(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Breath Work [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-10-11  

Breath Work

I have been on dKos for twelve years. My user name, bisleybum, harks back some twenty-five years to when I collected and sometimes customized target shooting pistols. Bisley is a customized grip developed across the pond at the turn of the century (1900) at the Bisley target shooting championship annual event. I will be 75 years old in January. I was born just three and a half years after the end of the Second World War. I grew up in the 1950’s, and it was a very different world back then. It is still amazing to me that the world population was only two and a half billion souls. My most read diary recounted the tale of my coming to grips with the loss of one of our two sons to heroin. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/11/15/1255963/-The-Path-To-Nowhere-Genesis

I am tired and worn out. We almost lost a granddaughter to fentanyl last month. She stopped breathing in the er room she was rushed to. She is a chronic runaway. She is now in state custody. Her dad, our other son, is deeply stressed and depressed. My wife is depressed as well. We are all long time partakers of counseling and medications. We are getting help, and the purpose of this diary is not to request more help. I could speculate endlessly about the social media habits and phone addictions of teens. There is blame enough to go around for everyone in our family, myself included. Instead, I wish to make a cry for help for all other families across the country affected by the fentanyl crises. My cry is this.

Drugs destroy families.

In Tennessee, my home state, Meth is the number one most abused drug, but here, like most other states, fentanyl is rapidly catching up. Support your public health workers by voting in candidates who believe in education and reformed health care. Learn more about fentanyl, which is fifty to one hundred times as powerful as heroin. We have enjoyed the help and support of many compassionate police officers. Drug counseling is a whole separate discussion for another time. The less I say now, the better. There are some excellent therapists out there. We have known several, but the vast majority are either too young to have the maturity and understanding to be effective, and some are recipients of minimal book learning about how to listen. I will also add a commendation for parole officers. We have known two, and for those who have children in legal trouble, they will be the most important resource you will have.

It will be apparent by now that we have had one hell of a month. We have no idea what next week will bring. I bring to our current tribulations a stubborn patience and an often misguided optimism. The Serenity Prayer may have been a help in my younger days, but now it seems that the most effective remedy I have is my breath work.

Breath in.

Breath out.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/11/2198878/-Breath-Work?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/