Turn Your Struggles To Service

Camillus de Lellis Tends the Wounded in the Hospital of the Santo Spirito in Rome During the Flooding of the Tiber in 1598; by PIERRE SUBLEYRAS, 1745.

Research suggests that more than 5 million Americans are problem or compulsive gamblers. Though he lived some 500 years ago, Saint Camillus (1550-1614) would be able to relate because he suffered from the same problem as a young man. In fact, he lost everything he owned by gambling — which perhaps contributed to his ability a bit later in life to leave everything behind to follow Jesus, eventually founding an order dedicated to caring for the sick. Perhaps you think

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Rethinking Addiction

Perhaps you’ve studied the 12-Step program, or perhaps you’ve practiced it. I have done both. Practicing it was not as a matter of addiction, or any such thing for myself, but instead, was a part of my personal spiritual growth and development.

Over the years, I’ve heard commentary, or news features which interviewed people with divergent perspectives on 12-Step programs, most notably which were skeptical of them, and were thoughtfully seeking answers themselves for the “whys and wherefores” of substance abuse, whether it’s long-term or temporary, and whether it is a genetic fault, or if it is a personality or character flaw in response to external or internal stressors. In other words, it’s the classic “Heredity vs Environment” argument.

As I have come to view it, there is validity for both sides, but I think the stronger case is made for a combination of environment and character flaw, instead of genetic defect.

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“In his recent book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry, Lance Dodes, a retired psychiatry professor from Harvard Medical School, looked at Alcoholics Anonymous’s retention rates along with studies on sobriety and rates of active involvement (attending meetings regularly and working the program) among AA members. Based on these data, he put AA’s actual success rate somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. That is just a rough estimate, but it’s the most precise one I’ve been able to find.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/

The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous
By Gabrielle Glaser, April 2015 Issue
Its faith-based 12-step program dominates treatment in the United States. But researchers have debunked central tenets of AA doctrine and found

NYC Seeks to Curb Painkiller Abuse With Hospital Limits

It’s only “deadly” if it’s misused or abused.

And yet, the idea is an excellent one because it limits potential for misuse and abuse by fraud.

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New York City is seeking to curb abuse of potentially addictive and deadly painkillers such as Oxycontin and Vicodin with new limits on how widely the drugs should be prescribed.

Emergency departments at New York’s public hospitals will only prescribe a three-day supply of opioid painkillers, won’t refill lost or stolen prescriptions and shouldn’t prescribe long-acting versions of the drugs, according to voluntary guidelines the city issued today.

The move is aimed at

Uruguayan government to sell marijuana to registered buyers

The United States has spent billions up on billions in the so-called “Drug War” which was started by Richard Nixon, and over the years, the only thing it’s gotten us, is deeper in debt.

All the while, murdering narcotrafficking international criminal enterprises have arisen and grown by leaps and bounds. With them, hundreds of thousands of lives have been unnecessarily lost in the process, both innocents and those directly involved in trafficking.

Prisons have been overcrowded – worse even than sardines in a can. And that has cost us equally dearly.

Again, there are few signs that use of illicit narcotics have declined, but rather, they have increased.

And that is just in the United States, which is perceived by many – and very well may be – to be the world’s major consumer of illicit narcotics. Further, the sale of illicit narcotics – including marijuana – has funded international terrorism, including alQaeda.

Not good.

We must embark upon a path which will decrease use of illicit narcotics, which ultimately harms everyone. And to embark upon that path, we must engage in honest, and forthright dialogue. The greatest obstruction to that, is the current level of impasse in our Congress – House and Senate.

We must change.

Change, we must.

Or, we shall all perish.

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Uruguay plan to let gov’t sell marijuana

By PABLO FERNANDEZ, Associated Press – 2 hours ago

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay’s national government said Wednesday it hopes to fight a growing crime problem by selling marijuana to citizens registered to buy it, and will send a bill to Congress that would make it the first country in the world to do so.

Under the plan, only the government would be allowed to sell marijuana and only to adults who register on a government database, letting officials keep track of their purchases over time.

Minister of Defense Eleuterio Fernandez Huidobro told reporters in Montevideo that

Marijuana and Schizophrenia – A Clear and Unmistakable Link… ignored in America

There is a significant and growing scientific body of medical evidence that marijuana use contributes significantly to schizophrenia – a particularly debilitating mental health condition that strikes during the most productive years of one’s life.

Medical marijuana anyone?

Maybe you’d prefer your mental health, instead.

It’s a shame that mental health professionals and other researchers in the United States almost wholly ignore the vast, longitudinal (long-term) and increasing body of evidence that conclusively demonstrates that marijuana DIRECTLY contributes to schizophrenia.

Of course, the elemental breakdown between reality and perception most characteristic of schizophrenia does seem to be present in this latest (and I believe ill-fated) and contradictory decision by the Mexican government to legalize small quantities of all illicit narcotics, including cocaine, heroin and LSD.

While this recent decision allows “small amounts” for “personal use,” apparently it doesn’t allow manufacture, sale or distribution of large amounts. However, “small amounts” always come from “large amounts.”

Complicating matters, the Mexican government has a long-time, well-known and rightfully-deserved reputation for corruption at all levels.

Mexico has continually been a “Third World” nation in the Western hemisphere. For years, in hopes for a better life abroad, their people have