinian Christians, who suffer the same persecution that their Muslim brothers and sisters do. No, the greater church will not tell you that from their pulpit. We are, in short, fed one lie after another.
Frankly, I am tired of it.
I am weary of stupidity. I am fed up with people too lazy or hard headed(or hardhearted) to do a little research. I have grown very impatient(maybe it's my age) with people who have time to watch sixty minutes of media spin in the evening but tell me they have no time to look at a web link that will put them out of their comfort zone. You know what? Screw your comfort zone! Growth is not a comfortable thing, and sometimes the truth is not either.
I challenge you in the coming year to make the following resolution: Resolve to learn the truth about Palestine and Israel. Set aside your preconceptions and learn the facts. Start with the Blank Check campaign. Then, I would encourage you to Google the Amnesty International reports on the OPT(Occupied Palestinian Territories) and check out the reports on Gaza by the International Committee of the Red Cross. These are organizations with no "agenda" other than to report the truth and to improve the lives of all human beings.
Start there. Start today.