conflict
Stigma of Addiction and Mental Illness is Alive and Well, Even in Our Own Families.
In five days, my brother Brett will be 50 years old. It should be a huge party with love, laughter, family, and friends. But there will be no party.
I can still hear it ringing in my ears, “Your brother was a junkie who deserved to die.”
Anyone who loves or has lost someone addicted to drugs or alcohol has heard this very statement in some form or another. Many times. It can often be ignored. Tolerated. Accepted. Maybe someone hasn’t said it to you directly, in those exact words, but you hear them loud and clear. And so does our loved one.
I don’t typically react, it’s not my style; after all it is a waste of valuable energy for me to scream and challenge every person with whom I come into contact. I am confident not only in who I am and my belief that addiction and mental illness are diseases, but also in who my brother was.
Everyone can be pushed past their limits. To where they have had enough. They’re hurt. Frustrated. And they need to stand up for what they believe is right, when someone else can’t find the courage to have a voice of their own. Not because I’m fighting my brother’s battles; after all we are no longer two- and six-years-old playing in the neighborhood sand box. But rather because I have walked this painful road, witnessed the judgment and because of that I see the world in a more empathetic way.
I remember vividly my mother and I sitting for about an hour, waiting for my brother to be seen in emergency. His leg rattled with anxiety until he was taken into a private room. We explained to the nurse that Brett was severely intoxicated and needed help to safely withdraw off the alcohol, not that we needed to as his situation was very clear from his scruffy appearance and glassy eyes. And she began to take his vitals.
It wasn’t the nurse’s cold, disassociated approach while taking my brother’s blood pressure, pricking his arm with a needle, or asking him how much he had had to drink that made my blood boil. It was the fact that it was obvious she absolutely loathed him. For the first time ever, like a bolt of electricity running through my veins, I felt judgment—exactly what my brother must have felt. Pure unadulterated judgment. As she left the room, I scampered quickly behind her, catching up in front of the nurse’s station.
“Excuse me,” I said. She didn’t hear me so I repeated myself. She turned around to look at me.
“Hi. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude. I completely understand and appreciate how hard your job is and how many different things you must see. I even get that on some level maybe to you my brother isn’t sick in the same way as most of the people here, and that you believe this may be purely self-induced. What I need to remind you is that he is a human being.”
She didn’t blink.
I continued, “Now I don’t care what you did yesterday or how you are tomorrow. All I care about is that for right now, when you come into that room, you show a little compassion as that is a person in there. A person! That is someone’s brother, someone’s son. And despite what you very obviously perceive as completely disgusting, someone loves him. Do you think you can do that?”
I didn’t give her time to answer.
“’Cause if you can’t, then what I suggest is that for the next hour or so you FAKE IT!”
I walked away, so I didn’t have to look at her stony expression for another second. Before stepping through the door to sit quietly in the corner of my brother’s room, I caught my breath as I was so overwhelmingly pissed off.
I understand and appreciate how hard nurses work—after all, our mother is a nurse—and I can imagine that they see all sorts of things. But that’s their job, a job that they choose. To treat someone very obviously, whatever their circumstance, like they are below dirt, I cannot take. As I looked at my brother at his worst, just as I had done so many times before, all I thought was he is in there.
The doctor arrived a short time later. I knew the drill; it seemed like I had heard this a thousand times before. They couldn’t keep Brett overnight as all the beds were full, although I appreciate the doctor did give him a shot of Valium. At least I think it was Valium, which by then I knew belongs to the class of medications called benzodiazepines. It is used for the short-term relief of symptoms of mild to moderate anxiety and for alcohol withdrawal. Mom and I knew that at least it would help Brett get through the night and the suggestion the doctor offered was for us to head back to the detox center in the morning.
What most people don’t know is that people with severe addiction can actually die from the effects of withdrawal. Whether you want to challenge your mind with that truth or not, the choice debate doesn’t work here: they cannot just stop. My brother needed medical supervision and help as he came off the booze. Normally it would take four to six days in which he would be given things like Valium to ease his way through the excruciating pain and suffering of the withdrawal process. Alcohol is actually one of the most dangerous substances to come off. People addicted to alcohol can experience symptoms like nightmares, vomiting, diarrhea, shivering, sweating, racing heart, fever, shaking, tightness in the chest, and difficulty breathing.
That is if things go well.
If things go badly, our loved ones can have a stroke, a heart attack, or a grand mal seizure. During withdrawal, long-term alcohol users can suffer psychosis that manifests as hallucinations and delusions, which is why they need to be monitored by a health care professional. Delirium tremors (DT’s) can sometimes be associated with severe, uncontrollable tremors of the extremities and secondary symptoms such as anxiety, panic attacks, and paranoia. All these realities. And yet we are once again being sent on our way as all the beds were full.
It seemed like a completely different nurse came into the room, yet it wasn’t. She was kind, compassionate, and caring, and as we left, she said to my brother, “Take care of yourself, Brett.”
I whispered, “Thank you” to her as we walked out the door, and I hope she knew how much I meant it.
My magnificent, smart, witty, handsome, kind, soft-spoken, and much-loved brother took that first sip of alcohol in high school, as most of our own young children will do some day. Sadly, he lost his battle with severe substance use and mental health issues on March 18, 2012 when he took his own life. I remember very vividly a few months after he passed away, someone in our close family circle was standing in my office and he said directly to me, “Your brother was a junkie who deserved to die. He had more than enough chances.”
I could be rattled, offended, shocked; I could have screamed, yelled, and told him to get the hell out of my office. But I didn’t. Instead, I calmly took a sip of my coffee, said a little “hmmm” to myself and changed the topic. I assure you it was not because I am quiet, scared, or I didn’t know what I wanted to say. But rather the opposite as I am confident, bold, outspoken, and unapologetically honest.
I have no interest in getting into a war of words. I have grown and learned so much since that hospital room visit more than fifteen years ago. I have learned that stigma is alive and well, not only in the healthcare profession. In society. In the media. And even in our own families and circle of friends.
I am not shocked nor surprised that we live in a world where some believe this statement about my brother and others battling addiction. It surprises me that we live in a world where it is acceptable to say it out loud. That somehow, it is all right to inflict intentional pain on someone who has lost someone who they love very much.
My approach is choosing to dedicate my time and energy into calmly and confidently sharing my journey and experience, every uncomfortable piece of it, without shame. The truth is I have been surrounded by alcoholism my whole life; it is on many branches of my family tree. But what I experienced with my brother; most could not fathom. I feel that if people hear the whole story, beginning with us as innocent children, it might open their hearts, change their perceptions, and perhaps give understanding and compassion for people with addiction and mental health challenges in society—our mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, friends, and neighbors.
For me, I am not going to spend my life arguing, debating, letting people break my spirit for what I know and believe with all my heart. What I remind myself when I share our story to enlighten others is that this way of thinking and speaking about Brett with hurtful, condemning statements is not at all about my brother’s character or who he was; it is about theirs.
Sending love, light and strength when you need it to everyone, on this Sat, September 10th, World Suicide Prevention Day.
conflict
Russia has sent the West a message: Don’t provoke us into escalating the war
From LifeSiteNews
The U.S., U.K., and NATO war alliance is desperate to provoke Vladimir Putin into expanded engagement prior to Donald Trump taking office. NATO members, sans Biden, met after the U.S. election to organize a strategy to Trump-proof their efforts.
Despite the diminutive Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky jumping around and shouting about Russians firing an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Thursday, they didn’t. Instead, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided his response to the U.S-led NATO group firing missiles into the Russian Federation would be to send a message with a multi-warhead intermediate range hypersonic missile. (Click here for background information.)
President Vladimir Putin said “one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested in combat conditions, in this case with a ballistic missile in non-nuclear hypersonic edition.” The missile has a range of approximately 3,500 kilometers, below the threshold for the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) – that’s a reach throughout western Europe, and the hypersonic message is likely, “You have no iron dome system that can prevent this.”
From Reuters:
Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the city of Dnipro on Thursday in response to the U.S. and UK allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons, in a further escalation of the 33-month-old war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address, said Moscow struck a Ukrainian military facility with a new ballistic missile known as ‘Oreshnik’ (the hazel) and warned that more could follow.
‘A regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a global character,’ Putin said in an address to the nation carried by state television after 8 pm Moscow time (1700 GMT).
A U.S. official said that Washington was pre-notified by Russia shortly before its strike, while another said they had briefed Kyiv and other close allies in recent days to prepare for the possible use of such a weapon.
Regardless of its classification, the latest strike highlighted rapidly rising tensions in the past several days.
Ukraine fired U.S. and British missiles at targets inside Russia this week despite warnings by Moscow that it would see such action as a major escalation.
The U.S., U.K., and NATO war alliance is desperate to provoke Vladimir Putin into expanded engagement prior to President-elect Donald Trump taking office. The NATO members, sans Biden, previously met in Brussels after the U.S. election to organize a strategy to Trump-proof their efforts.
Increasingly it looks like Great Britain will lead the provocation effort, with full support of the U.S. war machine. We previously said to watch Moldova closely, because that strategic position would be the most likely place of Western political influence to provoke Russia.
Indeed, as things are starting to unfold with increased urgency stimulated by the U.S. election outcome, now we see the U.K. entering a new agreement for military defense of Moldova being pre-positioned. From a U.K. government press release:
A new UK-Moldova Defence and Security Partnership has also been launched today, building on extensive cooperation between the two countries and strengthening Moldovan resilience against external threats. This partnership will bolster support for the sovereignty, security and stability of Ukraine, helping to strengthen national security at home in the face of increasing Russian aggression.
…
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said:
‘Moldova is a vital security partner for the UK, which is why to reinforce their resilience against Russian aggression and to keep British streets safe, I am deepening cooperation on irregular migration and launching a new Defence and Security Partnership.
‘With Ukraine next door, Moldovans are constantly reminded of Russia’s oppression, imperialism and aggression.[‘]
As the design of the strategy appears to be unfolding, Great Britain, with U.S. covert operational support, will position themselves inside Moldova. NATO troops are already on the ground there, much to the anxiety of the average Moldovan.
The intellectually honest people of Moldova, using the reference point of prior activity by the U.S. in Ukraine, clearly see themselves being set up as cannon fodder for Western military usefulness. The Great Britain/CIA/NATO team appears likely to use the geography of Moldova to provoke Russia into some form of response.
The U.K. can then declare their troops under attack, and NATO can respond with mutual defense of the U.K. pact, via Moldova.
The baseline for the continued need to avoid any cessation of hostilities in Ukraine is financial. BlackRock and JPMorgan have exclusive rights to the “rebuilding” of Ukraine, with access to all the resources therein. Thus there is an alignment of interests between BlackRock, JPMorgan, NATO, the U.S. State Department, and the internal operatives of the Biden administration.
At the same time, the Deep State (those who control Biden), the Intelligence Community, in combination with the anti-Trump DOJ-NSD (National Security Division), are using the increased hostility to bait President-elect Trump into saying something contradictory about current U.S.-NATO policy – a Logan Act violation.
So far President Trump has remained quiet, as the provocation against our peaceful interests are ongoing. For his part, Vladimir Putin has remained reserved and careful in his response; however, as U.S./NATO missiles continue to land inside the Russian Federation, there is concern that Putin’s restrained responses may indeed escalate.
We hope there are backchannels between Moscow and Mar-a-Lago; however, without any doubt the Intelligence Community is looking to intercept any communication that might possibly be taking place. Everyone in and around the orbit of President Trump likely has national security surveillance on them.
The industrial war machine is attempting to defend itself against any peace effort.
“Troublesome” is an understatement.
Reprinted with permission from Conservative Treehouse.
conflict
Colonel Macgregor warns of world war, urges Trump to ‘tell the truth’ about Ukraine, Israel
From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned that Biden’s authorization of long-range missile attacks by Ukraine has resulted in ‘the highest state of nuclear alert’ in Russia and that the U.S. faces ‘the storm of the century’ in the Middle East.
In a powerful, sobering appraisal of the escalating danger of world war, Colonel Douglas Macgregor has warned that Biden’s authorization of long-range missile attacks by Ukraine has already resulted in “the highest state of nuclear alert” in Russia, and that the U.S. faces “the storm of the century” in a direct conflict with Iran.
Following months of pressure by the U.K. government to permit the firing of NATO-guided and supplied missiles “deep into Russian territory,” outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden green-lit the strikes on Monday.
The following day, the U.S.-guided and supplied ATACMS missiles were fired 70 miles into Russia. Following this, despite U.K. government ambiguity on the issue, U.K.-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles were also launched into pre-2014 Russian territory for the first time.
Described as sign that “the West wants escalation” by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the strikes were followed by the use of a novel Russian hypersonic missile known as “Oreshnik” (“Hazelnut”). The previously unseen weapon delivered multiple warheads on its Ukrainian target and “cannot be countered” – as Russian President Vladimir Putin explained.
Putin has repeatedly warned that Russia will strike any military installation from which strikes on its territory originate, promising a “mirror-like” response to future attacks.
Putin also updated Russian nuclear doctrine following the Biden authorization. The revised doctrine now includes the use of nuclear weapons in response to an attack on Russia by a non-nuclear power – but “backed by a nuclear power” – like Ukraine.
Macgregor said the moves by the U.S. were reckless and had resulted in the “highest state of nuclear alert” in the Russian military. He condemned a statement made by U.S. Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan, which claimed the U.S. was prepared to fight – and even win – a nuclear war with Russia.
Such remarks “convince the Russians we are preparing for nuclear war,” said Macgregor, stressing that this U.S. officer could not have made this irresponsible and dangerous remark if his senior officer did not support it.
Macgregor said that this must be swiftly followed by the rear admiral’s immediate removal, and also by that of his commander.
“Generals do not make policy,” he said, as he bemoaned the absence of visible leadership in the U.S. at a time of mounting crisis. “Who is in charge?” he asked, arguing that the Department of State – whose brief includes foreign and war policy – appears to be itself being led by “generals who act like Caesars.”
With NATO faced with a drawdown of U.S. commitments to European security under Donald Trump, moves towards war hysteria is one means of securing its future.
The entire liberal-global order faces a hard reckoning following defeat in Ukraine, as this promises to reveal the deep corruption, money laundering, human trafficking, and immense damage to the European economy partnered with the “hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians,” which Macgregor says the media is simply refusing to report.
“The media have never told the truth,” Macgregor said angrily.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on November 11 that “corporate media is a propaganda vessel for Big Pharma and the war machine,” summarizing his long-held position that the Ukraine war is a vast “money laundering scheme” involving the military industrial complex – and companies like BlackRock.
“The big military contractors want to expand NATO. Why? Because nations have to conform their military purchases to NATO,” he said.
Kennedy recalls Senator Mitch McConnell’s stunning response to the question of whether the U.S. can afford sending “$113 billion to Ukraine.” Kennedy explained, “He said, ‘Don’t worry,’” and then showed McConnell saying, “It’s going to American defense manufacturers.”
Kennedy’s claim that the media runs advertisements for the war machine is not a “conspiracy theory.” It is a matter of congressional record.
Kennedy has also stated that the United States blew up the Nordstream pipelines, destroying German gas supplies – and resulting in the destruction of the economy of the former powerhouse of Europe.
He said in March 2024, “It’s amazing how some refuse to admit that we sabotaged Nordstream even after Biden stated on camera that if Russia invades Ukraine, ‘there will no longer be a Nordstream 2. We will bring an end to it.’ This is a matter of public record.”
“There is indeed propaganda at play here. But it isn’t Russian and it isn’t coming from me. It’s the war propaganda of our own government and their collaborators in the media.”
This propaganda machine is now pushing the West towards a war with Russia which cannot be won. A nuclear exchange, as Putin, Macgregor, and Trump have said, would produce no winners. Conventionally, European nations have spent so little on defense that they have no effective counter-force to a Russian land invasion – which Macgregor says the Russians “have no intention” of launching anyway.
Dr. Sumantra Maitra, the author of the “dormant NATO” policy behind Trump’s move to scale down U.S. commitments, yesterday said the result is “a very, very risky moment,” saying “Putin argues that the line of ‘strict or qualified neutrality’ is now blurred” by the authorized NATO weapon strikes.
President Putin announced on November 21st that “we reserve the right to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.”
“In the event of escalating aggression, we will deliver a decisive mirror-like response.”
Why is the regime escalating to a “blurred” line between proxy conflict and nuclear war?
It is an insane gamble to prevent the U.S. from drawing down from NATO in Europe, and to prolong a war whose end would reveal the deep corruption in and around the proxy war in Ukraine. Peace would spell doom for the liberal-global order.
Nuclear war for Israel?
Hopes for another payday for the war machine are still alive, however, in the strong U.S. backing of Israel.
In his November 21 appearance on “Judging Freedom,” Macgregor describes continuing U.S. support for a nation whose leaders are now named in arrest warrants linked to genocide as a “tragedy,” saying of the announcement of arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant, “It’s a sad and tragic day for Israel and I think for the United States because we are complicit” in the charges made against both men.
Israel is another example of a leadership whose tenure can only be secured if the wars never end. Benjamin Netanyahu is accused by many, including his fellow Israelis, of keeping the wars going to avoid jail. Even Joe Biden agreed with this assessment.
With Netanyahu urging the U.S. into a war with Iran that Israel cannot win alone, Macgregor asks “four questions on Iran,” namely how such a disastrous war could ever be argued to be serving the interests of the United States.
It would, Macgregor said, see the “U.S. sleepwalking into disaster” so colossal as to be “the storm of the century” – and all to keep a criminal out of prison.
Macgregor has stated that all Trump has to do to stop the war in Ukraine is “tell the truth” about the corruption, lies, and reckless escalation which have sold this war to the West. On the grave matter of human losses, he said:
“We don’t know how many have died. The media have never told the truth. It’s 600,000, 700,000 dead Ukrainians at least and hundreds of thousands more wounded who will never recover. No one is telling the truth. It’s time for the truth. If President Trump does anything he’s got to tell the truth – and throw out anyone who doesn’t provide him with the truth.”
The same can be said of Netanyahu himself. If Trump were to tell even some of the truth about this man, neither Americans nor anyone else outside his influence would be willing to stand with him.
Netanyahu has urged all of the “regime change” wars which have driven mass migration into the West. The war in Iraq killed “a million historic Christians,” as J.D. Vance has said, adding that if Americans had been told this instead of WMD lies, they would never have supported Netanyahu’s call for the U.S. to go to war in Iraq.
Netanyahu has pushed the false line of Iraqi WMDs since 1990. He called for the overthrow of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, whose demise smashed open the floodgates of African mass migration.
Regime change is the business model of neocons whom Trump vowed in February 2023 to remove from the U.S. government, and Netanyahu is the man who has urged regime change on the U.S. for at least 20 years. Trump made this statement almost two years ago in a video recently recirculated as if it were current news. It is to be hoped that Trump’s resolve on clearing out the “Deep State neocons …who seek confrontation” has not weakened.
Regime change has ruined the West, changing regimes at home into a permanent state of emergency governed by censorship and lawfare against critics of godless liberal-globalism. As a result, we are now morally and financially bankrupt, our isolation sealed by steadfast support of a nation whose leadership is now credibly accused of obvious war crimes.
At home, Netanyahu is accused of having backed Hamas for years, of ignoring precise warnings of the October 7 attacks, of relentlessly blocking every hostage deal – to prolong the wars which keep him in office.
His former defense minister Avigdor Lieberman also warned that “Israel will not exist in 2026” if Netanyahu remains in power, saying in June that the Netanyahu government is “only concerned with its political survival.”
Israelis themselves recognize that Netanyahu cannot survive the outbreak of peace, and “has never wanted peace,” as Donald Trump said of him in 2021. Netanyahu’s entire career is based on permanent war. He now wishes to drag Americans – and the rest of the world – into another.
To tell this shocking truth to Americans could not only save Israel from a coalition the former head of Mossad warned in 2022 was “leading Israel to self-destruction” – but also save us all from a devastating global conflict, which Macgregor says would be sparked by attacking Iran.
The U.S. faces a stark choice between oblivion and restoration. It cannot have both, as others have pointed out. So far, Trump has remained silent on Israel while Putin has signaled he is open to Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine.
With war being the lifeline of the Deep State that Trump has vowed to defeat, is he willing to tell Americans the truth to keep their dreams – and themselves – alive?
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