Month: December 2013

It seems as if there are a lot of movies being made lately that are inspired by true stories. In the past few days alone, I’ve seen two of them where one of which was titled Philomena. Based on the real life story of Philomena Lee, this 2013 British Drama film focused on a woman’s 50 year search to find her son whom she was forced to sign away at a convent in Roscrea, Ireland at the age of 18.

Sometimes films really enlighten me when I see the horrors that have existed throughout time because of those in power. Maybe that’s why I like movies so much because they paint a much more vivid picture of them than a book might. Philomena is just one of many films that has done this for me. Others noteworthy to mention are films like 12 Years A Slave, which portrayed the horrors of slavery in our country, and The Passion Of Christ, which showed similar horrors, but solely those done to Jesus Christ.

In Phliomena though, the horror that was focused on was the fact that many unwed mothers in Ireland back in the 1950’s were disowned by their families and sent to convents. There they were forced to sign the rights away to their children, usually before they were even born there. During the birthing process, many of these women never even survived because they were denied the same birthing aids that women usually received through normal hospital care at the time. The Catholic Church thought of these women as sinners and degenerates and left the birthing process up to chance as to whether God wanted either the mother or her child to survive or not. Philomena Lee was one of those women who did survive that ordeal, along with her son Anthony. But sadly, her son was taken from her before the age of 4 when the Catholic Church sold him to an American couple through an ongoing adoption process they utilized to make money.

During the movie, my partner and others in the theater reacted in anger towards the many Catholic Church’s denials and cover-ups of what happened to Philomena and her son. I am even struggling as I write these words because I too could very easily jump on that anger bandwagon. I’ve had too many friends in my life that were sexually abused by Catholic priests, where those incidents were denied and covered up as well. Add in the fact that homosexuals have consistently been thought of as sinners and hell-bound by the teachings of the Catholic institution, it makes it very difficult for me to write with love and light about the Catholic Church. But I’ve also learned that anger doesn’t help fuel anything other than more anger and resentments. So I’ve chosen to look at all of the Catholic Church’s horrors that are being exposed these days, like Philomena’s ordeal, as misguided and filled with a lot of spiritual sickness. This has helped me to feel more sad about all of it rather than angry.

Hopefully one day, the names of God and Jesus Christ will stop being used by the Catholic Church and those in power in them to justify doing terrible actions, such as what happened to Philomena and the other 50,000+ women who lost either their lives, their children, or both from it. There is much healing that needs to take place on this planet, especially with so many who have been negatively affected by these past actions of the Catholic Church. But being angry won’t bring any of that about. Instead, I’ve learned the best I can do is to feel my sadness and pray for the healing and forgiveness for all those involved in any of the Catholic Church’s transgressions.

While I’m not Catholic, I do have many friends and loved ones who are. I don’t look negatively upon any of them for what a few leaders once allowed to happen to Philomena and the many other women who suffered the ordeal of an unspiritual birthing and adoption process. I’m just happy that Philomena was at least able to have some closure to her 50 year long search for her son. The movie truly stirred my heart as I’m sure it was intended to do. And it’s my hope that anyone who sees this film will at least walk away from it with greater awareness and not something unspiritual such as anger and anti-Catholic Church sentiments.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

It is estimated that there are over 140 million people worldwide who are alcoholics that are either active in their addiction or in recovery from it. Sadly, that number only seems to be growing each year. And lately, I’ve been wondering if this is the case partially due to the way the consumption of alcohol is continuously being portrayed in television and movies.

I watch various fiction based television shows and movies quite a bit. While I believe they can be a healthy escape at times from life, they often show alcohol to be a healthy escape from life too, even though it’s not.

How many television shows and movies can you think of right now where you saw someone use alcohol to numb some type of pain they were going through? I’ve already lost count and there are too many scenarios where I see alcohol being used now to help the characters in these scripts cope with the tragedies that can come in life. Here are just a few of them:

A loved one dies and the character pops open a bottle of liquor to deal with it.

A bad breakup occurs and the character gets mega drunk at a bar to deal with it.

A character is abused in some fashion and they turn to booze to deal with it.

A financial disaster happens in a character’s life and they drown sorrows in alcohol to deal with it.

Some would say that art imitates life and that television and movie scripts are only being modeled after what really happens in the world. But what if life is really imitating the art instead? What if the people who never drank alcohol start drinking because they saw it being portrayed in those fictionalized television shows and movies as a way to cope with the misery that can come in life. I can speak from personal experience to know that there is some truth to this statement.

I didn’t consume any alcoholic beverage until the age of 17. For years prior to that age I saw many programs on the television as well as movies in the theater where actors and actresses drowned their sorrows of life through a heavy consumption of alcohol. I never quite understood why they did nor did I ever quite get why my parents liked alcohol so much. That all changed though when the day came where I completely consumed my first 12 ounce beer.

Alcohol is truly a great relaxing agent. It helps to numb one’s senses and thoughts about all the pains and stressors that come in life. The night I had that first beer, I was able to forget about the mental and emotional abuse I dealt with at home. I was able to forget about the man who molested me. I was able to forget about all the bullies who had ever picked on me. And in general, I was able to forget about everything that wasn’t a good memory. While alcohol was a great inhibitor of pain, it took me five years to see how much of an illusion that was. Unfortunately, those fictionalized television shows and movies never showed me this and I spent those five years doing what most of those characters did when something bad happened to them, I drank alcohol to drown it out.

Unless a scripted program or movie is about a person who develops an addiction to alcohol, normally a viewer will never see the downsides that can come with drinking it to numb one’s senses. They rarely show the domino effect of complications that can happen in life from repeatedly doing it such as getting a DUI, developing serious health issues, getting arrested, losing a job, becoming broke, etc. By the end of the five years I drank excessively, I finally realized that no matter how much booze I shoved down my throat, my pain was never going to be fully drowned out. Scripted TV shows and movies back then, and even today, rarely show this. What they show you instead is how a person will use alcohol to deal with a tragedy for a brief moment of their life and then move on. But what they don’t show you is that there are over 140 million of us out there who wouldn’t be able to put the alcohol back down once it’s picked up to deal with that tragedy. Regardless of whether a person falls into that 140 million or not though, the only thing alcohol really does for a person when a tragedy strikes besides making them feel numb from it, is to delay its healing process within them.

I’ve chosen not to delay my healing process anymore from any of the tragedies I’ve dealt with in life. I don’t want any more decades of my life to pass by with me using alcohol or any other agent to numb me from dealing with the downsides of life. I not only prolonged my healing for years in doing this, I became chronically addicted to just about everything just to numb me from the pain in life. Sometimes I wish those scripted TV shows and movies I grew up watching could have shown me this. Maybe it would have made a difference or maybe not. Either way, they created an illusion that I bought into pretty easily that took years off my life and for many others today they still do.

So it’s my prayer for anyone who reads this that you’ll realize much more quickly what took me years to arrive at. While television shows and movies may glorify drinking and lead you to believe it’s a good agent to use for coping when a tragedy strikes, the reality is that heavily consuming alcohol to deal with them will only do two things for you. One, it will numb you and delay your grieving and healing process. And two, it could lead you to a life of alcoholism. Thankfully, God has shown me both and hopefully those scripted television shows and movies will start doing the same.

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson