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    Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery
    Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery
    Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery
    Ebook143 pages4 hours

    Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery

    By Mark McDonald M.D.

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    About this ebook

    The pandemic of fear continues to grip our world long past the clinical effects of COVID-19. Many people cannot let go of the fear fueling the Mass Delusional Psychosis which has plagued millions since early 2020. In his latest book, Freedom from Fear, Dr. Mark McDonald applies his well-honed psychiatric acuity to the undiagnosed epidemic of fear addiction. Just like a drug, fear becomes an unhealthy mental and emotional dependency that must be broken. In Freedom from Fear, Dr. McDonald presents the essential twelve-step guide to personal and worldwide recovery. His precepts include simple but practical steps like “Face the Mirror,” “Don’t be a Sheep,” “Choose Reality,” “Reject Narcissism,” “Think for Yourself,” “Embrace Adulthood,” “Pay Attention,” and “Embrace Fearless Leadership.” Bold and straightforward, Dr. McDonald once again draws on his experience as a psychiatrist and physician to diagnose this worldwide affliction. In this companion book to United States of Fear, he prescribes the consummate treatment plan for eradicating this Mass Delusional Psychosis once and for all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPost Hill Press
    Release dateSep 9, 2022
    ISBN9781637586211
    Freedom from Fear: A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery

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      Book preview

      Freedom from Fear - Mark McDonald M.D.

      Also by Mark McDonald

      United States of Fear: How America Fell Victim to a Mass Delusional Psychosis

      Published by Bombardier Books

      An Imprint of Post Hill Press

      ISBN: 978-1-63758-620-4

      ISBN (eBook): 978-1-63758-621-1

      Freedom from Fear:

      A 12 Step Guide to Personal and National Recovery

      © 2022 by Mark McDonald M.D.

      All Rights Reserved

      Cover Design by Matt Margolis

      Interior Design by Yoni Limor

      No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

      ../black_vertical.jpg

      Post Hill Press

      New York • Nashville

      posthillpress.com

      Published in the United States of America

      Contents

      Introduction

      The Fear Addiction

      Step 1

      Face the Mirror: Admit You Are an Addict

      Step 2

      Don’t Be a Sheep: Reject the Collective

      Step 3

      Live in the Real World: Choose Reality Over Fantasy

      Step 4

      Reject Narcissism: Your Fear Doesn’t Matter to Society

      Step 5

      Cut Off the Dealer: Eliminate Media Fear Junkies

      Step 6

      Think for Yourself: Or Others Will Think for You

      Step 7

      Accountability: Acknowledge the Harm Your Fear Has Caused Yourself and Others

      Step 8

      Embrace Adulthood: Find a Proper Way to Care for Those You Love

      Step 9

      Overrule Your Emotions: Act in Spite of Your Fear

      Step 10

      Find Perspective: Develop a Sense of Humor

      Step 11

      Pay Attention: Give the Gift of Your Full Presence

      Step 12

      Display Fearless Leadership: Grow Your Courage by Mentoring Others

      Conclusion

      Towards a National Recovery

      About the Author

      Introduction

      The Fear Addiction

      I went to dinner at a restaurant recently and walked past a mother and daughter waiting for the restroom. Both were wearing masks. I turned to the daughter, no more than ten or twelve years old, and asked, Why are you wearing that on your face? Unable to answer, she looked up at her mother for help. What came out of her mother’s mouth was an incoherent, hysterical tirade—a jumbled mess of nonsensical phrases like observing safety, closing schools, and ensuring compliance. Nothing she said sounded rational or well-considered in any way. She ended with this: You have no right to interfere in our lives and intrude into the decisions of our family. She then dragged her daughter into the restroom, clutching her to her chest for dear life, and locked the door behind both of them.

      The story doesn’t end there, though. After I returned to my table on the outdoor patio, a tense, frantic man appeared. He was looking for something, or someone. He approached me and demanded to know if I was the person who had just spoken to his wife. After I acknowledged that I was, he proceeded to explain that he was a nonmedical professor in a clinical department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and that all of my colleagues tell me that masking children is perfectly safe. I let him speak for several minutes before interrupting him to ask, "And how do you feel about ordering your daughter to wear a mask? His response? I feel nothing. He then demanded that I apologize to his wife for the emotional upset I had caused her. When I refused, he stormed out, muttering something about needing to take action…manager…police…consequences."

      After the husband ran off, the couple sitting at the table next to mine turned around, and the woman said, How awful and rude. This man is sick. We would never do something like that to our child. We’re from Orange County, and even though we had some legitimate concerns at the beginning of all this, we knew our children would be fine, and we’re certainly not afraid of anything now.

      The experience I had at the restaurant illustrates the growing divide in the United States between those who have emerged from under the blanket of fear and those who seem unable to let go of it. For this latter group, fear appears to be (oddly) a source of security. What is wrong with these people?

      More than two years have passed since the pandemic began, and it ended more than one year ago, yet a large swath of the U.S. population has chosen to continue to live in fear. Their decision defies all reason, logic, science, and common sense.

      Some may be completely unaware of the choice they have made to live in fear. They have become so conditioned to live, breathe, speak, and act in fear that they have lost access to a healthy baseline of what a non-fear-based life looks like. They are like an alcoholic who carries a flask in his breast pocket, nurses it throughout the day, and believes this to be normal behavior.

      Over the past several years, many Americans have become addicted to fear. This is clear from the ubiquitous sightings of lone drivers wearing masks in their cars, or individuals stepping into the street to avoid passing by another person on the sidewalk. Many adults now refuse to return to the office, voluntarily continuing to work from home, not for convenience but due to an unshakable discomfort about spending time in a room with other people every day. I see it expressed in children as well, many of whom feel terrified at the prospect of attending a sleepover, having spent nearly two years confined to their homes, unable to attend school or play with friends. More than half of Los Angeles residents polled before the Super Bowl in 2022 reported that they would be watching the event alone or only with immediate family due to their discomfort about celebrating the game with a large group. Americans have become so used to fear-driven behaviors that they have developed a dependency on them, and the thought of ending them produces a withdrawal response.

      Even now, as ludicrous and destructive mandates are suddenly lifted throughout the country (for purely political reasons), few Americans are choosing to return to a truly normal way of life. Many of those living in cities have shown themselves to be incapable of making informed decisions—they continue to wear masks wherever they go, eschew a healthy diet and regular exercise, and refuse to travel outside the confines of their neighborhood. The primary driver of weight gain today is empty calories: alcohol and nutrient-deficient foods that provide temporary comfort at the expense of long-term health. A young woman whose employer announced an end to mandatory mask-wearing at work recently told me she would continue to wear one anyway, because I have babies at home. Her coworker said, I’m not wearing one to work, but I’ll put it on when I go to crowded places. Both women are in their twenties and appear to be quite healthy, yet have adopted the ridiculous practice of covering their faces with a piece of dirty cloth because they believe the world they live in is no longer safe. They live in fear today because they cannot think critically.

      For some, particularly those living in a small town or rural America, fear addiction is a nonissue. They don’t rely on mainstream media to be informed, and they don’t look to the government to keep themselves safe. Their focus is on work, family, and church. They know how to accurately assess risk because they maintain a close relationship with their community and the natural environment. They have been inoculated against fear.

      For others, fear may be endemic in their family, circle of friends, and larger community. This is the reality in most urban areas in the United States today. While some larger cities, such as Tampa, have weathered the fear pandemic well, most have not. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., for example, have not fared well. Although government-imposed isolation is receding, large swaths of the population continue to lead lives of self-imposed, fear-driven isolation and disconnection from their communities. Even friends and family remain cut off from many. Although normalized in urban areas, this unhealthy behavior is viewed by healthy Americans as bizarre and unexplainable. What has gone wrong with these people?

      The answer is simple: They are addicted to fear.

      Fear can become an addiction. Just like gambling, sex, drugs, and video games, fear-based behaviors can spin out of control and damage the addict, as well as those close to him. Simply put, an addiction is an out-of-control, recurring behavior that causes harm: use despite harm and loss of control. None of the practices listed above necessarily lead to addiction, however. Many people enjoy a glass of wine without becoming an alcoholic. Placing a wager on the Super Bowl does not mean you are addicted to gambling. Unfortunately, these activities often do lead to addiction because of the way they affect our brain chemistry. One of the most recent addictions to plague society is the cell phone. It is not the phone itself that creates problems but rather the sophisticated apps like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat that capture the user’s attention and manipulate the brain in a way that deprives the user of his ability to easily disengage.

      All addictions are mediated by a neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine. Dopamine is known as the pleasure or reward signal and is produced during activities like exercise, sex, or smoking. The pleasurable feeling that comes from dopamine release becomes linked, over time, to the behavior that produced it, regardless of whether that behavior is truly healthy. Pleasure and health are often not related, which is why even harmful, self-destructive behaviors can be reinforced if they happen to be pleasurable at the moment.

      Cell phone software, for example, has been designed to provoke repeated small releases of dopamine through push notifications, likes, beeps, and other rewards that come both randomly and as a result of active use of the phone. Complex algorithms tease users with rewards after an extended period of inactivity as an incentive to return to the device, increasing in frequency during active use to extend the period of engagement as long as possible. As the business model of these applications relies on either ad revenue or the procurement of user data (or both) for growth, cultivating cell phone addiction is in the developers’ best interests. It enables these products to continue to gain market share, even while they wreck the lives of their consumers, who develop anxiety, depression, insomnia, and autistic social behaviors that handicap their growth and development.

      Certainly, cell phones have brought conveniences into our lives; however, the social cost has been high. It would be fair and accurate to describe the role of the cell phone software developer as that of a drug dealer, and the electronic rewards the software provides as the drug. Whether a phone, a bottle of whiskey, or a roulette table, the mechanism of addiction is the same—the user is lured by a pleasurable experience and then chemically captured by it, obliged to return for more.

      Soon, habituation and dependency develop. Habituation is what happens when you get used to an experience and begin to feel less excited by it the more you participate in it. Having chocolate cake for dessert every night would not be nearly as enjoyable after

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