Final Book Post

James agrees to take the 12 step program and attend AA meeting near the end of the book. His relationship with Lilly grows. He is really looking better now. He has meetings with a priest meaning that he has taken up religion. The future looks good for James. It seems like he is really going to get better. James is also the author of this book and he was featured on Oprah. Oprah was in love with his book. She was raving about how good it was. She recommended it to all of her followers, but her love for this book came to an abrupt end. It slipped out that he was not completely truthful in his account of his recovery. Oprah changed her mind completely; she hated the book after this new discovery. She was upset that he lied about his account of his time in rehab. I do not understand where the problem is. The man was a drug addict who found himself on a plane with cuts all over his face covered in blood. Obviously, something went wrong in his life that caused him to end up there in the first place. During his stay in rehab he was suffering from withdrawal and he could not have remembered every last detail while puking his brains out. I think Oprah was holding to a standard that he did not belong at. Instead of being criticized I think that he should be congratulated on his progress on the path to recovery. More focus should be on how well he is doing rather than what he did or did not do. I think that is the problem with most people, they cannot see the good in what others have done. Instead they just point out their faults. Nevertheless good job James.

Book Post 4

James tries to look at himself in the mirror again, but he still cannot. He has a hard time sleeping because of his decision to give the program another chance. He reflects on his past love with a girl. He feels that he has ruined everything that they had. James has his first visit from family and friends in this portion. He sees his brother and friends and they all urge him to get better. In my mind, I feel that James is lucky because he got a visit from his friends. During my stay at my program the only visit I was allowed to have was one from my parents. Of course, it helped me greatly, but I would have loved to see my friends during my stay. I feel like it would have helped me get better faster because I would have known that my friends were standing behind me hoping that I would get better. To me that is just as important as having my parents support. James receives a call from a girl in another program at the facility named Lily, she tells him that her grandmother thinks that he has pretty eyes. That makes James happy while he goes to sleep. James receives the results from his test that he took earlier. The results say that he is highly intelligent and angry; also he has low self esteem. In the end of this portion of the book, James finally decides to try and get sober. This is the turning point for James. He finally decides that he is going to get better and that is where it begins to work for most people. The therapist at the program tries to push the AA 12 step program on James. Still, he refuses.

Book Post 3

In this portion James vomits some more and then he is introduced to AA. He believes that believing in AA is just exchanging one addiction for another. James’ emotions are very similar to mine during my time in the program. I feel that AA does not help its members get better, but rather gives them another addiction to focus on. James vomits some more and then he travels to the bathroom to try and look into his eyes. Of course, he cannot. I think that this is due to disgust and shame with himself. I went through a similar experience. During my treatment I did not view myself as a human being and I was ashamed of my actions. It was hard for me to look at myself in the mirror because I was afraid of what I might find. I had not looked at myself for months and I had no idea what had happened to my body. Honestly, I did not want to find out because the thought scared me. That night, James has a nightmare where he kills himself. As he pulls the trigger of the gun, he wakes up. At that point James goes to the bathroom and vomits some more. His roommates follow him and try to help, one of them gives James his shirt because his is dirty. James is moved by this action and bonds with his roommates. It is important to make friends in a program like this because getting better is hard work. When you feel like you cant go on anymore, your friends are right there to push you along. After the night passes James begins to eat. I can relate to this because my first few days in my program I found it hard to eat. After a while I finally started eating. In a way it almost helps you get better. As he is eating James notices a division in the group. The tough stay together as do the rich as well as the poor. His group is divided into subdivisions based on their past life styles. I attribute his discovery to people being compatible with each other because of their past lives. It seems like they would all have more to talk about with each other if they all had something in common. James decides that he is going to kill himself because he feels that the program is not working. He is convinced by another patient to hang on for another day. James has hit rock bottom, he does not feel that he can be helped and he does not want to live anymore. This is the hardest point in any program, but the thought that the night is always darkest before the dawn has always helped me and my friends go on.

Book Post 2

In this portion of the book, the main character, James is living in the home. Numerous times he vomits from his withdrawal symptoms. James is given a test to take to help make a treatment plan. It his five hundred some questions, all true or false. James answers all but one, are his sins forgivable. James is then given a task to clean the toilets. He vomits and then starts working on his chore. After he is finished, one of the leaders challenges him about the quality of his work. James gets angry and throws the leader around in front of all the patients. Later James is confronted by the psychiatrist and another worker. James fights with the worker immediately and the psychiatrist asks to speak to him alone. He offers his help and James accepts. James makes new friends with the other patients and he goes to visit the dentist. The dentist tells him that he has to have a root canal in two days. After his meeting with the dentist James is given a warm coat and tennis balls to squeeze when he gets stressed. I am starting to question the facts in this book. I have had my own experiences in a rehabilitation program and they were nothing like this. It is true that the people who are in charge do help the patients by giving them medicine to cope with withdrawal and other issues, but I have never been challenged by any of them based on work I have done. I have been challenged about my progress and if I really think I am getting better, but I do not think that I have ever been mocked for my chores. I think that any actions like this can be very devastating to the patient who is already in a fragile state of mind. For me, encouragement was the biggest help. This was the case for many of my friends as well, and I think that this would be true for James as well.

Better Treatment of our Troops

America treats it soldiers like crap. They risk their lives so we can eat as much as we want, criticize our government as much as we want and live as free as we do. In return, we offer very little. Fighting a war is, as you can imagine, very stressful. Thousands of soldiers are currently struggling with PTSD. It is only 15 percent of time deployers who come back with PTSD. The number almost doubles among soldiers who have deployed multiple times. About 25 percent of soldiers who have deployed more than once are struggling with PTSD. There are many more that have this disease, but they have not yet been diagnosed because the military makes it extremely hard for a soldier to be diagnosed with PTSD and thus receive treatment for it. If a soldier has any preexisting mental condition before their deployment and they develop PTSD while serving overseas, they cannot be diagnosed with PTSD. Instead, the military blames it on their preexisting condition. PTSD is a serious disorder that causes soldiers to have flashbacks, violent outbreaks, and other psychotic behaviors. Since it is hard for a soldier to be diagnosed with PTSD, many of them are redeployed. It seems dangerous to allow them to return to combat. Instead, I think the military should focus more on helping their soldiers transition back into civilian life rather than deploying soldiers who are not capable of fighting back into the war. It is more important to focus on providing out soldiers with the services they need instead of trying to deploy as many men and women as they can. The statistic that 1 in 4 homeless people are veterans is scary. People who are willing to be killed in the name of our country should not be left out after their service to this country. The government needs to help provide our soldiers with homes so they too can live normal lives after the services to our country. The suicide rate among active duty men and women is steadily increasing over each year. In 2008 it was 301 active duty members. An increase of 50 from the year before. My point is, the government needs to do more to provide for our soldiers.

Shawshank

In class this past week we watched the movie Shawshank Redemption. In my opinion it was an outstanding movie and somewhat realistic as to my knowledge. The movie covers the story of a man who may or may not have committed the murder of his ex wife and her lover. It is not clear whether or not he committed the murders because there is an inmate who says that he knows a man who says he committed the crime. Nevertheless, the main character ends up on a bus on his way to prison. When he arrives he goes through the basic procedure of washing and getting acquainted with the prison life. While he is stuck in prison he meets a man named Red. Red is a man who “knows how to get things” as he puts it. Red gets Andy, the main character, a small rock hammer that he uses to craft chess pieces and other rock figurines. Some 20 years later Andy disappears from his cell in the middle of the night. It turns out that he used the rock hammer to escape. The entire length of the movie Andy had been digging his way out of prison with a 3 inch tool. There are two ideas that caught my attention in this movie. The first is wrongful conviction and the second is people escaping from prison. I don’t believe that it is easy to escape from prison, but I know that it has happened before. For example, a few men escaped from Alcatraz, the highest security prison for the most dangerous criminals in the country at one time. Nobody knows what happened to the men after the escaped the prison. Some say they died in the waters surrounding the island that housed the prison, but others say that they made it ashore and went into hiding for the rest of their lives. Needless to say, people escaping from prison is not the biggest issue on our plate, it is most likely not even on the menu for most people. A much larger issue in the world is wrongful conviction. Just recently a few people have been released from being in prison for decades for crimes they did not commit. I feel the justice system is seriously lacking currently. I have heard of too many innocent people being released from prison and too many questionable cases where the defendant is sent to prison. I thought that our country was supposed to have such a good justice system where people are innocent until proven guilty. How can this be true if the innocent are actually being proven guilty? I think that Shawshank Redemption highlights the issue that this country is too eager to have someone guilty of a crime rather than find the actual culprit. If there was a law that said that if there is any doubt of a person being guilty, then the trial is suspended until they can find more evidence to prove the defendant guilty, we would not have so many wrongful convictions. I don’t think that it is that hard to make sure that you catch the right guy.