Changing old habits – part 2

I had no problem at all understanding and relating with the dynamics of the issues that Jane and her family were going through, as I sat there listening to Jane telling me about all of the problems that her niece was having because of her drug addiction, and her telling me about how much of a negative impact that her niece’s problems, where having on the rest of her family. The main differences in our two stories, were how we had become drug addicted, and the impacts that our addictions had on both us and our families.



In the case of her niece - there was a drug fad that had started back in the mid 1980s and early 90s, and after the introduction of crack cocaine. Some of the marijuana smoking teens and young adults, had started sprinkling crack cocaine on top of their marijuana, and then smoking the two substances together (this was called smoking primo). And some of them, even started melting both crack cocaine and black tar heroin together, and then smoking that mixture together with the marijuana – this would then sometimes lead to cocaine or heroin addiction, and sometimes like in the case of Jane’s niece, she became addicted to both heroin and crack cocaine. In my case, what led me to the path of drug addiction was the excessive use of pain medications after I had suffered a lower back injury, and had received bad advice – real bad advice from the doctors that were treating me. After about five years of suffering with chronic back pain, and injuring and reinjuring my lower back, it was then suggested (recommended) that I have back surgery, and have 3 of the disks in my lower back fused together. This sounded real great at first, until after I had done some research – not only was there no guaranty that this would end my pain – fusing the 3 disks in my back, would have also severely limited the range of motion in my back – I decided: fuck having this surgery done big-time!


The only other option left was to continue treating the pain. So I simply continued treating the pain with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), and narcotic pain meds; and hoping that just like every other time before, that the pain would eventually go away. Months turned into years, but I was still taking the drugs and still suffering from the pain.


Then I had an event that sent me to the ER, the NSAIDs had caused my stomach to start bleeding. The combination of the NSAIDs, and the weak narcotics had been working extremely well in controlling my levels of pain – but now, because this event had been somewhat life threatening, my doctor stopped prescribing the NSAIDs, and he then increased the dose and the strength of the narcotics that I was taking – towards the end of my treatment, and before my doctor had retired, I was having difficulty filling all of the prescriptions that he was writing for me (he was giving me prescriptions for 30 days worth of 4 different narcotics every week). I ended up going to 4 different pharmacies each week; I was visiting at least 10 different pharmacies a month, just to get all of my drugs. By the time that my doctor had retired, my life was a real mess, and I had already started obtaining most of the drugs that I was taking, from a friend of a friend’s sister, who was also a methamphetamine dealer (drugs like oxycodone, oxycontin and other powerful narcotic pills, trade just like cash in the illicit drug world).


About one year after my doctor had retired; I was now spending between 600-800 hundred dollars a week on narcotic pain pills; and I was now totally depended on these drugs; and I was totally unable to function without these drugs.


The funny thing about all of this was, that everyone who was around me, and who knew what I was doing, could all see that I was getting myself into big trouble….that is, everyone except for me – just like being under the influence of any other intoxicating and mind altering substance, one’s perception of reality becomes seriously distorted (I thought that everything was going great, that was until my supply of available pills had been delayed for 5 days).


24 hours without popping pills was not really a big deal – the longest that I had gone without pills in the past was about 48 hours, and no problem at all. However, this time, on day 3 when I awoke, I found myself in full drug withdrawal, and I had never felt as bad as I was feeling, ever before in my life (this has to be the closest that one can get to being in the imaginary place that the Xtians call “hell”).

Later that day, I called my dealer and told her what I was going through; the first thing that she said to me was: “I told you that you were becoming a junky, I warned you.” She then offered to make some calls to see if she could find something that would help me until the pills arrived. She then called me back about ten minutes later, and told me to come over to her house. When I arrived at her house I was sick as “hell,” she introduced me to a Mexican guy that I had already known for many years, and I had also known many other members of his family – however, I never knew that they were a family of heroin dealers – she then handed me a syringe half filled with a brown liquid, and said “sorry baby, but you’re sick, and this is the best that I can do for you right now.”


As I sat there holding this syringe in my hand while talking to our Mexican friend, I learned that his family had been involved in the heroin trade for over 20 years, and that they were involved in every facet from growing the poppies to manufacturing the heroin; and that they only wholesaled large quantities of the drug. He then assured me that I was holding the best heroin that money can buy, and that I didn’t have to worry about that “flesh eating shit.” I had no clue what he was talking about, but I was so sick that I was almost willing to try anything just to feel better.


Still sick as “hell,” and sweating and shaking, I found a blood vessel in my hand, and inserted the needle, and then started injecting this shit into my body. The rush was almost instantaneous, I stopped sweating and shaking; and within 5 minutes, I was feeling better than I had felt in many years. I then looked at the syringe (still sticking out of my hand) and said out loud: “what the fuck, so this is heroin – where have you been all of my life.” I felt as if I had fallen in love again, and for the first time in a longtime; and this shit was a hell of a lot cheaper than the pills that I had been buying; I could buy enough of this shit to last me for a year or more, if I wanted; I had just found the answers, for all of my problems…or so I had thought.


The next 2 years or so just seemed to fly by; I had managed to hide my addiction from my family, and all but my closest friends (who all thought that I had lost my mind….and I had lost my mind!). It was in about the 30th month of my heroin use that my life started falling apart. Before I had managed things by prioritizing the most important things, and then shifting everything else that I had to do, to a more convenient time – the only problem was that my addiction, had started taking priority ahead of most of the other stuff in my life, including all of my main enterprises.


In short, what I was trying to get Jane to understand is that it doesn’t matter how one becomes a drug addict – in the end its all still the same….and what does matter the most is the choices that one makes after they recognize the fact that they have a problem.






The road to recovery from any type of drug addiction can be a long and tough one. And if one doesn’t have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on a rational treatment program, then that road to recovery can extremely long, and most often than not, one will simply find they’re going in circles and ending up right back at the place that they started from – and I’m not all that convinced that many of the expensive treatment programs, are all that better than the irrational ones are. But in the end, what it all really all comes down to is the willingness of the person to change their behavior, and being provided with the right tools to make the change.


The biggest challenge to my recovery was accepting the fact that I had a problem. The next problem that I had facing me was the fact that I didn’t even have a clue about how to began to address my addiction; moreover, I still wasn’t willing to admit to my family that I had a drug problem, and least of which, tell them that I had a heroin addiction. Then the first mistake that I made, was asking the advice of another addict while we were waiting to score some heroin from a dealer – I simply asked him, how in the hell does a person get off of heroin. He looked at me as if he was dumbfounded by my question, and then he replied: “just go into treatment – I’ve been in treatment more than a dozen times, and it has always worked for me – and it will work for you too” he then gave me the phone number to the local detoxification center; he then said: “just give them a call, and they’ll even do all of the paperwork for you.”


It took me a few more months before I made that phone call – I believe that I just couldn’t get past the part about him going into treatment more than a dozen times, and yet, he was still using heroin??? However, nothing in this world of drug addiction seemed very rational to me at the time.


The Detoxification Center:


The staff at the detoxification center was extremely polite and very professional. And despite the fact that they all claimed to be Christians, for the most part, most kept their proselytizing to a minimum. The place was divided into two parts – one part was for “medical detoxification,” and the other part provided a safe place for the addicts to await placement in a treatment program – the staff did an excellent job of finding placement in programs for most of the addicts, considering the limited resources from which they had to work with. And just like the guy who had suggested going to this place as a starting point for my recovery, I was also in and out of this place many times before I was finally assigned to a “treatment program.”


The Treatment Program:


The day that I walked into this program, I had the highest expectations; that I was going learn about all of the new science in our current understanding of chemical dependency; that I would have all of my 40 plus questions about the effects that opium derived drugs have on the body and the brain answered; and moreover, I believed that I would leave this place, armed with at least some kind of new found knowledge, which would help lead me to the path of recovery from my addiction. However, in the 89 days that I stayed at this place, the only thing in which I encountered that could even be considered, as even remotely intuitive in dealing with the issues of addiction, was an old video of a priest talking about alcoholism, and based on information that was from the 1940s and 50s. After the video had ended, a staff member asked if anyone had any questions about what the priest had talked about in the video, no one raised their hands. The only question that popped into my mind was: “I wonder just how many little boys had this guy fucked in the ass in his career as a priest?” but I also remained silent as well.


However, what I was told about drug addiction, was that drug addiction is a “disease,” and that drug use is a moral issue, and that the one suffering from the drug addiction, can never be cured of the “disease” of addiction – and that only some higher-power (Jesus Christ) can treat this disease, and that one can only pray this disease into remission through belief in a higher-power, again: Jesus – they were using superstition, ignorance and stupidity, as the only means of “treating” a very real and serious medical condition. And I was told, that the only way that I can ever be free from my drug use, was by accepting Jesus Christ as my higher-power, and as my Lord and my Savior (I thought that up to that point in my life, that I had seen and heard almost everything; however, at that moment, I realized that my State Government and my tax dollars, had sent me to see a pack of delusional fucking Witchdoctors, for the treatment of my chemical dependency).

Needles to say, I didn’t learn anything useful in this drug treatment program at all – and I soon fell right back into my drug use again. And within a few months, I was right back at the same detoxification center again, and then again – and then one more final time before I realized that I was simply repeating the same old bullshit over and over, and that I was somehow expecting that something would change (magic, higher-powers, and Jesus are not real). I realized that it was me that needed to change – I knew that there just had to be a rational way for treating chemical dependency; and although, I have many friends who are doctors, scientists and other highly educated professionals, but to my surprise, none of them, knew jack-shit about chemical dependency and drug addiction.


Then one of the doctors that I knew, just happened to mention the problems that I was dealing with to another doctor: and according to my friend, the doctor instantly replied: “I know just the person who can help your friend.” So it took about 6 weeks before he could setup a meeting. The day of the meeting, my friend who is doctor with his own office and practice, hired a doctor from a temp agency to cover for him, so that he could personally take me to meet this person. The person that we were meeting that day was a retired doctor from the State of New York, and who was also an addiction medicine specialist.


As I was explaining my problem to him, he cut me off and asked me if I was currently using anything other than heroin – I then told him that the only drug that I was using was heroin, and that I had been using it for about 3-4 years. He then said that was all he needed to know. He then explained why I had failed in all of my other attempts at rehabilitation. He then asked my friend about my background and my level of education, my friend replied: he’s a scientist. He then went on to explain how he had got into addiction medicine – he said that he had been contracted by the U.S. Military go to Asia and help treat military personal who had become addicted to heroin while serving in the Vietnam War – he said that the military was having such a big problem in finding effective ways of treating addiction, and that they didn’t want to deal with the embarrassment of all of these heroin addicts returning back to the States, so the government started a policy of not allowing the addicts to return home from Asia until they were cleaned up.


He then said that all of the other methods that they were trying to use in getting these men clean, had all been just a big failure – like AA, and all of that other hocus-pocus, superstitions and delusional religious fucking bullshit had failed – and the failure rate was well over 90 percent until we got over there with real science and real medicine – he then said:”we turned a 90 percent failure rate, into a 95 percent success rate in just a little over 6 months – and how do you think that they thanked us for all of our effort, they made us sign an agreement not to talk about any of this, once we returned State side” (at that moment, I started crying uncontrollably, I’m not really sure what had caused this emotional outburst, other than the fact that I had finally found someone who I believed could help me).


He then explained how the program works, and how with the help of my friend that I could do the whole thing as a type of self-help thing.

In less than 8 hours that day, I had learned more about heroin addiction than I had learned in the whole of this fucking nightmare. And now, I fully understood why I had failed every time that I had tried to get myself clean, and why Jane’s niece, and why almost every other type of drug user will fail using the first methods that I described. Although it took me almost 2 weeks to read and reread the material that he had gave me, before I fully understood the process, it’s really quite simple – using drugs like heroin, cause changes in the chemistry of the body. There are compounds that can be easily made, that will rapidly cause the reversal of these changes.


I then told Jane that no amount hoping, wishing or praying was going to help her niece turn her life around. And most important – the niece has to want to take the first step towards her own recovery. The main issue in dealing with heroin addiction is the fact that most addicts don’t live long enough to recover from their addictions – and the niece has now been using drugs for about twice as long as I did.


I also explained to Jane the sobering statistics that had really opened up my own eyes – less than 10 percent of the addicts who partake in these superstition based treatment programs, manage to keep their sobriety for the first year – and the ones who manage to keep their sobriety for the first five years, is less than 1 percent – and more than half of those who have managed to keep their sobriety for 5 years or longer, have done so by making their sobriety the paramount facet of their lives (this is not a rational way of recovering from an addiction – but if works for them….then good for them).


I believe that the hardest part of rationally recovering from a drug addiction for Jane to understand, was when she asked me what I was doing to remain drug free – I simply told her that I was doing absolutely nothing; that I had come to realize that only I had the power to end my addiction – and that I had simply made the choice never to abuse drugs again. And that everything that she had been told about drug addiction by those ignorant superstitious morons was simply just a big crock of fucking bullshit.


She then asked me to have a talk with her niece – I reluctantly agreed, and I did in fact talk with her niece (coming in part 3 of this story).



Today, I have been completely drug free for almost 6 years, and I have also learned simple back stretching and strengthening exercises that have been keeping my back pain free for nearly 10 years.






Knowledge combined with rationality, critical thinking and reasoning, will always prevail over religion, superstition, stupidity and ignorance – simply because they are all just different forms of the same thing.






John

Changing old habits – part 1

Earlier this year, and as the date of the “rapture” was fast approaching, I wrote in a post about how I had become a little concerned over whether or not any of the Christians that I personally knew as friends, had fallen for Harold Camping’s latest of delusional “rapture” cons. One of the friends that I called, who I will call Jane for this post, was extremely shocked over hearing from me. Jane’s sister had told her that she had heard that I had overdosed on drugs, and that I had died about 10 years ago (after joking with her, that I was calling her from “heaven,” I then told her that only part of that story was in fact true – obviously, I am still very much alive, if I am calling you on the phone). Our conversation ended on sort of a happy note – she was very happy to hear from me, and I was happy that she was still around and doing well; however, I was a little disappointed that I didn’t find anyone that I knew, who was even entertaining Harold Camping’s “rapture” bullshit – I was looking for stuff to blog about, and a new story to add to a book that I am currently writing.


Then a few weeks later, as I was checking my voicemail messages on a phone that I seldom use, I found an assortment of new messages from Jane – as I was sitting there in my car listening to her messages, I started wondering just how in the hell she had gotten my phone number. I didn’t remember giving her any of my phone numbers, or her even asking for my phone number, and I thought that my phone was setup to block my number from caller ID?

In one of her messages, she said: “if this is the John who rose from the dead, call me back, Jane.”

Just as I was deleting the last one of her numerous massages, my phone beeped – it was an incoming call from a blocked phone number. So I answered the call, it was Jane – she didn’t even say hello, she started the conversation accusing me of avoiding her calls. I then explained that I seldom even use the phone that she was calling me on, and that I only check for messages about once a week or so, or if I am expecting someone to call.


As she started into her next rant, I realized that I had left the air conditioning on from earlier that day when it was hot, but it was now night, and the air was freezing cold. And for some reason, I said out loud: “man, this fucking AC is freezing my balls off.” Up to that point in “our” conversation, she really hadn’t responded to anything that I had said, but she decided to respond to my freezing outburst.


She replied: “I wish that I was there with you, so that I could warm up your freezing balls” – followed with a deep chuckle.


She then asked me if I could have a look at her car’s AC, she then said that it had quit working last summer about a month after her car’s warranty had expired. I reluctantly answered: sure, and we then made an appointment to meet a few days later.


I arrived about an hour early for our scheduled rendezvous; it wasn’t that I was really enthusiastic about seeing her again after more than ten years – I was more or less trying to decide if I truly wanted to see her again. Although I have known her for more than 30 years, and we had once been real good friends – she was also a part of a chapter in my life’s past, that I prefer to leave behind me. So instinctively, I decided to park about one block away from the location where we were meeting, and then walk back to the place, when I returned back on foot to the location, she drove right up to me, and asked me why I had left the parking lot where we were going to meet (she had arrived even earlier than I had, and she had already seen me).


As I stood there looking at her sitting in her car, she said: “you look almost the same as you did ten years ago” (I thought to myself, you sure as hell don’t look the same as you did the last time that I had seen you). It was at that moment that I realized that it had actually been almost 13 years since the last time that I had seen this woman. She then said: “you were just trying to be slick, weren’t you – you still think that you are so slick, don’t you – now get your ass into this car, boy.”


I then had her drive me back to where I had parked my car so that I could get my tools and start working on the problem that she was having with her car’s AC. I started by looking at the most likely causes – like a blown fuse, a missing belt.., etc. then I used a long wire to jump voltage to the clutch on the AC compressor – the AC came on and worked like a champ. In the end what I had found that had caused the problem, was that she had been pushing the AC switch so hard, that she had damn near pushed the switch through the dashboard (the switch had simply fallen apart). Luckily, I found all of the parts for the switch, and I was able to put it back together.


Her AC was now working again, and she was real happy. As I turned to get out of her car and leave, she said: “wait, wait, and let me pay you something.”


I replied: “no, that’s not necessary, that’s what friendship is all about, isn’t it?”


She then tried to hand me a one hundred dollar bill, and saying, take it, the shop was going to charge me 400 dollars! After I refused her hundred dollar offer, she then said: “well, at least let me give you fifty.” As I sat there silently deciding what my best exit strategy might be, she then grabbed me in sort of a hugging way (like being grabbed by a starving grizzly bear as food) and then she started tickling me – she then shoved the 50 dollars down the front of my pants (I thought, what in the hell does she think that I am – one of those male pole dancers at some damn striper club, or was she just making good on her offer to warm-up my balls?).


As I reached into my pants and started pulling out these bills that were wedged between my leg and my balls, and handing them back to her, she said: “well, at least let my buy you dinner. She then said with a wide grin on her face: “after we eat, we can go to my place and have some drinks, and talk for a while” – (I really used to like this girl, and years ago, I would have done her faster than a cat could lick its own ass; however, at that moment, I felt like that I had just finished wrestling with a 300 pound horny gorilla, and that I had won – I’ve just never been into the big ones).


I then told her that I had already eaten earlier, and that I had quit drinking a few months ago.


She replied: “damn, you don’t do any of that bad stuff anymore – you must have found Jayzus” – (at that moment, I felt like lying and saying: yes, I found Jesus, and that I had also joined the priesthood – so keep your hands off of me).

I then told her that I hadn’t found either “Jayzus” or “Jesus,” or any other fictional deities, and that the only thing that I had “found,” was a way of rediscovering me again.


She then got this real sad look on her face, and she started telling me about how her niece had started using drugs and alcohol at about the age of 16 and just how fucked up her life is today. She told me that her niece had been in and out of jails and drug treatment programs many times over the last 10 years, and that she had only managed to stay drug and alcohol free for short amounts of time, and only when she was attending church and working her 12 step AA/NA program. But then as soon as she stopped going to church and stopped attending her AA/NA meetings, within a few weeks, and just like clockwork, she would always start back using drugs and alcohol again. She then said that both her pastor and her AA/NA sponsor, had told her that her niece has a disease, which can only treated through “Jesus’ love,” and adherence to the 12 step program of AA/NA. So both Jane and her sister are currently trying to get the niece back into treatment again. 




She then asked me if I am still an atheist, then just how had I gotten myself off of drugs, and what was I doing today to stay drug free, and if I had any advice that might help her niece stop using drugs, and help her stay off drugs.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results." Albert Einstein.






How I recovered from my addictions, and the advice that I gave Jane:

(To be continued in part 2 of this story).

This is only the second time that I have revealed this story to anyone. The first time was when I asked the advice of a friend if he thought rationality might help someone who carries the mind-virus recover from drug addiction. His only comment was: “John, you are a pussy – if I were in your shoes that day, I would have taken the 100 dollars – and I also would have fucked that fat bitch.”


I believe that he was just being evasive of the question that I asked???

Christians, penis-god(s) storks and babies:

Back when I was in my teens, and learning about religion and mythology, I came across the religion of the penis God(s). The religions which are based around the penis deities, are both many in numbers, and worship of the penis gods, are varied from simple rituals, to complex in nature. Almost all of the rituals, involved food offerings and treats, which were usually place at the base of a huge wood or stone penis, or placed in front its balls, (if it has balls I would guess) – some of the penis gods, were as tall as 30 feet in height. In some Asian cultures, it was common for young married couples, to pay the penis-god a visit, on their way home from their wedding - and then pray to this big fucking cock for children (I thought, just how in the hell, would you know, just what in the fuck a huge cock likes to eat?)

Then I was amazed to discover, that even in the 1970s, folks all over the world were still worshiping the penis gods – and in one such village somewhere in Asia, the folks believe that only the penis-god could give a couple a baby. These people lived in the South Pacific, and had been walking around nude or half nude for 1000s of years, and of course having sex and babies; but no one had made the connection between having sex and making babies – they simply believed that feeding and worshiping, a big stone cock was how they gotten their babies – I thought, WTF, even Christians are not that stupid – but, boy was I wrong!


I had a close friend who lived on the other side of town, who had a family of real weird people living next door to him. He said that he had never seen any of the children outside the house before, but he could sometimes hear them screaming in the evenings – so he knew that there were children living in the house, as well as 2 adults. Every morning he would see a man leave the house, and then return in the evenings – he said that the man would be extremely dirty when he returned home, so he thought that the man was going to his job. We would always sit in my friend’s window, and look at this house, and wonder just what might going on over there – was this family like the Adams family on TV – were there blood sucking vampires living in the house (we were both young teens, and both with over active imaginations, I guess).


Then one day my friend calls me on the phone, and tells me that the night before that there was a funeral Hurst parked in front of that house, and they had placed a dead body into the back of the Hurst – he then said that the man had left the house just like he had always done that next morning. About 3 weeks later, my friend and I were sitting in his front yard, when some children came out of the house, then walk a crossed the street , and started talking to us – there were 5 of them, 3 girls and 2 boys, and all between the ages of 14 and 23 – we learned that they were all part of a Mennonite/Pentecostal Christian cult, and that their mom had died, because she had refused to go to the hospital, while she suffered from a long illness – she simply chose to pray to Jesus (this wasn’t exactly what the children had said, but it’s what happened anyway). The children said that they had been home schooled every since birth by their mom – two of them showed us bibles that they had hand copied – their hand writing was incredible, the bibles looked like they had been made on a printing press – and they all could quote bible passages faster than an alley cat could lick its own ass.


Later on in the summer, there was this one girl who was a few years older than me, who lived in that house – who would always come around whenever I was visiting my friend, and I could see that she was hot for me. One day she asked me if she could kiss me, and I said yes, and she started kissing me all over my face. This had gotten me a little excited, and then out of my mouth flew these words, and almost as if I had Turrets Syndrome: “you and I should go and make a baby” i.e.., let’s go and fuck! As she sat there looking at me, a big smile came over her face – and I became even more excited, and hopeful even – at least she hadn’t responded, like most of the other girls that I had used this same line on, had always responded (e.g. “why don’t you just go, and fuck yourself, you little bastard”). Her big smile then turned into laughter, and she said: “I know you’re not that stupid – only God can make babies, and he only gives you one, after you’re married.” As I sat there trying to figure out, just what in the fuck that she was saying, I thought to myself: WTF, she’s almost 17, and she’s still this fucking naïve – I’m going to wax this Christian-ass, before the day is over!


I then told her, that I didn’t really want to make a baby with her – and that I only wanted to have sex with her – she then asked me to explain sex to her. She then said that she would do it, but only after both of us had asked Jesus, and she had prayed about it???


Needless to say, I never got that ass, that day, or any other. I later discovered that she and her siblings were almost never allowed to go outside of their house – their mom had thought that the world was just too evil, and Jesus could only protect them if they stayed at home. I found out that they had never owned a television – and that the only radio they had, that their mom had tuned it to Christian-radio, and then removed the tuning knob.


In hindsight, I believe that they were all suffering from mental illness – even the boys had no conception of human reproduction – one of the boys proclaimed that he wasn’t sure if he was a boy or girl – as god can make you either one that he wants to – I didn’t even ask him to explain!

Believers See “jesus” on Power Pole:

When I first saw this video, the first thing that popped into my mind, was those bat-shit crazy Bible-Belt Christians, had finally captured the Plant-Man from that silly sci-fi movie, and then crucified him on a power pole.      

Our current energy policies have put us on the fast track of killing our planet

After weeks of listening to the officials at B.P. lying, while trying to downplay the severity of this ecological disaster, which was caused directly because of their own negligence and greed – and then hearing all those ignorant right-wind pundits, claiming that the severity of this accident was being overplayed by the environmentalist, solely for their own political gains (I thought how can someone overplay the deaths of 11 oil workers?) And then came the radio talk show hosts like Limbaugh, who were claiming that the oil was actually good for the ocean - and just when I believed that I had heard all of the lunacy, that these ignorant morons had to offer; then I heard this preacher on the radio, blaming this disaster on the godless scientists and the EPA, for over-regulating the industry, which in turn was forcing the oil companies away from drilling their wells in safer places. He was claiming that all of this was happing, because the godless scientists, don’t believe that god has given us these resources to use, and he said that god had placed enough oil in the earth, and everything else on the earth, that will ever need, and it all will last until the rapture comes – and all of this after hearing an ignorant Christian caller, on a different radio talk show, saying how much she missed her dead husband, and that the rapture, couldn’t come quick enough for her – the only thing that I could do at that point, was just scream!

What all these willfully ignorant people, don’t seem to understand is, and that indifferent to what they may believe based on their deluded old book of fairy-tales, is the fact that all life here on earth, started in the oceans over a billion years ago. And if we kill the oceans; all the rest of the life here on the earth, will soon follow – and there will be no rapture, and no imaginary Jesus, to save them.


I find it hard in placing all of the blame for these people’s stupidity and ignorance, solely on their religious beliefs, for them not understanding, just how finite the difference is between the earth being a living planet, and it just being another dead rock floating in space. Our ecosystem is extremely complex, and every and all facets of this system; are totally interdependent on each other - from the smallest life-forms in the oceans, to all of the land animals, including people, everything is depended on each other for survival. Tiny little plankton is the base of the marine food chain. Little fish eat the plankton that then feed the bigger fish, who then intern feed even bigger fish, and at the top of the food chain, is us. The most important of these tiny life-forms, is the phytoplankton; they resided just under the surface of the water, and they provide about 50% of the earth’s oxygen – and together with all the other marine plant-life, they are the only source of oxygen for the fish to breathe. Phytoplanktons are extremely sensitive to toxins – and totally incapable of living in oil. And if there is a mass dying off of the Phytoplankton and other marine-plants, the consequences’ of this, will be extremely severe. As the oxygen levels in the ocean begin to fall, there will be an explosion in the numbers of harmful Bacteria – and the poor fish that haven’t already suffocated to death, will simply become sick and die – many of these bacteria; are also very harmful and toxic to humans as well.


Another of the many problems that we’ll soon be facing; will be an increase in the levels of toxins and carcinogens in the food-chain. Back when the mining industry, began using mercury in the process of extracting gold from ore; no one knew back then, that this extremely toxic substance, would be coming back to haunt us in our food-chain – today, there’s not one single living creature on the planet, that hasn’t been poisoned to some degree or another, by this substance. And soon the extremely toxic chemicals that B.P. and others have been using in a futile attempt to dissolve the oil, will evaporate into the clouds, and return to earth in the form of precipitation (they’re simply breaking down this mass of poison into even more toxic chemicals). And yes, the food crops, the live-stock animals, and humans, will soon, all be enjoying this poison, in the form of rain (at least two of these toxins in this compound, cause changes in the DNA structure of all living creatures – and causes mutations and birth-defects in their offspring).


There are rivers of oil, floating at different depths under the surface of the water – 80 percent of the spilled oil is still under water, and most of it, will eventually reach the coast-lines and pollute the beaches. But not before these toxic clouds create marine dead-zones; and any fish, or any other type of marine animals entering these zones, will simply die. The ones who do survive, will be so poisoned by this toxic mess, that they will have a very difficult time reproducing, furthering the decline of the marine life, in the soon to be wasteland of deadly toxins.


I find this whole situation appalling on so many levels; and not the least of which that it could have been prevented in at least two ways. First of all, it’s too dangerous and irresponsible for our leaders to allow this kind of oil drilling, in such an important and sensitive area of our coast. Secondly, this massive blowout of oil and gas could have been easily prevented, with a device that costs only a small fraction of what the bill for the incompetents of the Bush administration, will be in the end.

Then B.P’s response to this disaster; has just been simply mindboggling to me. Even before the bodies of the 11 dead workers had gotten cold; they were only concerned with recovering as much of the oil as they could – simply so they could keep producing oil from the well; and indifferent to the environmental costs. They started lying about the severity of this event from day one; and now their simply trying to hide it from us. And every one of the actions that they have taken to date; have only be to recover the oil production from this well – these fucking people have been acting like crack-addict’s, who are trying to find they’re lost cocaine-rock; so that they can continue smoking! Now today they’re putting even more people’s lives at risk, in an attempt to try and show that this mess that they have created, is not as toxic and poisonous as it really is – they are creating photo-ops, in which cleanup workers are running around cleaning up oil on the beaches, and without them even wearing the proper safety gear – and at the well site, the boom workers have been exposed to toxic levels of methane gas. They have no concern for the safety of the cleanup workers; they’re only concern is maintaining their own image. When in fact, dealing with this toxic mess, is the equivalent of one sticking their heads into an oven, and then turning the gas on.






What if any good can come out of this mess?






I can only hope that the Obama administration will investigate B.P. and charge those responsible for these acts of willful safety violations – and then have the balls to prosecute them.


Our continued use of fossil fuels is only going to lead to more of these types of events. Before a good friend of mine who made millions of dollars back in the 1950``s and 60s as contractor in the Middle East, building their oil industry, had passed away in the 80s – we had many good conversions. He said that in many of the Muslim Nations where he had worked; that when the oil and military contractions who came before him had seen just how, the people living there, were so brainwashed and kept so ignorant by their beliefs in their silly deluded religion, and that they were easily controlled, and kept so stupid by their king’s and leaders, and how their leaders were keeping them busy, by feeding them irrelevant religious bullshit, while they were making all the money – that they decided to use this as a model for America. In god we trust was added to our money; and then all of that other fucking god-loving bullshit, came into being.


What our government needs to do today, to begin solving this problem in the Gulf Coast; is first take control of the situations, and stop letting B.P. dictate the course of our actions – didn’t we resolve this matter with the The American Revolution, and the war? B.P. has caused so much harm to our nation that our government should seizes all of their assets, and then take control of the corporation. And then invest massive amounts of money into developing renewable clean energy technology. We need a Manhattan type project, with the goal of eliminating our need for fossil fuels, by the end of the next decade.

EVANGELIST A. A. ALLEN:

This is a response to Beast_FCD blogged At Atheist Haven 02/25/09



Early one spring morning back in the 60's, my family and I were eating breakfast when we heard a knock at our door. Two Christian proselytizers informed my mother that the greatest man since Jesus had come to town. And he'd be conducting tent Church services in our neighborhood that evening. And come prepared to be saved and healed: (Wallets and purses in hand!)


My mom became real excited about this, and later on that evening, she headed off to the revival services with my siblings and I in tow. When we arrived at the tent, the service was all ready in progress. So we just took seats and began watching the show. As I looked around, I noticed that in the front row, were people in wheelchairs and lying around on stretchers. And on the right side of the stage, there was a coffin with flowers on top. After an hour or so, he said, he was starting to feel the presence of Jesus. And he was now ready to start performing miracles. And those wishing to be healed can start coming to the front of the stage.


A few folks started moving forward, but most remained seated. The first one to be healed was a lady in a wheelchair. She said in to the microphone; that she had been paralyzed now, for over 25 years. He then told her, "in the name of Jesus, you will, walk tonight." Then the organ started playing, and he put his hands on her head: then he started commanding her to stand up on her feet. After a few moments, she slowly began to rise up and out of her wheelchair. A few minutes later, she was running around, hands in the air praising Jesus, and acting like a fucking fool. He then healed about five others, which were in the front row. Then he made his way back on the stage, and approached the coffin. Standing next to it, was a woman crying and saying, that in that coffin was her husband, that had died two days earlier. As this guy started praying over her dead husband and the organ changed its tune. After a few minutes or so, the lid on the coffin began to rise. At this point I was scared shitless and just wanted too cry. And just then, I saw a man's head, rise up out of the coffin. The women started screaming, and so did I. As she bent over to grab him, the preacher held her back, saying, "just give him a few more moments, the miracle isn't over yet!" As this corpse was still awakening, and the organ changed its tune, this time playing an upbeat, and happy song. At this point, the service turned in too, what I can only describe as a healing frenzy. People were running up to the stage to be healed while the Church ushers, collected money in big baskets. This went on for an hour or so, before we left. My mom wrote this man a check that night, and placed it in one of the baskets. Later on that summer she received a free invitation, inviting her to his church camp in Miracle Valley, Arizona.


My mom decided to accept his invitation. So that next week, she headed for Arizona, my siblings and I in tow. We arrived on a Monday, besides the fact it was hot as hell, the place wasn't all that bad. Well the food was OK at least. There were Church services going on, almost the whole time we were there. But the fourth one that I attended: I saw something that I had seen before in the tent. The corpse which he was raising that day, was the same one from back in the spring. Me being a little kid and all, I first thought: boy, this guy must sure die a lot. But then as I started looking at the others that he was healing; I realized that they were the same ones from the tent service last spring. I pointed this out to my mom, but she didn't seem too concerned. She said he was just doing god's work.