Showing posts with label Withdrawal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Withdrawal. Show all posts

Friday, June 24, 2016

On Brexit

The British people have narrowly voted to regain their independence. I was surprised that they voted this way. I’m not surprised because I agreed with remaining, but because I have felt that the UK has been a socialist/liberal haven for long enough that their chains of bondage would never be undone. I’m happy to be wrong. Their escape was a narrow one. Future generations should appreciate how lucky they were to get out while they were able to.

Throughout history, there has been a portion of humanity who wishes to have someone lord over them. If this were not the case, we wouldn’t have had such large kingdoms created where a monarch or dictator of one kind or another, has kept a large group of people subservient to them in exchange for a little food and security. A large portion of the Old Testament of the bible is devoted to this. The Israelites doubted God and Moses in the desert and many lamented that they would have been better off in slavery back in Egypt where they at least had a bite to eat. These same Israelites, who after gaining their freedom and having a system of judges, demanded a king, and the Lord warned them. From the book of Samuel;

So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.” And when Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the ears of the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.”

And a king the Lord gave them, and all the chains that came with it. Obviously, people have changed very little since ancient times. In more modern times, our own country made a choice about whether they wanted a king over them or not. In our case, we had enough of all the chains that came with having a king and we rebelled and cast our chains off and became free.

Very much like the scare-mongers of today in this Brexit vote, during the American Revolution, there were many who wished to remain loyal to the king. I have read before that the colonies were divided three ways. There was about a third who wanted independence. A third didn’t care, and a third wished to remain indentured to the king. Many of the very same arguments were made by those wishing to remain loyal to the crown that have been made by the Remain camp in this referendum. These colonial loyalists thought the world was going to end by our leaving the British Empire. Many of them went back home to England and fled to Canada.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that those who stayed did not suffer for long. In fact, America would go on to become the powerhouse that it is today, and it wouldn’t have done that had it remained chained to England. How different history would have been had we not gained independence and showed the world a different way to live.

The same thing will happen with a free United Kingdom. You don’t have to belong to the “global village” in order to be a part of the global community. In the village, you must do as others have decided for you. As an independent member of the community, you retain the freedom to make the correct choices that are best for you.

Who in their right mind would go to a doctor and allow someone else to make medical decisions for them? Who would accept legal counsel based upon what may be best for another party? Why then do we think it’s good to have others decide what’s best for the UK? Shouldn’t the UK be able to decide what’s best for itself?

This brings out the reality of the whole situation. This is all about globalism. This isn’t the sort of globalism where you learn to play nice with your neighbors. This is a form of globalism where you become part of a commune. Others decide what you get and what you give up. Others decide what you shall do and not do, all in the name of unity. How can we teach our daughters to be independent people on one hand, yet be anything but in our own government affairs? The buzz-word for this new form of globalism is called progressivism. It’s like an opium for the masses. Those who subscribe to it are either those who shall become lords over others, or those who are so intoxicated by its effects that they know not their own poor condition, like an opium addict. All these poor souls know is that it feels good. They grow dependent upon the drug of progressivism and get to the point that they can no longer care for themselves. They turn to the leaders to take care of them. All the while, the fruits of their labor are taken from them and their burdens are increased. This must be stopped at all costs.

Freedom comes with great challenges. The first of which is insecurity. In a free society, the people have the opportunity to fail. They also have the opportunity to succeed. This is the beauty of freedom. Under freedom, you have a choice. You have opportunity, real opportunity, to make something of yourself. You don’t need government to give you a hand up. Under freedom, you have the opportunity to do it yourself, and to take pride and profit from the toils of your work. Not everyone succeeds in a free society. What’s important is that there is at least opportunity.

I remember reading books on the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves. Many slaves wandered around after the Civil War, lost, because they didn’t know how to live free. Many of them returned to their masters and continued on as share croppers. Many in the south punished the blacks with unfair Jim Crow laws, and kept the blacks in a new kind of slavery. I read that some slaves, especially those with benevolent masters, thought their life was better off under slavery than it was after they were freed because at least they had a roof over their heads and food on their table. Once they were freed, they no longer had those securities.

This being said, I doubt anyone would publicly declare today that the slaves were better under slavery than they were when freed? Instead, slavery is viewed in the eyes of those slaves who were treated cruelly. Slaves were property and many slaveholders treated their slaves as part of their families. Even in those cases, there are very few who would argue that it was better for these slaves to remain under the control of their masters instead of choosing freedom. Yet, in this Brexit situation, the progressive globalists are claiming that it’s better for the UK to keep their chains on because they have a benevolent master in Brussels. How can this be?

It’s because those who are most vocal about remaining in the EU are the new masters that lord over others. Take yourself back to Civil War America. Can you imagine many masters using the same arguments to discourage turning the slaves free? Many of the same arguments today could just as easily have been made then. Rarely does anyone in a position of lordship over another give it up easily. The Israelites didn’t have it easy leaving Egypt. They turned and went back into servitude and found themselves enslaved many times over the course of history. When we left England, we had to fight for independence not once, but twice. Finally, we are in a world where the progressive globalists have been creating a new world order for themselves as lords over the masses and they are not happy about Britain choosing to rule themselves.

In America, we see this in our own election. Globalists on both sides, democrat and republican are having fits and tantrums, beating the drums of fear, and name-calling, in order to stay in power. Hillary believes it takes a village. What she won’t tell you is that she’ll be it’s queen and you her servant. She will promise you a roof over your head and food on your table, but like the Lord warned Israel, it comes at a price. Several on the Republican side are part of this movement too. This is why we have witnessed so many Republicans appear to cave into the left in this country. It’s because they too wish to lord over others and they want to be rulers too. They scoff at the libertarian wing of the party who ask for the very same thing that our forefathers wanted, and that’s liberty. Britain just chose freedom and we should too.

Monday, October 12, 2015

Two Months Benzo Free

I took my last dose of poison on the morning of August 13th, 2015. I had been on Xanax, .25mg, twice a day for about 6 months. I had taken it as needed for about two years before that. I had mainly used it to help me sleep on stressful nights. I wish I had never taken it at all.

My withdrawal has been a difficult one for me. I spent the better part of the first month off of the drug stuck in bed. I was sick like I have never been before. Not even during my worst infections that I have had have I been as sick as I have been since discontinuing Xanax. Even at two months off of the drug that was legally prescribed to me, I suffer withdrawal symptoms. Just late last week I had a rough night where my heart was racing, my body hurt, and I was sweating profusely. I barely slept. Even today I feel the effects of withdrawal.

In the first days, I suffered from everything under the sun. The worst withdrawal problems were the insomnia with adrenaline rushes. It would make my heart race and I felt like I was dying of heart failure. I sweat terribly and had really terrible bouts of depression and anxiety. I was a mess. I take that back. Even a mess looked good compared to what I was. I was beyond a mess. Slowly, I have transitioned to a phase they call “windows and waves”. This is where I feel fairly normal – “windows” – and then go back into benzo hell – “waves”. These windows and waves come and go at whim. It’s like being locked up by a serial rapist and he can come and go and rape me at whim. I have no control over when I am attacked. I do not know when my predicament will end. I have been told, and have faith, that it will end someday. I pray for that day.

Some of the early symptoms have quieted down to the point that I can tolerate them, or they visit so infrequently that I don’t think of them often. No longer do my eyes roll uncontrollably in my head. I can watch television again without it making sick, most of the time. When I’m in a  bad wave it still bugs me. Light doesn’t bother me as bad, but there are days where it does. Bright sun in the evening still pesters me. My computer monitors are still turned down to dim. The incessant vertigo has left me for the most part. Sometimes I still get it when objects move when I don’t expect them, or when riding in the van. In the early days, it was there 24/7. The heart attack sensations rarely happen anymore. Late last week my chest hurt in that bad window, but it didn’t last as long or as badly as before. I’m hoping it never returns like it did previously. The insomnia is much better for the most part. I still have some issues with it, but I always have. Part of it is that I sit at these computers or watch television late in the evening. I should learn to shut these things off a 8 o’clock and find something to do that doesn’t involve artificial light.

I’m not having the deep depression or the really bad anxiety attacks anymore. Knock on wood! I’m not getting as many muscle pains or cramps as I had in the early days. I still get some, but not to the extreme level they were at. My brain isn’t quite as foggy. I’m not having trouble finding words like I did in the early weeks. I’m able to write much better. I also noticed in the early days, if I tried to write something like this, I would start to feel the benzo dogs come attack me. Just trying to slice a tomato sent my body into attack mode. I can now slice a tomato without feeling like hell! I’m still not to 100%, but I am better.

Like I said, I am still sensitive to bright light. I wouldn’t dare want to be around a strobe light. If I get tired, my vision sort of washes out. I find that closing my eyes and leaving them closed for awhile helps. I am sensitive to sound. I now sleep with ear plugs in. KinDee assures me she’ll wake me up if the smoke alarm were to go off. When the kids fight and quarrel, it makes me feel icky, but not as bad as it did in the early weeks. I’m still having digestive issues. My stomach is all messed up and I have a constant pressure behind my sternum. I also get short of breath easily, and I don’t like that too well. I get a bad ringing in my ears. Some days it’s better than others, but when the benzo dogs drag me into another wave, it’s generally pretty loud. I get really strange headaches. They are intense pain that makes me feel sick and feel like a stabbing in my head. Ibuprofen nor Tylenol touches it. Neither does closing my eyes. It’s something I am forced to endure. I still get muscle pain and aches, just not as bad as I did weeks ago. My stomach really is messed up. I feel nauseous a lot. My intestines aren’t right either and I’m eating yogurt and taking it easy on them. The emergency room doctor that I saw weeks ago told me that our guts are full of serotonin and benzo receptors and that it was normal to have a sick stomach. Ugh! It’s one of my worst symptoms as I write this. I too hope this will pass.

I’m sure I’m missing out on many of the things that are bothering me right now. Sufficed to say, I’m far from being 100%, but I’ve come quite a ways since I started my journey. I remember that back in the first week or two of my journey, I didn’t feel hunger, tiredness, the urge to urinate, or do other bodily functions, or even thirst. I felt like a zombie. I had to force myself to drink and eat. I took a cup and said to myself that I needed to drink that amount for the day. My urine was really dark there for awhile. I actually lost 80 pounds! I know it doesn’t look like it, but that’s what the scale has told me. I’ve been a sick dog.

I know a lot of you have prayed for me these past few months and I want to thank you for it. I want to ask for your continued prayers as I’m by no means out of the woods yet. From everything that I’ve read, I’m looking at a journey that is two months at best, and in many cases, lasts up to two years, or longer. As I’ve pointed out, tomorrow marks two months. I’ve probably got up to 22 more months ahead of me, but hopefully, with God’s Grace, and your prayers, less. Thank you again for your support.