January 30 v 5 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

" Every word of God is flawless ;

He is a shield to those who take refuge in Him .

STEP 3 Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

There are millions that will agree with the Proverb including myself that Gods word (Bible) is just that and the book holds the instructions for everyday life. A few years back I met a man named Clark who was an addict, He spent thirty years of his life using. When he met me I invited him to church, at first he did not want to go so I kept asking . Then one day he said to me I have tried everything else in life, I might as well give God a try. Clark had hit the bottom, thirty years of using brought him to what he thought was the end but it actually turned out to be the beginning. His story was so similar to all of ours. His mom and dad died when he was very young, addiction killed them prematurely so he was raised by his older brothers who were both addicts also. When he was around ten he was kidnapped, beaten, raped and left for dead. He survived, but to cope with all the tragedies he began using to kill the pain. What Clark did not realize was he was dealing with life by what he saw growing up. No one ever taught him about God and there was a purpose for his life and that is found in Gods word. It took Clark thirty years to realize his way just wasn't working. Going to church He surrendered (Step 1), Believing and receiving Gods word was (Step 2 ) and finally on His knees sobbing uncontrollably he handed his life over to the care of God (Step 3 ) . Clark passed away a few years back but he died sober with dignity and I realized my brother and friend touched more people in his death than in his life.

Jesus said I am the truth the life the way and no one comes to the father but through me!

DEA Joins Investigation Into Source of Deadly Heroin That Killed 22

By Join Together Staff | January 29, 2014 | Leave a comment | Filed inCommunity Related & Drugs


The Drug Enforcement Administration has joined an investigation into the source of a batch of heroin that killed 22 people in western Pennsylvania, The Wall Street Journal reports. The heroin involved in some of the deaths contained the synthetic opiate fentanyl, often used during surgery.

“We do have a good idea where it’s coming from,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said of the drug mix. “We’re trying to find the source and get them off the street before there are any more deaths.”

Dr. Karl Williams, medical examiner for Allegheny County, said 15 overdose deaths in the county appeared to be linked to heroin and fentanyl. In an average week, there are five overdose deaths in the county. More nonfatal overdoses were also reported.

Officials found bags of heroin mixed with fentanyl at the scene of overdose deaths stamped with the names “Theraflu” and “Bud Ice,” the article notes. While most heroin is a tan color, these bags of powder were pure white, Williams said. “Clearly, someone has mixed up a big dose of it,” he said.

Some local law enforcement and health officials are concerned that warning drug users about the dangerous heroin mix will encourage them to seek it out for a more potent high. “A lot will chase it, and demand goes up,” Neil Capretto, Medical Director of Gateway Rehabilitation Center told the newspaper. “They will think those who died were just careless.”

Supreme Court: Heroin Dealer Can’t be Given Longer Sentence Because Client Died

By Join Together Staff | January 29, 2014 | Leave a comment | Filed in Drugs &Legal

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled a heroin dealer cannot be held liable for a client’s death and given a longer sentence if heroin only contributed to the death, and was not necessarily the only cause.

The ruling is likely to result in a shorter sentence for Marcus Burrage, who received 20 extra years in prison because of his client’s death, according to USA Today. The decision is also likely to make it more difficult in the future for prosecutors to extend drug sentences, the article notes.

A 1986 federal drug law requires a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence when “death or serious bodily injury results from the use” of drugs from a dealer. Burrage received a 20-year sentence for the drug sale, and an additional 20 years as a result of Joshua Banka’s death. According to an expert in the case, Banka’s death would have been “very less likely” if he had not used the heroin. However, Banka also had other drugs in his system, making it unclear whether heroin caused his death.

“Is it sufficient that use of a drug made the victim’s death 50 percent more likely? Fifteen percent? Five? Who knows?” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in the ruling. “Uncertainty of that kind cannot be squared with the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard applicable in criminal trials or with the need to express criminal laws in terms ordinary persons can comprehend.”

January 28 v 23 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

In the end, people appreciate honest criticism

far more than flattery.

STEP 10 : Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Sometimes I still respond with old behaviors without realizing it. Twenty years of running the streets become a part of me and its not like you can just shake it off. There are times when my wife will say your crazy and I will go on the defensive and say you don't understand ,and for the most part she doesn't but shes right when it comes to the way I react . I have to remember I am not on the streets and I just cant go ghetto every time something goes down. The Proverb teaches us that the ones that love us are the ones who have our best interest at heart and I have to realize she is not putting me down she is being honest and trying to help me realize I need to change my thinking and behaviors. Not everyone is out to get me and every time someone crosses me I don't have to try and get even . Most people prefer you give it to em straight especially those like myself cause most of us from the street can smell a pile of bull a mile away and we already know what your gonna say before you even say it . I call it respect and true love when you can tell a person anything . Know matter how much you think the truth will hurt say it anyway cause lying will cause a lot more damage in the long run and most still in active addiction already know the truth and some are waiting to hear the truth from you .

Jesus said I am the truth the life the way and no one comes to the father but through me !

it.Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Our Crackhead Mayor as a Drunken Uncle

It might seem ridiculous from afar, but Mayor Ford's antics to his fellow Toronto residents feel more like a family meltdown.


By Jowita Bydlowska

01/24/14

Thanks to the Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford, for the first time in my life, I’m getting a taste of what it might be like to live with an unpredictable, defiant addict. Let’s say, a drunken uncle. Like many people who live with addicts, in the past few months, I’d gone through a spin-cycle of feelings – disgust, outrage, compassion, frustration—because of this particular addict uncle’s behavior.

Ford has always been a sloppy politician. He has a less than impressive council attendance record, he is ignorant of some of the most important procedures of city council, he gets himself all confused about public transit in his own city, just to name a few blunders. But it is his public bottoming out that has brought him most notoriety.

Not that he came to notoriety suddenly. Before he became a mayor, he was known as that wacky councilor who’d say ridiculously offensive things such as when he compared Asian people to “dogs” or when he said that you probably won’t get AIDS unless you’re gay and/or are using needles. But it was only in his incarnation as a mayor that he became world famous—you’ve heard of him, haven’t you?—and all because of his addictive antics. Consider his most famous quote of 2013: When asked about having ever smoked crack, Ford replied, “I don’t even remember. Probably in one of my drunken stupors.”




Now, there was cautious hope among the citizens of our Al-Anonish city that perhaps things were going to get better with uncle Ford.

In November, when Ford was stripped of most of his mayoral duties I’ve felt relief akin, I’m sure, to what one might feel when the drunk-driving uncle gets his driver’s license suspended. All of a sudden, there was the hope that he would just go away for good—surely after such a public reprimand most people would lie low.

My wanting him to go away had nothing to do with the confusing compassion I’d felt for him as well.Even though he’s in denial, he’s defiant and he’s hardly asking for anyone’s sympathy, I do wish him well. Most of all, I really feel for his immediate family. Like most addicts I’ve put my own family through hell and I’ve been told what that was like, and, seriously, screw me then.

As for being on the other side of the fence of addiction, growing up, there were no addicts in my family. My father had never not come home because of a bender; I had never found my mother passed out on the floor. There were no publicly embarrassing episodes. Actually, there was one time—my father went to a party (he was 34 at the time) and came home tipsy. I was horrified because a friend was sleeping over and my father woke us up by shouting happily at my mother who shouted not so happily back at him. I didn’t want my friend to think we were that kind of family.

Years later, sitting in recovery meetings I’d listen to horror stories about drunken parents, uncles, siblings. The life with an active addict seemed to be full of crushed hopes and frustrations and then more hopes, and more crushing of them. And often there was resentment toward the addicted family member, no matter how deep of a compassion for the same addict. I remember a man sharing how he wouldn’t be able to breathe on hearing his step-father come home—his throat seemed to close in on itself from anxiety.

Ford’s trajectory has been marked by controversy after controversy: from the denials about the infamous crack tape where Ford was said to have been filmed lighting up the pipe, to the revelation that the tape does indeed exist, to Ford’s fabulously enabling family members, such as his brother, Doug Ford, or his mother and sister who on crack revelations, insisted on live television that Ford’s problem is his weight, not drinking.

There are more Ford gaffes that are becoming the stuff of future legends, such as him saying “I have enough to eat at home” when referring to cunnilingus and his wife; or pushing an elderly councilorduring a council city meeting. His behavior is erratic, bizarre. His denial is baroque.



Whenever I hear the man deny and lie and then deny some more, I feel like one of those prehistoric know-it-all AA guys with fifty years of sobriety and I think: I’m going to save you a seat, son. For those of you who are not versed in 12 steps, what I’m implying is that Ford is indeed an addict and that one day he’ll screw up enough that he will make it to an AA meeting (here I will be saving him a seat). (Not really.)

From hearing other people’s stories about living with addicted relatives, I know that hope heals as well as destroys. It destroys, maybe because it never seems to die no matter how many times it gets killed. Over time, hope becomes cruel. A thing that eventually just seems to mock you, not the thing that helps you cope with the chaos around you.

The recent ice storm and Ford’s response was sober (pun intended and not) and although not free of drama, it showcased him as the leader that he's supposed to be. He addressed the ongoing concerns and he had only once missed a public address. During the crisis, he had not driven drunk and he had not been filmed smoking crack cocaine. It seemed like that was the perfect opportunity for him to start repairing his public image. Now, there was cautious hope among the citizens of our Al-Anonish city that perhaps things were going to get better with uncle Ford. Despite wishing him well on the personal front, many of us got scared he might get so much better that he will win back the support of those who have lost their faith in him. He is running for re-election in October.

Then, on January 21st, two new videos of Ford being drunk in public have surfaced online. He has referred to the incident as “minor setback.” A setback because he had publicly announced he’s quit drinking in November 2013 (and found Jesus at the same time). The immediate admission of the January 21st drunkenness might be the only good part about the latest development in the Ford saga; the fact that he spoke in Jamaican patois in the video is a facepalm.

For now, the aftermath of the latest video scandal is causing more eye-rolling and criticism in media,the addiction experts get interviewed again and the public meltdown continues to provide fodder forheated editorials (and, most will supply great material for late-night shows in the near future). The uncle keeps on drinking.

A sober friend once told me about her alcoholic father moving back in with her in order to “dry out.” He lasted for a few weeks before going on a bender. After she kicked him out, she herself relapsed. She has not seen her father since then and has cut him completely out of her life. Sadly, in Toronto, we have no mechanism to prevent Rob Ford from running for the mayor in October. When I think about him winning the election, I see a passed out drunk uncle I’ve never had, right here on a couch in my living room.

Jowita Bydlowska is a Canadian author whose bestselling book Drunk Mom will be published in May in the US. She last wrote about the children of addicts.

January 27 v 19 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

As in water face reflects face,

So a man’s heart reveals the man.

STEP 5 ; Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs

Not that long ago , I met with a Pastor and he wanted to no a little bit about my background. After a long discussion he said from out of the heart the mouth speaks. In my confusion I said what is that supposed to mean. He smiled and brought up something I had mentioned about not attending a particular church anymore .What he helped me discover was a resentment I had been holding onto that I thought I had handled but obviously had not. Leaving the Pastor that day all I could think about was how I been wronged and hurt by this church and how I kept saying to myself God will take care of it. What puzzled me was how did the Pastor know I was carrying this resentment . After a lot of soul searching I realized this had to be dealt with and it was and I felt like a weight had been lifted from me. What ever it is deep down in your heart will come out no matter how hard you try to hide it. From out of the heart the mouth speaks and sometimes we will discover that no matter how many times we try to rehearse and twist our words the true you will always come through . 

Jesus said I am the truth the life the way and no one comes to the father but through me !