Who is SF?

[Otter]

I think this deserves a thread of its own.



This guy came here and undermined my anonymity and now has my personal email, knows where I live, has seen me and my wife on Skype. He got all that information by pretending to share my views and goals. After he got that information, he came out and showed what he really thinks, which is that the doctors in France are wrong, that baclofen is not any different from any other drug, that there are other, better drugs. He didn't read Ameisen's book, doesn't understand the theory of why baclofen works but posts as though he has some background that qualifies him to be spreading information about medication around a forum where people need good medical advice.



He then gave my personal details to other people in an alcohol group in Virginia.



Why don't you tell us who you are SF and about your business?

[Otter]

I started this about Spiritfree because I now look back and realize that his behaviour here follows a very specific pattern. It began with him coming here at the same time he found my US baclofen forum and I started getting emails from a recovery clinic that SF says he went to. They started arguing that Vivitrol was better than baclofen but it seems they now use baclofen as well.



SF then started getting in touch with people who were key members of this forum and engaging in tactics which were time wasting and aimed at diverting them into projects which occupied our/my time but had nothing to do with baclofen.



At first I thought it was well meaning, but eventually, I realized I had been affected psychologically by this behaviour because SF had painted me into a corner. He oozed the old "southern charm" which I now realize was completely ungenuine. He pretended to admire my work and views etc etc, got me interested in a business venture he and his dad had going on in Europe (this guy is not short of cash, has a good job, patents around the world). Gee, what a nice guy.



Then I find he has decided that he is posting stuff on the forum which is contrary to what everyone else has been finding out about baclofen. When I questioned him he said baclofen was just like Campral or any other drug. He seemed bound an determined to undermine baclofen... It was really bizarre. But I couldn't figure it out at first because he was so friendly and how do you say bad things about someone who has had his tongue up your ass for so long?



I stopped posting here for quite a while because I was getting too upset by all this. I realized I was being buffaloed but I figured maybe I was wrong about it and anyway, I had better things to do and I didn't want to sully whatever reputation I had by getting involved in a "slanging" match with this guy.



Then I started to get private emails from other people mentioning Spiritwolf/free and they were saying the same thing, so I came back here, after finishing the other things I was working on and discovered what he has been doing.



This just isn't normal behaviour. He isn't on baclofen, isn't in recovery and no one wants his advice. It makes no sense at all that he is doing this for free.



It is unfortunately becoming common practice for businesses to use social media to promote their businesses and undermine competing businesses and the growth of on-line self help forums like this are dangerous to the rehab business so it is really important that this forum be closed down so that these businesses can charge $30000 a month for inpatient treatment.



The way he is doing this is to inundate this board with any old information about any old, or new, drug development and to denigrate long time users of baclofen who have shown that it works. He has created anxiety, destroyed the supportive atmosphere of this forum.



I am upset and I am not going to deny it.



My life was destroyed by alcoholism. Yes, SF, I also have had family and friends die from alcoholism. My business partner gased himself in his car, my uncle jumped off a cliff, a former employee hung himself from a tree. People on this forum have taken their own lives while others have died.



I have had to rebuild my life. I found this forum after years of listening to the kind of advice you are dishing out. I tracked down Dr. Chick and I searched the internet for ages, posting on all kinds of sites before finding this one. I came here religiously for months and then years to get some solace from the utter anguish I was suffering from and I found people here who reached out and supported me when no one else would.



It worked, they helped. My wife is well again. Thank god and the people on this forum



You! You are some kind of twisted individual to try to undo what people here have done and what courageous doctors like Olivier Ameisen have done to help mankind.



I can't post here what I actually think about you.

[Otter]

Parable of the Wedding Banquet


1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5“But they paid no attention and went off— one to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.

13“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

[Otter]

We moved to Cyprus a couple of years ago and my view of the world has changed. Whereas I used to look at a map and think places like Syria were a long way away, I now live a couple of hundred miles from Damascus and Aleppo. Since coming here I have come to understand that "our" European history is intimately connected to this part of the world and that Europeans, during the Ice Age, lived here, and not in Europe.



It's been a real eye opener because I realized that the stories in the Bible which I thought were about foreign and distant peoples were about us as much as they were about anyone and I also realized how profound a lot of it was.



One story I never really understood which I now do is the story of the Wedding Guest where a king has a wedding banquet and no one he invites wants to come, so he throws it open to anyone, and still no one comes and then he forces people to come. Most are happy to go to the banquet. After all, it is a happy event and they are being given a gift of food. But one man doesn't dress appropriately, doesn't take part so he is tied up and thrown out into the dark. I couldn't figure this parable out until now.



Here we have a gift from Olivier Ameisen. He reached out to people he knew, who he thought would accept his invitation to learn about this new discovery. They didn't, for the most part, accept his invitation. Most doctors and researchers he mentioned in his book told him they had better things to do. Then Ameisen wrote a book for anyone to read. Many did but most people still didn't want to know and many who read it didn't want to accept his gift of insight into alcoholism.



Finally Ameisen went out on tours speaking on TV and radio and to universities and encouraging the setting up of medical forums in France.



Here we have a forum which is made up of people who have drifted in as a result of this man's efforts in writing his book and forcing his views onto an unwilling medical research community. We are all here because of his force of character and determination and for no other reason.



So, we have one man here who stands out, who just can't and won't accept this gift that Ameisen gave us. Generally, I would accept that people are entitled to their opinions and to be treated fairly and equally with everyone else.



But, when you are sitting at a banquet made possible by one man, who