Get a Grip, America. Stop Dithering!

By David Palmer

Get a grip, America! Enough, already! Let’s stop the political dithering in D.C. and act grown up again. We face what amounts to a World War against terrorism, and our communities, traditionally our strength, are fractured by racial discord, ugly politics and disagreements over guns and psychotic killers. Let’s get back to basics. Our federal government should protect us from our enemies and fight our wars, and our individual communities should organize responses to local hooligans and psychotics. Simplistic? Perhaps. But its something to shoot for, and, as a nation, we have handled tougher assignments.

I was twelve when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. German Chancellor, Adolph Hitler, who had already begun bombing London, picking off its European neighbors and building concentration camps, also declared war on us. Italy was a Hitler ally and Russia was on the fence. It looked grim. My town, Summit, N.J. (Population 20,000), like so many others, did itself proud during the war years in the face of tragically mounting casualties, food and gas rationing, labor shortages and, sometimes, curfews. My father, publisher of the local newspaper, the Summit Herald, didn’t approve of the economic policies of our President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, but was all in with his support of the President in his conduct of the War. So were the citizens of our town.

In the summer of 1945, World War II, less than five years later, was over and our soldiers and sailors, what was left of them, came home. My draft card, issued when I was 16, expired, and I went on to college instead of to war. Things are different, today. We watch with a feeling of helplessness the federal government’s dithering over defending and uniting its citizens against the international terrorist threat and, on the home front, the criminal actions of unruly mobs and psychotic killers. History shows that we can do better, and now is the time to begin. There are key things individual communities, properly motivated and organized, can do to make a difference. One of them is addressing mental illness and drug abuse as priorities. Proper treatment of mental health disorders should be a top priority as the nation contemplates the latest mass shooting, this one in Roseburg, Oregon (population 22,000) on October 1. Nine people died, and once again, there is the usual outcry for more gun control with only limited regard for the shooter’s evident mental illness, the real culprit.

The shooter, Christopher Harper-Mercer, yet another troubled “loner,” was desperately in need of three vital resources–proper psychiatric care, the company of others and a faith in God. The availability of these resources, not guns, is where we should focus our attention. Mental illness, a key factor in Harper-Mercer’s actions in Roseburg, is a multi-billion dollar a year expense. It contributes to alcoholism and other drug abuses, broken families, lost jobs, tragic accidents and law breaking. Fortunately, treatment centers are required now to treat both the substance abuse and mental health problems. Psychiatric hospitals have been doing this as a matter of course, usually with staff psychiatrists for a while, but many substance abuse treatment programs have had to add that capability to their staff or make arrangements for it. We are making progress.

I have a psychiatrist friend, who helped me recover from my depression/anxiety and my related addiction to alcohol and tranquilizers. He also worked on the “Haight Ashbury” project in San Francisco in the late 1970’s. Haight Ashbury was known in the 1960’s for its hippies, drugs and hard rock bands. Out of that experience, “Gestalt” therapy emerged in a major way. Basically, Gestalt is about helping people get rid of denials, facing the truth about themselves and making healthy changes in their lives. It’s not unlike a 12-Step program. Gestalt Therapy, my psychiatrist friend explained, posits that, “Most people operate in an unstated context of conventional thought that obscures or avoids knowledge of how the world is. Gestalt, for one thing, provides a way of being authentic and meaningfully responsible. By becoming aware, one becomes able to choose and/ or organize one’s own existence in a meaningful manner.”

He further explained that “there are increasing numbers of medical discoveries that will help us treat the physiological aspects of addictions (brain disease itself), but they do not address our character defects and lack of spirituality. That is up to God and us. His further thoughts on the subject include these five gems:

1. There is a deep and wide chasm between what we do and what we believe. The 12 Steps and recovery bring the differences into closer alignment.
2. Impaired physicians and airline pilots have the best recovery rates of any groups–85 to 90% for physicians and 90 to 95% for pilots. That’s because there are huge financial and professional incentives–they get to keep their jobs if they recover–and they are given adequate time for long-term treatment as well as significant professional support and post treatment monitoring.
3. Twelve step programs are excellent predictors of long-term sobriety. If you can stay clean and sober for a year the chance of a “slip” drops dramatically. In the short term–less than a year–only one in ten 12-Step newcomers are there and still sober one year later.
4. Even if you go to a meeting every day, it isn’t enough in the initial stages of recovery. Remember, the founders of AA (Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith) spent a lot of time together. An hour a day is just a beginning. A tendency to isolate is a common symptom of drug addiction
5. You have to get rid of the substance abuse problem before you can treat the whole person.

America’s unique “Can do” strength comes from a pervasive entrepreneurial spirit expressed in its tens of thousands local communities. Let us not forget it.