Mothers Day Plea Against The War On Drugs -

Getting published is almost as good a great kiss. Thanks To Santa Monica Daily Press

A Mother’s Day Hope to End the War on Drugs
It’s Mothers Day and I can’t help recalling those times when my grown up children were those adorable babies. I cherish those minutes that I held them high in the air and they made me laugh because they laughed--and my heart was so overflowing with love that it ached.
I had two perfect sons like that. The eldest came with built-in boundaries; he didn’t think it was fun to run against a red light. My other son craved the excitement of taking chances--no staying in a playpen for him.
The oldest, now 57, is a careful, creative man who knows how to care for himself, those he loves, and the world.
His younger brother died from heroin addiction at the age of 37.
My son’s lifetime struggle with addiction began in the 7th grade in our nice suburban middle school. Like many other who longed to be cool, he experimented with drugs, happy that he could outsmart “dumb” laws and parents who just didn’t get it. These kids still did well in school, and called home if they were going to be late, thinking that good grades and obeying basic parental rules would protect them. They didn’t understand that experimenting with drugs is a choice, but addiction is not.
By the time Josh was fourteen he had found heroin, and we were advised to get him out of town to a therapeutic milieu. In middle- and upper-class families, addictions were becoming common, and psychiatrists had few if any referrals to offer. We found a newly-established addiction center in Vermont that seemed like it could help him. He ran away from treatment, saying he wanted to be at home.
From then on his story is not unusual. He went from shooting hoops in the suburbs to shooting heroin in the ghetto. His journey took him from his Bar Mitzvah to the ultimate humiliation: incarceration at San Quentin for petty thievery. I think the judge got tired of him and tried to teach him a lesson without considering that prison is a place to learn more about crime, and that prisoners emerge with their self-image and possibilities for employability destroyed.
Josh spent twenty-four years in and out of rehab facilities and jails, experiencing alternating torment and hope. Throughout his nightmare he maintained strong ties with our family, and with many of his friends, all of us waiting for a drug-free Josh to appear. When he was in recovery, we gathered new strengths.
Finally, the disease left him exhausted and hopeless, and like many people, he turned to self-medication. At 37, while clean and sober, he reached for the only thing he could think of that gave him pleasure and relief: more heroin. He saw no other way out.
Josh’s journey taught me that criminalization is not the answer to addiction. It doesn’t prevent drug use, and it is not cost-effective. The War on Drugs is a losing solution for both addicts and for society. Criminalization only adds to the profits and precipitates the atrocities of the international traders. The dollars spent on non-violent offenders in the criminal justice system could be much more effective if used for addiction research and treatment in the public health system.
It’s the twenty first century and we now understand that most mental illness starts with a chemical imbalance, and that people do not contract leprosy by committing sins. I believe that medical advances will soon be able to help people manage addictions. That day will come sooner with resources directed toward treatment, rather than criminalization.
Arthur Schopenhauer understood this phenomena when he said,
“All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed.
Second it is violently opposed. Third it is accepted as being self evident.”
Let’s hope we are nearing the third stage.

Rita Lowenthal, MSW, Author “One Way Ticket.”
Emeritus: Hebrew Union College, USC School of Social Work
Board Member : A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing) a non-profit organization that works to reduce the stigma associated with addictive illness through education and compassionate support, and to advocate for therapeutic rather than punitive drug policies, The Moms United to End tah War on Drugs national campaign is a project of a New PATH.. www.amewpatah.org or www.momsunited.net


737 words

Angst

My beloved 25-year-old friend, Lauren, who helped me write Y Chicks and then had the bad manners to get married and have a full life without me, came over this morning. We did immediate catch-up and surprise, surprise, 20-year-olds and 80-year-olds share the forever existential question: what am I doing here; how do I make my life purposeful, creative, and fun when you have the luxury of a lack of structure? We came up with one same old answer--talk to your woman friends, because they will get it without offering pedantic advice.

So once again, I've decided to take blogging seriously. And Lauren is going to come back when she can, until she comes up with a more grandiose scheme of saving the world in her terms.

In my August struggle, I've decided I don't have enough friends, although all my friends would tell me I have more than enough. So, today at the Y, I started to kibbutz with the woman at the locker next to me. Her name is Bridgette, and she looks like a Bridgette should--unbelievable blue eyes and blonde hair. I hope she'll be my first Bridgette friend. How bout throwing down your wet bathing suit next to an academic archaeologist with a specialty in art history?! Do I live in a great place?!

So, why am I always complaining...

Today

I've decided to get serious about blogging.

I finished the "Y Chicks" manuscript and decided not to try to publish it because it needs too much editing and it was already a wonderful finished experience for me--learning how other people grow from their tragedies rather than staying stuck in grief, realizing how little we know about our neighbors unless we take the time, and confirming stereotypes about the similarities and differences between the Jews and Gentiles in this book.

Jerry's Euphoric Alzheimers is both fascinating and loving to live with. It deserves a whole article (which I will post in the future).

The Israel/Palestine crisis has reawakened all my Zionist sensitivities, caused me to mourn the original dream for the country, and examine my own ambivalence on how to best contribute to the peace process.

I look carefully at my aging--assured that I still have much to give--but in a world that's falling apart, how do I choose priorities? Never go near a group that doesn't share my values? Never schedule too many night meetings? Never schlep out of Santa Monica during traffic? What are my limitations considering the technological savvy of other generations? And, where does "been there, done that" come into play?

That's where I am today. Stay tuned in...if you have two minutes to spare. And, if you do, what's wrong with you? I don't (including my naptime).

Y Chicks Preview...

Within an hour, we knew that many of us had been married more than once. Some of us can’t get enough of our grand-kids. A few of us are sorry that our grown up children and grandchildren live quite so close ,because we don’t want to be on instant call for childcare or worry. All but one of us is retired. We are. Poets, writers, community activists, housewives or single by way of divorce or widowhood. None of us are under-stimulated—we all claim not to have enough time. We all have friends who are very sick. We are aware of our good fortune with financial security, and only minor aches and pains. That doesn’t mean that we can’t and don’t complain about the ordinary.

Y Chicks

Just finishing up a manuscript about 6 post-70-year-old women. Normal, average, West LA Y members who I met at the pool, not a support group. None of them splashing around look like they need support. Somehow they got to this age having experienced the following:

Marie, the New England Wasp whose Scientologist daughter married a Nigerian con-artist; Adrienne, the nice Jewish girl from New York and her complicated ménage-à-trois resulting in a pregnancy; Rita, Lefty social activist and mother in anguish over her adored son’s heroin addiction leading to San Quentin and ultimately his fatal overdose; Susie, who's mother stole her 20-year-old boyfriend; 90-year-old Beth whose past is less traumatic but no less challenging; and Kathryn, devoted Catholic who survived the appalling discovery of her late-husband’s incest with two of their daughters.

Any suggestions for an interested publisher?

Oh So Wise

I did it.
It took 80 years
But I did it.
I am wise
Oh, so wise.

I learned from the East:
Here is the only Now
Take naps
Love.
Be Lucky

I learned from the West:
Optimism
Keep trying
Have health insurance
Love. Be Lucky.

I learned from the poets:
Listen, feel, touch, taste
Remember, forget.
Be in awe.
Love. Be lucky.

I learned from my friends:
Take the high road
Vote right—left.
Be there—here
Love. Be Lucky.

I learned from the Jews:
To kvetch is human
To act, divine.
Love.
Be Lucky.

I learned from my children.
Mutual respect
Letting go
Forgiveness.
Love. Be lucky.

I learned from my husband:
Fearlessness, presence, laughter,
To love what is.
How easy
If you are lucky and he does the dishes.

I learned from the world:
Choose your place, carefully.
Chose your time, specifically.
And this above all
Be Lucky.

83 vs. 40

It was encouraging to be with a forty-year-old highly successful professional today who couldn't find his mouse, and said it gets worse every day. I am trying to convince myself that this has less to do with aging and more to do with the fact that we are all simply fragmented.

How dare they give us something new to learn every day. No brain was created to endure such treatment!