The Hot Brown is an open face dish where there is toast, slices of ham and turkey, and a cheesy roux that covers it. On top is laid bacon, and, always, somewhere, a slice of tomato. It is cooked in the oven and served hot. And while there is plenty of leeway as far as the toast base (all those bread options), the ham and turkey (all those flavored options), the bacon crown (what kind, how much), and the tomato (I think at The Brown they use two regular slices and put them on the plate under the toast, because tomatoes disintegrate when heated in the oven. Most others I have seen, hundreds, put them on top.) The challenge though is the cheesy roux, the key to the dish. And I have honestly never tasted a hot brown where the sauce was as good as The Brown’s. But guess what? If somebody down there gets a load of mine, I wouldn’t be surprised if they called me, and requested a tutorial.

A “roux” is any sauce made by thickening milk or another liquid with either flour or corn starch. Corn starch is always your best option. For, say, two hot browns, I start with about a cup of whole milk in a saucepan, about an inch of unsalted butter (Land-o-Lakes, of course), 1/4 tsp of salt and heat it to boiling. (When the milk starts to boil and raise up in the pan, that “scalding” helps make the roux.) Then using about 1/4 cup of milk in a little glass, and two fairly heaping forkfuls of corn starch (Argo), stir them up. The starch will settle and you’ll need to re-stir the glass and get the residual off the bottom. Then pour the starch mixture about a quarter of the glassful at a time on to the roiling milk/butter mixture, while stirring constantly. Leave on low heat some to rewarm matters, then gradually add the rest of the starch mixture. It should thicken quickly. Turn off the heat. (Any unattended sauce or roux, with the burner on, will destroy the batch, and your best best then is to just start over.)

Next you add your idea on cheeses (mine in just a sec).  Melt them into the roux, and low-to-medium heat will be needed, stirring very frequently. This will become very thick, of course, but then comes my ingenious concept. You can now add as much milk as you need to make it the cheesy roux consistency you want. If too dry the toast soaks up the juice and the dish is dry and pasty. And when the sauce is plenty thin, it augments the other ingredients in the dish, whether than being too heavy and a chore to eat much of. It could require a few cups of milk to get where you want, but leftover sauce keeps long in the fridge and can be used as a topping for veggies as a side dish for other meals, or even a future hot brown.

But what cheeses? I have tried so many. I would note that the roux at The Brown is fairly pale, so much yellow and cheddar you’d wonder if you’re off track. But there’s nothing wrong with getting the taste you like. So what I do is start with about and inch of the big Velveeta slab, about a half of a cup of shredded mild cheddar, and then a half of a cup of parmesan. Sharp cheddar is too flavorful. And don’t use the expensive parmesans, like Reggiano. The cheap, creamy stuff is perfect for this. The brand at our Wal-Mart is “Frigo”, and comes shaved, and it’s the best Parmesan I’ve had. Freshly grated Bel-Gioso, which comes in slabs, is good for sure. Oh, and a half-teaspoon of salt.

So to make the hot brown, I use an oblong or round ovenware dish and grease it with butter. I use well-toasted white bread, one slice, and put it in the ovenware dish and add regular unflavored ham and turkey, and few slices of both. Then pour lots of your cheesy roux until the stack of bread/ham/turkey is nearly awash. For the bacon I cut them in half and cook these pieces over medium heat, stirring very often such that they end up frying in their own grease. The bacon will foam up when it’s done. Scoop them onto a plate with a paper towel on it to allow the crispy bacon pieces to dry a little. Then I generously decorate the stack in the ovenware dish that is now awash in the roux, and of course bacon is always the main ingredient in any dish it’s in, and many times I have been near the end of a hot brown and there ain’t enough bacon to see me through. You’ll find a lot of places with offer but two, long whole slices 0f bacon, and I have to budget how much I eat as I go. I often ask for extra bacon, even at the Brown. So for Big Red’s Hot Brown, plenty of bacon.

Most of the time for the tomato we are out of season, and cherry tomatoes from the grocery are your best tomato flavor. I slice three 0r four in half and place them on either side of the ovenware dish. Then I grate a little fresh parmesan over the whole thing, and sprinkle with a little paprika to make it pretty. Then cook it in the oven, and not too hot. If you have time 375 degrees would be kindest to the dish. When the roux is bubbling it’s done. Serve hot.

The Sauce: They swore by Cantadina tomato paste, and they were particular about brands. Two cans of water per can of paste gives the right consistency for the sauce. I use tomato juice from our own tomatoes, and thicken it with, you guessed it, Cantadina tomato paste. The meatballs and the rolled steak favorite brazhul (I believe the word is braccioli, but that’s how Italians pronounce it) are the main flavorings for the sauce, but on top they threw several (3-5) branches of what they called “voznegal”, or basil. The “b” came out “v”, and the back of the word I always thought was a variety, like negali or something. But the old man Nicola, Minnie’s husband, an immigrant from a town called Oscuali Satriano, grew it in his super fertile garden and we stored it in a paper bag under the sink. But I only add about 4-5 leaves that I grow and dry, and I usually fish them out. Because you can sure over-basil the sauce, so if you’re using dried stuff in a bottle use about a teaspoon or two per gallon of sauce. The oil from the meatballs floats to the top as it simmers (3 hours is needed, and stir it occasionally or it can burn on the bottom and ruin the thing), and that oil extracts some of the basil, and that’s why they laid it on top. And that’s also why they ran us off, again and again, as we dipped the bread in the top of the simmering sauce.

Meatballs: They key to this entire meal is the meatballs, so make enough of them. They last forever as leftovers, and make a great sandwich. And you can freeze them along with the sauce by simply scooping them into a freezer bag and dropping them into the freezer. Again, be sure to make enough of them. Use regular hamburger, because you want the fat content, and you cook them in a skillet and end up dumping all the cooking scraps into the sauce. You use two eggs per pound of ground beef, about a 3/4 of a teaspoon of salt and pepper both, per pound. I think so anyway. To be like them, I don’t use measuring containers or devices when I make this sauce, and judge it in the middle of my palm. You can over-salt and over-pepper anything, but that’s about the amount. Next ingredient: freshly chopped garlic. A lot. One whole garlic bulb per pound of beef is about right. Chop into little chunks, 1/8th to 1/4th inch. Two more ingredients. Parsley, about a tablespoon per pound of beef. And next and key: a generous amount of shaved parmesan cheese. About a half of a cup per pound, but I’ve never measured it. In our area is a brand called Frigo and to me it’s by far the best. After tossing all this in the fun starts: squishing it all together with your bare hands. It’s then necessary to thicken it up with saltine crackers (Zesta, of course). It usually needs a half of a sleeve of crackers to dry the mix so you can roll meatballs out of it. It depends on the egg size, and out here on the farm we have our own chickens and the eggs are big and we need extra crackers. They always used “large” eggs in their recipes, and never jumbo or extra large. It changes the ingredient ratio. But in meatballs, you just add the crackers you need. Roll the meatballs  into golfball-size only a little smaller. A pound makes about 15 of them.

Cooking the meatballs is a little tricky. They always used skillets at low-to-medium heat, and the meatballs want to stick to the pan. But you want to deliver a nice cooking to them because that’s where the flavor is made. If the skillet isn’t hot enough this won’t happen as well, and if it’s too hot they fall apart when you turn them. So when it’s right, you turn them by gently pulling them away from the pan with a fork, and get a cook on several sides. One by one as they finish you scoop them into the sauce, which has been slowly heating on a nearby burner. When adding more meatballs to cook, just drop them in the skillet right on the scraps and leftover grease from the previous ones. When all are cooked, scrape all the scraps and grease into the sauce. They usually didn’t stir it, to allow the grease to accumulate at the top, where they layed the basil

Brazhul (Braccioli): This rolled round steak is a favorite of a lot of Italians for their pasta sauce. They use round steak, which you can buy everywhere, and one or two per batch of pasta sauce is advised. There’s never any left over. They first smear shortening  (“crisco”) on the slab of round steak, which is usually 5 or so inches by 8-10 inches oblong. Then plenty of salt and pepper, and just like meatballs, add some parsley and shaved parmesan, and a generous sprinkling of chopped fresh garlic (do not consider store-bought minced garlic). Then you roll it up and wrap it with a string, the kind of string for cooking, made of cotton and no nylon or weird molecules. Then you cook it some in the skillet you cooked the meatballs in, achieving some searing on most sides of it, 5-10 minutes worth. Then plop it into the sauce. After 3 or so hours of simmering it falls apart when you use a fork to fish it out of the sauce to retrieve the string. So be sure to just use one piece of string per braj. You wouldn’t want to leave any behind for someone to find.

Ravioli: Nothing gives the Italian feeling to a meal like ravs. They’re fun to make, are so wonderful to eat, and are great as leftovers. And you can freeze them. Rolling them out and pinching them together, all of us, great fun. One “batch” makes about a hundred of them. Use five eggs, four cups of flour (Gold Medal), and 3/4 cup of water. Thats all. Again, depending of your egg size you’ll need to add flour as you make the dough. So when you put these three ingredients together, make three separate balls from it. It it’s too wet add some flour as needed. Set one on a table where you can roll it out to about 20 inches to two feet round-ish. (Be sure to cover the other two dough globs with wax paper or it will start to harden.) Using the roller, flatten the ball to round it out, going in several directions. Pat with flour, flip, roll, powder with more flour, rub it in, flip, roll, and after 5 flips or so it should be pretty thin, again, rolling out in several directions to make it round. And you have to make it thin enough to not be pasty, but not so thin that it rips when you try to make the rav. Then using a knife, or ideally a pizza cutter, which they didn’t have back then, make squares of 2-3 inches by cutting vertically and then horizontally. The filling we use is a pound of hamburger, one egg, and a package of spinach. Boil the spinach, drain, and add to the hamburger and egg and mix. No seasonings are added. Then using a fork or whatever, plop a marble-sized amount of this onto the squares. Then notify the army of pinchers, because nobody wants to miss out on that. Using a fork, and a little flour to dab the fork with so it doesn’t stick to the dough, pull the square dough piece over to enclose the spinach mix, and pinch on three sides to make the rav. We sprinkle a cookie sheet with flour and lay them out on it, and cover with a paper towel until time to cook them. You salt the water you’re going to boil them in, and the Italians were particular about salting the water, and yes, you can over-do this too. So a few teaspoons per pot maybe. Boil 20 minutes. Strain, pour onto a serving platter, and spread some of the sauce onto these and serve immediately.

And it takes a village. And consider for a moment, the state of the village. Families and clans have shrunk drastically. Say what you want about moms working, but she’s your main nurturer. I remember an older woman (patient) who looked me in the eye and said forcefully: “The moms went to work and the kids went to shit”. There was air conditioning taht came along, and forced everyone inside. Then the TV came along, and then cable, and then  forty million channels and access to everything everywhere all the time and PRESO! Nobody home outside. They’re all inside their homes. What’s a young ape to do? But Google stuff.

For my whole career, from back in the 80s, behavior has been doing nothing but getting worse, and worse. First it was apparent that kids were going crazier, and at an earlier age. By the 90s there was the fascination with guns, and eventually school shooting, and later mass shootings. From 2000 on the came the apparent increases in all the autism spectrum disorders, and in the past decade or so, more identity  syndromes, almost certainly exacerbated if not in many cases created, by the emergence of internet platforms and their special poison: algorithms.

Somewhere and somehow, in that big frontal lobe of electricity where such actions are generated, there is a subset of these instincts that we refer to as “traits”; and there is a “CEO” in charge of them, who actually says and does what you do and are, and this is the identity. Or what so famously we call “the ego”, or “the self”. In most normal people the CEO keeps good control over the traits. It is self-reflective, witnesses appropriately instead of in a biased manner, and does so seeking the positive and pleasant results of such competent interaction. It learns from mistakes and successes and is thus functional, and valuable.

Ahem. If, however, something goes badly wrong in the nurturing process, or if there is a basic brain chemistry problem, or developmentally the “CEO” is just not somehow in charge fully, the raw electricity of “traits” take over the helm, and watch out. Because when these raw centers (anger, self-protection, narcissism, possessiveness, are examples) get thrown into control of the identity, the result of this “tail wags the dog” phenomenon is the behavior of all the people you don’t like, and wish never existed.
In extreme cases we see “identity syndromes”, whereupon, for a time, an identity completely unconstrained can become robotic, and service to a primate’s imitative behavior. So from school shooters and mass shooters, to insurrectionists and even misbehaving politicians, something has happened, and the “ego on the loose” makes headlines. As society grapples with what to do about it.

It used to be that these behaviors were utilized when there was a threat of some kind, where embarrassment or other social consequnt was possible. But what is happening now is that these mechanisms are more of a modus operandi than a situational option. The internat has allowed such like-minded individuals wo echo their grievances, and thereofre can feel vindicated or at leastsanctioned, perhaps alleviating their senses of error and misperformance. We are now living the realities of these micro-pellets of the societal machine.

They show up online as misinformation campaigns, which are cynical releases of disordered minds, who must seek the attention of the great audience out there, all from the seat of their pants. Though loud mouths at council meetings and school board activities. Simple, awful, toxic, and sad. And us.

So, if it’s true, why? Why are we going bad? Is it the genetics of social behavior being ousted since such behavior is so barely necessary any more? I mean, if you so desire, you can be a big enough ninny that people will come and pick you up, clean you, feed you, address your medical needs, and provide various protections, and feel good having cared for someone so needy. To varying degrees, more and more dysfunction is just the self on the loose, on the attack. An MO for mental survival in The Modern Age. The 180 degree flip from the great cro-magnon leap where a larger sociaty where everyone had a more specific duty, rather than the roaming hand to mouth survival of their predecessors, the Neandertal.

Modern Age Neandertals. How cool. And in just a few generations. So if you thought we were getting away with 50% divorce rates and shrinking of the clan, and AC and TV’s interference with our physical self, and a largely unhelpful government, and then unfettered exposure to internet madness with a supercomputer in everyone’s hand, it sure looks like we weren’t.

Gloomy? Sure. So what can we do? Are the genes just broken and breaking and what we are seeing is unstoppable and unrelenting?  Remember this: society pays for the sins of dear old mom and pop. So anything we can do for kids, young parents, moms (!), keeping families together, that’s where we can improve and promote solid identity development. Because, yes, it does take a village, and we all need to ask ourselves, what can we do to help in that equation? Can we expose more people to would-be mentors? Is there any policing of platforms? And my God, what are going to do about Republicans?

Hey nice job on blowing the election. Look what a mess you’ve gotten us into. Hillary Clinton. Wow. “Her turn” was “your turn”, wasn’t it. Buy hey, the disaster is that both political parties have collapsed, right? Right.
In Kentucky you can google Cassius Marcellus Clay, an abolitionist from down by Lexington, and friend of Lincoln’s, who said you need to change political parties every so often because they usually lose their way. So as a life-long republican, while still figuring government can create huge problems and tends to, I am abandoning these cats and wondering what you all have got. And, at no expense to you, I would like to offer some ideas on how to get decency, your long suit, back into American Leadership. Most of us grew up with moms and dads who would tell you, “you’re a democrat”. They all were.

Learning From Their Successes

It would help if you got a few messages. First of all, consider what I call “The Country Music Rule”: Country music will always be popular because most people are real simple, and they like simple melodies and lyrics they can sing the wrong words to. Though your heart may be in the right place, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. With minimal effort, you can go right over a majority of the people’s heads, the ones currently painting the map so red. And when you go so far out of your way to stand up for every little idiosyncrasy of your “challenged” compatriots, you lose people on the “ignorant right”. It’s a tree you’ll have to find a way to climb down out of.
Trumpers, for the most part, are people who look effectively after their own and expect others to. That’s a pretty simple concept, the kind they like. Many think 25 million Mexicans was enough. Why do you want them to forgive muslims who brought them 9/11 and forever removed freedom from their lives. Climate change? All they see is weather. The rest is just… over their heads.
So you might want to keep things simple, and for now as much as possible cool it on blind support for all the freaks of society. Support them of course, as quietly as possible.

The Barak Obama Effect

The Trumpers out here in Trumpville did not get much from Obama, who carefully stood for nothing and stood up for nobody in his efforts to slide a cool middle. But something he said early on about “finally being proud to be an American”, they took it to mean he “hates America”. They never got over it, and Hillary offered nothing inspirational to them, but a massively tacit sense of a glass ceiling. So you might just want to rally ’round the flag boys. Not sure how, but add it somehow to the schtick.
This should not be difficult.

“Issues of Public Health”

Several “hot button” issues could be exploited properly to bring both relief to people of challenge and oppression and replenish your reputation as being for the common man. Rather than making a bunch of laws which have made so many of your party’s foes so angry, do the pragmatic and efficient thing, which is to use existing institutions like The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), and churches and charitable organizations, and that very stout medical system we’ve built, to deliver education and advice and treatment for these issues, rather than involve government. This gets you off the hook for wanting to push new laws on a public that needs and wants less of them. So for gun laws, just don’t. Explore how you can reduce deaths from a public health standpoint. LGBT issues and women’s heath concerns, people all know where you stand on them, so don’t mention laws and threats. The decent people still outnumber the dogs out there. Just shut up about it, and stick your tongue in your cheek and say, “It’s a public Health issue.”

Think Bernie, Think Millennials

Your future is the face of the millennials. Our parents generation, that “World War Two” generation, they were sexist, bigoted, racist, and largely uneducated. Their parents generation was even worse. The Baby Boom was better, but the millennials are the most progressive yet, and they will naturally gravitate to your party. These issues matter to them. The environment, Diversity. Debt. The influence of Big Money, and Wall Street. Bernie spoke gospel, so I’d look to him as your standard bearer. There is magic is doing what millennials want you to do, and the Republicans have nothing to offer them.

End the War on Drugs

You need a “revolutionary” concept to establish your place as an improver of actual lives, and this is America’s dirty little secret. Big Red sez the world is way ready. Abundant footage exists for the indictment of this ghastly prohibition as the subsidiary of the military industrial complex it is. Criminalizing the pursuit of happiness has been, of course, a great crime perpetrated on the people of this country, and has been unevenly prosecuted on people of color and lower socio-economic status, worsening their troubles, which have come back to haunt us in so many ways.

Befriend LEAP (Once: Law Enforcement Against Prohibition; Now: Law Enforcement Action Partnership), the voice of reason on the matter, composed of former drug war warriors who have turned against the effort. It is they who were instrumental in the marijuana reform laws in Colorado and elsewhere, and I have included their ten commandments (“LEAP’s Statement of Principles”) on the site here. But you cannot count the social ills resulting from these 47 years of prohibition. The sturdy underworld. The ruination of black enclaves through mass incarceration. The revolving door between prison and the inner cities mingling those two cultures. The hearts broken and lives shattered. The out of control police force. Destruction of Mexico and so many other Central and South American neighbors. And not to mention the assault on the constitution. I know trial lawyers are a strong lobby for you and want the prohibition to continue but you must castigate them. They’re “old party”.

Got a Gimmick for You

You need a gimmick. How about getting a rich sponsor to buy several thousand books about the constitution, like Linda Monk’s book which I read three times: “The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to The Constitution”. And send it out to a bunch of households, telling people these Trump folks are assaulting their lifeblood as a country (which they are), and say you just want to make sure people know the document, where every word in it came from, and that our hope here is that government of the people, by the people, shall not perish from the earth, or something like that. (Full disclosure, I do not know Linda Monk.)

Your attention span is short, and these are but a few ideas. But I have a slogan for you: In a few years you’ll be saying, “Lock HIM up, and Let’s Make America Great Again!”

Hey thanks. Hope you enjoy the site.

Part 2

Take one of those small 8 oz. things of the blue cheese crumbles and pout it into a bowl. Add enough milk such that some of the crumbles are still sticking up out of it like a deserted isle somewhere. Then add Mayo (Hellmann’s is the only mayo), and I can’t say for sure how much, but maybe three or four heaping forkfuls, then about half again that amount of sour cream, plop that in there. Then grind fresh pepper generously, probably half a teaspoon, but more than that would be OK. Then the critical ingredient, garlic salt. I use the Lawry’s, in the jar with the green lid, probably a teaspoon. More is better, but you can add too much, so be careful. Mix it up good, and it should be creamy but not too thick. If it’s too thin, the milk will fall through the salad and leave he blue cheese crumbles on the top. I’ve done this many times. Easy on the milk!

It saves OK, and for a few weeks and more. But the blue cheese gets bluer and bluer, and the dressing gets tangy. So for re-use, I usually spoon some out, add just a little milk and a good dose of mayo to thicken, and this dilutes the dressing back more like the beginning. A healthy sprinkle of garlic salt also brings back the original flavor.

Blue cheese dressing is an acquired taste, and in fact this happened to me. One day when we were around 19 or 20 my brother somehow got me to eat some blue cheese on a cracker, and I think I was half awake or something, but I ate it and it grossed me out bad, and it was several years later I finally got over it and ate the dressing on a salad and I was hooked.

What is most clear is that narcotics are a special poison to the human mind. Masquerading as pain relievers, they actually and simply serve as euphoria agents, in which state pain doesn’t register any longer. In the setting of acute injury or painful illness, there’s nothing like them, and for this we need them. But the problem is that some real “can do” and enjoyable thoughts result from their use as well, because these drugs are “turning on” the areas of the brain where we experience pleasure and feel the general goodness of life. So, people want to take them to get this feeling, which is entirely understandable. With this effect, it turns its users into “the people they want to be”, this narcotic feel-good-about-everything state. That’s what long-term use is all about, and it has nothing to do with pain. For the sadness in the heart of people with chronic pain syndromes, they serve to mitigate the misery or their existence through the artificial inducement of euphoria.

The bad news is this. After a time of regular use this effect fades, and we say the brain has adjusted and is now “tolerating” the drug, blunting the effect. And if the supply is interrupted, within hours a “readjustment” will begin, and in fact, by definition, addiction is defined by the existence of this withdrawal syndrome that follows stopping a substance. It is this withdrawal syndrome that is so awful and keeps people from going clean from narcotics. And they will do just about anything to not hurt like that and feel like that, for three days non-stop. The abdominal pain and diarrhea, and how every bone in your body hurts. And the headaches, oh the headaches. No sleep, no break from it. For three days, just you and your misery. And that cold-turkey looking back from the mirror. People say when it’s over they feel dead, like there’s nothing left of them.

It’s hard to say how long it takes before such “tolerance” develops, where you’re only treading water, and taking the opiates in any form to keep from withdrawing. I’d say if you’ve been taking one several times a day, like they’re prescribed for things like broken legs, for a period of weeks and not months, you’re probably getting there. And if you’ve been at it for two or three months, that’s probably gotten you there for sure. When you try to quit, we’ll know.

More bad news. Once a person has been to the point of addiction there is no going back to the old you. It’s like a head injury sort of, where you recover but there’s a something missing or different. And you’re a fight with your boss or a death in the family from falling back off this wagon, even after years of sobriety from them. So the problem is a gift that keeps on giving. We will be living this for many years. It’s why we already have been living this for years.

We all say it started with “the pain scale”. Around the year 2000, there was a survey or a study of some kind and the impression was that doctors don’t seem to address pain “enough”, and that people have suffered unnecessarily. So they introduced this pain scale, as no less than the “5^th vital sign”, where in medical interactions, after the blood pressure, heart rate, breathing rate, and temperature were taken, the nurse or assistant would ask, on a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your pain? Ten is the worst pain you’ve ever had, and 1 is the mildest.This led to a flood of narcotics into modern medicine, most notably the slow release form of the big doper, oxycodone, as “Oxycontin” (“OC’s”). Casual prescribing of these medications was enabled if not encouraged, and soon they were everywhere. For many a bad decision maker, is was the beginning of the end of their life. Literally.

Everyone in Kentucky likes to go to Florida. In the 2000’s they were going there in buses down I-75, shopping at the “pill mills”, and bringing their loot back to what eventually became a whole lot of mouths to feed them to. The mills sprung up here, too, under deceptive names, with many Rx’s signed by foreign names. A scattering of more “legit” practitioners helped fuel the monster as well, just trying to help people feel better.

Soon people were taking them to start their day. Pop one of these and I’m cleaning the house and mowing the grass, and I’m the soccer mom I want to be. Then once tolerance develops and you need more and more, and more often, and God-forbid there’s an interruption of the supply (doctor’s out of town, lost the medicine or someone stole it, etc.), the withdrawal syndrome starts. All hell soon is breaking loose. So guess what, they come to see me. And they will lie and fake any number of painful conditions to get a shot of something that will pull them back from the hell of the end of this ride of narcotic-driven feel-good. Ideally they’d like a prescription of some as well, you know, until my doctor gets back.

Thieving, not seen in any other drug phenomenon, is universal among narcotic addicts. If they have a criminal record, it is almost always from stealing and bad checks than anything involving the drug itself, like possession. So they can’t get a regular job, which makes everything worse. Famously, they steal from their mother and other loved ones, or swipe something to pawn it. The real thief is the narcotics, which leads to the saying that they “steal your soul”. It’s what narcotic addicts spend the rest of their life trying to find. I wonder if any of them ever do. It is all so sad.

The next step in the disaster was “House Bill 1”, passed by the state legislature in 2012. I was so glad to see it. The pill mills were closed, the heavy peddlers hounded into oblivion, and the rules for use spelled out, and the attitude of the prescribers was that the ride was over. But just like the Iraq war, you can win a quick battle but are you ready for what comes next? We weren’t. We still aren’t. They all turned to heroin. So the slide from popping the odd percocet or vicodin, on eventually to the “perc 30’s” (the basic is but 5 mg), to the graduation of crushing and snorting OC’s. And now it dries up, and you’re injecting heroin. A race to the bottom if ever there was one.

So hence the final ingredient in this catastrophe, and yes it is a catastrophe, is the 48 year-old war on drugs, America’s great prohibition experiment created by the Nixon-era “Drug Enforcement Agency Act of 1971”. Just like with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, an underground network sprung up essentially over night, and now this many years later it has made it out to the furtherest hamlets of society. When the pain pills dried up, these bus-stop networks had the infrastructure to supply a certain long-acting opiate that would do the job, the one they called “this new heroin”. It could be sniffed even, to get enough of a high to “not hurt all day”. For just 10 bucks! What a deal! This is called being “strung out”. But for most, soon enough they were getting out the needle, just like the bum in the alleyway. This desperate state of affairs brings a little icing to the cake: hepatitis C. We’ll be staring down a huge medical bill rescuing all these livers when 80% of them progress to cirrhosis 20 or so years from now. And I mean they ALL have it. treatment is now available. But still.

I worked for a while down at The Bourbon Community Hospital in Paris, where they have a rehab unit, and patients come through the ER for a medical screening before admission there, and I would see them. I asked all of them, what happened? And they were so glad to tell their story, like a war veteran might. For most, it was a story that was a very long one, ten years and more of over-amping this crucial pathway of mental health and function.

They shake out about like this. Maybe a third or more had a legitimate illness or injury, and were prescribed them over months of recovery. “My doctor kept prescribing them”. After a time it was too late. A startling number were teenagers.

Another large batch, at least half, were broken hearts (incest, abuse, severe neglect), where a pain syndrome is often the maladaptation of adulthood, as “pain prone behavior”. Headaches and backaches, bulging discs, and the absurdities like fibromyalgia, these are all mental illnesses manifest as pain syndromes, and when the narcotic alleviates this problem, then IT has become the problem.

Another cohort had simple mental illness, and the bad wirings of their nervous system fell prey to the “happiness” of narcosis. Before long they were “done”, generally by a well-meaning prescriber. Accessing the medical system is, for many such “poor” citizens, a power trip and esteem builder. Few have ever paid a bill. Toss them a narcotic, and you have added the sinker to the hook and line.

Others started abusing them in high school or shortly thereafter, where they became available from the home, or by someone who was getting them by feigning illness and then distributing them. Such “recreational” starts are unusual though. And there’s no “gateway drug” to narcotic oblivion.

And not everyone has the same weakness to them. I have said that “normal” people don’t like the narcotic effect, as if their euphoria pathway is quite alright without the overstimulation narcotics cause. But unfortunately the epidemic is a sort of “thinning of the herd”, where if your mind is not “happy” enough in its own skin and you fall victim to this, your genes may not make it to the next generation. Like a selection pressure fully created by The Modern Age in Modern America. And guess what, there are a lot more broken hearts out there than anyone wants to know, generally paying for the sins of dear old mom and pop somehow.

It seems to me there are a lot of options available for people who really see the life-threatening struggle it is, but they’re such zombies already, can they ever see the light again, or gather themselves for this great struggle to recover the self? I tell them they need to re-construct their personality, so broken by this class of medications. Like a head trauma patient learning to walk again. Get work, pick up a hobby, learn a musical instrument, go to church, get in shape, and take that long look in the mirror, and try to find a you worth being. For many they’re looking up at the top of a hard box. Many.

As a syndrome that is seen in all socio-economic levels of the population, they all act like twin children of the same mother. Their excuses, their lies, their disastrous decisions, their thieving, it’s part of the syndrome. It takes me usually a minute or so to know if they’ve got the syndrome, and I look at them and I wonder, what would you have been like if not for this? Before we sent you to hell on a road paved with good intentions. Before the pain scale and House Bill 1 and the war on drugs, and before Modern Age America chewed you up and spit you out. Probably just a regular old salt of the earth pillar of society, and we could have used a better you. Won’t happen now.