The Parable of the River

One day a group of villagers was working in the fields by a river. Suddenly someone noticed a baby floating downstream. A woman rushed out and rescued the baby, brought it to shore and cared for it.  During the next several days, more babies were found floating downstream, and the villagers rescued them as well. But before long there was a steady stream of babies floating downstream. Soon the whole village was involved in the many tasks of rescue work: pulling these poor children out of the stream, ensuring they were properly fed, clothed, and housed, and integrating them into the life of the village.  While not all the babies, now very numerous, could be saved, the villagers felt they were doing well to save as many as they did.

Before long, however, the village became exhausted with all this rescue work.  Some villagers suggested they go upstream to discover how all these babies were getting into the river in the first place.  Had a mysterious illness stricken these poor children?  Had the shoreline been made unsafe by an earthquake?  Was some hateful person throwing them in deliberately? Was an even more exhausted village upstream abandoning them out of hopelessness?

A huge controversy erupted in the village. One group argued that every possible hand was needed to save the babies since they were barely keeping up with the current flow. The other group argued that if they found out how those babies were getting into the water further upstream, they could repair the situation up there that would save all the babies and eliminate the need for those costly rescue operations downstream.

“Don’t you see,” cried some, “if we find out how they’re getting in the river, we can stop the problem and no babies will drown?  By going upstream we can eliminate the cause of the problem!”

“But it’s too risky,” said the village elders. “It might fail. It’s not for us to change the system. And besides, how would we occupy ourselves if we no longer had this to do?”

And so the bodies will pile up.

So what does this have to do with Doctorsofcourage?  We are the only group going upstream to help stop the flood of “babies”—i.e. pain patients and practitioners destroyed by the government agenda against opioids.

You have other groups fishing the “babies” out of the water one by one, but that isn’t going to get us anywhere with stopping the attacks. And more and more are floating downstream.  The only way to stop the attacks is to end it at the source.

I have been teaching what is needed to end the attacks now for 5 years. I thought, at the beginning, that doctors and CPPs would jump on this and we would end the attacks in 1 year. That would have been 2017.  Since that time, we have had new fishing groups form: DPPR, NPC, APDF, End Pain Stigma, and so on, ad nauseum. None of these groups have a clue how to end the attacks.  Most are stuck on fighting the CDC guidelines. That’s like putting up a fishing net across the river halfway downstream.  It doesn’t get to the cause but gives the constructors a feeling that they’ve done something.

Since CPPs and doctors aren’t getting it, I’ve expanded my reach to other groups that hopefully will. To that end, I constructed an ecourse, the entire proceeds of which go to supporting Doctorsofcourage’s work. Since very few CPPs have seen the importance of going upstream and only give donations to the fishermen downstream, Doctorsofcourage cannot do what is necessary in Washington to get the word to the legislators.

But pain patients and doctors are the ones being affected by this government agenda, and should be the ones learning and supporting the work we are doing. To that end, I spread the word about my course in the few FB groups I am a member of.  I don’t belong to many, because most are a waste of time with very little chance of productivity.  They are mostly gripe and complain with very little positive action.

Well, I assume as a result of my post on CPP News Source about my ecourse, I have been removed from the group.  No reason was given. No big loss to me, but it just shows that these groups are not working in the CPPs best interest.

A comment on the post by one of the admins, John Schoellman, was that receiving personal benefit through a post was not appropriate.  I explained to Mr. Schoellman in a personal message that I did not receive any personal income from the ecourse, that all proceeds support Doctorsofcourage and its mission.  I also removed the post that included his accusation that I was benefiting personally. I told him that if he said anything like that again, I would block him. And if blocking him caused me to lose membership to CPP News Source, so be it.  I could live with it. I’ve left enough FB groups for not covering what will actually help CPPs.

So I think you can see what the purpose of CPP News Source is, and it isn’t to end the war on opioids, doctors, or pain patients. They are the village elders. If you want to end the war on drugs, doctors, and patients, you need to be supporting Doctorsofcourage.  We can always use help with the website or the work we do. But if you think these other organizations or social media groups will get the job done, I project that you will see opioids again in 2050.