We will help you get your mom off drugs!

she knows of nothing else and can get your dad in to major trouble if anything happens… how do you do that?and all that your family wants to do is help her!

Well I’m gonna start out saying that I’m 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. We start school so early in the morning that I always fall asleep during 1st period. So I need something to drink in the morning that will kick me awake. But my mom drinks it daily in the morning but won’t let me have any because it has “too much” caffeine in it

If a mom shows up to pick up her child and smells of alcohol, what is the responsibility of the child care provider? This is the 2nd time in a few weeks when the mom has smelled like she’s been drinking. She is not acting intoxicated, but her breath does smell as if she’s been drinking.
I have no proof, of course, that she’s been drinking. I’m just going by what I smell. I don’t really want to accuse a mom of drinking and driving with her son if she hasn’t been – but I certainly don’t want to ignore it if she has.
I’ve been put in a horrible position here. Any advice would be helpful.

PROGRESSION LITERATURE: THE LITERATURE OF DENOUEMENT:

INTRODUCING A NEW LITERARY GENRE

 

    What one hears, reads, says, sees, tastes, feels , remembers, and experiences affects our understanding.  It is ‘truth’ as we perceive it.  Remembering, in particular, evokes attitudes and emotions linked to ‘true’ knowledge of past events. Such experiences affect how we experience and interpret the present – especially if a past event is somehow linked to a present or impending event.  For example, if one had been bitten by a white dog in the past, seeing the same white dog again can bring forth an automatic reaction, such as fear or aversion, even if the dog now appears friendly to others, who may then not understand your apprehensive reaction.  Your perception of reality is different, though you and the others are both presented with the identical stimulus and information at the present moment.

       In fact, much of what we might believe to be a ‘fresh’ experience is likely to be based on many past experiences that may or may not be directly related.  A beautiful woman, never before seen by a particular male, may attract, have no effect on him, or repel, depending on past experience/ inexperience.  First impressions are often based on past experience, learned prejudice, or instinct:  a classic study in Scientific American showed pictures of the same male face, but with different amounts of hair, to respondents.   Hairiness ranged from totally bald to long beard and long hair, complete with mustache.  Respondents were asked to put the faces they saw in order, according to attractiveness.  The shaved face, without mustaches and with neatly trimmed hair, was chosen as the most attractive.  Total hairiness and total baldness were lowest on the list.  In addition, the presence of a mustache reduced confidence.  The faces presented were identical in every other respect. Progression from stage to stage of hairiness versus baldness was judged as a factor of attractiveness, but the test subjects didn’t see the face progress in cumulative stages (progression).

    Progression in literature  (cumulative stages of revelation of facts) is what makes reading enjoyable: we aren’t certain of the outcome, and what we think is true can develop in different directions, depending on the information given.  In fact, different readers guarantee different reactions.  A fine novel captures the attention and interest of most readers. 

    Real world experiences are not, generally, as complete as a crafted novel.  Modern writers, of course, reflect the chaos of our emerging modern world in what, for convenience, I term chaotic literature, white noise literature, with more or less deconstruction or minimalist influences.  The result is discomfort for most readers, who must deal with the same stressors in real life.  Time, for example, is short, and many of the most popular works, such as Stephen King’s works, are eagerly read because an entirely different world is spread out to relish and enjoy, however macabre.  Fantasy and science fiction works have their loyal followings, too.  In all writing, ‘truth’ is important — a guideline in the fog, a face in the mirror, or a beacon in the night.  But ‘Truth’ is perceived through a mist of the prejudices we gather in life experiences over time.  Truth’ has impact: among other possible repercussions and reactions to its revelation, emotions and thinking can be stimulated or depressed. At any time, what is perceived in the real world as ‘truth’ can suddenly change.

   Ian F. A. Bell describes Tony Tanner’s approach to this phenomenon in his introduction to Tanner’s The American Mystery:

 

“Tanner conceives of the dematerialization of language in American literature, the move beyond the structure of binary opposites, as a continuous process of self-invention. This move involves literary strategies of transformation: the construction of ontological identity, character, and modes of representation.  As Tanner observers…if life was in “flux” or constant “metamorphosis,” then writing should be the same.  As Emerson says, “In the beginning of America, was not only the word but the contradiction of the word.” 

 

Bell goes on to describe Tanner’s analysis of Hawthorne’s language in The Blithedale Romance:

“…The Blithedale Romance does not ask what constitutes the real, much less the Real, as reality is only “known by the conviction that you have not got it.”  As an American Romantic, however, Hawthorne may be suggesting that to know that reality is not real could be the beginning of a Real experience.  Tanner tracks the binaries between fact and fiction, forgery and real money as a means of determining the “true” copy; whether “forging” the uncreated conscience of one’s race or forging money, “both ‘forgers’ work by putting falsities/fictions into circulation.”

 

And finally, in his study of Melville’s The Confidence Man, Bell notes what Tanner says about “reversibility” and “interchangeability”:

 

“Melville’s novel about trust and confidence in the new world of America, shows how “reversibility” can be re-cast as “interchangeability.”  This term, which Tanner borrows from Thomas Mann, registers “the multiplicity and sheer ontological dubiety of the self” in a world where identity, as determined by the constructivist nature of language, is constantly being reinterpreted.”

 

     Whether it is Newspeak, Orwellian style, or Spin City, whether it is a news report or a personal experience, above all, we trust personal experience, and then the Voice of Authority.  Anyone with intelligence, plus sufficient interest in the case, can eventually recognize the spins and spirals in the Official Version of the Kennedy assassination. Calling people who discard the Official Version “conspiracy theorists,” while calling supporters of the Official Version “assassination analysts” exemplifies the polarization that can occur in searching for the ‘truth.’ 

 

Christopher Sharrett reviews Art Simon’s book, Dangerous Knowledge (concerning truth and imagery in the JFK Assassination debate) with some acerbic insights:

 

“the endless debate…came to constitute an “epistemological crisis,” as each official and nonofficial investigation refuted a previous truth claim, and interpretation formed a huge Moebius Strip that traps the body politic and renders truth itself indeterminant but continues to provoke discussion.”

 

Sharrett notes a lack of moral center in these twisting and turnings of the truth:

 

“Simon invokes Michel Foucault’s remark that “Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certain concerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes.” This simultaneously compelling, obtuse, and arid remark is emblematic of much postmodern discourse… Foucault’s linkage of the gaze to power is not the sum and substance of Simon’s method, but it does much to turn this work into a studious, eloquent, but labored exercise lacking a real political and moral center.”

 

Even Official Versions can be abandoned when necessary: enough time has now passed that the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which provided an excuse to bomb Hanoi, is no longer presented as the ‘actual truth.’  Evidence suggests the incident never occurred, but it’s too late for Hanoi, and for many Americans who haven’t seen the new evidence, American ships were fired upon in the Gulf of Tonkin.  ‘Truth’ for those who have come upon or noticed the new evidence differs from those who did not, and both groups will claim they have ‘the truth.’  Progression of knowledge from the former stance to the latter was incomplete.  Incomplete transmittal of ‘the truth’ occurs constantly, creating divisions and conflicts.  In real life ‘truth’ is almost a commodity.

     Literature can be replenished and reach new heights if the principles of progression and perceived ‘truth’ are properly developed by the innovative writer.  In the examples presented in the small sample collection of short-short stories provided in this paper, the potential range for progression literature (the genre could also be called the literature of denouement) can be stunning – mind-blowing—and i9t can happen in ‘real life’ as well.  Films such as Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction exhibit progression/denouement qualities. A killer known to be dead is shown very much alive after his death, with incredible impact.  To the patrons in a restaurant, terrorized by robbers, they’ll never know that one of their ‘saviors’ later died, or that the two men had come into the restaurant to eat after cleaning out a car full of gore and pieces of brain.  Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire brought the same approach from stage to film: we slowly realize that the ‘truth’ will never be fully known to Stella, whose passions are manipulated by Stanley, her brutal husband.

     Much can be done to fully develop the new genre. The short-short story collection shown here presents controversial religious experiences and interpretations, as felt or reported by persons under widely different conditions.  Time can change ‘reality’ and ‘truth’ for the reader or for those in the stories, as more information is obtained.,  The information might be false, however, leading to false conclusions, which may or may not alter others’ perception of what is ‘true,’ or new information might reveal a ‘new’ or unsuspected truth, or confirm a suspicion.  Anything is possible, for ‘truth’ is what is perceived by each individual, or accepted due to the voice of authority.  Those impacted by the ‘truth’ can create or live in entirely different universes, depending on the individual, to say nothing of the vicarious experiences felt by the reader or viewer (via literature, film, video games, etc.).

    In addition, the writer-as-truth-teller can present the ‘truth’ more vividly and with greater emotional impact, employing the arts as well as the sciences, setting the ‘truth’ in proper proportion to right and wrong, with the potential to sculpt a moral perspective that a simple, arid recounting of events cannot, thus revealing a social aspect and interpretation to ‘truth’ that delivers a personal weight to the individual.  Engels, commenting on the impact of Balzac’s Comédie humaine, observed how Balzac delivered “a most wonderfully realistic history of French society … from which, even in economic details (for instance the re-arrangement of real and personal property after the Revolution) I have learned more than from all the professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together.”

     A simple progression example is to reveal how two people meet after years of absence.  They assess the differences now present, compared to the past. These may be psychological as well as physical.  What if one person s simply pretending, and isn’t as he seems, or perhaps isn’t the person from the past at all, but is merely masquerading as such?  Would/will/can the other person ever find out?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Denouement to the reader can be exhilarating, shocking, disappointing, etc., to say nothing of the reactions that can be created by the writer as the story progresses.  Truth becomes an object of itself, with its own life, its own history, created within and outside the progression, and may not be ‘true’ after all.  Yet the ‘truth’ may be more important than ‘reality’ for political, practical, or social reasons.  ‘Truth’ ends up being what we finally believe.  If our information remains slight, or even if supporting facts accumulate, the ‘truth’ remains unchanged unless conflicting information enters that is accepted by the recipient.  And what about experiencing only conflicting, untrue information at the very onset?  We are all familiar with the effects of advertising and propaganda. Hence, ‘truth’ is a hostage of fortune.

     Progression could highlight how people change through time – perhaps a sinner really can become a saint!   Yet another kind of progression involves revelation, where a character is developed before the reader via actions, events, and so on, but then unravels or morphs due to what we next learn.  There is always the chance that what we think we know is not real.  Dialogue – actual conversations – might reveal ‘the truth’ – and can be persuasive – if ‘the truth’ is being fully revealed.  What if it isn’t?  I use the example of  a person thought to be a scammer turning out to be a saint, but seen by the world in the news, upon learning of his suicide (which isn’t presented here) as a man with a checkered reputation who took “the coward’s way out.”  Read the short-short stories yourself, then decide how cruelly you could make the news story reflect the ‘truth’ as the Official Version would have it.  There are two ‘saints’ in the short-short story collection: progression literature tells us much more than meets the eye.

     In the literature of progression, just as in real life, ‘truth’ is indeed in the eye of the beholder, so I hope I will be forgiven for appropriating the cliché for the short-short story collection.  In the examples of progression that I choose to present, brevity is used – but I stress that the objective is not to be gimmicky or to play tricks on the reader, nor necessarily to be brief, for the skilful writer now has a tool of power.  I suggest a respectful treatment of the original perspectives in the foundation stories of progression literature, as they can relate marvelously, in talented hands, to the perspective which emerges or is revealed or appreciated later.

Nevertheless, my thesis material included several foundation stories in the genre which anchored my ideas for progression literature in the domain of short stories Think of the ramifications of knowing a ‘truth’ – unless the dog now treats you in a friendly manner. Where, then, is your ‘truth’ to others?  

     The literature of progression invokes past events, but might now address a different part of a different story altogether, and ‘you’ may be in a different situation: for others, your story of a biting dog may seem utterly senseless, if this dog is known to be friendly to all. And so on. .

Why? Thus untruth, or mistaken perceptions, or misinterpretations, can happen before or after the offering of the  ‘truth,’ and we may be unable to discern which version/experience is ‘true’ even though one story, in this case, involves misperceptions and conclusions based on misconceptions and experiences which were ‘untrue’ but seemed ‘true.’ Denouement cannot bring forth the ‘truth’ because of the sheer volume of conflicting declarations stating the ‘truth.’

    There is the element of the voyeur or the rascal involved in writing the non-fiction novel, related to our concerns, where historical characters are fleshed out fictionally to enhance or comply with a stereotype originally created to advance an Official Version that is controversial. Particularly disturbing is when the stereotype is advanced to ‘truth’ by the new fictionalized treatment. If the writer is actually unfamiliar with the historical person, of necessity then relying on what remains of the ‘truth’ in the Official Version  [or other extant] records, the ‘new truth’ can become the final and lasting impression.  For example, Don DeLillo’s Libra presents a cold-blooded view of Oswald’s treatment of his wife, based on her reports.  The brutal glimpses DeLillo gives us of Oswald’s treatment of his wife are seared into the memory: what Oswald told me about his fights with his wife has no place in the version of the ‘truth’ DeLillo created.  

 

    Nevertheless, denouement literature, in progression format, can wrest — even from a DeLillo opus — a new and relevant perspective.  David Foster Wallace summarizes the challenges to the writer of great literature in today’s fast-moving world, where entertainment is cheap, easily accessed, and well-designed:

 

“(There is)a contempt for the reader, an idea that literature’s current marginalization is the reader’s fault. The project that’s worth trying is to [make]…the reader confront things rather than ignore them, but to do that in such a way that it’s also pleasurable to read… Part of it has to do with living in an era when there’s so much entertainment available…and figuring out how fiction is going to stake out its territory in that sort of era. You can try to confront what it is that makes fiction magical in a way that other kinds of art and entertainment aren’t. And to figure out how fiction can engage a reader, much of whose sensibility has been formed by pop culture, without simply becoming more shit in the pop culture machine. It’s unbelievably difficult and confusing and scary, but it’s neat. There’s so much mass commercial entertainment that’s so good and so slick, this is something that I don’t think any other generation has confronted. That’s what it’s like to be a writer now.”

 

      Progression literature can be exciting and relevant. It can do many things: turn the reader’s perspective upside down, enhance understanding of human nature, restore truth to history — depending on the author’s intentions and abilities.  “The literature of denouement”, or, “progression literature,” in more skilled hands than mine might well provide a revitalization to modern literature, with new depth and excitement in its inimitable approach to crafting.

 

Judyth Vary Baker   Stockholm, Sweden (degrees in anthropology (BS), Creative Writing (MA), and  English literature and linguistics (ABD)… genre developed at UF and U of LA @ Lafayette 1986-1999

 

References

 

Tanner, Tony. The American Mystery: American Literature from Emerson to DeLillo. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000,242pp., ISBN: 0521783747  £15.95 (Pbk)

 

Sharrett, Christopher. Review of: Dangerous Knowledge: The JFK Assassination in Art and Film, by Art Simon.

Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press, 1996. 257 pp., illus.

Reviewed by Christopher Sharrett

Vol. 22, Cineaste, 01-01-1996, pp 59.

 

Marx, Karl and Engels, Frederick. On Literature and Art. Progress Publishers. Moscow 1976; p 91. (trans. Andy Blunden)

Brown, Charles Brockden. Wieland; Or The Transformation: An American Tale. Gutenberg’s etext version 2008. 

David Foster Wallace.  Quote from an interview about his best-seller, Infinite Jest, by Laura Miller, for Table Talk, Internet forum.

 =================an example of Progression Literature in fiction:

 

THE EVANGELIST (story #1)

 

 

     The Holy City…a battered fortress of gray and brown and white stone blocks, where two thousand years ago Roman soldiers marched the Jews into the Temple’s center, and slaughtered them…where a thousand years ago the Crusaders had come, with their banners and emblazoned crosses, announcing “Convert or die!” to Muslims, and dying themselves, overcome by those who cried “Death to the infidels!” And where Jesus, in incredible patience, hung from the cross, when a single thought could have saved Him from agonies indescribable… but He was Love Itself, and conquered all of these things.

       So thought Jeremiah Mosley — pale of face, ascetic of form, trembling in his own exquisite agonies because he was – after great financial sacrifices – actually present in Christ’s own city — and Christ might come again at any time, like lightning from the sky, it would be so sudden — Christ would separate the sheep from the goats and save the believers, and was he, Jeremiah, ready for that?  He had come to Jerusalem to seek a saint’s advice, to seek, too, a sure sign that he had really been called to become an evangelist –to spread the Word, the Good News– wherever he might be sent by God, the Living God, not some fairytale character, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who had come to him in a dream, and touched him on the shoulder, and told him, “I love you.”

      He had spent a large portion of his savings to get this fine room overlooking so much of the splendid, if war-ravaged city.  The porters had been civil, even if they had snickered when they saw his battered suitcases and the way he kept his head down and prayed just under his breath.  To them, the young man with black, curly hair was just another fanatic on a pilgrimage.  When they brought the bread and wine to his room as he requested, they were surprised at the size of the tip he gave them. They didn’t know it constituted almost all he had left in the world.

 

   “I’m in Your hands,” Jeremiah whispered, pouring out the dark wine into two crystal goblets.  One for Jesus, one for him.  He broke the unleavened brown bread into two halves and placed the broken loaf in the center of the little table with its two glasses of wine on either side.  The white tablecloth was pure linen.  With a burst of emotion, Jeremiah threw himself on the floor and whispered, fiercely, “Come, come, Lord Jesus!  Only take a sip of the wine, that I may know You hear me, and that You accept me!”

    Then he waited.  The sun descended, sending trembling, ghostly shadows across the room. Blue mist filled the valley below, and red-orange clouds lit up the sky as the sun inched down, down… and still, he waited.  Sweat beaded on his forehead.  –Please!—I must know this is what You want!— It was such a little sign he sought, just as the fleece that Gideon threw down, asking only for a bit of dew on it, with none on the ground all around.  A sip of wine, when he wasn’t looking…. Was it tempting God? …it is a humble request… only take a sip of the wine, excellent Lord! — Please!—

    On the windowsill, as the sun set, a white dove flew down, sat for a moment looking into the room with its sad supplicant, and then, with a little dip of its beak, and a low coo, it pulled a feather from its breast and dropped it on the windowsill.  On the ivory white shaft was a single drop of dark blood.  The wind whispered away the feather with the evening wind.  The dove dipped its beak in a courtship gesture, then flew off with a whirr of its soft, white wings. 

    Jeremiah was never quite sure that he saw it.

 

================================================

 

   He was wearing a two thousand dollar linen suit, hand-made for him by one of the world’s best custom tailors – he had specified only pure white linen — and the glittering diamonds on his hand proved that he was prospering mightily with the people.  Outside his dressing room, as Jeremiah finished grooming his hair precisely as it should be combed, he could hear the choir across the street finishing the hymns he had selected to rouse the people from their torpor into hope and praise to God.  His black hair had thinned and was not so curly as it once had been, but implants had corrected the receding hairline: he looked maybe ten years younger than he really was, and with any luck, he’d outlive all his critics, by God!

     “Pastor Mosley!” came his publicist’s voice, “it’s time!”

     “Just a minute, Rachel!” he answered.

     Rachel was so efficient.  He needed that.  He was such a slacker, such a romantic. He almost put on his Rolex, then decided against it: too showy.  With a spray of Parisian cologne to each wrist, and a quick look in the mirror to make certain his necktie was in perfect order, Jeremiah paused to look more closely at the reflection there:  —Would you buy a used car from this man? — he asked within himself.  His critics said they knew better.

    They said he was crooked… that he stole from the people, filled his coffers with their dollars and threw away their prayer requests.  That healings didn’t take place.  That the Holy Spirit wasn’t a holy spirit, just a sly show calculated to separate the gullible from their money.

     He didn’t know how else to get people to listen, except putting on a show to get their attention.  If it was so wrong, why were there were twenty thousand people out there, waiting for him to come out, and help them transform their lives (as if he could do any such thing!).  It was God who had done this. As always, he felt himself shaking, because he was really, deep down, ultimately a shy man who would have preferred a quiet life in a monastery.  Instead, the show must go on. And on.

      –Please, God!– he whispered to the image in the mirror.  — Please!–  It was his only prayer, just a choked exclamation of half-strangled hope, that some of the people out there would be healed, would have their lives changed because of God’s Hand moving among them.  Ah, the Hand of God!  –Jesus!—he managed to say, before his throat closed up with terror.  To face all those people again!  He had seen so many in wheelchairs come, then leave, disappointed.

    He threw himself down against the mirror, onto his knees, and raised his arms high in the air, letting them finally rest against the mirror.  “God, God, God!” he breathed aloud, and then, with a half-strangled voice, he added, aloud, -“Please, God, have mercy on the poor people!  Take my life, if you want it, but help your sheep!”

    He calmed himself, got up off his knees, brushed away the talcum powder that clung to the knees where they had touched some of the fallen white dust that perfumed his undergarments… he wiped his forehead with a pure linen handkerchief… took a deep breath….

       —–Pastor Mosley!– came Rachel’s almost angry voice on the other side of the door.

       He opened the door, was half-blinded by a bank of photographers and their flashing lights.

      “What are they doing here?”  he demanded, pushing past the photographers, and directing his anger to his publicist, the woman with black-rimmed glasses who held a walkie-talkie to her ear.

      “They say you’re being sued by some guy who claims you didn’t heal his eyes after all,” she replied.

      “He’s a maniac!”  Jeremiah snapped.  “I don’t heal, Jesus does.”  He put on a brave face and began striding down the hall.  He was God’s Man, he could not allow these people to see any fear.  He smiled and kept on walking, his publicist and two underpastors at his side..

      “But there’s some good news, too, Pastor! Someone’s been healed, and they’re calling it a miracle! Yes, Pastor!–  Someone’s been healed!—“  he could hear the excitement in her voice, and in the crowd.  He hoped it was true.

      Deep within, he wondered if a psychological event occurred that had convinced someone they had been healed, or was it a set-up, by someone once again trying to prove the ‘healings’ were all fake?  Maybe this time it was for real.  It did happen, sometimes, despite what his enemies said.  He never knew exactly when anything miraculous occurred, or what to expect from the crowds, for it was just the power of their faith in action.  He remembered what the Bible said, that Jesus visited his own city, Nazareth, but could do no mighty miracles there because the people had no faith.  —A prophet is despised in his own country—

      A lot of ‘miracles’ were just psychological, but even that was something. Better than hopelessness, helplessness. Somebody had to care. And occasionally, there were unexplained, mysterious changes hat doctors couldn’t explain.  He would have liked to have had seen some sign from God during his prayers today, but as usual, he ran on empty.  The signs were so rare. Just enough to keep him from drowning in terror.  Was he doing the right thing?  If not, Jesus could take his life, that was okay.

     –Seek– Christ had said, –and ye shall find.–

     Except for me, he thought. –I do not doubt that You will drink wine with me someday, but it’s been fifteen years now—

     Now he was walking calmly between rows of photographers, reporters, and people begging him to heal them. As if he could heal anybody! “Praise Jesus!” he told the people. “It is Jesus, who will heal you!”  — O You secret, hidden, unattainable, silent Lord…!–

      A drifting sense of peace came over him then.  He got into the elevator and the door closed.  Blessed silence… and most of the photographers and reporters were now cut off.  Now to cross the street…  With the pastors on his right and two security guards on his left, Jeremiah crossed the gauntlet of the street with its masses of shouting people. He entered a huge auditorium, composed himself a minute, hiding behind a big screen, while choirs sang and a huge organ played….the audience had been worked up for about an hour, singing with the choir and watching huge screens that showed miracles and events at other crusades.

       –Please, God!– he prayed, once again the same old prayer, seeking, seeking…stopping in the midst of it — done with crossed arms– to notice that somehow, in the rush, he had lost a solid gold cuff-link.  “Damn!” he said, removing the solitary golden cufflink.  “Lost another one!”

He thrust the cufflink into his coat pocket.

     It was peaceful in the evangelist’s hotel room. A sleepy guard sat on the big bed, making sure nobody who came into the room would steal any of the pastor’s things for a souvenir.  As he half-dozed, two maids entered the room, with dust-cloths and a vacuum cleaner, to freshen it up.  On the mirror, where the famous evangelist’s hands had pressed momentarily against the glass, the white talcum powder had, interestingly enough, created a pair of white doves.  One maid began wiping them away, when, too late, the other, with wide eyes, stopped her.  They both knelt and began to pray, weeping, but Jeremiah never saw any of that, nor did the sleepy guard.

===============Story #2=======

APPEARANCES  (Story #2)

    by Judyth Vary Baker

      There she was, lying on the rumpled bed, the evening light fading. She could see her legs stretched out toward the window with its plum-striped curtains and the green, swaying trees beyond.  There was an ochre glow in the sky, as the sun set, with crimson-edged clouds bathing the darkness. Her legs looked spindly, too thin, but then, she was a model, with the skinny frame desired by clothiers and designers. She wanted to eat, but dared not: outside, where she saw the birds flying in black punctuation points against the red-rimmed clouds, she thought how they could eat as they wished, without a thought as to appearances: they were all soft, downy, fuzzy, fluffy. Fat, perhaps, according to clothiers and designers.

      There were little sparkles of raindrops on the windowpanes, for with the final light came a quick showering down of rain, against the deepening deep blue of the sky.  The yellow and gold of the last sun’s rays faded away to a soft tangerine glow, outlining the tall buildings and skyscrapers that rose on the horizon.  She wiggled her toes, stretched them wide, thought to herself, I have prehensile toes!  She could pick up anything with them – a talent for which none would pay her a penny.  She saw how her knee-bones stuck out more than they should, her thighs began behind the knee-bones, too thin, too thin. But there was no help for it.  She knew that they would put makeup on to hide the dark circles of starvation that made her large, brown, glowing eyes look even more mysterious, and that she’d walk down the red carpet on the arm of Max Taylor, Movie Star, smiling and waving to the adoring crowds, her photo snapped, her gown declared simply ravishing, her hair declared adequate for the occasion.  Max was homosexual and she liked being with him, being ordinarily too exhausted for sex: they made a good pair.

     Well, she had fourteen hours before she had to get ready for tomorrow’s appearance at the Oscars.  Fourteen hours, phone calls turned away, and Room Service bringing up, in another hour, her dinner, composed of a cup of clear broth, a chicken wing, and a leaf of lettuce, with vitamin capsules. She wanted to bathe after that, but wondered if she had the strength. Staying in bed, for she felt so cold, was best: her nails wouldn’t get chipped that way.  Why turn on the telly?  Why not watch the raindrops gather, as the wind blew them sideways on the glass, watch how they merged and became fatter, then dribbled down the clear pane, falling to oblivion… 

     She looked again at the alarm clock: forty-five minutes to dinner.  There was a slight prickling along the bedcovers that crossed her flat belly, and she looked to see what caused it, but nothing was there. The white hotel sheets, the white hotel blanket, the white hotel mattress with its plum-colored stripes, were as in all hotels everywhere: a formal luxury, her common fate in hotel after hotel.  Sheared carpet and sleek lamps and slick wood with glass: the brochures of the hotel, the beckoning pamphlets listing cafes and cabarets and caffe au lait. One hotel was as another: either filled with antiques stiff with gaudy gilt and lace and carved balustrades and flowers, or modern-sterile, Isn’t it Good Norwegian Wood?

     What was life about? She wondered. I’ll strut my stuff a hundred more times, then what?  I wish I could believe in God.

     Incredibly, she felt the electric touch upon her belly again, and again looked down, past her hunger-shrunken naked breasts to the blanket and sheets twisted over her middle in the shape of a white cross, the plum-red stripes making a big “X” as if blocking her empty belly off from the rest of her body.  As she breathed, the “X” went up and down, up and down…and as the night sky darkened to deep purple, she thought she saw the “X” waver, and move sideways.  As it did so, the prickling sensation returned.  This time, she drew the sheet and blanket up to her chin, covering herself.  I’m cold all the time, she thought to herself.  How good the hot broth will feel!  She looked at the clock again: in fifteen minutes, they’d bring dinner.  She remembered, as a child, saying Grace over a meal of bacon, eggs, toast and jam, with hot cocoa on the side, and how her sister and brother grabbed for the last pieces of toast, but she was content to let them go for it, she had more than enough to eat.  Donny was dead, now, and so were Mom and Dad, in the car wreck that so suddenly took their lives. As for Donna, her sister, she hadn’t seen her for several years: Donna was heavy, having had children… ashamed of her stretch marks and her after thighs.

   .  I think I will say Grace over the broth and chicken wing and the lettuce, she thought to herself. Jesus!  I wish You’d appear!  But those things don’t really happen, do they?  It was always mere legend. 

     Then it happened.

     The broth had gone cold.  The lettuce lay untouched.  They had forgotten the chicken wing, but no matter.  She was washed over with heat and warmth, lavished with it….she lay stretched out, her arms flung wide, her eyes moist with tears. She rolled from the bed, drawing the sheet and blanket with her, and the quilt that had twisted to make the “X” as well.  On her knees, she whispered, Thank you!  Thank you! Thank you!

 

 

    “But such things are hallucinations,” he told her, as he warily watched her eating a normal-sized meal. “What about your contract?” he asked, anxiously. “If you change sizes, you’ll be fired from Victoria’s Secret, and the rest will follow.  And what will Henri say, if you stop going out with him?  He’s always getting you good film deals.”

     “I’m rich,” she said. “I don’t need Victoria’s Secret anymore. And I don’t need Henri, either.””

     “Well, I’m not rich!” he told her, heatedly. “And you have a contract with me to be responsible. You’ve had a god-damned hallucination.  As your agent, I insist that you see a psychiatrist.”

     “You don’t have that right,” she told him.

     “Of course I do. I‘ll sue you if you don’t go. Then see how rich you’ll be.”

 

     There she was, lying on the rumpled bed, the evening light fading. She could see her legs stretched out toward the window with its plum-striped curtains and the green, swaying trees beyond.  There was an ochre glow in the sky, as the sun set, with crimson-edged clouds battering the darkness. Her legs looked spindly, too thin, but then, she was a model, with the skinny frame desired by clothiers and designers. She wanted to eat, but dared not: outside, where she saw the birds flying in black punctuation points against the red-rimmed clouds, she thought how they could eat as they wished, without a thought as to appearances.

     Henri would be by tonight, to sleep with her again. He was a powerful Senator.  They met all over the world: her ‘photo shoots’ were all lucrative deals. Some of them were real photo shoots… After all, she was so much thinner than his wife, Bernice, who was trying to get pregnant.  Models on the make were much more fun to be with, and the contracts and magazine covers he got for her made the hotels and the meals and the dreams keep coming.

===============Story #3=====

REVISION  (Story #3)

 

By Judyth Vary Baker

 

     “Henri Ballantyne was very near-sighted, and middle-aged, but he still carried a handsome shock of blonde hair, and had the body of an athlete. The fact that his wife had just died made him one of America’s most eligible bachelors, though he was still avoiding dating.  Henri’s career as U S Senator was reaching its pinnacle: he was a powerful man who now found himself stalked by paparazzi, aching for a photo of him with some movie star.  At Bernice’s funeral, Henri had let himself go a little, drinking too much and saying some unwise things about his wife’s untimely and sudden death.  “Of course, those people are fools,” Henri told Charles. “All that blather about rising again, about the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. What I wanted was her, damn it all. Now I have to go find another respectable woman.”

    “Why didn’t you keep your opinion about that ‘blather’ to yourself?”  Charles asked, wishing it had been his wife, instead of Henri’s, who had kicked the bucket. Charles had silvery hair now, and a paunch, but his wife looked even worse. Charles looked down at his bad left foot, that leg two inches too short that made the thick, heavy shoe so necessary, then glanced with scarcely-concealed envy at his younger client, a former Olympic star whose biceps were still firm.  Charles was barely interested in Henri’s latest problem, but it was his job to keep Henri popular. Right now, his job was in jeopardy. Henri surreptitiously lit another cigarette, which Charles ardently hoped the waiter wouldn’t see.

     “Perhaps we should move onto the terrace,” Charles suggested, picking up his wine glass. “There’s a cool spot out there under the umbrellas.”

    “It’s all the same to me,” Henri told him.  They moved outside to the restaurant’s rocky terrace, sheltered under rows of bright red umbrellas with ‘Coca Cola’ emblazoned in white, curling letters. Charles was glad to be back in Budapest: he looked forward to the mineral baths, the good, cheap wine, and the pretty women who would sleep with him willingly, despite his bad left foot.  That clump-clump of his shoe followed him everywhere, and most women glanced down at the thick sole of the shoe, hearing the heavy sound of it, and instinctively avoided intimacy with him.  It wasn’t fair.  Charles was also accursed with a gloomy cast of the eyes, a sad down-turning of the mouth, and with a voice so raspy he couldn’t succeed, as he had dreamed, in politics. He was forced to function as a mere advisor, well-paid to guide candidates into high offices, and keep them there, by making certain they said the right things and did the right things.. At present, he was worried about Henri, whose chances for re-election had been very good, until today. 

   Henri was part of a Senate committee on a fact-finding mission touring the European Union, with a stopover for fun in Budapest, where he had just dined with the Minister of Culture, stating his opinion that religion was a sham, and that Jesus was probably a closet homosexual.  Damn!  Charles sighed to himself. Henri had made his opinion known to the new Minister of Culture – a devout Catholic — not to the old one, who had been an atheist.

      “This story isn’t going to ride well with your constituency in Maryland, Henri.”

       “I know, I know! So what the hell should I do now?”

       “Maybe show up at church. And make sure people know about it.”

 

 

     “If you can’t fix this, I’m quitting politics,” Henri told him, peeling off a few thousand into Charles’ hands. “This should cover costs for your quick little trip over here. Do what you can to cover this up. Okay?”

    “I’m not Mr. Fix-It,” Charles complained. “I suggest you stay away from religion altogether after this.  I’m sorry I ever mentioned the word ‘church’ – but how was I to know you’d end up attending a healing session in some Praise-Jesus-Hallelujah cult?”

     “It has twenty thousand members,” Henri said lamely. “And I have to admit, I was entranced.”

     “Hypnotized, not entranced,” Charles corrected. “I should have set up the right church for you.”

     “Yes, you should have,” Henri said. “So now, get me the hell out of this mess!”

     Henri, whose poor vision was the result of a botched operation to reduce his near-sighted condition, couldn’t wear contact lenses anymore and didn’t dare risk a repeat of the operation until methods became more advanced.  Maybe any day, he thought to himself. Meanwhile, he was stuck wearing glasses, and hated it even more than getting old and out of shape. He’d really been caught up in that Jesus-Hallelujah-Praise-God jamboree, and, mesmerized, walked in a daze to the altar, knelt there, and said he believed.  A man stood over him as in a cloud, his vision actually became dark, as if an angel hovered somewhere, blotting out all the hot lights overhead, and then the evangelist asked if he could ‘lay hands’ on him. 

     “Do you believe you can be healed?”

     The fellow looked a little tired and was in a hurry, as there were dozens more who also sought the ‘hands-on’ experience.

     “Healed of what?”

     “Whatever your need is, of course. God will heal you now, if you believe!”

      What was that shiver of hope that flowed over him, as those hands were laid upon his head?    

      He felt an exquisite sense of peace overflow him.  The evangelist’s hands seemed full of electricity.  It was uncanny.  From Henri’s lips burst out his secret desire.:

      “I want my eyes to be healed!”

     “Then – be healed, eyes!  In Jesus’ name!”

 

    What a fool he’d been!   Such an utter fool!  For nothing had happened. Not a thing. He’d had some blurry spots in front of his eyes, like a thousand little dark dots, just as he came down the aisle to the front, and yes, those little dots disappeared, but that was all. He was still as near-sighted as ever.

     They’re all fakes! he thought to himself. He didn’t see a single person healed at that altar, except maybe one little old lady who said she was healed of cancer. Oh, sure! He’d ‘believe’ when he saw the doctor’s report!  He got the old lady’s name and address. He’d fix that so-called ‘healer’ if she died of cancer.

————————————————————————————————————–

 

     “Okay,” Henri told Charles, “it is true that the little black spots went away. And the woman with cancer got better. But then she died of a stroke.”

 

     “But you get those dots in front of your eyes when you drink, Henri,” his manager told him. “It comes and goes. Think of the consequences!  They snapped your picture there, with that crazy preacher’s hands on top of your head. Good God! It’s front page news in every damned tabloid in the country!”

     I know,” Henri said gloomily. “But what can I do?”

     “At least, you didn’t get ‘healed’ of something and feel like you had to proclaim it to the world,” Charles said. “That would have really wrecked everything.”

      “I sure got psychologically drawn in,” Henri admitted. “They have that service set up like a fine art. And of course, I didn’t get healed. I feel like closing down their operation. They’re raking in money like crazy, you know.”

       “I suggest you do nothing of the kind,” Charles told him. “At least, don’t directly be his source of trouble. Just promise me that next time, you’ll stay away from anything to do with churches.  For the rest of your life — or it’s bye-bye, career.”

      “Of course I will!”

      “Instead, start going to hospitals. Go visit some sick kids with cancer. Kiss some lepers. Do something nice, but stay away from the goddamn churches. Maybe they’ll forget.”

      “I hope so,” Henri said. “I sure hope so.”

 

 

    It wasn’t the paparazzi who were responsible, as Princess Diana had been hounded, but the auto accident was photographed by the paparazzi.  The stunned senator was photographed, too, mourning the fact that the accident wouldn’t have happened if she hadn’t taken so much valium

And here she had been pregnant!

 

Then the fellow had a nervous breakdown.   The tabloids reported that he killed himself with sleeping pills in the very house where he’d been born. His suicide note was short and pitiful.

      Jesus hadn’t been there to rescue the guy: the evangelist had been on his own in the Valley of Death.  Now Henri was in the hospital.  He’d fallen on some ice and was currently getting his back pulled straight — in traction. He was doubly irritated because he was experiencing double vision from his concussion.

     The ophthalmologist came in, with his apparatus, to check his eyes, and Henri heard him shake his head, as he made little clucking sounds like a mother hen worried about a chick.

       “You’ve had some real problems with these eyes, haven’t you?”

       “A guy like you botched an operation on my corneas,” Henri told him. “Wrecked my chances to get away from glasses.”

       “But the other condition, I mean,” the doctor said. “Just when did you have that operation on your retinas?”  He was peering deep into his right eye with that blasted irritating bright light.

      “What operation? What are you talking about?”

      “Your right retina was obviously torn loose, and was reattached by lasers. The left eye had some work done on its retina, too.”

       “I never had anything done to my retinas!”  Henri thought how the evangelist had laid hands on him, and a kind of bitter horror began to build up inside.

       “Well, it’s been some time, I suppose. Perhaps you’ve forgotten, though I can’t imagine you would.  If it hadn’t been for this obvious emergency operation, you’d be blind in your right eye.”

        The ophthalmologist looked again into the left eye.

       “Yes, same thing, just not as bad” he said. “Your left retina has also been re-attached.  Surely you remember seeing a flood of what we call “floaties” in your eyes? A feeling of a shadow falling down over your eyes, as if a curtain was closing down your vision?”

       O, my God!

       Suddenly, Henri undersood.  The darkness of his vision, as he knelt down, shielding the harsh overhead light from his eyes as he knelt— and the hundreds of little dark spots that swirled in his eyes, as the trembling hands of the evangelist gently touched his head, and Henri had asked to be healed.

      “Oh, God!” he whispered, as he lay stretched out on the hospital bed.  “Oh, God!”

====================Story #4====

REPARATION  (Story #4)

     Jeremiah was ready to die. He had long been prepared for the event. His only regret had been that he’d not had enough true faith to heal everyone upon whom he’d laid his hands – for which he had prepared with much prayer and fasting. He’d never really seen a vision, though others around him reported white doves always landing on windowsills wherever he went – hotel after hotel.

    That was strange, indeed – but he had never seen a single white dove himself. Still, he had tried to follow Christ’s example, believing he could lay hands on people and heal them if they had enough faith, just as the Bible had promised, in Christ’s name.  He’d seen a number of miracles – nobody could deny it!– but there were so few among the thousands he’d hoped to see walk again, be happy again, have hope again. It was distressing, for he also could not deny that there had been hundreds of stunning failures. Psychosomatics. Self hypnosis, maybe. His tireless nemesis, Henri B., had even planted “cured people” in his congregation to proclaim they had been healed.  Jeremiah’s best-selling book, unfortunately, included a few stories from fake ‘healed’ people who had infiltrated the church, paid by Henri B.  They had lied.  They had been included in the book— along with a dozen genuine cases –  (he assumed they were genuine!) – all to glorify God’s name and His holy powers of healing through Christ’s shed blood. Instead, outrage and mockery. Accusations of fraud.  Prostitutes had even come forth claiming he’d slept with them. Lies, lies, lies!

      Henri B., the Senator, revealed that he was sick of scammers acting in God’s name, so he’d paid actors to pretend they’d been healed. The evangelist had not been told by his ‘God’ which people had really been healed. He was utterly clueless. His ‘God’ had let him down.

     All of this had come about because the evangelist had laid hands on the Senator’s head and declared that his eyes had been healed. He had done so on inspiration.  He had been impressed – even certain — that the Senator’s eyes were been about to go blind – yet at the last moment, they had been saved, either by being healed, or because Henri himself had gone to an eye doctor and got operated on.  Whichever way you looked at it, Henri B’s eyes had been saved. 

     But Henri didn’t see it that way.  The doctor – alone—was the healer. Jeremiah had asked him to go to the doctor to have his eyes checked, to make certain they had been healed, and the doctor had insisted on operating.  Since then, Henri B’s persecution had been relentless.  Thoughts of suicide had crossed Jeremiah’s thoughts again and again.  Now, the waiting was over. No more fasting and prayers in the lonely nights. No more tears, lying prone on his face, begging for people to be healed, begging for conversions to his hero, Jesus.  He could even consider this final, terrible event as martyrdom. Dying for Jesus

He finally decided to write that the devil was forcing him to die, it was not his choice at all.

     Jeremiah was so shaky that he only had the strength now to put a little cross under the words “I forgive all my enemies and place all my faith in God’s mercy.” The word ‘mercy’ had a long, smeared trail of ink after it because he could no longer see what he was writing, could no longer feel the pen in his numb hand.  Pain was eating his belly alive.  He dropped the pen, as a convulsion from the drugs he’d taken filled his body. He knew he would soon be dead.  “Father, forgive my enemies,” he tried to say, but with so little breath left, other words came out….

—————————————————————————————————————-

   

     Henri had moved to a monastery in Sweden.  It was built in the fifteenth century of hand-cut stones. It was cold and had always been cold.  It was dark and had always been dark.  Bernadette – Bernice’s sister — had suggested the monastery as a suitable place for private penance, a new life. The Catholics would let him find some peace in his soul, perhaps, in a primitive way that his take-charge mind could understand.  In his jealousy, he’d murdered his wife.  Then he’d driven the evangelist into bankruptcy, and to his death.

     Too late, he’d learned that the eye doctor hadn’t operated on his eyes. Too late, he realized that the evangelist had indeed – by some unknown power — healed his eyes.  And for doing so, Henri had destroyed him!  Had thrust his church into financial ruin!  A million dollar check fixed that, and his declaration that he had been healed wiped out much of the onus caused by the fake ‘healings’ mentioned in the book that had disgraced the evangelist so soundly. But none of this could bring back the man of God who, in his suicide note, had written, “I forgive all my enemies…”

   As Henri whipped himself (he slashed his body with twenty lashes every evening, except on Sundays), he gritted his teeth and let the fierce pain sink into his flesh.

     “God forgive me, I didn’t know what I was doing!” he prayed, each night when he finished, cleaning the blood from his back and off the stone walls. Then he laid down on the hard, flat bed, letting the cold creep over him. The cold sank into the mass of festering wounds on his back.  With his diabetic condition, he knew he wouldn’t last too very much longer — maybe a year or so.  As for the Brothers and Monks, they thought him a wondrous saint-in-the-making, and with their silent gazes of admiration, they allowed him privacy in his holy efforts to make reparation for his sins, and for the sins of the whole world.

     ‘Brother’ Henri prayed constantly, begging forgiveness particularly from the man he’d destroyed, mindful of the power of that Silent God who had healed his eyes.  How many more blows from the length of electrical cord he wore around his waist (when he wasn’t using it) could his body take? When he had no more strength, he would quit eating. Finally, his pain would be over. Forever.

========Story #5=====

DIVISION  (story #4)

 

   By Judyth Vary Baker

 

     Henri Ballantyne was very near-sighted, and middle-aged, but he still carried a handsome shock of blonde hair, and had the body of an athlete. He was one of America’s most eligible bachelors, a powerful man who found himself stalked by paparazzi, aching for a photo of him with some movie star.  Charles, his political manager, was told to find him a suitable lady to date.  Henri still missed his dead wife: “What I wanted was Bernice, damn it. Now that she’s dead,” he told Charles, “you have to go find me another respectable woman.”

Charles had a big Rolodex and a vast reservoir of email addresses, but the combination of Movie Star and Respectable Potential Wife eluded all attempts. Then, a break: Bernice’s sister – Bernadette—called.

 

   

        She very well knew that Henri was cheating on her. It was a shame that they couldn’t have children.  Too many times, he’d demanded to know if she had finally become pregnant, only to be told that once again, everything had failed.  When the problem was finally diagnosed as Henri’s fault, not Bernice’s, she celebrated by getting drunk.  The relief!  The blessed relief! Henri, seeking to make himself feel and look better, got an eye operation that same week, but something went awry, and both his corneas were damaged, forcing him to stay in thick glasses. Henri tried to sue the doctor, but papers he’d signed before the operation, and the doctor’s good reputation, resulted in a settlement out of court. Bernice had done what she could to help: she tried to get inside information: she became friendly, before the lawsuit ensued, with the eye doctor, and even had a little minor surgery, which the good doctor gave her free of charge, knowing how upset Henri had been.

        Then came a meeting after regular office hours, when Bernice, noticing that the doctor had the same tastes as she for good music, invited him to accompany her to a Bach concert. It came about almost by accident: she had spotted Henri with a Pretty Young Thing on his arm, and with jealous ire, she called Dr. Richardson.

       They met outside the Concert Hall: he looked very fine with his bright blue contact lenses and his thick, blonde hair, much reminding her of Henri’s own tawny mane.  By evening’s end, she was calling her escort ‘Paul.’ By the end of the month, they were meeting regularly for concerts and more. 

————————————————————————————————————–

    I should feel guilty, she told herself, as she combed through her own dark, glossy curls. But I don’t!  She was still a stunningly beautiful woman.  She carefully examined her still-glamorous figure in the hall mirror, wishing her stomach was as flat as his secretary’s…but who can compete, at thirty-eight, with women fifteen years younger?  She felt a bit under the weather lately – was it age creeping up on her already? — and this made it seem all the more important for her to spread her wings and bring an adoring man into her arms.

Henri is discrete in his indiscretions, she told herself.  And so am I! It’s good that we didn’t have children to complicate matters.  She chose the correct purse for the evening, checked her hairstyle from the back, then took the elevator down to the foyer. Paul had sent a nice New York limo to pick her up – yet unaccountably, as she entered the limo, her thoughts turned again to Henri, who was treating her so much nicer, now that he knew it was his fault, not hers, that there were no babies.

 And he always brings me such nice gifts, now…for it is he, she decided, who is feeling guilty!  He’ll soon be going to Europe, and I’ll be left behind, but we’re only acting as Royals have done for centuries.  Generous to one another in public, and we still even sleep together!  She would not dare compare the two men in bed, for Henri had known her such a long time now, and Paul’s fascination with her might fade.   She should be grateful for good sex with two good men, in a comfortable life.

 

 

His spies told him that Bernice was pregnant, and that she had been seeing the very eye doctor who had destroyed his chances to look handsome again!  No – more than seeing the eye doctor!  More than that!  The divorced doctor had two children of his own and was obviously the source of Bernice’s sudden pregnancy.  How dare she!  And next year was election year! Did she think she could hide what she had conceived, when he had photographs, and even a videotape?  True, she was being very careful – she of course did not wish to harm Henri’s reputation – but what in hell possessed her to allow herself to get pregnant?  Damn it all!  

    “Women want babies,” Charles told him. “She knew it was hopeless with you, so—“

      He had to pause until Henri’s teeth stopped gnashing.

     “I have to be very blunt with you, Henri,” Charles told him. “Your little trip overseas, your lack of sorrow when she died, has been noticed. Her family has received a telephone call –“

      “—No doubt from him!”

      “It seems they’ve received information that’s disconcerting to them. Something about your hiring a private detective, who now wants a payoff to remain silent. Or else, he’ll speak to Bernice’s family. They, too, have reputations to consider.”

     “It’s not against the law, what I did,” Henri said gloomily. He tried to pretend that he wasn’t as deeply concerned as he was at the fresh bit of bad news.  The first bad bit was that Bernice’s sister was going to exhume the body, to have an autopsy done.

      “I thought Catholics didn’t do things like that,” he complained.

      “Apparently, sometimes they do,” Charles said. “I suggest you get yourself a good lawyer.”

 

   

 “I can’t begin to express to you how much I despise you,” Henri said to Dr. Richardson, who sat uncomfortably with him in the lawyer’s office. “I found her diary, you know.”

       Paul Richardson said nothing.  The smoldering hatred in Henri’s eyes was enough to keep him quiet.  He didn’t want Henri to jump up and choke him or something. They were waiting, with a wary-eyed male paralegal, for word on the DNA test on the dead fetus within Bernice’s womb.  Henri had demanded the test.

     “Another thing,” Henri said. “This all began when she volunteered to spy on you, for your information.  Prior to my bringing a lawsuit against you.”

     “She told me all about that,” Paul said, mildly. “And she apologized.”

     “She never was good at such things,” Henri admitted. “That’s why I was so shocked. That she got away with all of this with you.”

      “You weren’t around much to notice.”

       “I was around enough!” Henri snapped. He dropped his face into his hands, then, as if he were about to weep.  Paul was surprised at this sudden shift of emotion. He hazarded a comment.

       “I think we both have missed her.”

       “If only I had never had that operation!”

       “Well, I’m sorry it was botched up.”

      

As surprising as it may sound, the biggest hurdle seen while motivating addicted people to take up treatments that would cure their addiction is their family. The shame, the humiliation, the image in the society makes the families make them deny the addiction of their family members or their loved ones. But curing an addiction is always a group effort. The patient always looks for the support of his or her family members knowingly or sometimes unknowingly to help them get through their difficult phase. Let us look at some of the issues which have become the stumbling blocks in the addiction treatment in Michigan.

1. Ignorance:

Ignorance is a very grave issue seen today with respect to addiction treatment in Michigan. Even today, in this age of public awareness, most people in Michigan are not aware much about addiction and its various symptoms. One can also say that there are some people who also don’t want to be educated on the various addiction symptoms because they like to believe that their child or their beloved family members could never fall a prey to addiction.

That is one of the reasons that the government of Michigan has become conscious and has started awareness campaigns on a large scale so that more and more people learn and recognize the signs and symptoms of addiction at an early age. Today even the school and different companies have become vigilant and alert. The schools have rained their teachers to identify an addiction and the different ways that they can deal with them.

2. Denial:

To cure any disease it is necessary to access that the patient taking up the treatment is taking it up on its free will and not due to some peer pressure or force of the family. If the patient is not convinced of the treatment then the treatment sure is to be a failure from the start. Another dangerous statistics seen here is the denial of the family. The family either does not like to believe that such a thing could happen to their loved ones; or the family tries to cover up for the addict’s habits in the social circle or their incompetence at school or work.

3. Avoidance:

Avoidance is another harmful issue with respect to the hurdle in taking up an addiction treatment in Michigan. Some families think that if they try to confront the addict, he or she may sink further into addiction and they may lose complete control over the patient. There may also be a few who would be scared to even talk or suggest the addiction treatment and keep quiet thinking it is the best option.

4. Assumptions on the cause of addiction:

The families sometimes come up with their version of reasons for their loved ones taking up addictions. These lame assumptions are also generation with their own solutions. For example, a mother may think that her child has taken up alcoholism because the child feels lonely at home and so she would sacrifice her job and then expect the son to give up his addiction. Sometimes the family members go a step ahead and bargain with the addicted person. The family members promise some desirable incentive to the addicted person and in return ask the person to give up the addiction. However, these incomplete solutions can only come in the way of the person’s addiction treatment.

5. Controlling:

Controlling the addiction of the patient is not a new issue in relation to addiction treatment in Michigan. More often than not, the family members plead or cry to take up promises from the addicts. They even suggest that their friends or peers should try to advise and change the patients. The constant nagging has a harmful effect on the patient making them angry or irritated or sometimes even isolated.

6. Emotional issues with the patient:

This is one of the most dangerous issues in relation to addiction treatment in Michigan. When the patient is emotionally overworked, it is not just the patient that undergoes turmoil, but the issues are also not quite helpful to the other members of the family. The family members become very involved with the patient’s addiction and constantly try to watch on the patient’s habits and think of ways to cure it. This could reach to a point where the family member becomes disoriented and irritated; and sometimes develop stress-related problems of their own. This could disturb the patient’s life too. Guilt could be an emotion involved with the other members of the family. The family members might blame each other for the reason of the patient taking to drugs or alcohol.

This is the reason why most options for intervention and treatment program in Michigan have family oriented sessions.

Well I’m pretty sure I’ve been suffering from depression in a mild form for a few years now. But within the last few months I believe it’s taken a turn for the worse. I’m always tired when I’m awake, and then I can’t sleep at night! I’m just so exhausted all the time! No matter how much coffee I drink it’s never enough. I have no interest in anything, I’m having trouble concentrating at work, and I’m always pissy with my loved ones. Also I’m very reclusive and antisocial now.

I’ve mentioned getting treatment to my mother before, since she is the insurance holder, but she thinks it’s a joke. So any ideas on how I can approach this topic with her?

Also when I make an appointment what kind of questions should I ask?
I want everyone to know this is not just a “bad day.” I can’t even put my finger on one particular factor. I wish this could be solved by just taking a long walk. But that’s not the case. I eat healthy and exercise regularly. So this isn’t just some sugar low.

And also about 3 minutes ago my mother told me she would NOT take me to get help. I don’t know what I will do now.

Breast cancer is a malignant (cancerous) growth that begins in the tissues of the breast. Over the course of a lifetime, one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast cancer is a cancer of the breast tissue, which can occur in both women and men. Breast cancer may be one of the oldest known forms of cancer tumors in humans.Worldwide, breast cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death (after lung cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, and colon cancer). Breast cancer kills more women in the United States than any cancer except lung cancer. Today, breast cancer, like other forms of cancer, is considered to be a result of damage to DNA. How this mechanism may occur comes from several known or hypothesized factors (such as exposure to ionizing radiation, or viral mutagenesis). Some factors lead to an increased rate of mutation (exposure to estrogens) and decreased repair (the BRCA1, BRCA2 and p53) genes. Alcohol generally appears to increase the risk of breast cancer.

Breast cancer can also occur in men, although it rarely does. Experts predict 178,000 women and 2,000 men will develop breast cancer in the United States. There are several different types of breast cancer. First is Ductal carcinoma begins in the cells lining the ducts that bring milk to the nipple and accounts for more than 75% of breast cancers. Second is Lobular carcinoma begins in the milk-secreting glands of the breast but is otherwise fairly similar in its behavior to ductal carcinoma. Other varieties of breast cancer can arise from the skin, fat, connective tissues, and other cells present in the breast. Some women have what is known as HER2-positive breast cancer. HER2, short for human epidermal growth factor receptor-2, is a gene that helps control cell growth, division, and repair. When cells have too many copies of this gene, cell growth speeds up.

Causes of Breast Cancer

Simply being a woman is the main risk for breast cancer. While men can also get the disease, it is about 100 times more common in women than in men. The chance of getting breast cancer goes up as a woman gets older. Nearly 8 out of 10 breast cancers are found in women age 50 or older. About 5% to 10% of breast cancers are linked to changes (mutations) in certain genes. The most common gene changes are those of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Breast cancer risk is higher among women whose close blood relatives have this disease. The relatives can be from either the mother’s or father’s side of the family. Woman with cancer in one breast has a greater chance of getting a new cancer in the other breast or in another part of the same breast. This is different from the first cancer coming back Many experts now believe that the main reason for this is because they have faster growing tumors. Asian, Hispanic, and American Indian women have a lower risk of getting breast cancer. Certain types of abnormal biopsy results can be linked to a slightly higher risk of breast cancer.Women who have had radiation treatment to the chest area (as treatment for another cancer) earlier in life have a greatly increased risk of breast cancer

Some pregnant women were given the drug DES (diethylstilbestrol) because it was thought to lower their chances of losing the baby. Recent studies have shown that these women (and their daughters who were exposed to DES while in the uterus), have a slightly increased risk of getting breast cancer. Use of alcohol is clearly linked to a slightly increased risk of getting breast cancer. Women who have 1 drink a day have a very small increased risk. Those who have 2 to 5 drinks daily have about 1½ times the risk of women who drink no alcohol. The American Cancer Society suggests limiting the amount you drink.Being overweight is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, especially for women after change of life and if the weight gain took place during adulthood. Also, the risk seems to be higher if the extra fat is in the waist area. Breast-feeding and pregnancy: Some studies have shown that breast-feeding slightly lowers breast cancer risk, especially if the breast-feeding lasts 1½ to 2 years. This could be because breast-feeding lowers a woman’s total number of menstrual periods, as does pregnancy. Women who began having periods early (before 12 years of age) or who went through the change of life (menopause) after the age of 55 have a slightly increased risk of breast cancer.

Symptoms of Breast Cancer

1.Lumps.

2.Rash.

3.Breast Pain.

4.Cysts.

5.Nipple Discharge.

6.Inverted Nipple.

Treatment of Breast Cancer

1.Hormonal therapy (with tamoxifen).

2.Chemotherapy.

3.Radiotherapy.

4.Surgery.

For people who wish to prove their innocence against faulty addiction or abuse claims, alcohol detection drug service testing with hair alcohol testing gives them a fighting chance to win against false claims. Here are just a couple examples where random drug testing works in the favor of innocent people.

 

Applying for a job
Child custody
Recovering addicts
High school athletics

 

Perhaps you are a recovering addict and you are applying for a high-tech or highly skilled job which demands a sober person with a clean history. If you have to explain that you have been in treatment for 6 months, unless you have adequate testing results that can prove you’re sober, how else would you be able to get past the competition and get hired? As an employer, hiring a previous drug addict is a risk. With hair alcohol testing, you can prove to the employer you have been clean for up to 12 months of clean history.

 

Previously, if a parent was accused of being an alcoholic or an abuser of alcohol, a urine alcohol test was given but the alcohol concentration was not always accurate and what’s more, is that the urinalysis test only showed a weeks worth of abuse- not providing the courts the evidence they needed say of six months minimum or a years worth of evidence being ideal. The rate that alcohol leaves the body in hours and minutes makes it extremely difficult to judge how much a person has consumed and how long ago it was that the person consumed it. Employers, courts and schools could test for drug abuse because of its slower rate of leaving the body, but never long term alcohol abuse. What is also unique about hair alcohol testing is that it can reveal month to month markers of alcohol intake, showing the progress of a previous abuser to sobriety.
 
How Hair Alcohol Testing Works

If the lawyer or case worker or courts request that the mother or father undergo hair alcohol testing, for example, then a certified nurse will come to the parent’s home or office and collect a small sample of scalp hair and either physically take it to a lab or have it sent to a lab where the hair alcohol testing is done. The hair alcohol testing lab takes the hair sample through a series of tests that reveal when a person has consumed alcohol and approximately how much they consumed. A special test called EtG alcohol testing can show alcohol use in segments of time which is unlike any other test in the world. EtG, ethyl glucuronide is a metabolite only produced when alcohol is in the bloodstream.

 

As hair grows it absorbs everything we ingest from chemicals to food and drugs and alcohol. Fatty Ethel Esters, FAEE are formed as part of the hair’s structure as a result of drug and alcohol consumption, which remain indefinitely. And the more alcohol that is consumed creates more EtG markers present in the hair shaft consumption of alcohol has been up to a 30 day history and if the hair sample is longer, as much as a year of alcohol consumption can be tested. Using sensitive equipment, a small sample of hair can reveal everything a person has consumed from vitamins, drugs and now even alcohol. The more alcohol a person has consumed, the more markers will be present on a test.

 

This proof alone could win child custody battles, get a student back on the team or allow an employer to feel good about hiring a previous abuser. Hair alcohol testing is accepted as certified evidence for court cases in America and the United Kingdom.

Some of you (especially the older baby boomers) might remember “The Magnificent Seven”, a blockbuster western movie from 1960 featuring an incredible cast that included Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, James Coburn, Robert Vaughn, and Charles Bronson.

Well, this article is NOT about those Magnificent Seven. It’s about seven food items that are downright excellent and “magnificent” for your health, particularly if you’re someone dealing with low blood sugar symptoms or hypoglycemic symptoms. The characters in the movie were good guys, the items on this list are good foods. All seven of them.

Here they are, in all their glory, in alphabetical order:

Magnificent #1: Berries

Fruits, in general, have a high sugar (fructose) content, so if you’re just starting out on your hypoglycemic diet, you may want to limit the fruit you eat – avoid bananas, for instance.

The best fruit for someone dealing with low blood sugar, hypoglycemia, even hyperglycemia, is berries. Berries are lower in sugar and calories than many other fruits, and they’re packed with nutrients.

Take blueberries, for example. Many health benefits have been attributed to blueberries, and they’re also a very good source of vitamin C, manganese, dietary fiber, vitamin E and antioxidants. Choose wild blueberries for even more antioxidants than cultivated blueberries provide.

Try blueberries on your cereal, in your yogurt, or blend some into your protein shake.

Magnificent #2: Eggplant

Yes, your mom was right! Eat your veggies for good health! And this one in particular: eggplant. We don’t all eat eggplant, but according to recent research, we probably should.

Purple-skinned eggplant is a good source of phenols, a nutrient that helps your body use sugar more efficiently. Phenols have also been found to help with high blood pressure, and provide antioxidant protection as well.

Try eggplant in Greek Moussaka, a tasty dip, or even Eggplant Lasagna!

Magnificent #3: Fiber

Low blood sugar and hypoglycemia expert Anita Flegg recommends you eat nine handfuls of fruit and veggies and one ounce of nuts every day. Eat only whole grain breads and cereals. These are all allowable hypoglycemia foods. The fruit, vegetables, nuts and whole grains all help you address one of the most important points of an hypoglycemia diet: Eating lots of fiber.

If you’re eating lots of vegetables, you’re getting good carbohydrates AND lots of vitamins and minerals. Best of all, vegetables are a great source of dietary fiber, especially if they’re raw or lightly steamed.

Dietary fiber is crucial to the hypoglycemia diet. Fiber slows down the absorption of sugars that are a part of all foods and reduces the possibility of a low blood sugar episode later on.

As an added benefit, having your fiber throughout the day means you’ll never be hungry, and it’ll be easier to stay away from sweets. And if you also find yourself losing a little weight, hey, even better!

As hypoglycemics, we should eat our meals – not drink them. Juicers were all the rage for a while, and they certainly had their value. People who would otherwise not eat enough fruits and vegetables to get their required vitamins were at least getting a vitamin boost.

While getting your vitamins is a great idea, juice isn’t the best way to get it. Whether you buy it or make it yourself, juice is a poor choice for hypoglycemics because processing has removed all of the fiber and some of the vitamins (some B vitamins are destroyed by processing).

Without the fiber to slow the sugar response, the natural sugars in both fruits and vegetables can cause a very fast sugar spike. For hypoglycemics, this is a major problem because of the symptoms related to both the sugar spike and the sugar crash that is sure to follow.

If you’re dealing with low blood sugar, hypoglycemia, even hyperglycemia, stick with fresh fruits and vegetables for quality vitamins and better sugar control.

Magnificent #4: Fish

Low blood sugar and hypoglycemia expert Anita Flegg also recommends you eat fish three times per week.

There are two kinds of fish: white fish and oily fish. Examples of white fish are cod, halibut and monkfish. White fish are a great low-calorie source of protein and there are dozens of tasty ways to prepare them.

Oily fish like salmon and mackerel are also tasty sources of protein, and although they’re not particularly low-cal, they have the added benefit of omega-3 fatty acids. Studies have shown that omega-3 fatty acids are great for improving and maintaining the health of your heart, and they’re great for your skin and hair, too. Keep in mind when you get ready to cook it that pan-frying and deep-frying fish, especially at high temperatures, appears to destroy the omega-3 fats.

So go ahead and choose fish. Bake, poach, grill or steam it. It’s delicious and a great source of protein that’ll help keep your blood sugar level steady and you feeling great.

FYI (while we’re talking about fish…) insulin resistance is part of the hypoglycemia problem in that your body has to produce more and more insulin over time to deal with the sugars in your diet. Reversing this is crucial to improving your sugar-handling, and reducing your hypoglycemia symptoms.

Now, did you know that taking fish oil (1000-4000 mg every day) not only lowers cholesterol and reduces inflammation, but also improves insulin sensitivity?

And if you just can’t eat enough fish, also add omega-3 fatty acids capsules.

Magnificent #5: Nuts

Go Nuts!… Recent research shows that eating nuts and nut butters at least 5 times a week can reduce your risk of developing Type II diabetes by 27%!

Why “go nuts?” Because they have the top three components to keep your blood sugar steady and improve your insulin sensitivity: protein, fiber, good fats.

It’s recommended to consume one ounce of nuts every day. Looking for ways to add nuts to your diet? Try some of these: add a handful of slivered almonds to your next stir-fry, take a small bag of pistachios or cashews to snack on at work, put peanut butter on your breakfast toast.

Magnificent #6: Rye

I talked about fiber earlier in this article, and new information about whole-grain rye should move it to the top of your list.

According to a study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in December of 2005, when rye bread and pasta were compared to oat and wheat bread and potato, insulin secretion (an indication of the reduction of insulin resistance) increased six times more in the rye bread group than for the other two groups.

This result was supplemented in August of 2007 (Journal of the American Dietetic Association), when it was found that a rye pasta diet actually caused changes in genes linked with Type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome!

The key to understand here is that the biggest risk inherent in being hypoglycemic is that it increases your risk of getting Type II diabetes.

Because hypoglycemia progresses to insulin resistance, and from there to diabetes, it is important for hypoglycemics to maintain and shore up your insulin sensitivity as much as possible, and however you can.

In reactive hypoglycemia, you have too much insulin because of insulin resistance – it takes more and more insulin production to get the cells to respond. That’s when you get an avalanche of insulin that causes a hypoglycemic episode.

As this progresses and gets worse over the years, the risk of developing Type II diabetes goes up.

Whole-grain rye seems to make a difference in insulin sensitivity, so the studies seem to suggest that whole-grain rye products should be good for everyone who is insulin resistant, whether hypoglycemic or Type II diabetic.

Magnificent #7: Tomato

Eat 10 tablespoons of cooked tomato foods every week to get the anti-oxidant lycopene.

Oxidation is a natural process that causes your cells to age. Topping up on antioxidants like lycopene can slow cell aging and keep you feeling healthier.

Anything that helps your overall health will also help your hypoglycemia symptoms. Do your body a favor: add foods containing tomato to your diet.

Eat well, be well, live well!

Daniel G. St-Jean

Editor of Help For Hypoglycemia

Publisher of the Help For Hypoglycemia Blog

Are you a Mom? Do you work outside the home? Maybe you stay home, but struggle to make ends meet with one income.

Maybe you are a single mom who’s working two jobs to carry the load. Did you leave your career to stay with your children and now feeling unfulfilled? Whatever your situation is you must read this!

As a mother maybe you want more than anything to stay home with your children. You don’t want the daycare raising them. More than likely you want to be there for them and with
them and are willing do just about whatever it may take to stay-at-home while they young.

It may all be a sacrifice, but knowing that you will have the privilege to experience every new development your babies encounter and be there for them makes it all worth it.

As time goes on expenses will grow, as with the children, and the need to help bring in an income may become greater.

With this in mind, there is a special home business opportunity that will allow you to stay-at-home while contributing an income.

Maybe you have tried some such as: home party sales, envelope stuffing or other work-at-home opportunities with many promising to make a lot of money quickly. Most of them, as you know, are “too good” to be true. If you are like me you are determined to find something, though!

As you know, the future is on the web (actually, already there). People are really making an honest living online.

You can make a living that you can be proud of. No “selling” of worthless items or having to urge your family and friends to “join” or “buy” just to get started. However, you can make an income, a good one, by building a website about something you already know or something that really interests you.

Maybe your a hiking enthusiast, love making candles or an expert at cooking. Whatever your niche, or special interest, you can make it work for you! Why not? If you don’t do it someone else will.

Take that step, be your own boss, have more time with your family and earn an income.

FYI: Harris Poll indicates that 72% of households are looking to start a home business.

Your time is NOW! Listed below is the help you need to get started:

 

 

The story revolves around my struggles with addiction, the life I did not choose to lead and where that lifestyle has led me. This story goes into the numerous facets of my life, including addiction and recovery, and personal history It is a compilation of my personal experiences to this point, paying attention to information I have been privileged to receive from God, 12 step recovery programs and friends.

I grew up in Oregon with my mom, step dad and younger sister. My mom and her husband at the time had their struggles. My step dad drank a lot and my mother was a very controlling individual with security issues of her own, and depression issues. Some where along the way growing up I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere.

Rebellious Teenager

I loved movies and I loved role play. I idolized rockers, country rockers and the hard-core lifestyle they lived and I wanted to be apart of it. I would attend parties on the weekends and one thing led to another and I tried my first line of Cocaine when I was 15, some kids offered it to me at a party. I was curious about drugs, so it was an easy sale.

That one line of Cocaine started me on a path of getting high at school and drunk before. Classes, track practice and meets. It would interfere with my drug and drinking life. What I thought was normal behavior was not normal at all. I was out of control, addicted to drugs and in the midst of all this craziness I was so dependent on one good apple out of the bunch of Christian friends I had that as crazy as it sounds upon our graduation from high school I followed her to college in Boise, Idaho. What was strange at this point in my life was this move got me around strong minded individuals not only mentally, but physically and spiritually. The hidden message I realized later was this got my off the booze and the drugs. Yet my destructive, controlling, manipulative mind set; in addition to, my low self esteem still took me down a path of destruction.

Marriage, Children, and Divorce.

Since I quit the booze and drugs, my attitude never changed. I dropped out of college, had met a man seventeen years my senior with three boys of his own. We married, had three children of our own, and fought with one another very abusively. How any of us made it through the 10 year marriage without me drinking or drugging God only knows.

My Life on Cocaine & Alcohol, Later Heroin and Alcohol

After my marriage had failed, and full of guilt and shame all I wanted to do was hang out and get high – and I could never get high enough. Sometimes I would be up for days, using constantly. When I’d finally come down, I was totally depleted. I would barely get out of bed for weeks. I even tried to stay sober at one point or another. I got a job at a local janitorial service to support myself, but after a month I started using again. I couldn’t hold my job because I was too sick and too high to function.

I was living on the doorstep of death everyday, almost unknowingly because I had no idea how toxic and dangerous the chemicals were that I put in my body.

I lived wherever I could, in the woods, camping in tents or in trailers, even under tarps tied to two separated trees. When I did have a job for a short period of time I had my own apartment where my children could come and visit. Things were looking up, only for me to tear them down when I would see my children, and feel the guilt once again. The guilt I couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with led me back to the booze and now heroin, since the cocaine wasn’t working anymore

Falling Apart

I tried to lead a regular life, but I found that on coke, later on heroin that even the simplest things were impossible. My apartment looked like someone had taken everything I owned, shook it up and dropped it on the floor. I could barely walk through the piles of garbage, dirty dishes, clothes and knickknacks. I very seldom ate or slept. I wasn’t taking care of myself. I want the best for my children, and with me being on drugs I simply could not be a mother. I was angry and irritable all the time, constantly aggravated, frustrated, yelling and screaming. I tried to kill myself numerous times, of no avail. The strange thing I didn’t realize was it wasn’t until I got in recovery that I was trying to kill myself every day I drank and used.

I know many women who’ve had their children taken away, even mothers who chose to give their kids up to the system. I know women who have literally lost their minds because of drugs and booze and I was becoming one of them. I had no patience – especially for my own children . It was with this realization that I knew I had to change my life.

I met a man in recovery and together we both realized we needed a change. The adventure we embarked on took us to Washington State. His family lived there. All this did for me was to intensify my guilt over my children and my low self esteem. The only way I knew to cope was to dive deeper into my addictive lifestyle. I had my brushes with the law and legal systems, and near death experiences. The one that I accredit to opening my eyes was when I had a heart attack at the young age of 33.

I met a nun that was 24 years old that lived a similar lifestyle of my own. A soft spoken young girl that was not threatening to me, or condemning of my lifestyle. It was the first time I felt I had seen an angel in human form. A beautiful angel I will never forget until my dying day. She introduced me to state officials to get help.

Finding Help

I went to the state to find mental health help and I went in for a drug and alcohol assessment. I went from one inpatient treatment center after another struggling in between to stay clean and sober. After going through this, the woman running the last program I attended left it up to me to do some outpatient treatment, and it changed my life.

I took recovery seriously and attended as many 12-step meetings as possible – sometimes five meetings a day – anything to get me through it without using. I also joined a program that taught me basic life skills, like budgeting and parenting. Even though at this point in my life I didn’t have my children with me. I also joined other spiritual programs from church, meditation, and incense and smudging rituals of Native Americans. Something to give me a spiritual base to hold onto when the days felt like I wouldn’t get through them being clean and sober.

During this same process I met, came to know, and grow in love with a man in recovery. When writing this article we have been married 14 years. I met, grew to love, and walk this road of sobriety and spiritual growth with my soul mate. Also during this time the idea of being self-sufficient was mind-boggling. I was terrified to even set a goal for myself. At first, I hated the daily chores and meetings, and learning to be a responsible adult at age 33. I don’t recall when it finally hit that I live this lifestyle because I wanted to and not because I had to. All I do know is that now with 17 plus years of sobriety it has become a part of me. I live to enhance and strengthen it so I may share it with others today.

To Everyone Out There

In the beginning, cocaine gave me a feeling of euphoria, as the heroin and booze did later. In the end, all of it made me feel hollow and empty. Now I want to inspire hope in the families who know someone with an addiction like mine. People get stuck, and it’s important to give them hope to get out of it. Please! Don’t give up – miracles happen everyday.

Look if you want more for yourself and your family… if you’re tired of other people limiting your potential, or all the negativity and destructive behavior brought about due to drug and alcohol use then you really owe it to yourself to take the steps to get help. There’s a saying…

“If You Keep Doing What You’ve Always Done You Keep Getting What You’ve Always Gotten”.

I am living proof (in addition to the thousands of other success stories out there), that when it comes to recovery and the life I share with my husband, grown children, and grandchildren, that recovery will change ones life forever. Struggles that once seemed “a part of life”, are now a thing of the past. You literally can be free from the bondage of addiction and or alcoholism, and receive so much in recovering. All you have to do today is, SAY “MAYBE,” I have a problem, and let those that have been walking through this journey of recovery help you along the way.

For any input or comments feel free to contact me at 888-323-8916 Option 101 or email me at richbeyondmeasure@gmail.com You never know. Our paths may be destined to cross and meet face to face.

The story revolves around my struggles with addiction, the life I did not choose to lead and where that lifestyle has led me. This story goes into the numerous facets of my life, including addiction and recovery, and personal history It is a compilation of my personal experiences to this point, paying attention to information I have been privileged to receive from God, 12 step recovery programs and friends.

I grew up in Oregon with my mom, step dad and younger sister. My mom and her husband at the time had their struggles. My step dad drank a lot and my mother was a very controlling individual with security issues of her own, and depression issues. Some where along the way growing up I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere.

Rebellious Teenager

I loved movies and I loved role play. I idolized rockers, country rockers and the hard-core lifestyle they lived and I wanted to be apart of it. I would attend parties on the weekends and one thing led to another and I tried my first line of Cocaine when I was 15, some kids offered it to me at a party. I was curious about drugs, so it was an easy sale.

That one line of Cocaine started me on a path of getting high at school and drunk before. Classes, track practice and meets. It would interfere with my drug and drinking life. What I thought was normal behavior was not normal at all. I was out of control, addicted to drugs and in the midst of all this craziness I was so dependent on one good apple out of the bunch of Christian friends I had that as crazy as it sounds upon our graduation from high school I followed her to college in Boise, Idaho. What was strange at this point in my life was this move got me around strong minded individuals not only mentally, but physically and spiritually. The hidden message I realized later was this got my off the booze and the drugs. Yet my destructive, controlling, manipulative mind set; in addition to, my low self esteem still took me down a path of destruction.

Marriage, Children, and Divorce.

Since I quit the booze and drugs, my attitude never changed. I dropped out of college, had met a man seventeen years my senior with three boys of his own. We married, had three children of our own, and fought with one another very abusively. How any of us made it through the 10 year marriage without me drinking or drugging God only knows.

My Life on Cocaine & Alcohol, Later Heroin and Alcohol

After my marriage had failed, and full of guilt and shame all I wanted to do was hang out and get high – and I could never get high enough. Sometimes I would be up for days, using constantly. When I’d finally come down, I was totally depleted. I would barely get out of bed for weeks. I even tried to stay sober at one point or another. I got a job at a local janitorial service to support myself, but after a month I started using again. I couldn’t hold my job because I was too sick and too high to function.

I was living on the doorstep of death everyday, almost unknowingly because I had no idea how toxic and dangerous the chemicals were that I put in my body.

I lived wherever I could, in the woods, camping in tents or in trailers, even under tarps tied to two separated trees. When I did have a job for a short period of time I had my own apartment where my children could come and visit. Things were looking up, only for me to tear them down when I would see my children, and feel the guilt once again. The guilt I couldn’t and wouldn’t deal with led me back to the booze and now heroin, since the cocaine wasn’t working anymore

Falling Apart

I tried to lead a regular life, but I found that on coke, later on heroin that even the simplest things were impossible. My apartment looked like someone had taken everything I owned, shook it up and dropped it on the floor. I could barely walk through the piles of garbage, dirty dishes, clothes and knickknacks. I very seldom ate or slept. I wasn’t taking care of myself. I want the best for my children, and with me being on drugs I simply could not be a mother. I was angry and irritable all the time, constantly aggravated, frustrated, yelling and screaming. I tried to kill myself numerous times, of no avail. The strange thing I didn’t realize was it wasn’t until I got in recovery that I was trying to kill myself every day I drank and used.

I know many women who’ve had their children taken away, even mothers who chose to give their kids up to the system. I know women who have literally lost their minds because of drugs and booze and I was becoming one of them. I had no patience – especially for my own children . It was with this realization that I knew I had to change my life.

I met a man in recovery and together we both realized we needed a change. The adventure we embarked on took us to Washington State. His family lived there. All this did for me was to intensify my guilt over my children and my low self esteem. The only way I knew to cope was to dive deeper into my addictive lifestyle. I had my brushes with the law and legal systems, and near death experiences. The one that I accredit to opening my eyes was when I had a heart attack at the young age of 33.

I met a nun that was 24 years old that lived a similar lifestyle of my own. A soft spoken young girl that was not threatening to me, or condemning of my lifestyle. It was the first time I felt I had seen an angel in human form. A beautiful angel I will never forget until my dying day. She introduced me to state officials to get help.

Finding Help

I went to the state to find mental health help and I went in for a drug and alcohol assessment. I went from one inpatient treatment center after another struggling in between to stay clean and sober. After going through this, the woman running the last program I attended left it up to me to do some outpatient treatment, and it changed my life.

I took recovery seriously and attended as many 12-step meetings as possible – sometimes five meetings a day – anything to get me through it without using. I also joined a program that taught me basic life skills, like budgeting and parenting. Even though at this point in my life I didn’t have my children with me. I also joined other spiritual programs from church, meditation, and incense and smudging rituals of Native Americans. Something to give me a spiritual base to hold onto when the days felt like I wouldn’t get through them being clean and sober.

During this same process I met, came to know, and grow in love with a man in recovery. When writing this article we have been married 14 years. I met, grew to love, and walk this road of sobriety and spiritual growth with my soul mate. Also during this time the idea of being self-sufficient was mind-boggling. I was terrified to even set a goal for myself. At first, I hated the daily chores and meetings, and learning to be a responsible adult at age 33. I don’t recall when it finally hit that I live this lifestyle because I wanted to and not because I had to. All I do know is that now with 17 plus years of sobriety it has become a part of me. I live to enhance and strengthen it so I may share it with others today.

To Everyone Out There

In the beginning, cocaine gave me a feeling of euphoria, as the heroin and booze did later. In the end, all of it made me feel hollow and empty. Now I want to inspire hope in the families who know someone with an addiction like mine. People get stuck, and it’s important to give them hope to get out of it. Please! Don’t give up – miracles happen everyday.

Look if you want more for yourself and your family… if you’re tired of other people limiting your potential, or all the negativity and destructive behavior brought about due to drug and alcohol use then you really owe it to yourself to take the steps to get help. There’s a saying…

“If You Keep Doing What You’ve Always Done You Keep Getting What You’ve Always Gotten”.

I am living proof (in addition to the thousands of other success stories out there), that when it comes to recovery and the life I share with my husband, grown children, and grandchildren, that recovery will change ones life forever. Struggles that once seemed “a part of life”, are now a thing of the past. You literally can be free from the bondage of addiction and or alcoholism, and receive so much in recovering. All you have to do today is, SAY “MAYBE,” I have a problem, and let those that have been walking through this journey of recovery help you along the way.

For any input or comments feel free to contact me at 888-323-8916 Option 101 or email me at richbeyondmeasure@gmail.com You never know. Our paths may be destined to cross and meet face to face.

How To Get Rid Of Gynecomastia

Gynecomastia is a known health condition which causes men to have abnormal breast enlargement and expansion – sometimes in only one breast and often in both. The particular condition tends to affect young boys going thru adolesence, and elderly men – because hormones are misaligned in both stages of life.

When true Gynecomastia is occurring to boys or men, there is about one and a half inches of area slightly below the nipple that has a tendency to swell. The difficulty frequently goes away unaided on it’s own, within 1-3 years. Occasionally [**] Gynecomastia is caused thanks to the man using particular drugs which may cause the difficulty. It’s a rare side effect of the drugs, but men can generally dump Gynecomastia by simply changing the sorts of drugs they are taking, or using choices.

If you are taking certain prescription drugs however,eg anything which produces additional estrogen, steroids, certain cardiovascular drugs, and ulcer treatments such as Tagamet, Prilosec, and Zantac – speak to your health practitioner or hospital therapy supplier about using alternatives.

Recreational drugs such as marijuana and alcohol are that causes Gynecomastia in rare cases for instance, so you can lose the condition sometimes by simply stopping use of these.

When a man has what seems to be’boobs’ on his chest from easy weight gain, it’s fairly fast and easy to dump if you are willing to put in a bit of work. You can’t simply get rid of Gynecomastia or Pseudogynecomastia just by building up your chest muscles though. In fact, you can make the issue more obvious by building up the muscles.

Fake Gynecomastia.

An easy cosmetic surgery procedure from a professional cosmetic surgeon can remove the additional fat and tissue on your chest area, effectively removing the’boobs’ that are so embarrassing and troublesome.

Since the fat and glands which are making your boobs appear giant sit between the muscles and your skin, building up the fundamental muscles will simply push the’boobs’ out further.

When the Gynecomastia is basically the fake variety due to additional fat on the body, the best way to lose it is to start a fat burning routine. You may burn further fat by toning up your muscles, but you will have to choose a diet and exercise|n exercise and diet} plan which is specially made to help burn excess fat from your body, then get started with it. With a bit of dedication and commitment, you’ll find yourself simply in a position to get shot of the Gynecomastia within just 3 to six weeks. It is not straightforward for most of us to simply burn the additional fat from our bodies though, so if this is something you’ve tried unsuccessfully -or you want a faster way to resolve the problem – there is one other option for disposing of either Pseudo or Standard Gynecomastia : cosmetic surgery.

Now here’s A Cut-To-The-Chase, step by step manual that’ll Enable You How To Reduce My Excess Chest Fat! Take a look here for No Brainer Man Boobs advice or visit
How To Lose Excess Chest Fat

How To Get Rid Of Gynecomastia

Gynecomastia is a known health condition which causes men to have abnormal breast enlargement and expansion – sometimes in only one breast and often in both. The particular condition tends to affect young boys going thru adolesence, and elderly men – because hormones are misaligned in both stages of life.

When true Gynecomastia is occurring to boys or men, there is about one and a half inches of area slightly below the nipple that has a tendency to swell. The difficulty frequently goes away unaided on it’s own, within 1-3 years. Occasionally [**] Gynecomastia is caused thanks to the man using particular drugs which may cause the difficulty. It’s a rare side effect of the drugs, but men can generally dump Gynecomastia by simply changing the sorts of drugs they are taking, or using choices.

If you are taking certain prescription drugs however,eg anything which produces additional estrogen, steroids, certain cardiovascular drugs, and ulcer treatments such as Tagamet, Prilosec, and Zantac – speak to your health practitioner or hospital therapy supplier about using alternatives.

Recreational drugs such as marijuana and alcohol are that causes Gynecomastia in rare cases for instance, so you can lose the condition sometimes by simply stopping use of these.

When a man has what seems to be’boobs’ on his chest from easy weight gain, it’s fairly fast and easy to dump if you are willing to put in a bit of work. You can’t simply get rid of Gynecomastia or Pseudogynecomastia just by building up your chest muscles though. In fact, you can make the issue more obvious by building up the muscles.

Fake Gynecomastia.

An easy cosmetic surgery procedure from a professional cosmetic surgeon can remove the additional fat and tissue on your chest area, effectively removing the’boobs’ that are so embarrassing and troublesome.

Since the fat and glands which are making your boobs appear giant sit between the muscles and your skin, building up the fundamental muscles will simply push the’boobs’ out further.

When the Gynecomastia is basically the fake variety due to additional fat on the body, the best way to lose it is to start a fat burning routine. You may burn further fat by toning up your muscles, but you will have to choose a diet and exercise|n exercise and diet} plan which is specially made to help burn excess fat from your body, then get started with it. With a bit of dedication and commitment, you’ll find yourself simply in a position to get shot of the Gynecomastia within just 3 to six weeks. It is not straightforward for most of us to simply burn the additional fat from our bodies though, so if this is something you’ve tried unsuccessfully -or you want a faster way to resolve the problem – there is one other option for disposing of either Pseudo or Standard Gynecomastia : cosmetic surgery.

Now here’s A Cut-To-The-Chase, step by step manual that’ll Enable You How To Reduce My Excess Chest Fat! Take a look here for No Brainer Man Boobs advice or visit
How To Lose Excess Chest Fat

Crazy Itchy?
So for a few days I have be itchy where my bra and underwear inside layer are. I only seize itchy at night too. I enjoy cleaned all my clothes and linens and towel, etc. I don’t hold a clue what to do I shower everyday and I still can’t stop itching! It’s…

Can you die from herpes?
Like is it anything close to HIV/AID? Will your body shut down on you, or will it attack another foremost fragment of your body? Over 80% of the population have HSV1 (most commonly agreed as oral Herpes) while around 20% of the population have HSV2 (most commonly set as genital Herpes)….

I stipulation give support to re: hypertension from a medical expert??
I own have high-ranking blood pressure for over 35 years. It be first notice when I be pregnant. I have a adrenal tumor nearly 11 years ago. It be removed; my blood pressure go down for a while, but go rear up through…

How do you get hold of rid of a hallucination?
When I bodies induce fever, its trying to come to blows rotten a virus or infection. Treat your disorientation near over the counter products solitary if it is not accompany by vomiting, diarrhea, and moderate to severe discomfort, step to the doctor if your confusion…

Is Tourettes Syndrome diagnosed at birth?
or in untimely childhood around what ages?? Thanx! =) Tourette’s is usually diagnosed in precipitate childhood. It can not be detected at birth because its diagnosis requires several motor tics and at least one phonic tic; the phonic tic can not be detected until the child can…

Am I going to die? ;-; Tuberculosis examination!?
Today I went into my doctor and I have to get a TB assessment. You know, that thing where on earth they insert the needle and you get hold of a little bump. I’m supposed to be in motion back contained by on Friday so she could…

What infectious diseases could a man seize that he wouldn’t know almost if he cheated on his wife?
I am the wife. I want to know what he could hold that he wouldn’t know something like that I could procure if he have sex near me. He could be an asymptomatic mover of most any…

Herpes?
k i hav a bump on my penis. its close to a mosquitoe bite. u know wen it get liek a big bump. but its approaching a bump inside. approaching its below my skin n i can move it around n its red outside.. n i hav little red bumps in my pube nouns that…

My ears are getting puffy and red how do i abet them?
i believe that they are infected but im not completley sure does anyone know how to fix an infection step to the doctor. ear infections are zilch to play next to. Your ears are so close to your brain. Not to mention…

Has anyone have laser stretch dupe removal?
I was thinking nearly getting this, but I heard that it doesn’t really do anything. I be wondering if anyone has have the procedure done and if it produced results. I am currently undergoing laser stretch mark off treatment on my abdomen. I hold had 5…

How do you know if you hold food poisoning?
I went to taco bell concluding night and my tacos didn’t essence right and now my stomach feel like its on chompy hose down and it just hurts really discouraging. I haven’t thrown up yet but enjoy gotten really close to. could it be food poisoning…

Itching sensation?
both of my arms started itching like crazy today for no adjectives reason. i haven’t touched or eat anything out of the ordinary and although my skin is other dry,this itching has never be a problem before. what should i do and what could it be? the lone time my arms…

What types of cancer are near that eliminate in a year?
I’m doing a occupancy composition on different types of cancer and I involve to find a few more types of cancer that, save treated, can slaughter in one year. Thanks. Any cancer can gun down inside a year if it is finishing stage when discovered….

OMG! what is wrong next to me!? please answer!?
i merely found a faultless circle on my posterior! close to its really small and below my bra strap-its a wound if your wondering. what the hell is it? i don’t remember if i bumped on it! plus it really is a immaculate cirlcle. its not wide…

How long does it thieve the side effects for topamax to stop once your completely stale of it?
I am stoping discussion it b/c I can’t stand the side effects any more!! Once I taper completly down how long willl it be up to that time I can finally drink a soda!?! Or how long formerly…

HELP! Neck torment, kidney agony, swollen glands, wet retention and Hypothyroid!?
ok let me try and afford you all the info. First tolerate me say I am going to the DR tomorrow so please don’t relay me to go see a Dr I know that much. Also permit me say that I be put on…

Could I enjoy colon polyps at age 15?
I am 15 years old and I am getting a Colonoscopy within March. Is it even possible for me to have polyps? Aren’t I to childlike? Colon cancer runs in the kith and kin. My dad’s mom had colon cancer. So did my great grandpa. And also…

How long do hickys later?
I went to the movies beside my boy friend and once we went outside he notice I had a hickey. I’v be hiding it with receive up but then it blend next to my skin. If my parents find out about it im contained by so much trouble. PLEASE HELP!!…

Do you stir to a urologist for herpes?
Do race see a urologist for herpes? I broke up beside my ex surrounded by july because he be a drunk near no employment and no coupé and be in words discourteous to me. I dumped him at his friends house and told him to unsophisticatedly grasp lost….

Is at hand a medication for…??
a sour and burning throught as a result of chemo psychiatric help? What you are referring to sounds similar to oral mucositis which is an inflammation in the mouth that creates throbbing ulcer. There is treatment for it, but it can be difficult to muddle through once it have started….

I get a huge infected pimple defect partly an inch in diameter on my facade and it’s pink and it won’t suntan?
I enjoy a slight problem beside pimples but i get an infected one and it get huge nearly partially an inch in diameter on my obverse. My doctor give me antibiotics and it cured…

Dry skin on obverse?
Every time I wash my frontage, I always get hold of dry skin peeling sour between my eyebrows and on both cheeks. If I don’t wash my obverse, the dry skin never shows up but when I wash, it shows up. I scrub but it doesn’t seem to be to help….

Possibly the flu?
I haven’t had the flu since i be a little girl and i don’t even remember how it started. Today i woke up beside a sore throat and sore in my joint. Then I started dry coughing, coughing so badly that it is hurting down contained by my chest i have coughed…

Tell me how long formerly citalopram can abet and how posotively does it brand name yo surface?
It take almost 6-8 weeks depending on the individual my wife have be on them for some time and is very soon a totally different creature to what she be prior ,she have more confidence and is closely…

Chronic bloating?? I discern sooo full and bloated most of the time.?
I use the bathroom more or less twice a week. I do munch through foods giant surrounded by fiber. I be aware of resembling my food simply sits nearby. What can I do to regulate my stomach. Help its tremendously discomfited. I am 22…

How is it possible for urine to enter the lungs?
?? Woops spilled my beer YAHTZEEE

What does UVA, UVB & UVC stand for?
I know what UV is (ultra violet) but what is the A B C stand for? It is the measure of UV side. A is Long wave, B is milieu wave and C is short whirl. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet for more info!

Need give support to reading blood trial? Dr say to stir to er and er only just give oxygen and sends me home.?
It’s my mother she’s 63, and she’s had one and the same blood test once past and er just give her oxygen and sent her home. What can my mother to to…

Hyperthyroidism?
I have be told i have an over stirring thyroid, i have adjectives the symptoms, well most of them. I can’t get hold of an appointment with the endocrinologist for another few weeks, and be wondering if anyone has any tips on how to perceive a little better until they can put me on…

How do i stop the skin on my finger tips from blistering?
Ever since almost first class, the skin on my fingertips would coating. Back next (that be roughly speaking 9 years ago), I’m not sure how normally it get similar to that but the recent past few years I’ve notice that it starts to…

More Diseases and Conditions questions please visit : HealthFreeFAQ.com

Crazy Itchy?
So for a few days I have be itchy where my bra and underwear inside layer are. I only seize itchy at night too. I enjoy cleaned all my clothes and linens and towel, etc. I don’t hold a clue what to do I shower everyday and I still can’t stop itching! It’s…

Can you die from herpes?
Like is it anything close to HIV/AID? Will your body shut down on you, or will it attack another foremost fragment of your body? Over 80% of the population have HSV1 (most commonly agreed as oral Herpes) while around 20% of the population have HSV2 (most commonly set as genital Herpes)….

I stipulation give support to re: hypertension from a medical expert??
I own have high-ranking blood pressure for over 35 years. It be first notice when I be pregnant. I have a adrenal tumor nearly 11 years ago. It be removed; my blood pressure go down for a while, but go rear up through…

How do you get hold of rid of a hallucination?
When I bodies induce fever, its trying to come to blows rotten a virus or infection. Treat your disorientation near over the counter products solitary if it is not accompany by vomiting, diarrhea, and moderate to severe discomfort, step to the doctor if your confusion…

Is Tourettes Syndrome diagnosed at birth?
or in untimely childhood around what ages?? Thanx! =) Tourette’s is usually diagnosed in precipitate childhood. It can not be detected at birth because its diagnosis requires several motor tics and at least one phonic tic; the phonic tic can not be detected until the child can…

Am I going to die? ;-; Tuberculosis examination!?
Today I went into my doctor and I have to get a TB assessment. You know, that thing where on earth they insert the needle and you get hold of a little bump. I’m supposed to be in motion back contained by on Friday so she could…

What infectious diseases could a man seize that he wouldn’t know almost if he cheated on his wife?
I am the wife. I want to know what he could hold that he wouldn’t know something like that I could procure if he have sex near me. He could be an asymptomatic mover of most any…

Herpes?
k i hav a bump on my penis. its close to a mosquitoe bite. u know wen it get liek a big bump. but its approaching a bump inside. approaching its below my skin n i can move it around n its red outside.. n i hav little red bumps in my pube nouns that…

My ears are getting puffy and red how do i abet them?
i believe that they are infected but im not completley sure does anyone know how to fix an infection step to the doctor. ear infections are zilch to play next to. Your ears are so close to your brain. Not to mention…

Has anyone have laser stretch dupe removal?
I was thinking nearly getting this, but I heard that it doesn’t really do anything. I be wondering if anyone has have the procedure done and if it produced results. I am currently undergoing laser stretch mark off treatment on my abdomen. I hold had 5…

How do you know if you hold food poisoning?
I went to taco bell concluding night and my tacos didn’t essence right and now my stomach feel like its on chompy hose down and it just hurts really discouraging. I haven’t thrown up yet but enjoy gotten really close to. could it be food poisoning…

Itching sensation?
both of my arms started itching like crazy today for no adjectives reason. i haven’t touched or eat anything out of the ordinary and although my skin is other dry,this itching has never be a problem before. what should i do and what could it be? the lone time my arms…

What types of cancer are near that eliminate in a year?
I’m doing a occupancy composition on different types of cancer and I involve to find a few more types of cancer that, save treated, can slaughter in one year. Thanks. Any cancer can gun down inside a year if it is finishing stage when discovered….

OMG! what is wrong next to me!? please answer!?
i merely found a faultless circle on my posterior! close to its really small and below my bra strap-its a wound if your wondering. what the hell is it? i don’t remember if i bumped on it! plus it really is a immaculate cirlcle. its not wide…

How long does it thieve the side effects for topamax to stop once your completely stale of it?
I am stoping discussion it b/c I can’t stand the side effects any more!! Once I taper completly down how long willl it be up to that time I can finally drink a soda!?! Or how long formerly…

HELP! Neck torment, kidney agony, swollen glands, wet retention and Hypothyroid!?
ok let me try and afford you all the info. First tolerate me say I am going to the DR tomorrow so please don’t relay me to go see a Dr I know that much. Also permit me say that I be put on…

Could I enjoy colon polyps at age 15?
I am 15 years old and I am getting a Colonoscopy within March. Is it even possible for me to have polyps? Aren’t I to childlike? Colon cancer runs in the kith and kin. My dad’s mom had colon cancer. So did my great grandpa. And also…

How long do hickys later?
I went to the movies beside my boy friend and once we went outside he notice I had a hickey. I’v be hiding it with receive up but then it blend next to my skin. If my parents find out about it im contained by so much trouble. PLEASE HELP!!…

Do you stir to a urologist for herpes?
Do race see a urologist for herpes? I broke up beside my ex surrounded by july because he be a drunk near no employment and no coupé and be in words discourteous to me. I dumped him at his friends house and told him to unsophisticatedly grasp lost….

Is at hand a medication for…??
a sour and burning throught as a result of chemo psychiatric help? What you are referring to sounds similar to oral mucositis which is an inflammation in the mouth that creates throbbing ulcer. There is treatment for it, but it can be difficult to muddle through once it have started….

I get a huge infected pimple defect partly an inch in diameter on my facade and it’s pink and it won’t suntan?
I enjoy a slight problem beside pimples but i get an infected one and it get huge nearly partially an inch in diameter on my obverse. My doctor give me antibiotics and it cured…

Dry skin on obverse?
Every time I wash my frontage, I always get hold of dry skin peeling sour between my eyebrows and on both cheeks. If I don’t wash my obverse, the dry skin never shows up but when I wash, it shows up. I scrub but it doesn’t seem to be to help….

Possibly the flu?
I haven’t had the flu since i be a little girl and i don’t even remember how it started. Today i woke up beside a sore throat and sore in my joint. Then I started dry coughing, coughing so badly that it is hurting down contained by my chest i have coughed…

Tell me how long formerly citalopram can abet and how posotively does it brand name yo surface?
It take almost 6-8 weeks depending on the individual my wife have be on them for some time and is very soon a totally different creature to what she be prior ,she have more confidence and is closely…

Chronic bloating?? I discern sooo full and bloated most of the time.?
I use the bathroom more or less twice a week. I do munch through foods giant surrounded by fiber. I be aware of resembling my food simply sits nearby. What can I do to regulate my stomach. Help its tremendously discomfited. I am 22…

How is it possible for urine to enter the lungs?
?? Woops spilled my beer YAHTZEEE

What does UVA, UVB & UVC stand for?
I know what UV is (ultra violet) but what is the A B C stand for? It is the measure of UV side. A is Long wave, B is milieu wave and C is short whirl. Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet for more info!

Need give support to reading blood trial? Dr say to stir to er and er only just give oxygen and sends me home.?
It’s my mother she’s 63, and she’s had one and the same blood test once past and er just give her oxygen and sent her home. What can my mother to to…

Hyperthyroidism?
I have be told i have an over stirring thyroid, i have adjectives the symptoms, well most of them. I can’t get hold of an appointment with the endocrinologist for another few weeks, and be wondering if anyone has any tips on how to perceive a little better until they can put me on…

How do i stop the skin on my finger tips from blistering?
Ever since almost first class, the skin on my fingertips would coating. Back next (that be roughly speaking 9 years ago), I’m not sure how normally it get similar to that but the recent past few years I’ve notice that it starts to…

More Diseases and Conditions questions please visit : HealthFreeFAQ.com

There are persons that managed to say no to alcohol on their own, but for others, support from a group or medical staff is required. There is a series of medicines, which help a person to maintain sobriety. The specialists are qualified to give treatment that provides assistance in the battle against alcoholism.

If you want to give up alcohol any day is a good day but if you may think that you might be suffering from alcoholism then a visit to the doctor is absolutely necessary.

The benefits of giving up alcohol:

* – reduces pregnancy risks for both mother and the baby
* – solves familial and social problems
* – maintains health or ameliorates certain already existing conditions
* – help to solve alcohol related legal matters
* – makes you more efficient at work or school and even at home

There are several steps to follow in the process of renunciation:

* – Explain to and for yourself the motivation for such decision. Cooperate with a close person to keep in mind all the reasons that can encourage you, write then down and consult them occasionally.

* – A plan is very helpful, when carefully made and followed. Your plan should start with the setting of a date. Some copies of it, put in the right places at the reach of your eye, can have wonderful results

* – Your close person can be involved in the plan and informed about it

* – Progress will need to be evaluated in a specific day. That day, the list containing your motivation will be reviewed. The positive results should also be written down to encourage you to proceed. In case of alcohol use recidivating, try again. You are the one that can make most of the difference for yourself. It only takes will and determination.

* – Change your entourage, if the old one was related to your alcohol problem and eliminate anything that can stop you from achieving this purpose

* – Self-help groups attendance for at least three times. In case a certain group doesn’t provide you the necessary help, try a different one

* – Self-rewarding may include pleasant activities that will certainly encourage and motivate you to go on.

Acne is irritating skin disorder affecting individuals since time immemorial. It indiscriminately affects people of every race, gender and age emerging in highly visible parts of the body. It often leaves individuals psychologically vulnerable with lack of self confidence and low self esteem. It is the most embarrassing nuisance.

Acne is caused by number of factors. The two most predominant causes are hormonal changes during teenage years and wrong food habits.

During adolescence our bodies undergo rapid hormonal changes. The main hormone responsible for acne is androgen. Androgen is a male sex hormone that is secreted by females as well, to a lesser degree of course. One of the functions of androgen is to activate the production of oil from skins oil glands. During this time, as the rapid changes occur, the over-production of oil causes the ideal media for the bacteria to grow. The glands start to swell and as our immune system fights this imbalance the secreted toxins are formed with the development of inflammation and pus.

During adult years we are what we eat. Once we consume excess amounts of greasy foods the body organs such as kidney and liver become overwhelmed and the obvious need for excretion of these toxins becomes necessary. Majority of the immune system is located in the intestines.
One way the body excretes some of these toxins is through the skin.
The bacteria, Propionibacterium acnes, become active due to abundance of “food”. They start reproducing causing the glands to swell and once again the inflammation and pus. The byproduct is acne as we know it. This is Mother Natures way of telling us of the imbalance in our system.

The old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is so true in this case.
If you eat a balance diet and watch your fat intake, majority of the problems will be solved. As with many other ailments the main objective is to cleanse your body from toxins, whether specific or general. Drink plenty of water and eat fruits and vegetables to detoxify and cleanse your system.

Once acne is formed there are number of ways to take care of it. First and foremost wash the affected area with soap and water. Wash away any excess oils present on your skin. You do not want to give it any more fuel than it already has. Most of the time this simple procedure will get rid of the bacteria before the full blown acne has a chance to form.

Bacteria, being a living microorganism, have its optimum range of conditions that it strives on. Remove those conditions and you have taken care of the immediate problem.

In the olden days the solution was to wash your affected area with either lemon juice or vinegar. Both of them being acidic compounds lower the pH of the affected area. By lowering the pH you are essentially killing the bacteria thus temporarily solving the problem. There is large range of products on the market that achieve similar results, ranging from hydrogen peroxide, home remedies, to different antibacterial creams. All of them are focusing on the after-the fact treatments.

Just remember, you are not alone and this is a problem that has been affecting people for centuries.

BEYOND JUNG

AUTHOR: Paul Budding

Introduction

This essay is personal to me as it tries to take the reader through my journey through the Jungian world. And when I say “through” I mean through. I believe that I have been imprisoned in the Jung Cult but am now free from it. The word ‘cult’ maybe a bit strong here. The point is, as this essay will demonstrate, that it is easy for the Jungian to get bogged down with the feeling that there is something in this work of Jung’s. But much of that feeling is just an attachment to that which sounds esoteric. Once one accepts that fact they are out of the cult and see more clearly.

In Chapter 1 we will look at the historical context of Jungian psychology. Jung attached in a self-imposed way to his contextual influences and froze them in his invented unconscious. This is Wolfgang Giegerich’s view which is outlined and supported in chapter 2 of this essay. The esoteric contents that Jung froze in the unconscious were to be looked at and psychologically felt, but not to be subjected to the critical intellect. It is in that sense that Jung protected the esoteric contents from life and froze them.

The overall conclusion of this essay isn’t anti Jungian as-such. The overall conclusion favors myth that is alive as opposed to Jung’s favoring of dead pre-modern myths. Then one approaches their myth openly, not hiding it away from the intellect and life.

Chapter 1

The historical context of Jungian analytical psychology1

Claire Douglas’ chapter titled ‘The historical context of analytical psychology’ (in ‘The Cambridge Companion to Jung’2) and Sonu Shamdasani’s Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science3 are the two main sourced used in chapter one of this essay. These sources enable us to effectively sketch the historical context of Jung’s psychology.

Douglas rightly touches upon a multitude of influences on Jung. She starts off by saying that Jung himself referred to two aspects of his psyche, one that is empirical, rational, practical and so on, and another that is romantic and “at home with the unconscious, the mysterious, and the hidden whether in hermetic science and religion, in the occult, or in fantasies and dreams.”4 Already a key Jungian belief about the psyche is implied here. And that is that the human psyche has evolved (in the western world) to the point where it can think and rationalize (hence at its height it creates scientific and mathematical models, philosophies and the technology that we see around us) whilst the psyche is also fantasy prone, it dreams, is emotional and so forth.  Despite Jung’s belief that this description of the psyche is true, Douglas correctly writes that “Analytical psychology still struggles to hold the tension of these opposites with different schools, or leanings, or even schisms, veering first to one side of the pole, then to the other.”5 However, Jung’s perspective is supported in this work because both rationality and fantasy are psychological realities.

Before developing on the phenomena that equates to the historical context of Jung’s psychology it would suit our purpose to merely list some of them and then to expand. The

following list is not exhaustive by any means, remember Jung was an erudite. Nevertheless, the following were amongst the major contextual influences. Romanticism was an influence, as was Positivism, Kant, Schopenhauer, Goethe, Schelling, Carus, Nietzsche, Shamanism,Janet, Freud, Flournoy, parapsychology, Swedenborg, James, Eastern spirituality, Gnosticism and Alchemy. We will discuss Romanticism and Positivism first.

Romanticism and Positivism

Jung always insisted that he was scientific.6 Douglas explains that “Jung’s university teachers held an almost religious belief in the possibilities of positivistic science and faith in the scientific method. Positivism […] focused on the power of reason, experimental science, and the study of general laws and hard facts. It gave a linear, forwardly progressing, and optimistic slant to history […] Positivism gave Jung invaluable training in and respect for empirical science. Jung’s medical-psychiatric background is clearly revealed in his empirical research, his careful clinical observation and case histories, his skill in diagnosis, and his formulation of projective tests.”7 Hence, Jung was influenced by the enlightenment and scientific revolution like other great names of his day. However the rationalist scientist in Jung would often be organizing irrational data in an attempt to understand it. (e.g. fantasies, dreams, myths, and even the disorganized, dissociated ramblings of psychotics). This leads us nicely to Romanticism. The Romantics sought a unity with nature whose connection had been lost. The Romantics also focused on irrational phenomena and inner reality. Here of course, Jung and the Romantics sought meaning. For Jung, meaning was found in the inner world hence it would be most beneficial, he thought, to apply science towards this realm. Douglas writes that the Romantics had a “fascination with studies of possession, multiple personalities, seers, mediums, and trancers, as well as with shamans, exorcists, magnetizers, and hypnotic healers [… and that…] they all employed altered states of consciousness that linked one psyche to another and made use of the various ways healer and healed enter this vast, omnipresent, yet still mysterious collective world.”8    

Douglas traces Romanticism “from the pre-Socratic philosophers Pythagoras, Heraclitus,

and Parmenides, through Plato, to the Romanticism of the early nineteenth century and its revival at the end of that century.”9 In Jung’s autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he writes that he was “attracted to the thought of Pythagoras, Heraclitus,

Empedocles, and Plato, despite their long-windedness of Socratic argumentation.”10

It is well-known that by the end of the 19th century Romantic themes were expressed in much of the most famous literary works. Douglas points to the following as having been

inspired by Romanticism: “Hugo, Balzac, Dickens, Poe, Dostoevsky, Maupassant, Nietzsche, Wilde, R. L. Stevenson, George du Maurier, and Proust.”11 Douglas continues:

“As a Swiss student, Jung spoke and read German, French, and English and so had access to these writers as well as to his own nation’s popular literature.”12

It is fair to point out that Jung, whilst on the one hand declaring his work, ‘scientific’, on the other hand, declared his work as cultural: “whatever happens in a given moment has inevitably the quality peculiar to that moment.”13 This apparent contradiction is explained as Jung viewing his work as an evolving science. Even in physics the discipline doesn’t stand still. And in psychology Jung often said that ideas require updating in order to express and be conducive with the specific time and place.14 However, as we will see, Jung’s favored myths tended to be pre-modern thus distancing him from contemporary life.

The Romantic Philosophers who influenced the ideas of analytical psychology include “Kant, Goethe, Schiller, Hegel and Nietzsche.”15 Jung wrote that “mentally my greatest adventure had been the study of Kant and Schopenhauer.”16 For example, there is similarity between Jung’s archetypes hypothesis and Kant’s categories. Shamdasani writes that in 1918 Jung “defined the primordial images as a priori conditions for fantasy-production, and likened the primordial image to Kantian categories. […] In Psychological Types, he refined his understanding of the relation between ideas, images and archetypes. In his use, idea had a close connection with image. Images could be personal or impersonal. These impersonal images, distinguished by their mythological quality, were the primordial images. When these lacked this mythological character and perceptible images, he referred to them as ideas. The idea was the meaning of the primordial image. Thus ideas were originally derived from primordial images.”17 Jung concurred with Kant, who for Jung, “had shown that the mind was not tabulsa rasa.”18 as “certain categories of thinking are given a priori.19 Meanwhile Marilyn Nagy points out that for both Jung and Kant “there is something inside the individual which knows what to do and how to act. Knowledge which is of crucial importance for the human individual is won at the moment when we acknowledge a priori inner experience, experience which is not dictated by the perceptual and sensual power of the outer object. For Kant this was the experience of the categorical imperative. For Jung it was the experience of the Self.”20

Arthur Schopenhauer was another favorite of Jung’s. Jung praised “the centrality accorded to suffering by Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann, whom he described as the formers intellectual heir. [Moreover Jung said] To Schopenhauer I owe the dynamic view of the psyche; the ‘will’ is the libido that is back of everything.”21 Shamdasani then writes that this passage (and others by Jung) “suggest[s] that [Jung’s] initial concept of psychic energy was derived from Schopenhauer’s concept of the will.”22 The blindness of the Schopenhaurian will is clear in the following quote by the philosopher quoted in Shamdasani: “the works of animal instinct, the spiders web, the honeycomb of bees, the structure of termites, and so on, are all of them constituted as if they had originated in consequence of an intentional conception, far-reaching and rational deliberation, whereas they are obviously the work of a blind impulse, that is, of a will which is not guided by knowledge.”23 However, Shamdasani says that Jung “followed Hartmann […] adopting von Hartmann’s reformulations of Schopenhauer’s philosophy [such as that] found in his lecture “Thoughts on the nature and value of speculative inquiry” [where Jung endorses Hartmann’s view and adds] the absolutely essential element of purposeful intention”24 to the will/psychic energy.

Finally it should be noted that whilst Jung approved of Schopenhauer’s attention given to suffering in life, Jung (of course) regarded suffering as only one important area of life and also gave a great deal of attention to the meaning of life. As we shall see in chapter 2 Jung’s commitment to ancient myth, alchemy, religion and so forth was all about pre modern meaning.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was admired greatly by Jung. Jung often referred to Goethe’s masterpiece ‘Faust’ whereby Faust struggles with inner conflict.25

Further inspirations were F. W. von Schelling and Carl Gustav Carus. The latter should strike the reader as having remarkably similar ideas to Jung. “Carus depicted the creative, autonomous, and healing function present in the unconscious. He saw the life of the psyche as a dynamic process in which consciousness and the unconscious are mutually

compensatory and where dreams play a restorative role in psychic equilibrium. Carus

also outlined a tripartite model of the unconscious – the general absolute, the partial absolute, and the relative – that prefigured Jung’s concepts of archetypal, collective, and personal unconscious.”26 Why then is Carus notgiven more credit in analytical psychology? One Jungian thinker says that it is simply because Carus didn’t offer treatment.27 Nevertheless Jung himself valued Carus’ work. Shamdasani writes “Jung stated that his own conceptions were “much more like Carus than Freud…”28 On the other hand Jung writes (in Memories, Dreams, Reflections) that Carus (and Hartmann) both failed to empirically ground their theories of the unconscious. Hence they remained philosophically speculative. Jung writes that it was Freud who first “demonstrated empirically the presence of an unconscious psyche.”29 Shamdasani writes that Jung regarded the unconscious as an idea “introduced into philosophy by Lebinz, and that Kant and Schelling had expressed views on it. It had subsequently been elaborated into a system by Carus, and then by von Hartmann, who had been significantly influenced by Carus 30 In 1940 he [i.e. Jung] wrote that though philosophers such as Lebinz, Kant, and

Schelling had drawn attention to the “problem of the dark soul”, it was Carus, a physician who had been impelled “to point to the unconscious as the essential ground of the soul.”31 In 1945, he went so far as to say of Carus that if he had been living today, he would have been a psychotherapist. Indeed, the psychology of the unconscious began with Carus, who did not realize that he had built the “philosophical bridge to a future empirical psychology.”32 However, Carus and Hartmann’s philosophical conceptions of the unconscious “had gone down under the overwhelming wave of materialism and empiricism.” It was only after this that the concept of the unconscious reappeared “in the scientifically orientated medical psychology.”33

Jung lectured on Nietzsche34 observing various affinities with his own psychology especially the going beyond black and white good and evil. Douglas also rightly points especially to “the way negativity and resentment shadowed behavior.”35 Shamdasani notes that “For Jung, Nietzsche had correctly recognized the general significance of the drives.”36 Shamdasani continues, “In 1917 in The Psychology of the Unconscious Processes, posing the question of whether anyone knew what it meant to affirm the drives, Jung noted that this was what Nietzsche desired and taught. This made the ‘case’ of Nietzsche especially critical, as “he who thus taught saying yes to the life drive, must have his own life looked at critically in order to discover the effects of this teaching upon him who gave the teaching.”37 Hence Jung was especially interested in studying Nietzsche.

Shamdasani highlights the importance of William James and Theodore Flournoy on Jung whilst qualifying this by admitting that he is nominating them as “but two of a plethora of other figures.”38 Shamdasani says that Jung described them “as the only two outstanding minds with whom he was able to conduct uncomplicated conversations.”39 Shamdasani continues “For Jung, as forFlournoy and James before him, a necessary condition for the possibility of a psychology was that it should consider all human phenomena.”40 The main source that Jungian researchers can attain for evidence of the influence of Flournoy and James on Jung’s thinking is from an “unpublished draft (now in the Jung Archives at the Countway Library in Boston). [There] Jung writes […] extensively of his debt to Flournoy and William James.”41

Jung’s interest in the paranormal (or parapsychological) is well-documented. A good example of this is his reading of Emmanuel Swedenborg. Jung discusses some of Swedenborg’s visions in his Collected Works. And in Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung writes that (in his student years) he “read seven volumes of Swedenborg.”42

Douglas rightly says on this area, “Jung’s interest in and knowledge about parapsychology adds a rich though suspect edge to analytical psychology which demands attention congruent with the extended scope of scientific knowledge today.”43

 

A major influence on the more clinically-minded Jung is that of the French dissociationist psychiatrist, Pierre Janet. Jung studied under Janet and the latter pioneered theories of dissociation and fixed ideas, which Jung termed ‘complexes’. Jung agreed with a great 

deal of what Janet pioneered but Jung also embraced the artistic and creative side of life. Hence Jung went beyond Janet who was “clearly no Romantic.”44 The work of John R Haule is scholarly and studies the link between analytical psychology and Janet’s dissociationist psychology.45 Janet is more relevant than Freud as an influence on Jung, as Jung valued the principle of dissociation as sovereign over repression although he recognized both of those principles. And, as said, Jung recognized Freud as a pioneer of the unconscious.46

 

Interested thinkers often point out that Jung himself was a childhood neurotic. This may be seen as a slight digression because this establishes a personal context for analytical psychology as opposed to the multitude of impersonal historical contextual influences. However, it is the other key factor in establishing a sketch of the context of analytical psychology, therefore it needs saying. Jung had a father complex. Carl Jung’s father is portrayed as an authoritarian and dogmatic Christian who had repressed doubts about his faith. And Jung is regarded as having been a childhood neurotic in both Jungian and psychoanalytical literature. For example in the latter, Winnicott reads Memories, Dreams, Reflections as evidence of Jung as a childhood schizophrenic, a divided-self in search of a self-identity.47 In the Jungian literature, Michael Fordham, who helped compile Jung’s Collected Works,also regards Jung as having been a childhood schizophrenic. Following reading the first draft of the childhood chapters of Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung asked Fordham for his views. Fordham replied that he regarded Jung as having been “a schizophrenic child” with strong obsessional defenses, and that had he been brought to me I should have said the prognosis was good, but that I should have recommended analysis – He did not consent my blunt statement.”48 Anthony Stevens meanwhile, arguably takes up the conventional position on Jung as a childhood neurotic who creatively compensated for his lack of emotional connection to the outer social world.

Stevens writes that Jung “resembled other intellectual pioneers [… such as …] Issac Newton and Rene Descartes.”49 Like them “he did not feel at home in the [outer] world” and hence compensated by becoming pioneering and “intellectually objective about it.”50

Stevens continues by arguing that Jung’s ideas “of the collective unconscious, his theory of archetypes, his psychological typology and his description of the structure and function of the psyche were at once consequences of his emotional isolation and brilliant attempts to compensate for it. It was no accident that the principle of compensation between inner and outer realms of experience became the cornerstone of analytical psychology.”51 In chapter 2 we will see, following Giegerich, how Jung over-compensated for what he and many of his influences regarded as loss of meaning.

The same desire to compensate for childhood neurosis is, as Stevens says, evident in Issac Newton’s work, see footnote.52

Jung inevitably cast an eye on Eastern spirituality. Whilst cautious of the westerner grasping at Eastern texts, symbols and so forth, he nevertheless understood that the East tended to seek a way beyond conflicts, striving for “balance and harmony”53 through paths of “self-discipline and self-realization [and] through the withdrawal of projections and through yoga, meditation, and introspection, paths that were similar to a deep analytic process.”54 These Eastern traditions (e.g. Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism) are of course, ancient and very meaning-minded which is all most conducive, seductive even, to Jung and similar pre-modern mindsets.

Finally, the influence of Gnosticism and especially Alchemy on Jungian psychology is (at least in the latter) obvious, as Jung writes on alchemy in three volumes of his collected works. And in Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung makes the connection between alchemy and his psychology, clear himself. He writes “I had very soon seen that analytical psychology coincided in a most curious way with alchemy. The experiences of the alchemists were, in a sense, my experiences, and their world was my world. This was, of course, a momentous discovery: I had stumbled upon the historical counterpart of my psychology of the unconscious. The possibility of a comparison with alchemy, and the uninterrupted intellectual chain back to Gnosticism, gave substance to my psychology. When I pored over these old texts everything fell into place: the fantasy-images, the empirical material I had gathered in my practice, and theconclusions I had drawn from it. I now began to understand what these psychic contents meant when seen in historical perspective.”55

 

Chapter 1 Conclusion

 

This chapter has outlined the historical context of Jung’s analytical psychology. Sonu Shamdasani claims that Jung favored an interdisciplinary approach and that therefore Jung never believed in going alone56, nor that his work was complete. However, in his interdisciplinary approach, Jung looked for those that would validate his invention of the collective unconscious. (I deliberately use the word invention following Giegerich, see chapter 2). Given that Jung approached his work and other thinkers this way; I am entirely in agreement with Marilyn Nagy who writing within the context of discussing Jung’s “hero of the Mind” says that he ultimately favored “any myriad of scholars and philosophers, mystics and alchemical physicians who offered support for his point of view.”58 And as we will see in chapter 2, Jung froze much of what he took from his influences. He froze their psychological feeling in the invented unconscious container.

 

Chapter 2

 

Introduction

 

Let’s be clear. Jung was passionate about the contextual influences referred to in chapter 1. No-one would spend so much time and energy going over and over the texts that he did if they were not passionate about them. Jung writes in Memories, Dreams, Reflections that when he realized that the alchemists were talking in symbolic language he thought to himself… “Why, this is fantastic […] I simply must learn to decipher all this.”1 And Jung describes his attitude towards these texts as one of being “completely fascinated, […] I buried myself in the texts as often as I had the time.”2  Jung immersed himself in these texts. He immersed himself in large, collective spiritual, mythic and religious collective literature such as that of the alchemists, Gnostics, and a whole range of other esoteric mystics, philosophers, thinkers, schools. As will become clearer and clearer, this was all to freeze the type of meaningful feeling that Jung believed many of the pre-modern alchemists, mystics and so forth, actually experienced. Hence for Jung, esoterics and esotericism of the pre-moderns had to become felt but not thought about in modern man and woman.

Jung encouraged and lived a life of attachment to collective esoteric dogmas. Wolfgang Giegerich points this out, again with reference to alchemy: “Jung excluded from his psychological reception of alchemy the fact that the telos of alchemy had been the overcoming of itself. He froze it, and psychology along with it, in an earlier phase.”3  “In short, for Giegerich, the task of alchemy was to deconstruct itself, or at least, to surpass itself as a movement of the historical expression of the soul.”4

 

Going Beyond Jung’s dead pre-modern meaning

 

People who are suggestible will fall for someone else’s words and thoughts besides Jung’s. But Jung is still (constructively) criticized in this chapter because as a famous psychologist he should have stuck to encouraging personal myth and personal responsibility and had nothing to do with encouraging others to immerse themselves into the vast world of the esoteric. Yet he never discouraged the latter. He encouraged it.

 

Now let’s say that one has approached Jung and his work because they are psychologically weak, suggestible, etc. Jung himself said that the neurotic is attracted to psychology like a moth to light.5 Then Jung grabs them because he throws a mountain of esoteric psychology at them. They are caught. Jung does not set them free.

 

This is because he was imprisoned himself. Hence, there is a Jung cult.6 Jung preached against a Jung-cult7 but trapped his followers in one, i.e., in a psychological prison that he too was jailed in. (self-imposed in Jung’s case)

 

Jung’s work on the personal unconscious is of value in the market of ideas. His pioneering work on complexes is important. But if someone is a sensitive, dissociable neurotic choc-a-block with complexes, then the important thing to do is to get them to be an individual. The last thing that one should do is immerse them in esoteric traditions. Most people have grown out of Middle Ages superstition. Jung acts as if we are still immersed in alchemy and fairy-tale, and that we still think that the forest comes alive with non-human entities at night. If someone is still at say, the late Middle Ages level of consciousness then fine. However, it is remarkably wreckless medicine to actually immerse a neurotic in the pre-modern psychological world without critical intellectual questioning of that world.

 

Attachment can be to anything. So I need to remind the reader that the problems are not all about the esoteric. Modern man is often too attached to other people, consumerism, and celebrity (etc) i.e. in a non-questioning way. But a medically and clinically orientated psychologist should help cure such a problem. Jung makes a significant contribution towards solution only to then contribute to the problem.

 

In part 1 we saw how Jung worked towards an interdisciplinary universal psychology. At the same time the universal psychology that he strove for was to be one that cemented the esoteric side of life in the psyche. Jung therefore was working both for and against the direction that knowledge was moving in. It is the attempt to freeze esoteric attachments (not allowing them to be touched with the intellect) that result in the failure of the establishment of a universal psychology instigated by Jung.  

 

We will now turn to the work of Wolfgang Giegerich. Giegerich demonstrates in his essay titled The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man, that Jung was pre-modern8 and imprisoned in the pre-modern world due to his attachments. Giegerich agues that this was self-imposed on Jung’s part. He argues that Jung tried to cement the psychology of the pre-modern mythical world into the unconscious psyche of contemporary man. Giegerich criticizes Jung for doing this because for the pre-modern person he or she was born into such a world a- priori9.For the contemporary person this kind of psychology belongs to the past. Thus, for Giegerich, Jung fails to free up his psyche. There is no way that he can break free from his psychological imprisonment because it is self-imposed.

 

On pages 3, 4 and 5 of Giegerich’s essay titled The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man Giegerich discussesthe a-priori in-ness of the pre-modern man. Then on page 6 he approvingly quotes Jung who writes:

 

“So long as a symbol is a living thing, it is an expression for something that cannot be characterized in any other or better way. The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning. But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possesses only an historical significance. We may still go on speaking of it as a symbol, on the tacit assumption that we are speaking of it as it was before the better expression was born out of it. […] For every esoteric interpretation the symbol is dead, because esotericism has already given it (at least ostensibly) a better expression, whereupon it becomes merely a conventional sign for associations that are more completely and better known elsewhere. Only for the exoteric standpoint is the symbol a living thing.”10

 

Giegerich is arguing that the human mind has moved on from the mythic past that Jung was trying to put in a strait-jacket. And Giegerich is also making the point that in the above quote Jung (for once) was showing that he understood such logic as Giegerich was espousing. But normally, Giegerich points out, Jung cannot accept this logic. However, Giegerich points out that the progress outweighs the loss.

“The death of a symbol, inasmuch as it amounts to the birth of the better formulation of what it is about, is […] by no means to be viewed as an intolerable catastrophe. It is a transformation that, to be sure, goes along with a loss, but is ultimately a gain, a progress, just as in the case of the transition from biological pregnancy to birth.”11

Giegerich goes onto say that macro mythical, grand narrative, traditional religion meaning-based phenomena is now dead for a great many people.

“For the “symbol” that we are talking about now is meaning as such, Meaning with a capital M; it is myth, the symbolic life, the imaginal, religion, the grand narratives – not this myth or religion or grand narrative nor this meaning, but myth or religion pure and simple, Meaning altogether.”12

Giegerich points out that Jung, like Nietzsche before him, and like “other thinkers of the 19th century” tried to overcome the loss of the pre-modern meaning. Giegerich argues (and this work accepts Giegerich’s assessment) that Jung divided his mind in two… a No1 consciousness that was rational, empirical and scientific. (Giegerich refers to this as Jung’s Kusnacht consciousness)14 and a No 2 mind that stores the mythical images and  then refuses to ever question them or reflect on them… hence they equate to Jung’s unconscious which Giegerich accuses Jung of (therefore) inventing.15 Giegerich refers to Jung’s No 2 mind as his “Bollingen” mind.16

“By virtue of having  been swallowed and thus deprived of the possibility to participate in the practice of the job of consciousness (reflection, rational examination, which is essentially public), the swallowed consciousness is ipso facto unconscious, while the swallowing mind, is, to be sure, consciousness in the narrower sense, but only an empty form, totally divorced from the contents it might entertain and on principle released from any intellectual responsibility for the unconscious images. The conscious mind is only the passive recipient of images from the unconscious.”17

 

Giegerich articulates the image of glass in a museum separating consciousness from the historical unconscious. We are not allowed to touch the treasures that lay out of our reach.18

 

“…the imaginal contents have already been released from religion and metaphysics; but by confining them in the unconscious, they are once and for all prevented from “growing up”: getting out and taking part in public intellectual life and being in turn affected by its transformations. Instead [Jung demands] the intellect has to take them as indisputable facts of nature, not as its own property and productions […] nor as something it is fully accountable for…

[…] Kronas as father creates a secondary, unnatural womb for his already-born children. The invention of the unconscious is likewise the device how modern consciousness as abstract form can be used for the purpose of serving as a protective womb for traditional knowledge and imitating a sense of in-ness.”19

Giegerich aptly describes Jung’s invention of the collective unconscious as a psychological process of “splitting and swallowing.”20

 

Giegerich expresses what Jung did excellently in the following passage. Referring to the contents of the invented Jungian collective unconscious Giegerich quotes Jung as saying “You must not allow your reason to play with” them.”21 Giegerich continues by saying that such a statement “betrays the total immunization of these contents from the point of view of the other, the intellect’s, side, because the intellect is devalued as “our playful intellect” and thus as per definitonem incompetent in matters of higher meaning:22 “Our intellect is absolutely incapable of understanding these things”23 [writes Jung]. […] But why does Jung restrict himself to this narrow-minded sense of “intellect”? This would by no means be necessary. It is his choice. Therefore, despite the form in which his statement is presented, one must not mistake it for an innocent statement of fact, a mere observation. It is rather a refusal or prohibition: “do not touch symbols with the intellect! The intellect shall be excluded on principle!”24

Given that “The intellect must not enter them [i.e. the contents of the collective unconscious] thinkingly […] This means that ultimately consciousness has to be in itself unconscious: both sides of the pair of opposites, consciousness and the unconscious, are together the unconscious.”25

 

“Thus the notion of the “unconscious” does not really mean a realm, region or agency in the psyche. It primarily is a label that declares the contents to which it is applied as fundamentally taboo, untouchable: inaccessible to conscious knowing and intellectual penetration. This label putsthem into a particular logical status, the status of irrevocable un-consciousness. It erects an unsurmountable, namely logical barrier [whereby…] consciousness is [merely] permitted to look at the “contents of the unconscious” through the glass pane…”26

 

So Jung often attached himself to the No 2 non-thinking imprisonment of the unconscious. Giegerich writes that he “could not break out into the open”27. He could not break out into the world where the action is: “the realm[s] of thought, culture, art, science, economics, etc.”28 Why was this? “Because then it would necessarily have become obvious (and he would have had to let himself in for the insight) that meaning, in-ness, myth are once and for all over. He would have had to enter modernity without reserve and allow man to be born […] But of course, the very purpose of his psychology project was to seal the spirit again in the bottle after its escape and to swallow the already born children…”29    

 

Giegerich says that “What at Bollingen are revelations from the unconscious […are] for the intellect of the Kusnacht Jung, simply proveable observed facts, facts sealed in “unconsciousness”, that is, in mindless factuality, in the prohibition to think them: the prohibition to allow the mind to be “infected” by them…”30

Giegerich takes issue with Jung’s claim that consciousness is a tiny island surrounded on all sides by a great sea of unconsciousness. Giegerich points out that this “had only become possible because Jung had systematically excluded major conscious and public

areas of modern reality”31 Jung couldn’t engage with the current and contemporary. He regarded much of that as “utterly banal”32 Hence, Giegerich rightly defines Jung as having created for himself “a decidedly pre-modern level of consciousness.”33

 

Chapter 2 Conclusion

 

In this work the emphasis is different from Jung’s. It is to seek out the new idea, to freshen up in order to widen and enrich consciousness, not allowing psychological energy to become suffocating and trapped. The point is to discover new areas where the psychological energy can flow into. This is done by a search for meaning. But not yesterdays meaning like Jung’s pre-modernism but for tomorrows meaning, palatable for the contemporary person. Because dead symbols are dead. One must look in areas consisting of symbols that are very much alive. And then one must get stuck in as opposed to treating the material as untouchable as Jung does with his main concepts. This maybe difficult but its rewarding.

Overall Conclusion

 

One has to have personal myth in life. Actors and actresses have this and they tend to love their work. They feel a participation mystique with their characters and the plots they are involved in/ It’s about non-literal script that is orientating yet never dangerous because of its non-literalism… its fictional nature. 

But of course, the material must be alive. Jung’s problem is that he dealt with dead symbols which put contemporary man and woman off because contemporary man and woman is not pre-modern and therefore is disinterested in alchemy, Gnosticism and other ancient institutions.

The contemporary person also has to live their personal myth. In other words the person mustn’t hide it away behind locked doors as Jung did with his pre-modern myths. 

 

 

Bibliography

 

Bishop, P, (1999) Jung in Contexts: A Reader (Routledge)

 

Eisendrath, P. Y, and Dawson, T, (1997) The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge University Press)

 

Farndon, J, et al, (2005) The Great Scientists (Arcturus Publishing Ltd)

 

Giegerich, W, The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man: An Essay about the state reached in the history of consciousness and an analysis of C. G. Jung’s psychology project (Website)

 

Jung, C, (1977) CW: Vol 18: The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings (Routledge)

 

Jung, C, (1992) CW: Vol 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (Routledge)

 

Jung, C, (1995) Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Recorded and Edited by Aniela Jaffe) (Fontana Press)

 

Jung, C & Jarret, J. L, (1988) Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar given in 1934 – 1939 (Princeton University Press)

 

Lavin, T, (2005) Professor C. A. Meier: Scientist and Healer of Souls – Part 2 (Website)

 

Nagy, M, (1991) Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C. G. Jung (State University of New York Press)

 

Noll, R, (1997) The Jung Cult: Origins of a Charismatic Movement (Touchstone)

 

Papadopoulos, R, (1992) CarlGustav Jung: Critical Assessments (Routledge)

 

Papadopoulos, R, (2006) The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice and Applications (Psychology Press)

 

Shamdasani, S, (1998) Cult Fictions: C. G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology (Routledge)

 

Shamdasani, S, (1999) Is Analytical Psychology a Religion? In statu nascendi (Journal of Analytical Psychology)

 

Shamdasani, S, (2003) Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science (Cambridge University Press)

 

Smith, R. C, (1996) The Wounded Jung: Effects of Jung’s Relationships on his Life and Work (Northwestern University Press)

 

Stevens, A, (1999) On Jung (Penguin Books)

 

Footnotes

Chapter 1

1: Lavin, T, 2005, points out that Jung originally referred to his work as Complex Psychology and that a very close colleague of Jung’s, Professor C. A. Meier continued to do so even after Jung’s other close colleagues began to refer to his work as Analytical Psychology.

 

2: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997,  p17-35

 

3: Shamdasani, S, 2003

 

4: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T,  1997, p17

 

5: ibid

 

6: In his book, “Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science” Jung historian, Sonu Shamdasani, discusses a debate between Jung and E. A. Bennet. The debate is about the scientific credentials of Jung’s psychology. Jung claims that his psychology is scientific because of its applicability. Jung could not see any more applicable theories anywhere else. What Jung meant by applicability was “its application as a principle of understanding and a heuristic means to an end as it is characteristic of each scientific theory.” (Jung C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p98)

Jung’s view was that a theory had to offer a satisfactory explanation that makes sense of life. That, for Jung, is the true quality of a theory. And it had to have a heuristic value in order to be whole. If it failed to be heuristic it would be one-sided. And for Jung, no matter how true a one-sided viewpoint is, it remains incomplete. Furthermore in the same debate with Bennet, Jung argued that it isn’t good enough to argue that psychic facts should be analogous to chemical or physical proof. How one proves something has to take into account the discipline that they are dealing with. Hence Jung argued “the question ought to be formulated: what is physical, biological, psychological, legal and philosophical evidence?” (Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p99). So Jung argued that there was an Anglo-Saxon bias on what was deemed to be scientific, again referring to physics and chemistry. Moreover, “psyche is the mother of all our attempts to understand Nature, but in contradistinction to all others it tries to understand itself by itself, a great disadvantage in one way and an equally great prerogative in the other!” (ibid)

 

7: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p19

 

8: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p27

 

9: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p19

 

10: Jung, C, 1995, p87

 

11: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p21

 

12: ibid

 

13: ibid

 

14: Jung said this about all ideas, fearingthat otherwise they would become dogmatic. For example, he said it about Christianity; see Jung, C, 1977, p736, par. 1665 & 1666

 

15: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p22

 

16: Jung, C, 1977, p213, par. 485

 

17: Shamdasani, S,  2003, p235

 

18: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p236

 

19:  Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p236

 

20: Nagy, M, 1991, p37

 

21: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p198

 

22: ibid

 

23: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p199

 

24: ibid

 

25: Jung, C, 1995, p107, 123, 232

 

26: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p23

 

27: Hauke, C, in Papadopoulos, R, 2006, p71

 

28: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p164 & 165

 

29: Jung, C, 1995, p193

 

30: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p165

31: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p165

 

32: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p165 & 166

 

33: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p166

 

34: Jung, C, & Jarret, J. L, 1988

 

35: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p 25

 

36: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p251

 

37: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 2003, p251

 

38: Shamdasani, S, 1999, p540

 

39: ibid

 

40: ibid

 

41: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p27 & 28

 

42: Jung, C, 1995, p120

 

43: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p28

 

44: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y, & Dawson, T, 1997, p26

 

45: See for example his essay titled From Somnambulism to the Archetypes: The French Roots of Jung’s split with Freud:  Haule, J. R, in Bishop, P, 1999, p242–264

 

46: Jung, C,  1995, p192 & 193

 

47: Winnicott, D, in Papadopoulos, R, 1992, p320

 

48: Fordham, M, in Smith, R. C, 1996, p22

 

49: Stevens, A, 1999, p111

 

50: Stevens, A, 1999, p112

 

51: ibid

 

52: The following is extracted from Farndon, J, et al (2005) The Great Scientists (Arcturus Publishing Ltd) and is quoted here because it demonstrates through an example, the Jungian principle of compensation: Issac Newton’s “father was already dead by the time Newton was born. When he was just 18 months old, his poor widowed mother married a wealthy old local minister […] but left the infant Issac with his grandparents. It may be that Issac never recovered from his early abandonment. Even though his mother returned home to her son when her new husband died seven years later, Issac later confessed that he remembered ‘threatening my (step) father and mother to burn them and their house over them.’ Throughout his life, Newton carried a terrible suppressed anger and sense of resentment that made him a very difficult man to deal with.

The introverted Issac went to school at the age of 12 but showed no signs of any intellectual prowess until he was bullied one day at school. In a towering rage the young Newton fought back until his larger opponent was a quivering wreck. But Newton did not stop there. He was determined to humiliate his opponent in the classroom too. Soon Newton became deeply involved in his academic pursuits, especially science, and amazed the locals with such things as handmade water clocks and flying lanterns.”  (Farndon, J, et al, 2005, p59 & 60). Newton went on to make his great “discoveries” of “the law of gravity and the laws of motion.” (Farndon, J, et al, 2005, p61)

 

53: Douglas, C, in Eisendrath, P. Y & Dawson, T, 1997, p29

 

54: ibid

 

55: Jung, C, 1995, p231

 

56: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p27

 

57: Shamdasani, S, 2003, p17

 

58: Nagy, M,  1991 p22

 

Chapter 2

 

1: Jung, C, 1995, p231

 

2: ibid

 

3: Giegerich, W, quoted by Marlan, S, in Papadopoulos, R, 2006, p287

 

4: Marlan, S, on Giegerich, W, in Papadopoulos, R, 2006, p287

 

5: Jung, C, 1992, par 192, p114

 

6: Noll, R, 1997

 

7: Jung, C, in Shamdasani, S, 1998, p10

 

8: Giegerich, W, p58

 

9: Giegerich, W, p2

 

10: Giegerich, W, p11

 

11: ibid

 

12: Giegerich, W, p12

 

13: Giegerich, W, p32

 

14: Giegerich, W, p46

 

15: Giegerich, W,  p34

 

16: Giegerich, W, p46

 

17: Giegerich, W, p33 & 34

 

18: Giegerich, W, p34

 

19: ibid

20: ibid

21: Jung, C, in Giegerich, W, p35

22: Giegerich, W, p35

23: Jung, C, in Giegerich, W, p35

24: Giegerich, W, p35

25: ibid

26: Giegerich, W, p36

27: Giegerich, W, p42

28: ibid

29: ibid

30: Giegerich, W, p30

31: Giegerich, W, p52

32: Jung, C, in Giegerich, W, p58

33: Giegerich, W, p58

My step-son has lived with his father and I for 3 years full time. Before the three years we had weekend vistation for 6 years. He lived with his mother and she was very over protective and over bearing and he was overly attached to his mother!!! The reason why he came to live with us because his mother developed a drug problem and was not good for him anymore. He had a grandmother, great- grandmother, and great great grandmother that all thought it would be best for his dad and I to take full custody being she was not in her right mind. She went into rehab came out and was ok (so we thought) for 8 months than made the descion to chose herion over her son and we did not hear from her again until 11 months later…. We got updates from people who seen her out on the streets etc but we did not persue her…She called us right before school started last year with 30 days clean saying she needed to see her son….We started a slow regimn….Than summer hit and we let her see him every other week for whole week (keep in mind the vistation is taking place at her grandmothers house where she lives with her grandmother and elderly great grandmother)…..She wants to be a mtoher again but as a mother myself to three of my own and step-mom to him for the past three years I have helped develop him into the young man he is becoming ( he was a very scared boy – had to sleep with someone, needed light, wouldn’t be in any room by himself, would wake up crying which he does not do anymore). She does not pay child support and weve had him for 3 years and husband wont go for it… She does not ask my husband if he is allowed to have things like a cell phone which she bought him and she tells him to call her and tell her everything that goes on….My mother was watching him and my other two boys and he was accross the street and they were on the trampoline and one boy landed on his arm…he came home and told my mom she checked for bruising and got him to move it….he did not cry…he than went upstairs in his room called (in meantime my mother was calling us to tell us-we were 30-40 mins away and on our way home) his mother crying telling (which before this phone he would of never called her-plus she told him to tell her everything)her this bully kid across street hurt him and instead of calling my mom first or us she got in her car on her way to my house than called us to say she was going there….i understand she is his mother but we have custody and she is a hypocondrac and she and her grandmthers have him that way also…..I think my husband should of told her to go back home we will let her know if its serious…This is my home and all of a sudden she asks her son a million questions and bumbards my home and has never took this approach..This is my home. I am the woman of this house and a mother to three other children and a wife to my husband….any help am i over reacting? They baby him (4 woman and him…he is only child there…he rather be there). We give him structure and rules and his attention is shared by three others. We think what we do is right and what they do is wrong…He is a young man not a little boy…
Why is it hard to believe that I can take care of myself..I take very good care of myself and my children!!!. I have four children includng my step-son.. I am just confused because for 3 years their has not been any interaction with my step-son’s mother like their has been since she bought him this cell phone. There is allot more to the story but we would be here for weeks…I just wanted advice to wether or not I was wrong for not trusting the mother and for feeling we have custody so let us handle our home (as we always have) and if somethings needs to be brought to her attention we will.
Also…We do not talk bad about his mother…We tell him the truth always…We also tell him when we do not agree and why. We wll never tell him to lie as her and her family will…And we never tell him to report everything that happens when he is there. Lastly When school starts it is weekends only…