Questions

What kinds of adversity could you endure? How would it change you? When does our time run out for getting things right in our lives, in our relationships? If we reach that point, what do we do? Stop trying? Try one more time? Turn to addictions? Rely on your own abilities and your faith in God? Withdraw? Embrace new challenges with your God-given abilities?

These are a few of the questions that come to mind as I am still reading Against Medical Advice by James Patterson and Hal Friedman. It is about Mr. Friedman's son Cory and his battle with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, as told through Cory's eyes.

Doctors tried all kinds of medicines in all kinds of doses, to no avail. Cory becomes addicted to alcohol and nicotine, and engages in some behaviors that might endanger himself or others. Desperate, his parents enroll him in a wilderness program in Wyoming. Snow and below zero temperatures greet him there. The "camp" staff tell Cory that he will be discharged when he successfully completes the program, not until then. Cory focuses all his attention on what he must do to survive in those harsh conditions, and he comes to realize that he is doing so without the "help" of meds, alcohol, or nicotine; that he has the ability within himself to succeed, even though the tics have not stopped. He successfully completes the program. That's where I am in the reading of the book.