Christian Gardener, a teenager with the soul of a forty-year-old, has always been a self-confessed loner and an outsider in his own time. Despite his love for his adoptive parents, he struggles with his mother’s attitude towards his father, sparking a determination to change his family dynamics. His drastic actions set him on an unexpected path, further complicated by a life-altering lottery win. Christian believes he’s found true love in Caroline, but his hopes are shattered after a fight at a party leads to their breakup. Feeling lost in a world of his own making, Christian’s life takes a dark turn as he succumbs to a murderous impulse, driven by a newfound and dangerous passion. When a chance encounter with his past reopens old wounds, Christian’s life spirals into chaos. Now caught between what was and what could be, he faces a critical decision that will determine his ultimate fate.
In 1996, the FDA approved and endorsed Perdue Pharmaceutical’s new drug, "Oxycontin" as a non-addictive pain reliever. Since 1996, the CDC reported 841,000 drug overdose deaths nationwide. In the 12 months ending in April of 2021, over 103,000 Americans died from a drug overdose. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that Americans 50 years old and younger are more likely to die of a drug overdose than any other cause. Do you ever wonder why teenagers and even pre-teens now prefer heroin over tobacco and marijuana? Do you wonder how heroin went from a taboo drug to the most abused drug, or how it came out of the shadows and is now everywhere? Prescribed pain killers, heroin, and now deadly Fentanyl are in every neighborhood in the country. Addiction affects everyone. Why do millions of middle class and upper class Americans throw away everything they have and more just to feed their opioid addiction? Do you wonder how this began, where it came from? What caused this out-of-control opioid pandemic? What fuels the dynamics of the addicted brain, and is there a solution? Killing Pain explains in a very personal and brutally honest way how it all began, how easy it is to become addicted to opioids, and what it takes to get clean again. As bad as it is, there is a solution.
Private eye Fiddler and his ex-wife-turned lover and partner in crime-solving, Fiora, are back in a complex caper that takes them from Hollywood's loftiest circles to the depths of the Mexican underworld. The couple root through the past to solve a 20-year-old murder--that of Fiddler's uncle, a smuggler/philosopher.
War wounds the soul. It is not only the violence that warfighters suffer against them that harms, but also the violence that they do. These soul wounds have come to be known as moral injuries: psychic traumas that occur from having done or condoned that which goes against deeply held moral principles. It is not surprising that the committing of atrocities or the accidental killing of the innocent would hurt the soul of warfighters. The problem is that many warfighters at least tacitly follow the commonplace belief that killing another human being is always wrong--it's just that sometimes, as in war, it is necessary. This paradoxical commitment makes the very business of warfighting morally injurious. This problem is also a crisis. Clinical research among combat veterans has established a link between killing in combat and moral injury and between moral injury and suicide. Our warfighters, even those who have served honorably and with the right intentions, are dying by their own hands at devastating rates--casualties not of the physical threats of war, but of the moral ones. It does not have to be this way. The just war tradition, a moral framework for thinking about war that flows out of our Greco-Roman and Hebraic intellectual traditions, is grounded in the basic truth that killing comes in different kinds. While some kinds of killing, like murder, are always wrong, there are other kinds of killing that are morally neutral, such as unavoidable accidents, and still other kinds that are morally permitted--even, sometimes, obligatory. The Good Kill embraces this tradition to argue for the morality of killing in justified wars. Marc LiVecche does not deny the morally bruising realities of combat, but offers potential remedies to help our warfighters manage the bruising without becoming irreparably morally injured.
This is a booked of hope, For those of you with headaches, backaches, neck pain, shoulder aches. the information in these pages can help you find the relief your looking for.
Moral Injury and Beyond: Understanding Human Anguish and Healing Traumatic Wounds uniquely brings together a prominent collection of international contributors from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, philosophy, theology, military chaplaincy and acute crisis care to address the phenomenon of moral injury. Introduced in the 1990s to refer to a type of psychological trauma, experienced especially by soldiers who felt that their actions transgressed the expected moral norms, this innovative volume provides a timely update that progresses and redefines the field of moral injury. The ten ground-breaking essays expand our understanding of moral injury beyond its original military context, arguing that it can fruitfully be applied to and address predicaments most persons face in their daily lives. Approaching moral injury from different perspectives, the contributors focus on the experiences of combat veterans and other survivors of violent forms of adversity. The chapters address thought-provoking questions and topics, such as how survivors can regain their hope and faith, and how they can, in time, explore ways that will lead them to grow through their suffering. Exploring moral injury with a particular emphasis on spirituality, the early Church Fathers form the framework within which several chapters examine moral injury, articulating a new perspective on this important subject. The insights advanced are not limited to theoretical innovations but also include practical methods of dealing with the effects of moral injury. This pioneering collection will be essential resource for mental health practitioners and trainees working with people suffering from severe trauma. Due to its interdisciplinary nature, it will be useful not only to those academics and professionals engaged with moral injury but will be a source of inspiration for any perceptive student of the complexities and dilemmas of modern life, especially as it interfaces with issues of mental health and spirituality. It will also be invaluable to academics and students of Jungian psychology, theology, philosophy and history interested in war, migration and the impact of extreme forms of adversity.
“The writing is lean and restrained, and Fiddler...gives Travis McGee a real run for his money.”—Los Angeles Times “Maxwell manages a slam-bang climax...and the California wine business background is unusual and entertaining.”—Publishers Weekly “Evokes with grace, elegance and love the colors, smells and sounds of Napa Valley wine-making.”—Vanity Fair “By far [Maxwell's] best, a California thriller with very realcharacters and dialogue and a violent, unexpected ending you won't soon forget.”—Palo Alto Times Tribune Back in print, the third Fiddler & Fiora crime novel. Five months into their rekindled relationship, Fiddler and his blonde dynamo of an ex-wife Fiora find themselves in Napa Valley wine country. It's there that Fiddler gets drawn into former flame Sandra's vineyard woes. A run of bad luck and bad business might seem like coincidence, but when a rare and deadly parasite suddenly infests all the best vineyards—Sandra's included—the entre valley's industry is counting on Fiddler and Fiora for help. A. E. Maxwell is the pseudonym of Ann and Evan Maxwell. Ann is now best known as New York Times bestseller Elizabeth Lowell.
Brave, bighearted... An absolutely absorbing book of challenging power, a story of almost unbearable tensions. A modern life played out against the chaos of "me" and the divine order of "we." Marie Dadisman The observations made in this work regarding the social impact of our current social strategies are poignant observations that beckon the reader to evaluate whether, or not, they wish to embrace and support our current paradigms for social order.
