Hey, Chris

Imagine that you had a bad toothache and needed to see a dentist.  But your
loving friends are concerned the dentist will hurt you.  So Phil gets his
hammer and John gets his saw.  Pat gets her loving sewing kit and Helen gets
her aspirin and all the rest contribute to your healing.  They start hacking
and whacking away at you until you are a bleeding, painful mess and in your
pain you go off confused and dazed and hurt others searching for help you
were never allowed to be given because of your helpful friends.  In
Christian love, of course.  But what's wrong?  The tools are all good.  Of
course they are.  They've seen Matt build bird houses with them!  They know
they work.  The problem is, Chris, they don't know how to use those very
useful, very helpful tools to help you. Not in your case.

I don't know if you even understand what I'm saying.  Apparently they don't.
When you were first on the list I begged them to stop feeding into your
problems because they were doing you more harm than good.  They just are not
qualified to give you the help you need.  And with every well intentioned
note they just set you off spinning again in ways that could harm you more
or cause you to harm others as you whizz off in some unknown direction they
can neither know nor control.  You left the list for a while and there was a
debate about whether to have you come back on.  I begged them not to do it
because, again, I thought you need more help than anyone here can give you.
In my personal and, yes, unprofessional, opinion (and I've told you this
publicly many times) you need the kind of help that can only come from a
residential program.  And the more people on this list feed into your need
for attention the less likely you will seek out that program.  What I never
realized until now is that if Phil didn't see it in his daughter's need for
a residential drug treatment center he wouldn't see it, and out of respect
or their own misguidance, others wouldn't see it either for her or for you.

My point is, Chris, that you need help.  More help than we can give you.
And as long as you keep coming here you will not go there (to get the
counseling by competent people you can be with in person any time of the day
or night).  And all the prayers from all the world are not going to change
that.  It's irresponsible to try.  It's no better than being in a church
where there is a child with a gun and saying "If we treat him nice he won't
hurt himself or anybody else."  That is not right morally or ethically.

I know, "I ! am ! mad ! I ! will ! quit ! the ! list !"  Don't bother,
Chris.  I am leaving the list.  (If I can remember how.  Laughing out loud.
If not, I'm sure Vicki will help me.)  I can no longer be a part of a group
whose self-pride and self-righteousness is so strong that they will allow
you to continue to come to them so they can feel like good Christians and
thereby risk you hurting yourself or others rather than encouraging you to
get off this list and get into that treatment center you need.

I will not post publicly for a while to ensure that it is not my own
self-pride saying all of this.  (Unless Vicki decides to unsub me after this
note.)  So I'd hope any responses to this note will be to me privately.
Except yours, Chris.  I don't believe we have anything to say to each other
privately and am publicly posting this note so that neither you nor those
who call you or forward notes to you misquote me.  And, frankly, part of
your problem is misquoting other people.  I don't make innuendoes and then
publicly say I was misquoted when what I inferred is understood and
responded to as has been done on this list before.  I hope that, someday, if
they don't change the list name again...smile...you will get the treatment
you need, come back and read this note in the archives, and realize it was
out of concern for you and others that I wrote it.

May you find the true healing that only comes through JESUS CHRIST through
the competent professionals He uses in His wisdom and knowledge as He used
Dr. Luke and wine for Timothy's stomach despite all of the apostles around
him.

Paul