The Calendar Year 2021 has been very hard on us all. If we paid the slightest attention, it had all the stress and terror of 2020, with added world and local events that are downright terrifying, and mostly unresolved.
It has been known since the Great Shutdown began that mental health care is difficult to find, and the system was never adequate to begin with. It sent some therapists and doctors packing, off to parts unknown, leaving patients without refills on critical medications or critical treatment in ongoing therapy. Finding a new doctor or counselor was a hopeless problem. If the pandemic didn’t kill enough people, then it was made up for by suicides and street drugs, alcohol and even homicides. Homelessness grew despite holds on evictions and foreclosures but nobody could tell us because those people went out of a system that cannot count what it cannot see, and homeless people in tents or boxes are never seen and therefore never counted.
People with normal, understandable fears, anxieties, reactions–to a crisis the like of which they had never known–overtaxed the mental healthcare system, and because of insurance requirements, edged out people who were unable to navigate a flawed system without someone advocating for them in yet another costly and unfair profession.
This mental health crisis has never been solved. I was fortunate in that I am in a treatment program that didn’t street me. Other programs just fell apart.
The Villains
As the crisis played out, it came to be a known but never discussed “secret” that the poor and the sick were already considered expendable; that they had never mattered to anyone as individuals, but as dollar signs in the eyes of the powerful.
On 11 January, Sheldon Adelson died after a lengthy illness. If you’re like me, you didn’t hear about it, and if you did, you probably had no clue as to who he was.
He was, among many other things, CEO and founder of The Sands, and that’s not just a hotel and casino; it is a corporation.
He was sent to Israel to be buried in the Mount of Olives Cemetery, and should that fail to make an impression on you, let me explain: you have to be someone to get there. It’s where revered rabbis are interred along with the famous, or infamous, as you wish, Menachem Begin.
Who exactly was he, though?
He switched parties during the Clinton administration for the Republicans. How could he not? He was one of Forbes most wealthy people, and getting wealthier. He was a major player in politics, both in the United States and Israel.
Why he should have been on our radars is that in 2015-2016, he was the biggest single donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
The biggest. By far. And it didn’t stop there; he was the biggest donor to Trump’s inauguration and in Trump’s defense against the Mueller ivestigation.
Money talks, bullshit benefits. Now do you know why the American embassy was moved? All money and politics, and Trump didn’t like Netanyahu as far as I could tell, but Adelson was a great supporter of Netanyahu, so buying Trump certainly got things done.
Adelson had his hand in many honey jars. He eventually got caught up in a costly scandal after a deal went through to build a casino in Macau. That’s a big deal because it involved bribing Chinese officials. Adelson stiffed the man who helped him do the bribing and sure enough the man sued and won. But the battle went back and forth and seems to have been yet ongoing when Adelson died.
The Drug Rehab Myth
This man also had a drug rehab program of apparently some size. In Vegas no less. Almost everyone who runs one of those has no interest in actually getting people off drugs; the system gets funded, tax free perhaps because it’s a foundation. All you need to do is make sure your clients stay on methadone; counselors are trained to keep increasing doses and conditioning clients to believe they will never be able to wean themselves off of the poison.
And let’s be honest about this; methadone is poison and a debate as to whether it’s saved lives but burned souls need never be directed at me. I know what that drug does.
A friend recently decided that enough was enough. She told her methadone clinic counselor that she was going to detox herself and beat that insidious, odious trap. She would escape.
This, following two urine tests the clinic claimed was positive for cocaine. Her response was, “If I was using I would tell you. But I never did coke or uppers. My thing was heroin; downers. Did you forget why I’m here?”
Of course they had. They didn’t care enough to look at her file. They had to convince her that her urine was dirty, that her dose needed to be increased. She knew better. The next urine test also turned out positive for cocaine. And that’s when she knew it was a bold-as-you-please, outright lie. This time, her mother, a nurse, had provided the urine. And she wasn’t on anything.
She had been through hell. Had lost almost all of herself and in her fight to come back proved that sometimes you have to be good and lost before you can find what can’t be found. She’s my hero. I’ve never heard of anyone with more strength, resolve and courage.
And so, Adelson was among those who run these programs. Most of which are monsters from Hell. Why Adelson was invested, I’m not sure, but certainly it had to do with his sudden hard-right politics.
He detested anyone who lobbied for legalized Marijuana. He cited the same reason people have used since the propaganda films like the unintentionally funny “Reefer Madness” (find this movie, smoke some hash and watch it; you’ll thank me later).
In other words it was a “gateway drug”, which is an extraordinary claim, false, stupid and funny at the same time as it is sickening.
Adelson made the same mistake almost everyone with money makes: he forgot what it means to be compassionate and fair. To be ethical, principled, just. In the name of his God, he forgot or chose to ignore that others worship their own Gods and that’s their right. Others have problems and struggle with money, and they need help, not a poisonous substitute for something they are addicted to, and that doesn’t mean they’re bad people or that poison is the answer.
During the pandemic, benzodiazepines went flying out of pharmacies, scripted to anyone who got to a doctor and complained about anxiety. This initiated its own crisis as the expendables were forced to go to the streets. A year later we found out that many of the street pills contained fentanyl, but what the news was loath to say was that a whole new problem came from this: actual fentanyl users, those who now sought the dangerous drug exclusively. The government had waged war on opiods and benzos, forcing doctors to restrict themselves from prescribing them, and now look.
Don’t misunderstand me here. I’m not saying that all wealthy people got over. Some are dead, from COVID-19, from suicide, complications, surgeries delayed when hospitals were full. But they still overtaxed a mental health system that has never been adequate in the least. In some places right here in the US, it’s still the Dark Ages. You’ve seen ghost hunters explore an abandoned asylum? Well, I hate to say this, but there are still places like that which still house patients. They’re dark, they reek of things your brain can’t identify, they’re understaffed with undertrained personnel, the doctors hate being there, and they are the places of waking nightmares. I know of a few. I can’t believe they’re still operating.
No one ever recovers in those places. Not many ever have.
I digress; the problem is too big to maintain focus.
We can agree that the pandemic caused real mental damage to what used to be healthy people, and post-traumatized people really did need to be seen. But like the methadone scam, nobody talks about how the ones suffering the most, who were already suffering, are not getting real help. And they won’t get it anytime soon. And I have no answers. I only know that I don’t know anything.
It is not the people who have the most money who know how to love and be compassionate (sometimes they’re quicker than others to commit suicide); rather, it is those who have been so far down who are what the rich think of as disposable who can easily respect the beliefs and traditions of others. Who are most likely to lend a hand or spare some money for whoever needs it. Who understand the problems and pain others feel and are genuinely moved by it. Who won’t judge a drug addict or the poor.
As we look toward the new year, we need to talk to each other more. To reach across the boundaries of faith, politics and geographic lines. Us. You and I. We two. Because if anyone can manage to love each other unconditionally, it is us and everyone like us, and don’t give up hope: there are more of us than you know. Keep the faith, whatever yours may be. The world is a horrible place and, you know, full of monsters. We can do anything, however small, and it will be a better place. We just have to want to see that happen. And we need to demand better health care services and coverage, starting with drug addiction and mental health. We must demand it. Only then will more doctors and nurses come. Only then will a crooked system change. Then we can change the world.
I hope your Hanukkah was peaceful, and since it’s Friday, Shabbat Shalom. For Christians, please enjoy your Christmas and be at peace, and for us all, Insha’Allah, may we know peace together, may we all know strength and love. May we help those who suffer, offering them comfort. We can, and I have faith in that. I have faith in us… and in God, as I understand him.
If you know someone in a drug or a mental health crisis, please get in touch with your local health care services. You may save a life.
Be well. Thanks for allowing me to be a part of your day.
With love, Mike, Christmas Eve, 24 December 2021
Memoirs of an American Asshole 