We will help you get your mom off drugs!

Assyrian from Kazakhstan – 02, 2008

Sharon Harris’ mom was a drug addict. Sharon started using drugs herself at age 10. She was raped and had a baby at 12, then another baby at 14. Sharon became a Christian when her sister called and explained the love of Christ. She had nowhere to turn so she accepted Christ… The Christian Broadcasting Network CBN www.cbn.com

Dad told son to ‘be a man’ – Mom was a heroin addict – Son hated drugs because of Mom’s drug addiction.

Dad told son to ‘be a man’ – Mom was a heroin addict – Son hated drugs because of Mom’s drug addiction.

mymommymanual.com An inspiring story of courage and strength, of what is possible with empowering education and support. This video is on a program in St. Louis helping women give up their drug addicitons. These women are pregnant and have made a choice. They have chosen wanting to mother their children over their addicitons, and with support are getting clean and learning the skills they will use both in childbirth and in parenting.

A day of truths! Lisa believes her ex-husband Donzell is an unfit father who served alcohol to their 8 year old son. Donzell however not only denies serving the boy alcohol, he also questions whether hes really the father of Lisas other child. Both truths will be revealed when the lie detector is administered and a DNA test is taken, and the truth could be more shocking than the allegations.

Ishmael Beah’s Memoirs of Sierra Leone War

– A Long Way From The Truth

By Muctaru Wurie

He may be well known in the western world for a book that portrayed the ruthless war in Sierra Leone from the view of a child soldier, but Ishmael Beah, author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, is known very little here at home.

Before I write this piece I did a random check of university scholars and literature students and journalists across the country, only two people acknowledged they have read his work. Many said they have read about it in reviews in the western media, but have not actually seen the book, let alone read it. Quite a handful said they have not even heard about Ishmael or his work at all.

When you look at the impact of this book, which did not only received rave reviews from New York Times, Washington Post to The Guardian UK and many other mainstream western media, but also reportedly grossed millions of dollars and drew a lot notice. It is ironical that Sierra Leone, a country that has very vibrant media and universities which have a predisposition for literature misses out on this.

The book also catapulted Ishmael to prominence and he has spoken at the UN and according to Wikipedia he has met with leaders including Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela.

Beah currently works for the Human Rights Watch Children’s Division Advisory Committee, he has served as the keynote speaker for several events, including the Global Young Leaders Conference 2007 (July 15-26 session), Oberlin College’s 175th convocation ceremony.

Review

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, brings a tragic reminder of what happened in a peaceful and relatively orderly society which Sierra Leone was.

The story started ominously with what was the case then, refugees running away from danger for their safety and passing through towns and villages, they come with harrowing stories, some of which many at the time found difficult to believe.

But like the majority of Sierra Leonean, the bestial veracity of the war was never far away from the doorstep. And for many, the madness and brutality of the war reached their towns and villages with little or no notice. This was exactly the case for Ishmael, his brother and a friend who left their village for Mattru Jong to participate in a talent show. They left never to return as their village was attacked and their whole area plunged into chaos by marauding rebels who knew no language but that of pandemonium and destruction.

Ishmael and co made a futile attempt to return back to their family, it was clear they were not going to reach their village as many were already running away from there with horrible account and in the end they were forced to make a u-turn.

Since then Ishmael and other groups of boys were desperately wandering aimlessly in search of safety, many were afraid of them as they pass from village to village they were shunned, detained and intimidated by many who thought they were rebels.

Every aspect of life turned upside down, children who were warmly welcome before the war became an object of fear and misgiving as many were used to wreck havoc and do atrocious things. A society that once loves kids suddenly turned into one that fears any unknown kid.

The book which is written in a free flow commanding, heartbreaking and even enchanting way does not only contain the horrors of a war in Ishmael’s native land, it also exhibited another side of Sierra Leone; the Mende story telling culture and Ishmael and indeed many other kids in Sierra Leone at the time love of hip hop rap and Jamaican reggae music.

But for Ishmael and many others it was reality check, they were in the midst of the war. It seems as if it was the end of the world for Ishmael after he was captured by rebels who almost got him summarily executed. As they were about to coerced Ishmael’s friends to kill him and others, the rebels were attacked, that created an escape opportunity for Ishmael and others.

Like the majority of people caught in the war in Sierra Leone; Ishmael was emotionally unsettled with a bleak vision of not knowing actually when or where their misery was going to end. Because they were moving through forests and bypasses clinging on hope which sometimes look very implausible as the war was escalating and it impact being felt far and wide.

Their ordeal was not helped when Ishmael’s friend, Saidu who was wandering with them died. Saidu was apparently overwhelmed after undergoing the miserable ordeal of having seen from a roof hideout whilst rebels raped his three sisters over and over right in front of their mother and father, the latter who was hit by the rebels as he tried to stop them. Saidu’s (who had kept quiet in most of their journey) death came as a shock to Ishmael and his friends.

Unfortunately for Ishmael and his friends as they were about to make a reunion with their family whom they had not seen for months, the reunion was abruptly altered by a staccato outburst of gunfire which signalled a rebel attack in the village in which Ishmael was been guided by a former neighbour whom they accidentally tripled upon to meet his family. His family had been living there, and his elder brother had even gone out fruitlessly to look for him. It was never to be, the whole village was slaughtered by rebels who later boasted that no one survived their surprise assault there.

Despair was briefly replaced by a brief sense of hope at the town of Yele where Ishmael like many other orphan children found refuge. Suddenly Ishmael was thrusted into the war. Unlike many other children in Sierra Leone, Ishmael was not recruited by the RUF rebels. Had he, his story could have been much worse. He was recruited by the Sierra Leone army in Yele, because after coming under an all out siege and losing many of his men, Army commander, Lieutenant Jabati had no option but to mobilise civilian men and boys to defend the town. With a charismatic speech aided by the bodies of a man and his son killed by rebels after they tried to escape, Ishmael and other boys were inspired to fight alongside the Army.

Ishmael story during his time as a child soldier in the book was synonymous to many others, drug infatuation, killing, mass pillage and arson was the order of the day. Positively for Ishmael his romance for bloodshed and drugs was suddenly interrupted by the intervention of UNICEF who rescued him and 14 others from their squadron. This was treachery to Ishmael who saw his commander as a betrayer for handing him over to civilians. He planned escape back to the warfront, but was prevented from doing so by the many checkpoints along the way to Freetown.

Upon arrival in Freetown, another war took place in the war children’s home that they were brought; there was a confrontation between the RUF children and Ishmael’s group from the Army that leads to six deaths and injuries.

As a result of this they were separated and taken to Approved School, Kissy.

Ishmael underwent a painstaking rehabilitation process with the help of workers at the Home in Kissy, and particularly Nurse Esther who personally aided his psychotherapy by continually showing compassion, handing gifts to him and assuring him it was not his faults and all would be well.

As luck may have it, Ishmael came into contact with his uncle and for a very long time in his life, he had an opportunity to have a feeling that after all he had undergone, he has a family. At last someone referred to him as a son, he had the dejavu of experiencing a family as he settled with his uncle’s poor but very loving family.

Further blessing was to come for Ishmael; to his uncle disbelief he had a relishing experience in New York City where he was afforded the opportunity to attend a UN conference on children issues.

That experience was to be the catalyst for a benignant escape from war torn Freetown. After he returned back, thereafter, there was a devastating setback for Ishmael; there was a coup that turned everything upside down. There was a bloody standoff in Freetown as anarchy descended; this forced Ishmael to look elsewhere as he lost his very loving uncle who died in the midst of the mayhem in natural circumstance. He was already saving money that was being sent to him by Laura Simms (A woman he had met in New York) – with the aid of that money Ishmael fled to Guinea where he was able to return back to New York.

Shortcomings of a Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

When one who has a true sense of the war in Sierra Leone looks at A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, the story of Ishmael’s experience as a child combatant is not strange neither too horrible by the standards of what happened here during the war. There are stories worst than his (See the Truth and Reconciliation Committee, TRC Report, go to www.trcsierraleone.org); truth is that kids who fought with the RUF have a more barbaric story to tell. From the way his war experience was told, it could have been genuinely coming from a child combatant. I say this because most of the interest in the book stemmed from Ishmael’s experience as a boy who lost his family, hooked up with friends to find safety and ended up fighting and expediting terror as child.

Ishmael’s Claims of Being Forcefully Conscripted by the Military

As long as you were in the war zones in the provinces there was a great chance that you would be captured by one of the fighting forces and conscripted. I see no problem with Ishmael’s account of his fighting description and the horror he witnessed (even if you don’t, it would be very hard to counter). But his claim that he was conscripted after Yele was heavily besieged by the national army together with some other kids in the town has been ruled out as a forged by some military people, TRC people and observers on the ground. A military officer (prefers to be anonymous because he is still in the army and not permitted to talk) who was deployed around the Yele area from 94-96 period, said it was very odd for the army during those period to make organised recruitment of children under their command post as was described by Ishmael in his book. “No matter how besieged we were, we would prefer to do a tactical withdrawal or call for reinforcement or back-up from nearby regiments. It was something that was seen as very dangerous to do at the time for various reasons,” he said. Also, Lieutenant Jabati (Commander at Yele who conscripted Ishmael and other children) described in the book is not known to him. “I still remember my former army officer colleagues even those that are dead or retired from the military now.” The information that offensively upset the officer was that of Ishmael’s assertion that; “We also attacked civilian villages to capture recruits and whatever else we could find.” Reacting to that, the military officer said, “That is the most terrible accusation I have heard about the role of the army in the war. I will tell you that the army never attacked civilian villages to capture recruits. Go to the provinces now and ask people who witnessed the war, they will tell you that we did this and that but we never captured civilians for recruitments purpose. We use to capture rebel suspect or informants and send them to Freetown for interrogation, but to say we coercively conscript civilians and kids openly in front of other members of the community just to defend a town is ridiculous. It makes me think this boy (Ishmael) has another agenda,” said the officer. He however acknowledged that it was after 1996 that he started seeing some signs of child combatants fighting alongside the military, which was eventually exacerbated as the military temporarily fused with the RUF and later Civil Defence Forces (made up of Kamajors, Kapras, etc), two forces that used a lot of child fighters during the war. However, Mamud Mansaray, a business man who was risking his life during the war by selling goods across villages in the south of Sierra Leone said that the army sometimes attack villages but that was mainly for looting when they sometimes ran out of food supplies, on the contrary he said he’s never witnessed or heard of reports of the army attacking villages to capture civilian recruits. “That was very strange then; it was after the Johnny Paul coup that we started seeing the national army fighting alongside children or men in civilian outfits,” said Mamud, who was captured several times and accused by the army and Kamajors of selling goods to rebels and acting as an informant for them.

Another soldier, Patrick Mambu, now retired said he wished Ishmael would have been precise on his date as he was stationed in Yele around that period twice when it came under sustained attack from rebels. “There were refugees in the town from elsewhere, but we never thought of recruiting children to fight alongside us at that time. The other important thing was that most of the refugees that passed by don’t stay for long, many prefer to move ahead, I’m surprised to hear children were recruited at Yele around that time, also, the thing that would make it very hard for us to recruit children and others indiscriminately is that weapons were not even enough for us. If you can recall during the war you would be aware that there was shortage of weapons, so how could we just go out and recruit people like that? What would they fight with? Any claim that we openly conscript children at Yele just to defend the town is a complete trash,” said Patrick.

Perhaps the biggest surprise about Ishmael’s claims came from Alhaji Samura, who was a transcriber for the TRC, “I have read reviews of A Long Way Gone, and from what I see it appears as if the whole book is a fictional. “I don’t recall a time when anybody gave a testimony that they saw the national army recruiting children openly in a town to fight alongside them before 1997, there were plenty of instances relating to organised and mass child recruitment involving the RUF, Kamajors, Kapras and others but definitely not the military, there were obviously some serious accusation against the military but not that one,” said Alhaji.

Another former TRC staff, Emmanuel Koivaya Amara, who was a TRC Researcher, said that at the beginning of the war the military was caught by surprise, so there was what he referred to as ‘indiscriminate recruiting’ nationwide. But he said these were done in a structured manner and there was no record of a deliberate forceful recruitment before 1997. “All of the recruitments were done voluntarily in huge numbers, and a lot of unemployed youths turned out, but there was not an instance of a deliberate attempt by the military to attack villages deliberately to capture recruits or forcefully conscript people under their command posts,” said Emmanuel.

Confusion with Dates

There is definitely a problem with the dates on the book; there is a big misgiving about Ishmael’s assertion that his troubles started in 1993 when his village and surrounding areas was attacked and plunged into chaos by rebels. Mohamed Koroma who was living at Mattru Jong but left after 1995 with his father said that there were intermittent attacks by rebels in that area from 1993 upwards, but was very doubtful that there was any mass movement of people from that area in 1993. “More so, attacks by 1993 were very rare and not always successful. Even if someone whose village was attacked around that time got displaced. I don’t think they would have moved up to Yele, because there was no need for that when other main areas were safe. It was in 1995 that we saw real mayhem around that area which even forced thousands others and my father who was a businessman to run away for our lives,” said Mohamed.

Although this can be seen as a big miscalculation on the part of Ishmael, I wouldn’t want to delve into that too much because I can recall that as a boy myself growing up during the heat of the war, there were times in which I don’t even bother to know the dates. Because there was no schooling at some time, and the main concern then was life and death, that said, Ishmael should at least know when the whole chaos erupted because he was going to school then. And the time gap of two years exposed Ishmael and raised serious doubt about his account. There is another part that that exposes Ishmael’s date problem in his account, since he was already in Freetown where it was easier to know how time passes; I expect there would be no excuse on this. Ishmael said soon after he witnessed the student demonstration that gunshots continued constantly in the city for the next five months. And according to his account he left for Guinea on October 31st, whereas the actual student demo took place on 17th August. So if his five month assertion was anything to go by, he left January.

Another statement that showed Ishmael inaccuracy with time is that of his statement which he claimed that he saw a dead rebel boy wearing a Tupac Shakur t-shirt with the “All eyes on me” inscription on it. As a youth growing up in those days with Tupac obsession I knew that those Tupac t-shirts which were particularly popular with RUF rebels hadn’t hit the stalls yet by the time Ishmael mentioned that incident because Ishmael himself said that he left for Freetown January 1996 which means that he saw that Tupac t-shirt before it reached Sierra Leone. Med Bangs, a garments seller at Victoria Park told me that those Tupac “All eyes on me” t-shirt actually came to Sierra Leone mid 1996, “People use to come from the provinces and purchase a lot of these t-shirts from us, which made them very expensive at the time. But it was later that we discovered that RUF rebels particularly cherished the Tupac t-shirts, they were never in the market in Sierra Leone around January 1996, I would challenge anybody who says those t-shirts were here by even January 1996,” said Med Bangs. Another man, Kashoe, who is still called Tupac by some of his old friends because of his love for the rapper said that he was an ardent follower of Tupac. “I use to save all my money then just to buy Tupac’s latest cassettes, t-shirts and even his favourite bandanas. And I can tell you that All Eyez on Me album was released on February 1996, I still have the magazine and a complete Tupac biography. And for the All Eyes on Me t-shirt they came to Sierra Leone around June 1996, I was one of the first to get one and I would never forgot that I bought one for Le 15, 000. It was a huge pride to put on one by then,” said a smiling Kashoe.

View of Freetown After the May 25 Coup

Ishmael also painted a very wide of the mark scene in Freetown in the aftermath of the May 25 coup; he created a far more chaotic condition in Freetown that wasn’t actually the case, as he writes: “For the first three weeks people were so afraid that they didn’t dare leave their houses.” This was a clear amplification, the coup happened on Sunday and me along with my brother and thousands of other Freetownians went to the centre of town the next day to survey the ruins of the treasury building in the centre of town and a partially burnt Bank of Sierra Leone top floor. Andrew Fatoma who was an O’level student taking his exams then said he’s shocked by that claims; “I was taking my exams then, I use to leave all the way from Kissy to Kingtom to take my papers, it was the Monday, June 2, 1997 fighting incident at Mammy Yoko Hotel that forced the authorities to cancel our exams. Even then we use to go out and take strolls,” said Andrew.

The Corporal Gborie Coup Announcement

At the early hours of Sunday 25th May, it was the crooked and disjointed blend of Krio and English voice that we heard of the late Corporal Tamba Gborie, a junior army recruit that announced the coup, but Ishmael stated in his book that it was Johnny Paul Koroma who came on air and announced that Tejan Kabbah had been overthrown, Ishmael points out that Johnny Paul’s English was as bad as the reasons he gave for the coup, clearly everyone who was here at that time knew that what has been referred to as the most embarrassing coup broadcast of all time was delivered by the late Corporal Gborie, who was later convicted of treason and shot by firing squad. Sheik Daud Fofanah, a reporter for Kalleone Radio, who has actually read the book, said he is shocked at the way Ishmael wrote his story. “The whole book is a false make-up, look at this one, it was Gborie that announced the coup, but Ishmael claimed it was Johnny Paul. I really don’t know where he got his tales from,” said Sheik.

Freetown’s Secret Food Market

Ishmael also painted a situation as if food was not available and extremely inadequate, yes there was scarcity but not like the one he presented indicating there was a secret market where food was sold to civilians secretly for fear of armed men interrupting the sales in broad-day light. Mabinty Koroma, a trader who used to sell goods for some Indians during the ‘Revo’ period says; “Prices went up, and some shops were closed during that period, but it was not that dire and chaotic. There were also incidents when armed men would sometimes harass us for money but they never robbed us in broad day light or create pandemonium whilst we sell our goods” said Mabinty.

Also there were instances when civilians were attacked, murdered or robbed at night. But broad daylight instances of such incidence were not so prevalent. Infact there were even marriages and other social events during what was referred to as the ‘Revo’ (period covering the May 25, 1997 coup to the liberation of Freetown on February 1998). That said, the city was not safe, and many don’t venture too far away from their homes, and those who did, make sure they returned before dark.

Five Months Non-stop Firing

In Chapter 21, page 204, Ishmael presented a case where armed men ran after and fired at a crowd of people in broad daylight. In page 206, he writes, “In the morning, families (In Freetown) sat on their verandas and held their children close, staring at the city streets where gunmen roamed in groups, looting, raping, and killing people at will… Sometimes during the day there were several plumes of smoke rising from houses that had been set on fire by gunmen.” This scene is more fitted for January 6 1999, not for the period under which the much loathed AFRC/RUF regime were trying to convince a resolute public that they had brought ‘peace’ and they were ‘fit to rule’. Also contrary to what Ishmael pointed out, gunshots never continued constantly in Freetown for the next five months after the student demo. There was a lull that halted during the October ship bombing incident in which many believed that the rebels went up the mountain and rained rockets down the city on the pretext that it was ECOMOG’s missile attempt to stop one sanction-breaking ship from violating the UN embargo that was passed on the Junta. The other major firing incident before the liberation of the city on February 1998 was when a military plane secretly scaled the city’s airspace one night. “That was the most ferocious non stop firing incident in the city many witnessed as we fired from all angle in Freetown towards the air, many civilians were caught by stray bullets that night, I emptied over fifteen case of bullets that night,” recalled Mark, a.k.a. Makanaky who was then a child combatant with the RUF but now runs a poda-poda (mini bus) as a driver in Freetown.

Family Slaughter at New England Ville

Also, there are other incidents presented in the book that never happened. Ishmael correctly mentioned in his book several times the dominance of the BBC as a reliable news channel Sierra Leoneans trusted. Apart from the BBC African Service which comprehensively covered Sierra Leone during the heat of the war, there was a pluralistic and vibrant print media in the country that covered variety of event from different angles and interests. There were certain events that would never go unreported, especially those that happened in Freetown (Even during the ‘Revo’, most newspapers boldly and defiantly continue to publish). Furthermore the boisterous underground Radio Democracy, FM 98.1 which was being fed by mainly journalists in the country gave daily update about events across the country, especially the ones that showed the mass defiance on the part of the majority of Sierra Leoneans to accept the AFRC/RUF regime of Major Johnny Paul Koroma. So therefore one incident mentioned by Ishmael that never happened was this: “One evening, a neighbour who lived a few doors down my uncle’s house (At New England Ville, Freetown) was listening to a pirate radio station that accused the new government of committing crimes against civilians. A few minutes later, a truck full of soldier stopped in front of the man’s house dragged him, his wife, and his two older sons outside, shot them and kicked their bodies into the nearby gutter.”

The incident that actually happened (but not mentioned in Ishmael’s book) and caught the attention of the public and international media was the one concerning the woman at Kissy who was listening to FM 98.1 and later confronted by a soldier whom she defiantly challenged before she was shot. It was the talk of the town and several people flocked to see the dead woman lying dead on the ground and bleeding profusely. So an incident which saw a whole family being massacred would have raised more public notice. To ascertain this I called former minister of information, Dr Julius Spencer who was the then head of FM 98.1, he told me quite clearly that there was not a time he recalled anything like that happened. Spencer who also happens to be one of the leading literature scholars in the country said he has not read the book, but from the reviews he had read, he doubt it very much whether Ishmael depicted the truth in his work.

Shoot-out at a Mysterious Freetown Children’s Home

Moreover, an incident that Beah also highlighted in the children’s home where he claimed that six people lost their lives after they (army child combatants) clashed with RUF kids on their arrival on January 1996 never occurred. I checked newspapers clippings at the renowned Fourah Bay College Sierra Leone section library and spoke to many journalists and NGO workers at the time who said that they have no doubt that event never occurred. The fact that Ishmael wilfully omitted the name or location of the said centre in Freetown raised further doubts about an event no one here seems to recall.

Sierratel Lines Down

There are several other issues that were clearly wrong such as his assertions that that the Sierratel phones weren’t working anymore by October 1997, a journalists who prefers to be anonymous because of his links with the present government says, “I use to send information for the clandestine FM 98.1 radio station using Sierratel lines, so I’m surprise to hear from someone that their lines were off. There were times when the lines would go down, but repairs were promptly done. Surprisingly we also had more electricity supply more than usual because the illegal junta regime was trying to woo the defiant majority. There was even electricity supply on the eve of ECOMOG invasion of the city; when the Nigerian ECOMOG troops triumphantly entered the city many people came out serving them very cold water from their freezers.”

All Hospitals and Pharmacies Closed

Another obvious fabrication was his claims that when his uncle fell ill during the ‘Revo’, all the hospitals and pharmacies were closed. Ishmael claimed most of the doctors and nurses had left the country and those who were still around fear that if they left their homes they would not be able to return back to their families. I put that to Dr S Kamara who was practising then, he was shocked to hear that and couldn’t believe until I showed him a copy of the excerpt in the book. He agreed that there were times that they feared and couldn’t get to work, but that the main hospitals in the city were always opened throughout the ‘Revo’ period. “People use to come to my house and go to the hospitals, clinics and other places for treatment, but to say all the hospitals and pharmacies were closed during the ‘Revo’ and that we feared to leave our houses, that is a huge fabrication. I cannot purchase this book for a dime,” he said. According to Patricia Collier, who was a nurse at the PCM Hospital, some of the doctors made a lot of sacrifice at that time, pointing out to Dr Nicol who was very regular, sometimes working overtime. “Because most of us saw it as a crisis period we gave our deep commitment and worked under hard circumstances, it would interest you to know that I was at the hospital working when the ECOMOG liberation of Freetown started in February 1998. Most of us however, left for our homes for our safety then,” said Patricia.

Questionable Landmarks

Even some of Ishmael’s account of streets and landmarks like ‘sitting at the jetty in the wharf at the end of Rawdon Street’ showed that he really got things mixed up, because there is the well known bus station building at the end of Rawdon Street and when you go behind the bus station there are other buildings, and you will need to walk down a long step and meet a fenced naval base that the public is barred from.

Le 300 – Two Months Average Wage

He also erroneously claimed that Immigration officers on his way to Guinea demanded Le 300 which was according to him around two months salary in Sierra Leone at the time. The fact is that the average monthly salary was far above that, and that Le 300 could only get you a pint of soft drink then, by then a single US dollar cost around Le 800. Head of the Mass Communications Department FBC, Isaac Massaqoi told me that at that time he was earning around Le 145, 000 a month at the SLBS. Isaac who has also not read the book was stunned by some of the claims he made in the book and said even the average monthly wage was far above Le 300.

Less Precision

Ishmael also tactfully avoided being clear-cut or detailed in some of his statements, for a person that witnessed the war here, one should have expected more. For instance, he never stated the exact place he put up at New England Ville and he said he attended St Edwards Secondary School in Freetown, the only explanation he offered about the school was that other pupils distanced them on their first day of schooling, that explanation quickly diverted backwards to his experience in his village.

Another aspect of exaggeration was when Ishmael went to the US embassy and was asked for his account, Ishmael (aged 16 then) said no one his age in Sierra Leone has a bank account, which is an exaggeration because there were few out there that does have an account. There are several other weak links in Ishmael’s work, but I thought that these are just some of the ones that one should focus on.

Questions not answered

I felt disappointed I could not get the view of Ishmael or his publishers on so many of the contentious and distorted information on the book, it appears as if they were just not ready to answer the critical points I was about to test them with. I did all my best to contact Ishmael through his publishers Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (FSG) whom I mailed three times and called twice, they promised to get back to me and I waited in vain. I would have loved to talk to Ishmael personally in Krio. I would have loved to ask him many things including, where in New England Ville was he living and why he got so many things wrong in his work. According to The Post Standard Ishmael gets back to Sierra Leone at least twice a year and he told the paper that he feels safer in Sierra Leone than in Brooklyn. I would have enquired why there was no attempt on his part during his visits to personally promote his book in Sierra Leone?

Surprise

For the publishers, I would have asked them whether they do not have any system in place to cross-check a writer’s story in a book that was marked as a non-fiction.

After I had spoken to most Sierra Leonean, the feeling I get is that the more many Sierra Leoneans know about this book, the more they grow stunned or incensed that someone who claims to be a native of the country and also participated in the war could have got it so wrong on so many very easier aspect that should be so easy to recall. I got the feeling during my investigation that had so many Sierra Leoneans known about this book which was marked as non-fiction at the time of publishing there would have been a mass criticism of it at home.

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Darvocet-N, an opioid agonist, has a tendency to encourage psychological and physical dependence, and must be taken under a physician’s advice.  Once treatment has started, patients should not stop taking the medicine on their own; only the doctor can decide when to do so.  Before treatment with Darvocet-N begins, the treating doctor must be informed of all the medicines the patient is taking, including vitamins-minerals-herbal remedies.  The physician must also thoroughly know the patient’s entire medical history, especially if there has been any serious disease related to any organ, if there has been a history of seizures/ depression/head injury, if the patient has difficulty in urinating, is addicted to alcohol, is above 65 years, is allergic to Propoxyphene or Acetaminophen, or if the patient is taking anti-depressants/sedatives/water pills/birth pills [by mouth], so that the doctor can decide the precise dosage to be given.

As with any other medicine, Darvocet-N also has side effects, which may include dizziness, nausea, abdominal pain, skin rashes, headaches, diarrhea, euphoria, dysphoria, fatigue, influenza-type of illness, visual blurring, hepatomegaly, gastrointestinal bleeding, hallucinations, convulsions, confused state leading to abnormal behavior, cardiac or respiratory arrest.  

The maximum prescribed dose of Darvocet-N 50 [50 mg Propoxyphene Napsylate and 325 mg Acetaminophen] is 12 tablets a day [2 tablets once in every 4 hours]; while the maximum prescribed dose of Darvocet-N 100 [100 mg Propoxyphene Napsylate and 650 mg Acetaminophen] is 6 tablets a day [1 tablet once in every 4 hours].  An overdose of Darvocet-N alone, or combined with alcohol/any CNS depressants, can be fatal.  Patients should heed their doctor’s advice and never increase the stipulated dosage on their own.

Those who drive or operate heavy machinery should avoid doing so until they are sure of how Darvocet-N effects them, as this medicine makes people feel sleepy.  For the same reason, elderly and debilitated patients are given the lowest prescribed dose.  Doctors don’t usually give it to pregnant women or nursing mothers.  This medicine should be kept away from children, pets and drug addicts.  The medicine should be stored as instructed.  Darvocet-N benefits you by providing relief from that horrible pain, but follow your physician’s advice.

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Drug addiction can happen to anyone at anytime, regardless of race, sex, or age. The thought of drug abuse normally conjures images of teenagers ditching class to smoke weed, the middle-aged man who snorts cocaine just to cope with his life, or the dirty old hotel room filled with young adults shooting up with heroin. Few people imagine Molly Homemaker, with her white apron and perfect smile, sneaking a few pills from her son’s Adderall prescription every day.

However, the reality is that many seemingly perfect mothers have become addicted to drugs and alcohol as a result of the pressures and situations they face every day. Unlike men who tend to become addicted through peer pressure or as an escape from their lives, women are more susceptible to addiction when they are victims of emotional, mental, and physical abuse, or when they need feel they need a boost of energy and coffee no longer has any effect.

The addiction eventually takes its toll, not only on the female, but also strains her family and friends. Treatment eventually becomes a necessity, but just as the initial addiction is caused through different triggers than men, drug rehab for women must offer a specialized program to meet their particular stressors. This means finding a drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinic specifically for women that focuses on the detox, individual and group counseling, and post treatment follow-up to not only cure the addiction, but also help the woman to cope or remove the initial causes.

As clinics that focus on women’s only treatment, luxury drug rehab provides a more comfortable setting so the recovering client can feel at ease while bonding with other women who are going through the same difficulties she is. Meanwhile, caring staff provides emotional support as they have intimate knowledge of the painful situation a recovering addict must go through. Additionally, special activities and amenities are provided that focus on a woman’s interests, while family programs help the affected family to understand the long-term needs of the client.

Due to the social implications of drug abuse and rehabilitation, most women prefer a private drug rehab facility that will help them get back on their feet. While the biological and mental causes and treatments of a female’s addiction different from a males, one thing is similar, all drug addict need to find the necessary help to return them to the family that loves them.

v:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} Normal 0 Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2006-Was it worth the effort?

“Common sense often makes good law though the lack of it doesn’t”-By William Orville Douglas

Violence and domestic abuse are considered a man’s most heinous, intolerable and deleterious weapon and rightfully, violence in a relationship is inhuman behavior in its most pernicious form, which would be anything but acceptable. There had been a significant lacuna in the legal system to accommodate for cases of everyday domestic violence in the lives of women, something that has been restricted to the private domain. But this Act now seeks to eliminate this lacuna and eradicate the evil of domestic violence. Nonetheless, while providing for remedy, the Act has created various openings and prospects for abuse and misuse of this Act.The Domestic Violence Act is the latest mischievous sprite introduced to conform to the concept of protective discrimination by making special provisions for women. The Act certainly provides for shielding women from any sort of domestic violence in a relationship and the Act has specifies a comprehensive definition of domestic violence. In S.3 of the 2005 Act, domestic violence is defined in terms of mental, physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic abuse. But despite of having such a virtuous intention, its ambiguous realization has paved way for a great controversy with feminist groups and men contributingly harping for equality as this Act has the potential of being used by women to harass men. This law was enacted by keeping in view the rights guaranteed under Articles 14,15 and 21 of the Constitution to provide for a remedy under the civil law, which is intended to protect the woman from being victims of domestic violence and to prevent the occurrence of domestic violence in the society . But this Act on the contrary, has provided for an elaborate mechanism for abuse by women and has certainly become a glaring example of inequality. The feminist groups unequivocally and unanimously hail the implementation of the Act while men think of being ransacked of all of their marital rights. The likelihood of it being misused is so immensely incalculable that it has given wakeful nights to men and has left his fate to the whims and fancies of their counterparts. This article will provide and insight into the Act and highlight the draconian nature of the Act through its anomalies and inherent ambiguities.

Legislative History
Before the inception of this Act, there was no specific Act for protecting women from undue discrimination and unjustified violence.
Though the Indian Penal Code had provisions, namely sections 304B and 498A, but they weren’t adequate and satisfactory in checking the atrocities committed against women. Thus, a desperate need was felt for an Act which could specifically cater to this cause and help women attain a dignified status, and henceforth the bill was passed by the legislature in 2005 and it was brought in application in 2006 and was touted by union minister Renuka Choudhary as a the most progressive gift for women.

Inception of the Act
Domestic violence is undoubtedly a human rights issue and serious deterrent to development of a nation. This particular Act has been enacted in keeping with the various guidelines given by several International conventions and declarations. The Vienna Accord of 1994 and the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action 1995 have acknowledged this. The United Nations Committee on Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in its General Recommendation No.XII (1989) has also recommended that State parties should act to protect women against violence of any kind especially that occurring within the family.

The phenomenon of domestic violence is widely prevalent but has remained largely invisible in the public domain. This enactment purported to be an additional violence curbing mechanism to the already existing sections 304B and 498A in IPC, which lay down the punishment for dowry death and cruelty and harassment against a women by her husband or his relatives.

Creditable features of the Act
An important advance made by the Act in understanding the nature of domestic violence has been in the combination of civil and criminal remedies. While civil remedies can be tailored to meet the circumstances of each case, criminal sanctions provide a greater deterrent effect among perpetrators.
The preamble to this Act reads like a definition and covers the entire subject matter of the Act. Apart from stating that the Act is intended to effectively protect the rights of a women and to give them a decent and dignified status, it stresses on the need of an ‘aggrieved women’ to seek immediate relief, compensation and also rehabilitation.

The Act establishes adequate machinery to ensure effective protection. The Act creates an extraordinary post of a Protection officer who is charged with the responsibility of taking expeditious steps for providing timely relief and it also grants authority to the Magistrate to give sufficient relief in the form of maintenance orders, custody orders and compensation. The Act also creates a novel agency called the ‘service providers’ who are entrusted with the job of filing Domestic Incident Reports with the Magistrate. The act by itself does not punish the perpetrator of domestic violence. But if a case discloses any offences punishable under IPC, CRPC or Dowry prohibition Act, the Magistrate may then, frame appropriate charges to either try the case himself or he may commit it to Sessions Court if he may deem fit.

This act contains five chapters and 37 sections. Its main features are firstly that the term ‘domestic violence’ has been made wide enough to encompass every possibility as it covers all forms of physical, sexual, verbal, emotional and economic abuse that can harm, cause injury to, endanger the health, safety, life, limb or well-being, either mental or physical of the aggrieved person. This is a genuinely wide definition and covers every eventuality. Secondly, the definition of an ‘aggrieved’ person’ is equally wide and covers not just the wife but a woman who is the sexual partner of the male irrespective of whether she is his legal wife or not. The daughter, mother, sister, child (male or female), widowed relative, in fact, any woman residing in the household who is related in some way to the respondent, is also covered by the Act . The respondent under the definition given in the Act is “any male, adult person who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the aggrieved person” but so that his mother, sister and other relatives do not go scot free, the case can also be filed against relatives of the husband or male partner.

S.18 of the same chapter allows the magistrate to protect the woman from acts of violence or even “acts that are likely to take place” in the future and can prohibit the respondent from dispossessing the aggrieved person or in any other manner disturbing her possessions, entering the aggrieved person’s place of work or, if the aggrieved person is a child, the school. The respondent can also be restrained from attempting to communicate in any form, whatsoever, with the aggrieved person, including personal, oral, written, electronic or telephonic contact”. The respondent can even be prohibited from entering the room/area/house that is allotted to her by the court.

The Act allows magistrates to impose monetary relief and monthly payments of maintenance. The respondent can also be made to meet the expenses incurred and losses suffered by the aggrieved person and any child of the aggrieved person as a result of domestic violence and can also cover loss of earnings, medical expenses, loss or damage to property and can also cover the maintenance of the victim and her children . S.22 allows the magistrate to make the respondent pay compensation and damages for injuries including mental torture and emotional distress caused by acts of domestic violence.

The Act provides for penalty up to one-year imprisonment and/or a fine up to Rs. 20,000/- for and offence . The offence is also considered cognizable and non-bailable under Section 31 while Section 32 (2) goes even further and states, “Under the sole testimony of the aggrieved person, the court may conclude that an offence has been committed by the accused”.

The Act significantly ensures speedy justice as the court has to start proceedings and have the first hearing within 3 days of the complaint being filed in court and every case must be disposed of within a period of sixty days of the first hearing.

A critique of the Act
Women favoring Aspects
In the garb of providing protection, this legislation in fact, strikes at the very foundation of marriage by promoting intolerance and encouraging unnecessary litigation even for petty domestic disputes. The law is based on a totally wrong notion and assumes men as the sole perpetrators of domestic violence. This is altogether a wrong impression and only confirms the gender bias in favor of women created by this law. “Giving of such sweeping legal powers to women while withholding protection to male victims is tantamount to systematic legal victimization of men “. The law is wholly gender specific and rules out any possibility of domestic violence against a man . The law confers rights in a woman without imposing any liability, while a man is overburdened with discriminative liabilities with total denial of rights.

The slack drafting of this law will allow cunning and unscrupulous women to teach a lesson to any of her male relative at her sole behest. Moreover any such frivolous claims will be treated as words of god or gospel of truth by virtue of this law . This has virtually empowered all women to punish men at their will. This law not only recognizes but also gives legal sanctions to apprehensions no matter how insignificant and fizzy, they are. The mere belief of a person, even a stranger, will be sufficient for reporting the matter to the protection officers. It can very easily become a weapon for women to extort money, as in such cases usually the police arrests the husband and in-laws. “This arbitrary decision of the police to favor the daughter-in-law is a newfound ethic, to protect the rights and liberalization of women, even though it violates the principles of natural justice “. A bizarre aspect of this Act is that it does not distinguish between actual abuse and threat of abuse and gives equal weightage to even a likelihood of abuse . Also in regards to the notion of “emotional abuse, insults and verbal abuse” enshrined in the Act, the terms in itself are extremely relative and subjective, often depending on one’s mindset and shockingly, the husband does not have any recourse in case of any abuse by the wife.

Unlike other women protection laws, the Act almost gives a legal sanction to extortion of money by women under the guise of economic abuse . Refusal to pay any sum of money for whatsoever reason will attract the provisions of this law. Non-payment of rental related to the shared household will also constitute economic abuse even if the husband himself is devoid of sufficient resources or even if he is in jail. Another pertinent laxity that can be pointed out as also recently reiterated by the Supreme Court is that the definition of “shared household” as mentioned in the Act is vague and laid that the parents independent property in which the husband does not have any share will not amount to “shared household”.

Other Anomalies in the Act
Another substantiation of the Act being unreasonable and excessive is that in relation to the right of residence wherein by including the divorced wives, former girlfriends and former live-in partners in the list of women facing domestic violence, this Act gives enough leeway to women to harass innocent men and turn the heat on their former partners. Now even a traitorous woman cannot be thrown out of house as she can easily threaten her husband or in-laws of false domestic violence charges as the Act expressly mentions that incase of absence of any other evidence, her sole testimony shall be relied upon by the Magistrate in deciding the existence and extent of violence. The Act almost gives a legal sanction to any relationship, which is not at all socially acceptable like the live-in relationship. In addition to this the respondent is totally deprived of his legitimate rights over his property as he cannot alienate or dispose if an order is passed under the Act. On the contrary there is an added liability on his part to arrange for an alternate accommodation or pay the rent for the same.

Another certain home breaking implication of this Act is that as consanguinity is a necessary aspect of marriage, and as matter of fact a ground for separation under the marriage laws, one of the provisions of this Act bars the husbands from even asking, leave apart pressurizing, their wives for sex . Another perturbing feature is that as a protective measure or more so a biased feature conferred by this Act in the form of prohibition of any sort of communication to be made by the husband if there is a prima facie case

An unusual oddity in this enactment is that the Magistrate has been entrusted with unaccountable power as he is invested with the responsibility to take cognizance of the case and also for executing his own orders in favor of the aggrieved women even without being approached for their execution. An additional disturbing aspect is that the Magistrate trying the case is required to evaluate not the individual incidence of violence, but the overall circumstances as well.

The major inappropriate implication would be that it would play down the chances of reconciliation in future. On one hand the Act punishes a man for forcing her wife to leave job while on other it provides maintenance to the very same wife. But the law does not provide for any such remedy to a male in any similar circumstance.

All the provisions of this Act, however, do not serve the purpose of effective implementation as the above examples, sometimes due to a lack of resources or due to extraneous factors. S.12 (4), for example, is a laudable provision, which makes it mandatory for the magistrate to hear a case within three days of the complaint being filed. The idea of prompt relief is carried on in s. 12(5), which directs the magistrate to finish hearing the case within six months of it reaching court. However, the overcrowding of courts makes it difficult to see if they can be practically realized.

A further criticism of the Act is with respect to S.14, which may prescribe counseling for either of the parties, and delay proceedings up to two months. As has been discussed earlier, addressal of domestic violence has always tended to focus on conciliation between the perpetrator and the victim, even within the criminal justice system. This is due to the judicial perceptions regarding the importance of preserving the family unit, even to the jeopardy of a victim of domestic violence. In recognition of this fact, a provision such as S.14 can be counterproductive in two ways. Firstly, it might jeopardize speedy disposal of the case, and secondly, it may also convince the aggrieved to continue in that situation without taking any further action.

The Act makes provision for the appointment of protection officers. Protection officers, as per the Act, are a group of officers whose duty is to assist the aggrieved party with the processing and completion of the domestic violence suit. The institution of protection officers is a useful one, emphasizing the need for societal intervention in order to prevent domestic violence, by directly addressing from an external standpoint the relationship of power and control in an abusive relationship. The problem however lies with the resources required for the creation of such a rung of officers

The Supreme Court verdict
Since the Act is written in a negative language, it is essential to consider the Supreme Court judgement in respect of such statutes. The SC has aptly stated in a recent case that if a provision of law is couched in negative language implying mandatory character then the Courts shall interpret the provision, keeping in view the entire content in which the provision came to be enacted, and shall hold the same to be directory though worded in negative form.

Also in the first case on this Act before the Supreme Court , the Court has admitted and established certain evident ambiguities in the Act.The court in this particular case discussed the scope of sections 2,12,17 and 19. As provided by section 17,the court can now order that she not only reside in the same house but that a part of the house can even be allotted to her for her personal use even if she has no legal claim or share in the property. The Act also ensures speedy justice as the court has to start proceedings and have the first hearing within 3 days of the complaint being filed in court and every case must be disposed of within a period of sixty days of the first hearing.

The facts of the case were that respondent was married to son of Appellants and after their marriage and Respondent and her husband were staying in house owned by husband’s mother. When Husband filed a divorce petition against the Respondent, the Respondent shifted to her parents place. She was prohibited to enter house of Appellants. She filed a Suit for a mandatory injunction to enable her to enter the house. The Trial Court granted temporary injunction restraining Appellants from interfering with right of Respondent to reside. On appeal, Senior Civil Judge dismissed temporary injunction application. The Respondent then filed a petition under Article 227 of the Constitution. The Single Judge held that Respondent was entitled to reside in house, as that was her matrimonial home. Then the husband’s parents appealed and the SC held that the house in question belonged to mother in law of Respondent and not to Respondent’s husband and Respondent could not claim any right in said house. The Court also redefined the scope of various provisions relating to ‘shared household’ and compensation in the form of residential accommodation by stating that “Wife is only entitled to claim a right to residence in a shared household, and a ‘shared household’ would only mean house belonging to or taken on rent by husband, or house which belongs to joint family of which husband is a member.” The Court while deciding on the issue of alternative accommodation laid down that in regards to “Alternative accommodation under Section 19 (1)(f) of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, claim for alternative accommodation can only be made against husband and not against in-laws or other relatives.”

Conclusion
The Act presently is heavily in favor of women. Chances of it being misused and scandalously abused are enormous. It can therefore, be well stated here, that this act could become a pawn in the hands of the “so called aggrieved” who can easily manipulate it for her advantage which can be well supported by these statistical researches, the most alarming of it being that in case of married couples, the male to female suicide ratio is 63:37 thus confirming that men are the ultimate targets. This Act should have ideally included stringent penal provisions for curtailing the instances of abuse and mishandling, but herein, instead various opportunities have been made available which can ultimately lead to its grave misuse and can thus act as a catalyst for breaking homes. Thus, this Act does not contain any provisions for creating awareness or for strengthening and preserving family as an institution or even providing chances for reconciliation or even scope for improvement to “the husband”. The main beneficiaries of this Act will obviously be women of propertied upper class. But there is no doubt that given the hypocritical, patriarchal and insensitive nature of the society, this Act would definitely be instrumental in putting an end to all the degradation and brutality meted out to women.

It is eventually, the neo collectivist and neo socialist approach which is needed in the society that can essentially free both men and women from shackles of brutality and ultimately put them on an equal pedestal in all respects. Women, who have for decades been silent victims of oppression and enslavement will now have a better chance of fighting the injustice without slightest of hesitation and it can be well summed up with the quote by Marx-that equal laws cannot be applied to unequal people . Thus, any enactment, which forcefully subjects a section of society to conduct and “serve” the other section at its willful pleasure, would only enhance the level of oppression in the society and leave incurable marks on the face of the most democratic society.
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End Notes:
1) Section 3 defines the term domestic violence.
2) See, Bare Act, Statement of Objectives of the Act
3) See, Home is where the Law is” by Indira Jaisingh, Indian Express, 8 Sept. ;05
4) Bare Act-History of the Act and see,http//www.hindustantimes.com
5) See,(Ch.II, S.3) of the Act
6) See, (Ch.I, S.2 (a) of the Act
7) See, (Ch.IV, S.20) of the Act
8) See chapter V Sections 31 and 32
9) See, (Ch.IV, S.12 (a) (4) and (5)).of the Act
10) See, The Domestic Violence Law of India – A Shield or a Sword?
11) Various studies in India and other countries have shown that even men suffer domestic violence at the hands of women. See, Anne Bransdon, “The Nature of Domestic Violence Against Men”; Charles E. Corry and at al, “Controlling Domestic Violence Against Men” Patricia Pearson, “When She Was Bad – Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence”.
12) A breach of protection order can be concluded at the sole testimony of the aggrieved. See, Section 32(2) of the Act.
13) Section 4 of the Act allows any person having reasons to believe to report that any act of domestic violence is or will be committed.
14) Even a person having any gripe can misuse it to settle his personal scores.
15) See, Amjad Maruf, Domestic Violence Act, 2005 – A recipe for broken marriages and relationships, November 03, 2006 (www.sulekha.com).
16) Section 4 of the Act.
17) See “Verbal and Emotional Abuse” under section 3 of the Act.
18) Section 3 of the Act defines as to what all constitutes economic abuse.
19) See “Sexual Abuse” under section 3 of the Act.
20) Section 18 of the Act.
21) S.B. Ghosh, “Contextualizing Domestic Violence”, BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA (Rinki Bhattacharya ed., New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2004) at 54
22) See S.18 of act
23) Ravi Kusum v. Kanchan Devi, AIR 2005 SC 3304
24) 136 2007 DLTI SC, SR Batra v. Taruna Batra,Secs 2,12, 17 and 19 also referred
25) See, Srilata Swaminathan, On the Protect of Women from Domestic Violence Act (http//www.cpiml.org)
26) See, Karl Marx, Gotha Programme.

Preparation for the Ayahuasca Experience

In the West there are lots of stories like ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ reminding us that plants have spirit power, Alice in Wonderland explored this world too. There is a large body of knowledge of power plants even if the form has been adapted to fairy tales and ‘domesticated’, not to under rate the richness of Grimms’ tales.

When a person drinks Ayahuasca, especially with a trusted shaman, there is a chance to learn and trust the plant. You discover that it works in its own way. It is a great moment getting to this point. Then there is the question of whether the plant trusts us, because it can be abused and used for getting the wrong kind of personal power. Without intention, vision, preparation, and a shaman, it is a drug not a healing medicine.

A major difficulty for Westerners is the diet and the living conditions in the rainforest. There is also the care clients need afterwards, as one is extremely vulnerable after drinking Ayahuasca. Also some of our attitudes need to change, for example some people find vomiting unpleasant.

In the Ayahuasca ceremony purgative cleansing of the physical body is an essential preparation for the new level of emerging consciousness. Vomiting and occasionally brief diarrhoea are common effects during the initial sessions.

The Shaman’s Diet

An integral element of this preparation is to undertake a diet intended to reduce excessive sugar, salt, oils, pork, fat, and spicy food in the body in

preparation to be in communion with the spirit of Ayahuasca. Reduction of these should commence as soon as one commits to the experience.

Pork in particular is considered to be impure and is studiously avoided by Ayahuasca practitioners. Complete abstinence from pork and lard for at least two weeks prior to the first ceremony is recommended to participants to reduce the impact of the purge. It is also recommended that this abstinence continue for at least two weeks after the final ceremony.

In the initiatory diet for those seeking personal cleansing and healing, chicken, fish, wild game meat, fruits, and vegetables may be eaten but with little if any salt, sugar, oils or spices. The cleansing effect and strength of the visionary experience can be greatly enriched by one’s commitment to these preparations.

Sexual abstinence also forms part of the diet and is a traditional requirement of Ayahuasca cleansing and healing. We recommend abstinence from sexual activity for a few days prior to the ceremony, and to continue a day or two after the last ceremony.

As all Amazonian shamans will tell you, and in the words of Dona Cotrina

“ Sex is bad. The ‘mother plant’ loves you and if you make love to another person, you are being unfaithful to her”. For this reason it is often said that Ayahuasca is jealous, and if you do not respect her, she makes you ill instead of healing you. You will also not be able to see any visions. The ill effects from not respecting the diet are called cutipa and range from a sense of trauma and stress to skin problems.

Menstrual cycle.

This is a complex issue in the Amazonian tradition. Basically women in their menstrual cycle are not permitted by Amazonian shamans and curanderos to be present in the preparation of the brew, drink Ayahuasca or attend the ceremonies. This is an ancient tradition rooted mainly in safety considerations rather than sexism, as female shamans in the Amazon also follow these prohibitions.

Some shamans say the presence of a woman in menstrual flow prevents them from “seeing” the causes of illness among those present in the ceremony, thus obstructing their ability to make diagnoses and facilitate healing.

Although Eagle’s Wing are unable to make any exception as this rule is observed by shamans in the Ayahuasca tradition, our experience is that shamans have a degree of flexibility and can perform a special chacapa session with participants to address this.

Medical Precautions

It is important to know that, in some cases, the consumption of Ayahuasca in combination with some groups of prescription & non-prescription medicines can bear health risks.

1. Prescription Medicines

If you are taking prescription medication (including antibiotics), are subject to high blood pressure, have a heart condition, or are under treatment for any health condition), please consult your GP.

1.1 Anti-depressants

Ayahuasca (Banisteriopsis Caapi) contains MAOI’s (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) generally in the form of harmine and harmaline therefore Medical consultation is essential if you are taking Prozac or other antidepressants affecting serotonin levels, i.e. serotonin selective re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI).

SSRI’s block the reuptake of serotonin in the brain and because MAOI’s inhibit breakdown of serotonin, the combination of MAOI’s and SSRI’s can lead to too high levels of serotonin in the brain. SSRI’s are much more common than MAOI’s which are found in some anti-depressants. Consult your GP about the use of temporary monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOI).

These medications generally require a period of six to eight weeks to completely clear the system and must be reduced gradually.

2. Non-Prescription Medicines

Non-prescription medications such as antihistamines, dietary aids, amphetamines and derivatives, and some natural herbal medicines, i.e. those

containing ephedrine, high levels of caffeine, or other stimulants, may also cause adverse reactions. We recommend that you discontinue all such medications, drugs, and herbs for at least one week prior to and following work with Ayahuasca.

3. Recreational Drugs

Avoid all recreational drugs, in particular MDMA (Ecstasy), cocaine, heroin. Also do not drink alcohol on the day of the ceremony.

4. Herbal Remedies

Use of herbal remedies for depression such as St John’s Wort (which also influence the serotonin levels) need to be discontinued as per 2 above.

This is a true story of a mom who kept her children with her while she went into treatment for drug abuse. Zabrina knew she needed residential treatment for her drug addiction. But she refused to leave her children for the time she would be away. Then she learned about Family Works, a program of Heartland Family Service in Omaha, NE and Council Bluffs, IA. She agreed to enroll only because she was able to keep her children with her while she moved into the facility. For six months she …

During the entire time I was reading “A Child Called It’ , I couldn’t help but draw correlations between David Pelzer’s mother (Catherine Roerva Christen Pelzer) and Borderline Personality Disorder. After I was finished reading the book, I started my search to see what mental illness Catherine had suffered. All I have managed to find was that she was mentally ill and an alcoholic. No details have emerged of what type of mental illness she suffered. So, with the facts about Catherine from “A Child Called It” and professional resources about BPD, I will pose case that Catherine suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Dave Pelzer paints the picture of a seemingly normal childhood until his mother’s behavior changed radically. He describes his mother as a “wicked witch” on (pg 30), which hit the nail on the head. She exhibits the behavior of the prototypical BPD Witch. “The darkness within the borderline Witch is annihilating rage. Her inner experience is the conviction of being evil, and her behavior evokes submission… She is filled with self-hatred and may single out one child as the target of her rage. The Witch’s message to her child is: Life is war” (pg 38) Lawson.

WOW. Catherine was most certainly filled with rage. Every page of that book, Catherine was filled with rage that she took out on her son day in and day out. Her inner experience is the conviction of being evil, where she even speaks of it on (pg 41) of Pelzer’s book, “Now it’s time I showed you what hell is like!” Throughout all of her abuse, her behavior was to evoke submission from David. She was constantly beating him down mentally, emotionally, and physically. He says that his soul was consumed in a black void from the intense abuse by his mother (pg 132). She certainly was filled with self hatred as indicated by her alcoholism, not taking care of herself (“Her once beautiful, shiny hair is now frazzled clumps. As usual, she wears no makeup. She is overweight, and she knows it. In all, this has become Mother’s typcial look” pg 5), and being so filled with annihilating rage. And, the fact that the BPD Witch singles out one child as a target of her rage is so revealing because Catherine singled out David. For years he was the only child abused. When David was put into foster care, the younger brother was then singled out as the target of her rage.

David was without a doubt the “no-good child”; however, remarkably he didn’t turn-out to be what Lawson identified as the lost child (pg 171). His mother, Catherine, called him a “bad boy”, and an entire chapter is devoted to the “bad boy” David.

Catherine had David look in the mirror and recite, “I’m a bad boy” repeatedly (pg 31). Even though he was successful with school, his mother told him he was a “bad boy” and held him back in the 1st grade (pg 36). David was left out of Christmas due to Santa only bringing “good boys and girls” toys (pg 38). His mother accuses David of making her life a “living hell” (pg 41) and talks to the other siblings saying how she didn’t have to worry about them becoming like David, “a bad boy” (pg 43). Even when David was awarded the honor of naming the school newspaper, Catherine says, “There is nothing you can do to impress me! Do you understand me? You are a nobody! An IT! You are nonexistent! You are a bastard child! I hate you and I wish you were dead. Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!” (pg 140).

As mentioned above, the BPD Witch’s message to her child is that life is war. David recieved that message pretty early into the story as he states on (pg 43), “For the first time, I had won! Standing alone in that damp, dark garage, I knew, for the first time, that I could survive. I decided that I would use any tactic I could think of to defeat Mother or to delay her from her grizzly obsession.” Catherine put David in the middle of an all out war with her, even making him sit in the prisoner of war position (pg 50, 84, 111, 114, 123) by sitting on his hands with his head thrust backward. Lawson states (pg 125), “The Witch’s children feel like prisoners of a secret war.”

In Lawson (pg 137), rejection triggers the desperate fear of sinking into the cold, dark abyss of abandonment, a fate the BPD Witch feels worse than death. Catherine was an alcoholic who had been drinking from the age of 13. Brought up in the Mormon community of Salt Lake City, she would hide in the outhouse during Prohibition to wince down bootleg whiskey. Her parents were divorced, which made them outcasts in that religious community, and Catherine was frequently locked in a closet, denied food, and told how despicable she was. Catherine primarily appears as a Witch, which a BPD who primarily appear as a Witch is filled with self-hatred as a result of surviving a childhood that required complete submission to a hostile or sadistic caregiver (pg 131) Lawson.

The BPD Witch is sadistically controlling and punitive with her children where they fear their survival. The Witch’s children are forced to submit to her control and may be victims of sadistic emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Lawson explains, “Therapists hear horrifying stores of child abuse that never make the headlines… Some children may not survive simply because they are too young to get away” (pg 122). David Pelzer is VERY fortunate that he survived his horrifying ordeal with his mother.

Throughout the book, David speaks of being able to survive his mother’s abuse. He made a promise to himself when the discipline drastically turned to punishment out of control, “I knew, for the first time, that I could survive. I decided that I would use any tactic I could think of to defeat Mother… I knew if I wanted to live, I would have to think ahead… I could never give in to her. That day I vowed to myself that I would never, ever again give that bitch the satisfaction of hearing me beg her to stop beating me” (pg 43). He later refers back to that promise when he was stabbed by his mother, “I wanted to lie down and quit, but the promise I made years ago kept me going. I wanted to show The Bitch that she could beat me only if I died, and I was determined not to give in, even to death” (pg 91). He was a survivor from the start through his determination of thought. References of survival also include:

He also talks about that “water was my only means of survival” (pg 104) as his mother starved him for ten consecutive days. Later, when his mother used chlorine gas while locking him in the bathroom, David relates that “to survive her new game, I had to use my head” (pg 108). He started to lose his instinct for survival when his mother had him sit in POW style on a 1 inch diameter of rocks, stating “all my efforts for mere survival seemed futile. My attempts to stay one step ahead of Mother were useless. A black shadow was always over me” (pg 111).

Because the Witch emerges when the mother and child are alone, no witnesses can verify the child’s experience (pg 125) Lawson. Catherine typically abused David when no one else was around, making sure to cover up the abuse if and when family members returned to the house. David says on pg 42, “I knew Mother never acted his bizarre when anyone else was in the house.”

When Ron came home, Catherine ceased to attempt to burn David further on the stove (pg 42). When Catherine tried to have David eat the dirty diapers, the abuse stopped when Ron, Stan, and David’s father returned to the vacation cabin (pg 57). David always noted that he appreciated when his father was home, calling him his protector, as the abuse was not as prevalent. (pg 101). When he would come home from school and his brothers weren’t home, David knew that his mother’s “game” would be full force. After Ron and Stan went go to bed, Catherine ordered David upstairs to feed him ammonia (pg 73). David even devotes an entire chapter to “When Father is Away”, starting the chapter with, “When he was home, Mother only did about half the things that she did when he was gone” (pg 101).

The BPD Witch can be cruel to the target of her rage; however other children may not perceive her as a Witch if they do not possess qualities that trigger her rage. With the information contained in Pelzer’s book, Catherine did not treat the older two or younger baby abusively. They were immune to her physical abuse. Being cruel, the BPD Witch may make a statement such as “I’m going to make your life a living Hell” or “I’m going to kill you” (pg 137) states Lawson. Catherine said both of these statements to David: (pg 41) “Now it’s time I showed you what hell is like!” and (pg 85) “If you don’t finish on time, I’m going to kill you.” David continues by saying that she said that same statement over and over for almost a week (pg 86).

The need for power and control over others is important to the BPD Witch as well as the need to elicit a response of fear and shock. Catherine certainly illustrated how she needed each of these. She exerted power over David, reducing him to a “slave” (pg 50, 84, 126), an “it” (pg 140), and “the boy” (pg 50). She controlled every part of his life down to what he ate (or rather, what he didn’t eat). He was controlled through having to “work” constantly around the house with only being allowed to attend school. Her pathological “needs” resulted in David viewing his home as a “madhouse” (pg 104) and “hell house ” (pg 137), as well as his existance as a “morbid life” (pg 116). He felt as if his soul was consumed in a “black void” (pg 132).

She used fear and shock throughout her abuse. He was relegated to the basement on a cot, not knowing when he would be fed, allowed to see sunlight, or beat (ten rounders (pg 111), whipped with dog chains (pg 116), broom handle blows to the backs of legs (pg 117)). He was often intense with fear: shaking, unable to concentrate, heart skipping beats, and startled. He was put though tremendous shocking situations such as being fed ammonia, subjected to chlorine gas, submerged under cold water for long lengths of time, burned on a gas stove, arm dislocated, stabbed in the abdomen, smashed into the counters breaking his teeth, forced to eat dirty diapers & rancid food, and so much more.

Children who resist the control face worse punishment. David did not resist her control. He knew the rules & punishments to his mother’s “game”: (1) if he took too long to do his chores, his mother would withhold food (2) if he looked at one of his siblings without permission, he was slapped (3) if he was caught taking food, he was subjected to hideous punishment (pg 83).

David did not resist control. He would do everything in his power to get his work done under her strict time restraints. He says (pg 50) during the time when he had to stand until summoned to perform chores, “It was made very clear that getting caught sitting or lying down in the basement would bring dire consequences. I had become my Mother’s slave.” Without putting up a fight, he took his “punishments”: remaining in the chlorine gas filled bathroom, submerged under cold water & then forced to sit outside on rocks 1 inch in diameter (Bathtub and Backyard Treatment pg 114), and skating in icy cold weather without appropriate clothing (pg 120). Additionally, he would sit for extraordinary lengths of time on the bottom step standing and in POW position as she instructed. Once when he decided to not “take anybody’s crap anymore” (pg 142), the results were a stomping from his brothers and Mother, a special batch of chlorine gas in the bathroom, and a choking.

Destroying valued objects and being intentionally withholding, the BPD Witch may intentionally withhold what their children need. David’s mother withheld food from David, severely starving him. He only had his brother’s left-overs from breakfast on occasion, a P&J sandwich with a few carrot sticks for lunch, and rarely any dinner. Due to the obsession to find food, David resorted to taking other kid’s lunches, (pg 48), food from the grocery store (pg 59), frozen cafeteria food (pg 63), begging for food (pg 69), and frozen from from his basement (pg 79). He also would eat scraps from his garbage can after his family ate (pg 62) until his mother started to add ammonia to the waste or planting rotten food so that he would get sick (pg 63). She also would tease the starving boy by putting food in front of him then taking it away (Two Minute Game pg 105 -107). When she found out about his eating of frozen cafeteria food, she forced him to vomit it up by forcing her finger down his throat, scooping the vomit out of the toilet, and then eating the vomit later that evening (pg 66 – 68).

Along with withholding food, Catherine also intentionally withheld proper hygiene and clothes for David. Kids made fun of him for how he smelled calling him David Pelzer-Smellzer, and teachers not used to his smell wave their hands in front of their face. He was consistently in tattered and worn clothes, even if new clothes existed in the home for him.

David says, “Because my Mother had me wear the same clothes week after week, by October my clothes had become weathered, torn, and smelly” (pg 47). He continues further in the chapter, “In September, I returned to school with last year’s clothes” (pg 57). He indicates that his mother had newer clothes for him but withheld them: “One Sunday during the last month of summer … Mom let me put on new clothes that I had received last Christmas” (pg 123). By the time he was rescued, “My long sleeve shirt has more holes than Swiss cheese. It’s the same shirt I’ve worn for about two years. Mother has me wear it every day as her way to humiliate me. My pants are just as bad, and my shoes have holes in the toes. I can wiggle my big toe out of one of them” (pg 6).

The BPD Witch organizes a “campaign of denigration”, enlisting others as allies against the target of her rage. “She may seek out friends, family members (including siblings and children), and co-workers of her victim in whom to confide fabricated stories designed to discredit her enemy” (pg 141) says Lawson. David’s mother, Catherine, denigrated David by turning family against David including his father and other siblings. She also had the school turned against him, pegging him as a thief and “bad boy”. She told neighbors negative things about David, further denigrating him. Many believe the allegations because of the intensity of emotion. When the ability to enlist allies disrupts and divides groups, such as neighbors and the school system, that could actually help him.

The Witch does not recognize boundaries and exploit the child’s trust by denying right to privacy and humiliating & degrading the child.

Catherine stripped off David’s clothes having him stand naked, where he “shook from a combination of fear and embarrassment” (pg 40). For months, David was forced to sleep under the breakfast table next to a cat litter box with newspapers as his covers (pg 68). After his mother made David drink dish-washing soap, David needed to use the bathroom and begged his mother to use the bathroom, and she refused. David “stood downstairs, afraid to move, as clumps of the watery matter fell through my underwear and down my pant legs, onto the floor. I felt so degraded; I cried like a baby. I had no self respect of any kind… I felt lower than a dog” (pg 77). While lying naked in the tub submerged as his mother instructed, his brothers would come into the bathroom, glare at him, shake their heads, and turn away (pg 113). After all the humiliation he endured, he talks about how he ate like a homeless dog, grunted to communicate, didn’t care if he was made fun of, and nothing was below him (pg 132). At one point, his morale became so low that he hoped to be killed (pg 141).

The BPD Witch seeks and marries a “Fisherman”, someone she can dominate and control, which is EXACTLY who Catherine married. Stephen Pelzer was completely dominated and controlled by Catherine. He was a subservient partner who relinquished his will at her command (pg 179), as Lawson describes the Fisherman. Further, this type of husband has little or no self-esteem and see himself as a loser. He also fails to protect his children from abuse. All of these characteristics fit Stephen who does not step in to stop the abuse (pg 50, 58):

When David was first deprived of food, Stephen gives David scraps of food and tries to get Catherine to change her mind about feeding David. Catherine and Stephen begin to fight, and as the arguments between them became more frequent, the Stephen began to change– he is not around for David. When David was forced to eat his own vomited hot dog, his father “stood like a statue”and watched him eat something “a dog wouldn’t touch” after unsuccessfully “trying to talk Mother out of her demand” (pg 66 -67) David’s father stood by as David’s mother refused to let David use the bathroom but instead had to use a five-gallon bucket to relieve his diarrhea (pg 77). David’s father started to help David with the dishes. Catherine stopped this, as well as she said that Stephen gave David too much attention. After that, David notes that his father “gave up” (pg 101 -102). When David was stabbed by his mother, David’s father didn’t even look at David when David reported the incident.

David said, “I knew that Mother controlled him like she controlled everything that happened in her house… All my respect for my Father was gone” (pg 90 – 91). Stephen gave up on David without a fight and started not even staying at home on his days off. One day he told David that he was sorry (pg 103) and eventually left the family all together (pg151), leaving David at the hands of his terribly abusive mother, Catherine. David said that he was fully aware of his father’s lack of courage to rescue him, and he hated him for it (pg 134).

Marsha Linehan, in her book Cognitive Behavioral Treatment of the Borderline Patient, describes the normalcy that BPD’s present to others. When people around the BPD mother hear her complaining about her child, the assumption is that the child is troubled rather than the mother. Further in social settings, the BPD mother may be engaging, gracious, and endearing.

David talks about how when his mother was a den mother for the Cub Scouts, the kids commented how they wished their mother was like Catherine (pg 39). She snowed the school administration by showing up with her infant son in her arms and agreeing to cooperate with the school regarding David (pg 53). Additionally, he notes that in the presence of neighbors, his mother “played the role of the loving, caring parent– just as she had when she was a Cub Scout den mother” (pg 122). Catherine also painted a different picture of their home life when David’s Grandmother came for the holidays (pg 126).

Lawson points out that “children have faith in their parents and believe in their greater wisdom. No child wants to believe that his mother is capable of brutality” (pg 273).

After stabbing David, he accepted his mother’s increased compassion towards him. He hoped that she was trying to make up to him and hoping that he was back into the “family fold” (pg 94). Later that night, when he goes to bed with the large laceration, he goes so far to say “I felt safe knowing she was nearby to watch over me” (pg 95). Before a visit from Social Services, Catherine manipulates David into thinking that his ordeal was over and that she will “try to be a good mother” (pg 123). He even starts calling her “Mom” at this point. Near the end of the book, David is called an “It” by his mother, and he reveals, “I gave all that I could to accomplish anything possible for her recognition. But again, I failed. Mother’s words were no longer coming from the booze; they were coming from her heart” (pg 141).

So, even through the devastating and intense abuse, David still held onto the hope that his mother loved him and that she would return to being a nurturing and caring parent.

Through and through, I believe that Catherine suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder. She illustrates the maternal functioning of a Borderline Mother, including:

Confusing her child Not apologizing for or remember inappropriate behavior Expects to be taken care of Punishes or discourages independence Envies, ignores, or demeans her children’s accomplishments Destroys, denigrates, or undermines self-esteem Expects children to respond to her needs Frightens and upsets children Disciplines inconsistently or punitively Feels left out, jealous, or resentful if child is loved by someone else Uses threats or abandonment (or actual abandonment) to punish the child Does not believe in her children’s basic goodness Does not trust her children

Catherine fully qualifies for each of these points. Further and more specifically, as the Witch BPD mother, she sent the following messages to David:

I could kill you You will be sorry You won’t get away with this You deserve to suffer I’d be better off without you You’ll never escape my control It’s my right as your parent to control you I’m going to make you pay

The Witch’s child is raised in a hopeless situation– and David made it out with his resolve, smart thinking, and strong will. The Witch’s words can be vile, her heart cold as stone– thankfully David survived the vile words and the heartless mother to become a highly successful man and an inspiration for all.

Beyond Crystal, Free Yourself From Crystal Forever

DL Scott CtHA / AASD / CDC

Nine years ago I was approached by a woman, Susan Kingston, to become the Methamphetamine Specialist for a King County Funded Project called Project NEON. Project NEON is a harm reduction program that initially addressed safer use among Gay and Bi-sexual men who inject Crystal Methamphetamine.

Susan was looking for a way to blend more traditional chemical dependency skills and tools with more alternative and newer methods of harm reduction and prevention philosophies. Since many Certified Chemical Dependency Counselors were not, at theat time, trained in both traditional and harm reduction philosophies, she felt that my unique blend of these two philosophies would be perfect for the needs of the program.

After a couple of months of deliberation, I accepted the job offer and was literally thrown into the deep end of the pool with out a life jacket.

What I discovered over the next 9 years is a way of looking at the relationship between, not only Crystal Meth, and Crystal Meth users, but specifically the Gay Community and Crystal Methamphetamine.

The first thing I learned was that this program was originally designed as a harm reduction program to address the fact 51% of all Gay and Bi-sexual men who injected Meth were also HIV+.

The initial belief was that this high infection rate was due to unclean injection practices. As more data was gathered, the new theory is that the high infection rate is more likely due to unsafe sex practices while on Meth. What I learned from my clients was that Meth = Sex, and Sex while on Meth was usually practiced in a very unsafe manner.

On any given day, clients would come into my office with the report that they had either been continuing to use Meth, or they had experienced a relapse of use on Meth. “So what did you do while you were high?” I would ask.

“I got together with a couple of guys and we PnP,d.”

For the uninitiated, PnP, is code on the internet, and now in the community for Party and Play, i.e., let’s hook up and have sex with Crystal.

“Were you safe?” I would always ask, learning quickly what the response would be.

“No of course not, I was high on Meth.”

What the clients were telling me was that even thinking about being safe while high on Meth, is a difficult task, and actually being safe is a harder task.

What I was also learning was that many of the clients who came through the door of Project NEON, originally housed at Stonewall Recovery Services, were not interested in learning how to use Meth safely, they desperately wanted the stuff out of their lives, but were finding no relief through traditional Chemical Dependency Programs. Although Project NEON was funded for Gay and Bi-sexual Men, I was seeing people of all sexual orientations come through my doors, seeking help with a problem that just was not being served by traditional methods. The of these cases that I was able to address was being limited by the funding parameters, but while the focus remained on the Gay Community, the need was seen for these specialized services in all communities.

Just like with most members of the GBLTQ community, (the demands by many 12 step type programs, to accept God, was just not something that these guys wanted to do or could do, nor was the idea of complete and total immediate abstinence one that proved popular).

As a community the Gay and Bi – sexual client had grown up in a society where they / we are told that we are sinners, perverts, and subhuman, that because of our attraction to our own gender, we are doomed by God to go to hell for all eternity. This constant message does not make acceptance of God, an easy or desirous objective.

Another problem within the more traditional modes of treatment existed within the idea that during the first few months, upwards to a year, you should not have sex. Since Meth is so closely tied in with sex in the gay community, (and in other communities as well), and one of the biggest reason for relapse back to Meth use is sexual urges, this second demand was also not something that these guys wanted to do or could do.

I was beginning to wonder why Ms. Kingston had ever asked me to take on this position, or more correctly why I ever thought I could be effective in this position. I was going to have to design a recovery program that addressed both the lack of 12 step support, and the fact that sexual activity was something that could not just be dismissed with the “no sex during your early recovery” rule.

Over the next nine years I was able to design a program that allowed roughly a 50 to 55% success rate in helping Meth addicts to either drastically cut down, (going from daily use to once every 6 to 8 months), or completely quit their use Of Crystal Methamphetamine, commonly called Meth.

My first step was to take the Crystal Meth Recovery Group, offered by Project NEON, and look at what was working and what was not.

During those first couple of years I struggled with the fact that the group was a three month closed group. Unlike most treatment groups which are open and people are able to begin and end their participation at various times, a close group meant that everyone began and ended their participation on the same date.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to this type of group, the biggest disadvantage being that the group usually started with about 12 to 15 people, and ended with about 3 to 5 people still attending.

What was it about the message that was not keeping the guys engaged? The group was based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, sound, researched techniques that should have facilitated a higher retention rate, and a greater success rate, but something was not connecting.

As any good Chemical Dependency Counselor, and / or 12 step support group member can tell you, a person usually has to come to some kind of consciousness or spiritual awakening to help them change their thinking and thus change their lives. Now I am not talking about a religious conversion here, I am talking about spirituality. Spirituality is that deep inner connection to some unnamed force in the universe, whether that be called God, Energy, Consciousness, etc. It is not following some religious belief system that judges, condemns and chastises people for their own behavior or beliefs. I needed to find a way of introducing some form of spirituality into the community without tying it to any organized religion. Just how was I going to do that?

Enter Don Miguel Ruiz, and The Four Agreements. About seven or eight years ago, my partner and I went on a vacation which include a day and one half drive to get to our destination. To help pass the time I bought several books on tape. We ended up listening to one of those tapes over and over and over again. That tape was The Four Agreements.

The Four Agreements talk about how each and every one of us is domesticated into our own internalized belief system from the moment we are first born, much like we domestic our pet dog or cat. We are taught the meaning of words, bottle, Mom, Dad, Church, book, etc., and when our attention is hooked we are quickly taught what is right and what is wrong. We are taught how a good boy acts, or a good girl acts, (we are taught that to be normal is to be attracted to the opposite gender). All of these beliefs and ideas are agreed on by each and every one of us, and they become the agreements that run our lives.

The book gives four agreements to help you look at and get rid of those agreements that make no sense. 1) Be impeccable with your word. 2) Never take anything personal. 3) Never make assumptions. 4) Always do your best.

Since this article is not an article about the four agreements, and I don’t plan on delving into a lengthy explanation of this system, I will just say that The Four Agreements have become a major influence in my life, and popular in the Crystal Meth Recovery community, I would strongly recommend that you pick up either the book or the CD of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.

I started teaching this method to The Crystal Meth Recovery Group, along with several of the Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, and noticed that the members were starting to apply these ideas into their own lives, and they were starting to spread this philosophy by word of mouth.

OK, so now we were starting to get somewhere. The next step was to address the issue of sexuality as it applied to Meth use in the Gay community. Hmm-m-m-m how could I reach my audience?

As I mentioned, Ms. Kingston had hired me because of my qualifications as a Chemical Dependency Counselor, but she also hired me because of my qualifications and skills as a Hypnotherapist.

Utilizing these skills I started teaching clients the basis of what is now becoming popular as Mindfulness. In essence I taught the client how to meditate, how to use meditation to observe their thoughts and feelings, and recognize that while our ability to think is what makes us a higher species of life on earth, we are not our thoughts or are feelings, we are something much beyond these things. In the process I was able to get the clients to start looking at their own individual spirituality by recognizing that they are, at their core, a consciousness, a soul, or spirit, what ever they chose to call it, but they are much more than just a body and a brain.

Once they started looking at this idea it was easier to get them to accept the fact that the thoughts of sex and of drug use, (cravings), were simply thoughts, and since these things were simply thoughts, then they had the choice either to respond to these thoughts by given in to them, or by rejecting them. We talked at some length about the fact that since they are physically addicted to Meth, it would be much harder to not give into these thoughts, but it was still there choice. (I would like to point out that whenever the recovery group had participants who were not members of the gay community, these some ideas and thoughts about mindfulness applied across the board).

The next step was to introduce them to a technique that I called Emotional Release Therapy. With individual therapy I offered hypnotic inductions to all of my NEON clients. During the session I would get the client to talk about what ever issue was upper most in their brains, and then during the hypnotic induction I would utilize a technique, called Emotional Release Therapy.

I was originally taught this technique while going through classes to receive certification as a Clinical Hypnotherapist. Over the years I have refined this original method and developed into what is now called Emotional Release Therapy. This technique allows the client to achieve deeper levels of altered brain wave patterns, known as Alpha Brain Wave Patterns, that allow each person to quickly and swiftly detach from emotions that are tied to what ever issue or memory that they were talking about during the first of the session. This technique does not change or wipe out in any way the memory that the emotion was attached to, it effectively disconnects the emotional reaction so that the client can look at that memory without the emotional trauma that usually leads to such things as drug use, or any other compulsive, addict, response.

While the client is now able to address such issues as internalized homophobia, which has greatly contributed to their Crystal Meth addiction, with new tools such as the Four Agreements, and Hypnotic Inductions, and their own daily meditations, they are able to start practicing intimacy in their lives.

One of the Agreements that most homosexuals, and many heterosexuals, are raised to believe is that our lives are defined by our sexuality.

In our case we are lead to believe that we are intrinsically different than our heterosexual counterparts simply because we are attracted to our own gender. This belief system causes many young homosexuals to gravitate towards the gay community during our coming out process. As we come out and enter more fully into the gay community we find both advantages and disadvantages. While it is true that we find a sense of community, a sense of belonging within the gay community, protection and safety from narrow minded and bigoted people, it is also true that members of the gay community are more prone to issues of alcoholism / chemical dependency, sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV, high rates of depression, and other mental health issues.

As a gay man I can testify to the idea that most members of the gay community believe that we are different in someway from our straight counterparts. We allow that belief to keep us separate and isolated. I am not excusing the fact that there are many straight community members who have committed atrocious acts of hatred and violence against the gay community, (witness the recent passage of Prop 8 in California, a religious fueled political action that has taking away rights and deemed us as second class citizens). What I am saying is that due to our own agreements about our worth, and self value, we often times have deep seated issues that manifests in a variety of ways, eventually resulting in what is termed internalized homophobia. This internalized homophobia is often times dealt with by members of the community by using drugs and other compulsive / addictive behaviors to either suppress, or avoid these feelings altogether.

Many in the community have not been able to express true intimacy without it being infected with the belief that sex must accompany the intimacy. When it comes to most Crystal Meth addicts, sex has become a paramount activity while high. As recovering addicts learn new skills and techniques, such as The Four Agreements, Emotional Release Therapy, and Mindfulness Meditation, they discover that they want to engage in intimacy, (which due to life long agreements about their own homosexuality, translate into sex). Now the addict must go back and learn that not all intimacy has to be associated with the sexual act.

In traditional therapy, these confusions regarding intimacy don’t always come up in the same way, and so sex is simply looked at as something that should not be engaged in.

My idea, and clinical requirement, was and still is that the recovering addict, gay or straight, get out there and start exploring what it means to means to be intimate. This may involve acts of sex at first, it may not, but it must be made clear to the recovering addict that it is perfectly acceptable to explore these activities without the use of the drug.

By following these clinical guidelines, and techniques I have seen clients who have been able to stop more than just their Crystal Meth use, they have been able to increase self worth, and self esteem, they have been able to eliminate the debilitating anxieties and fears connected to traumatic memories. By clearing up these old beliefs and old agreements that have found the ability to move ahead in life, eliminating the major stumbling blocks of addictive and compulsive behaviors, and finding ways of eliminating their brand of internalized homophobia.

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