James C. Bettencourt
 |
|
This book tells — frankly and without psycho-babble — how we have sold out our children’s future, safety and sobriety to big business and society’s current blind addictions. No other book will provide the perspective of hundreds of billions annually spent wasted on illegal drugs and alcohol and more than 120,000 lives lost each year to these toxic substances. This book delivers the facts regarding illegal drugs and alcohol that all those who greedily profit would prefer not written. This book exposes the societal fallacies which stated and restated are ingrained into American fabric. These fallacies of why we use alcohol and illegal drugs are recurring, unsubstantiated, and falsely comforting propaganda that promotes the notion that the deadly, profitable cycle is acceptable. Fit in, feel good, get high, relax, escape from your problems, are the lies that are used to sell illegal drugs and alcohol. Find the truth of why Americans use illegal drugs and alcohol, why your children are willing to be poisoned . Read America's Choice, America's Shame.
My name is Jim Bettencourt, if you are looking for an accomplished author this may not be the book you’re looking for. Instead if your looking for life saving insight and education not offered by any university or library my writing may be of interest. I'm fifty-one years old and married to Elizabeth, one of the most loving, sincere, giving and strong individuals I have ever met. Together we were blessed with four beautiful children, Aubrie, 27, Kalin, 25, deceased, William, 22, and Joe, 21. My mother, GladysBettencourt, still lives on the ranch were I grew up in northern California, the town Willows is in the middle of the Sacramento Valley. Being raised on an 80-acre dairy as I look back provided a unique opportunity to understand simplicity. Very little was complicated, everything was what nature had produced and was appreciated for what it provided. Money was a precious commodity but was seldom a consideration growing up poor on a ranch four miles from town. I learned at a early age that everything on the ranch happened for a reason, good or bad. I strongly feel the early influences experienced while growing up on the ranch strengthened and sustained my resolve to help others and find answers when many would not. I'm a blessed man and everything given to me has been wonderful and everything taken cherished. Over the last five years, my journey into substance abuse education and awareness has allowed me to grow more socially, intellectually and spiritually, than all of my previous years.
The horrific nightmare exploded as I entered
the emergency room. This was the first saturation of illegal drug reality into
my drug-dummy brain. I witnessed my then-15-year-old son having a grand mal
seizure induced by an illegal drug, his underweight, frail body rigid, shaking
violently and eyes rolled back in his head. It was only at this point I truly
understood what was at stake; it was at this point I really understood my son
could die. As the EMT’s desperately tried to control my son’s body, I told the
ER doctor that we needed life flight to Chico, a larger, better-staffed hospital, right
now. I told the doctor that we didn’t know what Joe had taken and if we did not
get him to Enloe Hospital, the regional trauma center in Chico, as soon as possible he could die. The
doctor agreed and complied with my urgent request.
For what seemed like days the staff
continued to medicate Joe attempting to control the grand mal seizures. It was not until well after the helicopter
arrived did the second of what would be four grand mal seizures subsided. Even
so, it took 45 minutes to make him safe to fly. The war was on for his life,
but the illegal drug was fighting back. They loaded our son into the helicopter
and air lifted him to Enloe Hospital in Chico.
Before leaving for Enloe Hospital I got
back to Joe’s friend and told him that
Joe could die if we couldn’t find out what he took. Now begging, I asked if he
knew, please tell us so we could save his life. He replied he didn’t know what
Joe had taken.
My wife and I picked up a few belongings and
rushed to Chico.
At the hospital, we found Joe in the
high-tech emergency room with a vent tube and several IV’s in both strapped and
retained arms, muscles randomly twitching, with his eyes closed. I recall Joe’s
heavily sedated heart peaking on the monitor at between 120 and 180 beats per
minute. There was an attendant sitting at the foot of the bed observing Joe.
He tried to reassure my wife and me by
saying that they get kids in every week from overdoses and once they pulled the
vent tube that evening, there was a good chance Joe could go home the next day.
How wrong he was. They monitored Joe closely overnight, giving him several
doses of anti-seizure and paralyses medication. He was later transferred up to
the intensive care unit.
