Good afternoon, I'm Peter Sharus and this is stories from the front lines that reporters live video sessions on harm reduction responses to the crisis today. We will discuss what's the situation in the UK. I have two excellent guests with me need these from release UK human rights and drug policy reform NGO based in London. And that's elsewhere from your inputs the European network of people who use drugs. Both of them have been working in drug policy reform movement for a long time need not thank you so much for accepting our invitation. Hi. Hi. Thank you. So, before we start to speak about drugs, let's speak a bit about the general COVID situation in the UK. It seems that your country was really hit hard by this epidemic. So one of the countries with the diverse deaths rates in Europe. And now we hear from the news that the government is easing lockdown. So things are getting back to normal what some people think it's too early. If you have any opinion on like what what how do you see the general response to this this epidemic in the UK. Any of you please. Well, I suppose that I would say we probably went, I think I think it's clear we went in two weeks too late. I mean friends of mine from France and other countries was what's happening. What are you doing. My family definitely locked down much earlier than I think many people did actually look down much earlier than the government told us to the government really underestimated the ability of the British people to comply with the advice and people have really, really some of our government officials haven't applied but the British people definitely have more of the vast majority of British people have. So I think there's been a real problem in the delayed start. I have to say the public sector response has been really very, very creative and very, very flexible and very responsive. I think the government has been a bit lost and I think they're now compounding it by coming out to early the epidemic of the lockdown I mean. Yeah, I would reflect what Matt says to me I think you know, certainly at release as an organization we were recognizing that things were moving very quickly in terms of the pandemic and that the UK was not in a good situation and in fact we made a decision to move people to work in two weeks before the official lockdown. And I think that was largely because we recognized that the people that we provide legal services and drug services to are really vulnerable group. I mean, these are most of our clients have a history of heroin and crack cocaine use. They have comorbidity, low immune systems, and if they were to catch the virus. They would suffer the worst aspects of the virus, including death and in fact unfortunately we've lost a couple of clients during the crisis that we're aware of. So from our perspective it was what was responsible it was making sure that we were protecting the health of the people that we work with and we didn't want to put them at risk because we were traveling around on the tube or, you know, in contact with people who who could result in one of the most deadly infected and, you know, we'd likely be fine but the clients were our main priority. I think we have real concerns about the fact that we're moving too fast out of the lockdown and I think many of us in the field are going to continue to work remotely based on those principles of protecting the health and well being of the people that we work with and that we care about. Thank you for taking an online survey to assess the situation, the drug situation. Do you have any like preliminary results of that? We're just in the process of analyzing it. I'm delighted to say that we have Professor Judith Aldridge from the University of Manchester who's doing that work at the moment. And some of the initial results that we find is that the market has been remarkably resilient. There are regional differences in terms of purity around, for example heroin and crack cocaine. And this is the most popular drug as usual. And in fact I think that more people are using cannabis which is not surprising considering how anxious this whole situation can be. And so they're using cannabis to relieve that anxiety. Similarly with some of the benzone drugs as well. One of the things that we published early on with Vice was the behavior of people who supply drugs, which again was very responsible, which is unsurprising. But using PPE, social distancing, cleaning, the wrapping around drugs, so really taking steps to protect their clients, which I think kind of feeds into a kind of wider narrative that we've all been working on for years, which is to try and challenge the idea of the drug dealer as this kind of dangerous evil person. They're human beings who are serving a market. This market continues under lockdown and like all suppliers, they are trying to be responsible in this crisis. So, Matt, you said that you are running a harm reduction program with the organization locally. So can you tell us what is the situation on the streets? How did this crisis affect people who use drugs? Yeah, we were in a very fortunate situation, which is we've been offered some funding to do some development work within the UK on peer led harm reduction. And in fact, the funding fell to pieces just before the COVID-19 pandemic started, but it had meant that we'd started to run a pilot in my hometown of Bath, following a stock out in the local pharmacy needle and syringe program, which had led to lots of sharing and dangerous practice. So we started to work with some of the local, what we call friendship suppliers, these are people selling drugs, but selling drugs to support their own habits rather than necessarily having hotels and living in Caribbean islands. These are people struggling themselves to survive. So we had a couple of these people starting to give out of these friendship suppliers giving out needles and syringes. That also provided a platform for our peer to peer and the locks on distribution as well. So when the pandemic arrived, harm reduction services necessarily to protect their staff pulled back started to have social distancing offering NSP by delivery. So we scaled up and it was also very difficult to use the community pharmacy schemes because you got to queue for a long period of time. And then people would only give you one pack of needles and syringes after you queued half now for them. And that was really not working for a lot of drug users. So we were able to sort of, I think double the number of secondary NSPs we were providing. We had one mobile group of drug suppliers also giving out needles and syringes while they were selling to houses were doing it. We had a number of meeting up points also giving out needles and syringes and we also backed it up by running a delivery service as well so that we've been delivering around picking up in some of the rural areas. I'm picking up people who are socially isolating at home delivering methadone to some of our peers socially isolating at home. So really it's been a really great response and it's led drug users to really start identifying much more overtly as a drug user group and thinking together the first secondary NSP set up by somebody other than myself has also just gone live. So again it's just it starts to show this community network process taking place. And we've been recently written to by the director of public health in our local area to thank us for our response. I just read an article in the independent written by young Hamilton, and it says that the UK's drug policies allowing a social genocide to go unnoticed. So it's like quite quite a dramatic description of the situation that you agree with this, or how do you see this. I think he is referring to like the unappropriate rules for prescription of opiate substitution medication so and then the system is not based on evidence, and it is just lets people drive. I think I think the reality is it's the opposite. In fact, what we've had is a highly punitive system in the last 15 years. I ran OST services and we have general practitioners and specialist services involved in thousands of people being on OST. Now we started to create a much more flexible system where people were able to focus on positive game they didn't have to pretend to be using not to be using drugs. And we showed people know we created this really dynamic partnership between general practitioners and drug users that was helping people think about progressive change. And the system seemed to clamp down because the government wanted to focus on criminality, and there was this big ideological push towards recovery. We've seen a decline in treatment numbers rising over those deaths surprise surprise because we know these two things often go hand in hand. And suddenly COVID has forced the government to do what they should have and drug service to do what should have been done all the time. We've got weekly take home. We've got fast access to treatment. We've even got some choice when I guess they prefer people to be on group and orphan. But if you press you get onto methadone. So I think now in some parts of the country we've even got no heroin assisted treatment as well. So, no, I think this COVID pandemic has shown drug services at their best in fact not at their worst. And I think the key is that we need to carry this on beyond COVID. So this is the new not going back to the progressive no regressive model that we've had for the last 15 years. Yeah, we completely agree with that. I think what we saw at the start of the crisis was a perculean approach by drug treatment providers who shifted thousands and talking 10s of thousands of people of daily supervised consumption or daily pickups onto weekly or 90 scripts. And, you know, that is there are risks involved in that. And I think it right at the start the big concerns were around, you know, risk of overdose and diversion. And we've had lots of Matt and I are working quite closely together in the UK and there's a group of us working on making sure this model continues post the crisis post COVID 19 to ensure that people can get access to the treatment that they need. And they are respected within the treatment system. So I think some of those concerns around diversion, for example, didn't. They didn't come to fruition. People were very much wanting to hold on to their scripts. They weren't selling them. But then there's a conversation about, well, if they are diverting them into the market, is that really a bad thing. And in fact, we had a conversation last week about why is it with this population that we always see it as devious if I divert their medication that they can't be trusted with their medication. How many of us know aunts and uncles and mothers and fathers who give out, you know, their sleeping tablets, which are also controlled drugs quite regularly to family members, which is diversion. So why would this group do we sort of diminish that experience, which often, you know, and I think Matt talked about this last week in a meeting, which often can be a very caring approach that you see a friend who is in pain because they're withdrawing. So you give them some of their method to take away that pain and to take away those withdrawals. So, you know, what we've seen is that the concerns that were identified at the start weren't worn out. But what we have heard is really positive feedback from the clients, from people in treatment saying they feel trusted, they feel in charge of their own treatment plan. They like the idea of having key workers phone them up rather than having to trips into time for meetings on a regular basis, which costs bus fares and often this is a population that hasn't got much income. So I think there are so many positives that come out. This is the one silver lining that I see from this crisis. We're working hard with Matt and others and with the drug treatment fighters and with academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to start to build the evidence base to push for this system to be retained post COVID-19. And that will be a battle, I think, because you'd still have that ideological position within government that any liberalisation is a way of pursuing reforms in the drug laws. What we're actually talking about is good treatment that respects people and meets people where they're at and has them involved in the decisions around what they need in terms of their medication. It's interesting, it's coming up in all discussions in this series that people actually don't want to go back to the normal, let's say the normal which was before this pandemic because people working in the drug field seeing that this crisis opened up new possibilities to breaking down the rules which were outdated. So do you have any discussions about any new innovative ways which were not possible before? Maybe some new opportunities for drug consumption rooms? Is there any discussion on that? I think a couple of issues. I mean, I think one thing we're starting to think about is what do we mean by the process of supervision and support for people on LSD. So one of the arguments of drug treatment providers is we get people to be supervised or at least daily dispense so that we can keep in touch with them, we can help them know and monitor them in case they have problems. In reality, we make people then have to go to pharmacists where they see other drug users, they might see other drug, they might see drug suppliers on the way, they might be harassed by someone who wants to buy their prescription on the way out. And actually, sometimes when we give people take homes and then follow them up virtually, we actually offer all of the support without any of the complications that might have previously been in place. And I'm really happy to see drug treatment providers starting to have that sort of conversation about, we could do this differently and offer people much better support in the future. I think the big missing piece and again it's one of the key areas where government, the Home Office into fear in public health is where we as the professional field and also as drug users have argued for crack pipe distribution, which is a key missing component of the harm reduction response in the UK always been important because of hepatitis C, but now doubly important because of COVID-19. And the fact that we can't give crack pipes out to people so we're giving out advice like this, you know, you're an input leaflet that we've given out in 20 countries in multiple languages. There's no point giving advice to people not to share pipes if they don't have pipes to not know so they can actually not share. And the fact that our home secretary blocked the professional field and public health England from going ahead with a crack pipe distribution scheme, because it was seen as somehow akin to liberalization highlights are all too often politicians interfere in drug policy and don't follow the science. Absolutely. I mean I think what the discussions in terms of drug consumption rooms and crack pipes is that real reform in the UK is only possible at a local level at the moment. And I don't know what Matt thinks but I think that this government it's highly unlikely that we will see national reforms anytime soon. And as I said, there is a growing body of professionals police public health, local councils. Those in the medical profession and he has providers who are coming together and saying right. Okay, we're not going to get this nationally we need to stop expanding energy, focusing on reforms through that mechanism. What we need to do is work locally so one of the things this week is the University of Kent, Professor Alex Stevens is bringing together people from across the UK to have a webinar on DC ours, and to start to look at the evidence of how we would do this how we achieve this what mechanisms need to be in place in order to protect drug treatment providers who are establishing drug consumption rooms through say for example a memorandum of understanding the police public health and the providers and the local authorities. So that work is is continuing in the UK. We're aware of at least two police areas that we can't say obviously in a public setting, who are really committed to trying to implement these facilities in the future. So those conversations around drug policy reform and harm reduction enhancement have not ended in the UK. It's just that we're we're refocusing on the local rather than the national. Last time we spoke with Norwegian colleagues and they said that the government there is considering substitution for stimulant users. I mean it's, it's like very few discussions about this, although I think it would be a really relevant issue to discuss how what do you think about this prospect of having stimulant substitution programs in the same way as we have opiate substitution programs. We've done it for years in the UK. I think I'm a fortunate minority practice not majority practice but we have cocaine prescribing back in the 1960s. Dick Pates was prescribing amphetamine dexamphetamine to people using amphetamine sulfate at Cardiff drug and the Cardiff addiction services. So we've had, and then John and John Marx was also prescribing cocaine up in in Liverpool as well. So we have had some good examples around the country it's always remained very minority practice. There's a new UNODC guidelines on the treatment of stimulant use which they don't talk about as dexamphetamine as a substitute for stimulants but they do at least acknowledge that it is a good pharmacotherapy that hopefully I think will provide some support to other people to get a better look at stimulant prescribing. It's a key logical issue. Peter Blanken's work here from the Netherlands highlights its effectiveness both for methamphetamine users and cocaine users. So really I think it's a tool that we're not actively using. I mean there are clearly some concerns around people getting psychosis but I think Dick Pates' argument was that population that do get psychosis in treatment probably would have got psychosis in the community better than they get in a supported environment than abandoned in the street. It's a safe supply of all of the substances is a really important conversation and I think you know it's absolutely right. It's kind of a minority practice within the UK and to some degree historical life. It's one of the conversations that again has been emerging because of COVID what we have seen is a significant increase in benzo, straight benzo use in the UK, and certainly there is interest from drug treatment providers of looking into prescribing benzos to substitute street use of the substances so I think this is another area that we'll see developments on in the next few months. So as far as I know the benzos are linked to opiate overdoses as well right, opiate overdoses that's especially in Scotland so what is the... So they gather patents, yeah. So what's the situation with overdoses now in the UK and access to maloxone. There are very, very high levels of access to naloxone. I mean it's mostly through take home naloxone. I think we've started to realise particularly after Euromaid did a sort of peer audit of take home naloxone a couple of years ago. We realise that no take home naloxone gets us so far, but it really does target the treatment population and really the population we need to reach is the active drug use in population. So that's where peer-to-peer naloxone is much more effective. Interestingly in the UK we've seen actually recovery peer based groups coming in and as part of their giving back to the community and actually doing great work in Glasgow and in the north of England to actually distribute naloxone through to the active drug using community and then groups like my own in the west of England which are more actively based drug user groups. So we definitely make sure that naloxone is widely available and people are widely skilled in using it. We had a spate of overdoses last year, which two overdose deaths which caused the police to do some drug testing in our area. We introduced peer-to-peer naloxone and four lives were saved within the next three months. So I think once we give drug users the skills and the resources, they step up and can save each other's lives. So the best transformers are using community. My peers now are so proud of their capacity to look after each other and care for each other. And naloxone is a core part of the response in our community. Again, I think this is something that's really come out of the situation with COVID and the lockdown is, you know, when we did analysis on the availability of and the scale of naloxone provision at release. It was very important, which was 2018. We estimate it that it was only one in three people who were opiate users were actually getting access to it. And prior to the crisis, you know, drug services bought in a huge stock of naloxone and distributed it to really high levels. The question is, why does it take a global pandemic to do that when the UK has the highest rates of drug-related deaths on record in seventh year in the row. We account for what is it one in three of all overdose deaths in the Europe. It's great. And I think we're all celebrating that, but we need to continue to remember that this needs to be practiced, whether there's a global pandemic or whether there's not. And we must work to protect the lives of those who are at most a risk of overdose. We must systematically plan for it as well, because one of the challenges that we have these very erratic patterns of ordering, it also creates problems to the pharmaceutical companies in terms of responding. So one of the things we need to do is start to have a much more consistent model. One of the things we've called for is is a national budget for buying naloxone. So actually there's, there isn't, there's not a penalty on people who actually successfully distribute naloxone. Unfortunately, we've got a very, very localized approach to drug treatments in the UK. So that, in reality, that was one of the ways of coping with austerity was to throw everything into the local area. However, as Nebe is saying, it does open up its very new opportunity, particularly with police and crime commissioners and local public health officers starting to say we want our area to do things differently. And then it becomes a shift in operational policing and public health policy, not a change in the fundamental war around drug control. And one of the most vulnerable groups during the pandemic are prisoners. So do you do you have any information what's happening inside of UK prisons? I've heard that there were some plans to release some prisoners, but I think after it was failed. Yes, it's been well thought, you mean the government's behavior and this is absolutely disgusting.  And you know, I think the most recent figure that I saw was about 55 that may have just gone up to over 100 people released. In fact, this morning, a BBC journalist reported that there is increased cases of COVID within the prison system. I mean, this is a petri dish for the virus itself. And beyond that risk, beyond the real risk to health because of the virus is also the conditions that prisoners are having to live in because of the lockdown 23 hours a day in a cell. They're not getting out for exercise. They're not able to see their family for family visits. They're not able to get properly fed because of the situation in the canteens where they come to eat. I mean, this is not only a health disaster. It's a human rights disaster. And the fact that we are the UK and we are allowing this to happen is disgraceful. And one of the most egregious things that I think was when they released the rules on who should be released. There were lots of different kind of complex when that complex with rules that would dictate when someone could be released from prison say they had six months left on their sentence that type of thing or it was a nonviolent offense. They explicitly excluded juveniles who are being convicted of any drugs offense, including possession, who were in the youth custodial estate scale and the reason they said this is well, you know, they were asked by the secretary of state for prisons was asked about this in the parliament and was asked why are children is specifically excluded and they said well, if they're being held in custody, it will have been a serious offense. That to me again, it's just a kind of dereliction of duty here. They really just don't care about this population. I think this is again, you know, the UK has a lot to be ashamed of in this crisis, a lot. As evidenced by our high rates of deaths from COVID-19. But this too is one of the shameful events, I think. Yeah. What about the homeless people because they are the other vulnerable groups. And it was a real challenge in many cities to provide shelter for for homeless people. How did how did the cities manage with this problem in the UK. I have to say the homelessness is one of the areas where the UK can be very proud of its response. I think the scenario where the homeless system has really stepped up. So the government initially put plans in place for 5000 homeless people to be or street homeless people to be drawn off the streets. 14,000 people came forward in the initial wave. Now, many of those dropped away quite quickly because the hostels were really not very good at coping with people with quite severe mental health problems with surrounding alcohol problems, active injecting going on. Some of these hotels had a thousand people in them and they were quite challenging environments. And I think some people also chose to move into slightly safer places on the street, particularly because it was nice weather, there were less people on the streets. So there were for some people that became a preferable place to be. There was an attempt by the government then to pass the buck back to local authorities to say look we've given you quite a lot of money to to manage the problems but they've asked them also to manage huge amounts of different problems. And then they said well do you mind housing all these homeless people as well. And the local authorities said you've got to be crazy we can't afford to do all of these things you're asking us to do. And then that led to them to say well no, that won't be our fault trying to duck responsibility. The founder of the homeless magazine in the UK big issue said it would be a human rights violation to put these people back onto the street again now that we for once in a generation, have them all off the streets. And that's led to a very healthy public debate which I think at the moment is forcing the government to come up with pretty radical solutions to house these people in the short term and to give you give longer term housing. And I've just seen some of the peers I know who are now living in hostels. One young woman who woman in her 40s has been living on the streets now in our area for about 10 years. She said her chest health has just dramatically improved since she one came onto script and two went into a homeless hostel. No, I think that many individual stories happening to thousands and thousands of homeless street homeless people across the UK, and now the public pressure to get them housed. I think that's good. That's that's one of the silver lining to this epidemic. I agree with Matt. It is a silver lining. I just want to see the proof in the pudding. I mean this government's great at announcements, but I'm not sure I trust them enough to follow through and they put it, you know, the announcement was made Sunday week ago, which was on the same day that Dominic Cummings was being signed and and quite correctly criticized in the press. So they make this big announcement like look how good we are look over here. But you know, our view is that that's money that was already committed to the homeless to try and deal with the homelessness crisis in this country back in January so it's not new money. There's lots of kind of like we're making promises that 3000 people will be in permanent accommodation by the end of the year. This is a complex moving situation. And also to what we're seeing in the streets of London and it is an increased new population of people who are homeless, those who have lost their jobs because of the crisis, who have been kicked out of their accommodation. So our concern is that one, this government hasn't always been great and following through on policies for the most vulnerable and in fact, with 10 years of austerity under conservative governments, successive conservative governments, we've seen more damage to the most vulnerable in our society than arguably we have in the last 15 years. I'd like to see the preface in the pudding and our organization will be working directly with people who are homeless to secure long term housing with them for them. So one motif which came up throughout this discussions we made with different countries was that wherever we have strong peer involvement. Things were going faster and the response was much more effective than in countries where there is no, there are no strong peer led organizations. I think that in the UK that now this crisis somehow revealed the importance or underlying the importance of peer involvement. Yeah, look, I think, I mean, it's been an it's been an extraordinary time for us because we mobilized well through the 1980s and 90s we had a lot, a lot of response where drug users know ran illegal needle exchanges for the official needle exchanges came into play. There were really dynamic drug user groups across the country doing, working in Moss side in places where the police couldn't go there were drug user groups letting their homes be used for secondary NSPs. As we came out of that epidemic Tony Blair came in and started to re demonize people who use drugs, which was when I personally came out as a drug user in objection to that. And then we got caught in this five year battle which was where we got caught between the Department of Health and drug czar's office, getting into this fight with each other where essentially we became the battering ramming. We were destroyed by people who didn't even care enough to oppose us directly they just use us as a tool to fight each other with and destroyed work that we did putting together 45 drug user groups in a in the world's first unified network of all types of drug users. That's then led to the drug users in the UK being very, very reluctant to want to organize together again. We've all tended to return to our local areas and there's been a lot of good local work going on, but nobody's really wanted to come back to and recognize despite UK drug users playing quite significant roles and input in your input in various different networks around the place being technical advisors, but we've never had a network and we were just coming back together again tentatively thinking about working together, uniting all the different types of recovery active and service user groups, and then covered here. And suddenly it's forced us to talk to each other again. It really gave a momentum to talking to get to each other again. And yeah look I mean things have really have really moved forward it's reminded us of our commitment to each other. It's reminded us of the good work we're all doing back in our local areas, and it's created the sense of solidarity and also because particularly release has this particular pivotal role in the UK as one of our longer standing drugs NGOs that has played a role of bringing together and I think that's been, we can all really say no to release has helped us find our objections and come come together and found a way of working together which is something I hope will be an enduring legacy of COVID-19. I think it's a privilege it's my favorite single of every two weeks. It's a joy just all these, and I think what's beautiful about it I don't know if you agree Matt it's just this. It's people that who had been polarized by policy and by funding mechanisms over the last 10 years because of a push to recovery as defined by abstinence, rather than recovery being defined by the individuals on experience. But it's so respectful and there's just such a common, some common desire to help people who are at the kind of an end of the wedge of all of this the most vulnerable and it's a it's a real joy you mean it's a beautiful thing to say and it's a real privilege to be on those calls and to hear all of those brilliant people who know so much more than I do. I think we've found a way past our differences so we do disagree quite fundamentally on some issues know the recovery groups. We jokingly laugh about them as being happy clappies and they see us as a bunch of junkies all committed to our using and the fact that we can sort of laugh about that with a British sense of humor. That doesn't become the focus of the difference. What brings us together is that we are all in our local areas, caring for the community and doing something very respectful and very dynamic ways. And, okay, we may see our drug use slightly differently from each other we may define active drug use or active addiction or talk about it in different ways. When it comes to the delivery of secondary NSP when it comes to the delivery of peer to peer naloxone or crack harm reduction or mutual aid. That is has a consistent theme through it which is drug users loving other drug users and for me, that what brings us together and I don't care whether people get their own self support in a different way than I do. That doesn't matter to me so much. There used to be a lot of discussions in the UK between these two different streams of drug treatment like recovery harm reduction is that still a kind of ongoing debate or it's already settled. I think I think we would say there's probably ever progressive or what we would call a progressive recovery movement I think one of the things as active drug users we've done is we've learned to see the difference between the recovery industry. And this recovery self help movement and they're different. It's very easy to typify them as being the same because they sometimes use similar language, but actually the recovery self help movement is a group of drug users, really caring and looking out for each other and looking now doing social activities running cafes doing mutual aid doing, no doing a whole load of things which are really mutually caring and supportive. Interestingly, more and more of them are doing peer led harm reduction that they're taking on the peer to peer in a lock zone. They're now starting to follow some of our lead in terms of doing secondary NSP. And for me that's really exciting and now look I think we can, we can see past our differences I think sometimes you become so focused on the differences that you lose sight of what actually unites you. And I think sometimes when you focus on what unites you, the differences seem less important. So it sounded, you sounded quite optimistic about it, you know this crisis brought up a lot of solidarity in society. How do you see the future. I mean we can we can expect a big economic slowdown and some economic crisis, which can affect our community so how do you see that. Well I think the big danger is the economic crisis I mean I think no it's likely that the economic crisis will kill far more people than COVID-19 ever did. Even though we let COVID-19 kill far too many people than it should have done in the UK but even so I think the financial crisis that comes will will kill far more people. And I think we have a real choice as a society do we use this as a transformation in moments around things like the green climate change know we're going to have lots of people unemployed. Does this now become a way that we green our society. And similarly when it comes to drug treatment. Do we carry on prosecuting people and putting large numbers of people in prison or do we actually realize the huge economic benefits of drug regulation. Let's bring no legalized cannabis start to have a no regulated market for all drugs. Let let us pay for our own drug treatment. Let's pay for our own harm reduction and probably we could cover social care as well within the profits so why don't we just move to a much more rational society and also involve us in regulating ourselves rather than trying to police us because actually if you look at the growth of cannabis social clubs 30,000 people conservatively in the UK now involved in collective growing and supporting of each other. That's what happens when you allow people to respond collectively as communities here led naloxone support groups of what's that groups going out and caring for each other that's what happens when drug users are trusted. People give them take homes and not selling their scripts. That's what happens when drug users are trusted and that should be the new normal if they go backwards. Well we will lose all of the good will that's been built up in this period. I think just to add I mean the first response when the crisis hit from drug treatment was harm reduction, wasn't it? It was like, how do we sort out OST? How do we make sure that people have enough injecting equipment to keep them safe? How do we get naloxone out there? That was the first response from everybody. There was, and I feel that that kind of reembraced harm reduction in a way that it hadn't been for a few years. And that was happening within the treatment sector anyway. There's been some really significant developments amongst the organizations who delivered drug treatment in the UK in the last three or four years would be a bit longer. So I think we were already kind of moving in that right direction along with like the recovery groups coming along and coalescing around schools that we all share and that's like people should not be treated as criminals. They should not be criminalized because of their drug use. That, you know, we need to treat this as a health issue. That's what's important. So I think there was a kind of rebalancing going on anyway but COVID just sort of accelerated that to a degree that we wouldn't have maybe experienced without it. I'm hopeful that we can retain that. I am concerned that the economic crisis will actually lead to more austerity. The government has said that that's not on the cards but they've had 10 years of it. It's an easy answer for them rather than taxing their friends. I agree with Matt. I think cannabis regulation is very likely. Cannabis legalization. I think that was likely anyway. I think we're looking at a conservative government that is led by someone who is essentially a libertarian who is close to industry and was having conversations arguably within number 10 with Canadian and US producers who are operating legally. My concern is that that could result in the cannabis clubs, for example, being sort of estimated by this that they are sacrificed at the altar of capitalism, but also to that the opportunity to bring in social equity models. Because people will know what those are where we expunge previous records where we make sure that those who are over placed and over imprisoned benefit from the market because of their their previous so-called illegal activity in the cannabis arena. So I think those are the things that we will be fighting for. And I think it will be a bit of a battle because of where this government is at ideologically when it comes to economics. One of the things and, you know, obviously, one of the things that we expected to happen under COVID was potentially a reduction in policing in the month of the lockdown and we were shocked to see that in fact, the Metropolitan police are responsible for London managed to carry out the highest level of stop and searches on record for seven years in a month. How they did that we still don't know that's a pretty amazing outcome. But again, it was black people being targeted and you know obviously we have what's going on in the US with George Floyd step and the protests and the reaction which we understand that comes from the face of pain and it needs to express itself and it's awful and this is structural racism and we're seeing similar things in the UK. Okay, people are not dying at the hands of the police. They have done in the past. They have they died at in police custody. But what we are seeing are black and brown people being targeted by police being handcuffed as a matter of routine. And those things are really concerning and so I think that conversation within the cannabis regulated discussions and the policy is it is really important if we want to tackle drug policy reforms not going to cure racism in society, but it could ameliorate some of the damage by reducing the parts that the police have to harass black people in the UK. Bruce Alexander, I met with him just before the cannabis legalization in Canada, and he was saying to me I don't support it. I actually said look I think we are going to lose our small industries we're going to know we've built up this really great culture under medicinal cannabis use with this informal regulation and big business is going to come in and swamp this and of course he was absolutely right and I think we need to learn from this in how we think about deregulating and particularly that's the concern of this government who tend to favor big business models rather than supporting something that might be more health oriented and particularly we've got an amazing kind of a social club club up in the northeast in the team T side, which is now not just running cannabis social club and doing medicinal cannabis advice. They're also running mental health service support. They're having welfare people being some of the most complicated people who mental health services can't respond. I've been referred to the cannabis social club management. And I think when we start to see this is what could happen if you start to release. In fact, this was the coalition we brought back at the end of the 1990s to the government to work with the government. So now we are here we are 15 years later coming back again. And let's hope our government responds a little bit more constructively this time rather than trashing on me even as they did last time. Thank you for mentioning this. I mean the cannabis reform issue because I think it's extremely important, not only in the UK but all over Europe we see this discussions and we have been working for cannabis reform for several decades and now we see that it's coming but not in a way we would like to see it. And I think we need to have more, more clarity and more discussions in the European level about the, and even after Brexit we consider you as part of Europe. So, thank you very much need and Matt for for joining me here today and thank you for all those who watched us live on Facebook. Please stay with us, follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and stay informed and stay safe. Thank you very much. Goodbye.


So if you are new to this series and you're wondering why your shots are not hitting or why everything is hitting you, this video will hopefully explain why and how you can fix all of those problems. Now I'm just an old school raven, I've been playing the game religiously since 2000, and I'm also a game developer that has spent a significant portion of their life, reverse engineering most of the mechanics found in Armored Core's combat system. And I basically use Armored Core's targeting system in just about every game I've ever made. So before I explain how it works, you have to understand how targeting in Armored Core generally works and how it's different from most other mech games, in particularly compared to Gundam games, which is where we have a lot of new AC players coming from. Now most games operate on what you can call a on target system, which is where weapons aim directly on the target. To help demonstrate what I mean, I'm going to go ahead and open up one of my old game projects, and we're just going to set aiming type 2 on target. Okay, so this is how it is in most Gundam games. When you're fighting an on target system, the best way to dodge is literally move anywhere. Stray, walk, run, jump, whatever. As long as you are moving, the bullets are never going to hit you, because by the time the bullets travel to their target, you are no longer there. Now Armored Core, since the beginning though, instead operates on intercept. And if we go back to my demo project and we switch aim to intercept, now you can see what this means on target system on intercept, your armored core will always aim where the enemy is going. So if you are trying to dodge stuff the same way you do in Gundam, you are going to get hit with everything because you're walking straight into the intercept. And the armored core system is always one step ahead, aiming where you want to go, not where you are. So the question then becomes, okay, how do you defeat a system that is mathematically perfectly calculated to intercept you? And the answer is you have to fake your velocity, change direction as often as possible. One of the biggest mistakes I see new players in Armored Core 6 make is when they're out of energy, they kind of just hover towards their enemy until it recharges. And that's a great way to get you killed immediately. Don't just hover in a straight line, shift your momentum, switch it up between left and right, throw in a jump if you have to. The more you shift your momentum in different directions, the more you will dodge enemy fire. Now if you're an old school AC vet, then you probably know this. But if you're new to the game, then you should know that there are actually some optimal evasive maneuver patterns that will basically always dodge everything. Take a guess as to what sort of evasive pattern is the intercept system's worst nightmare. Well, it's actually a circle. When you move in a circle, the intercept system doesn't know what to do because your velocity is constantly changing. You're never really going in a straight line. So by the time it calculates the intercept point, you've already changed your velocity and the shot is going to miss another popular evasive pattern is the figure eight or the infinity sign, which is basically just two circles stacked on top of each other. But simply put, the more circular your movement, the less fire you're going to take from the intercept system. This is why the most advanced players in Armored Corps traditionally have always had a very aerial oriented style of combat. Because when you're on the ground, you can only change your velocity in four directions forward, backwards, left and right. But when you're in the air, you can change your velocity in six directions forward, back, left, right, up and down. And the more options you have to shift your velocity, the less likely you're going to get hit. Now Armored Corps six is a very ground oriented game. So you might be thinking, well, quick boosting doesn't really allow you to make a circle anymore. The best we can do is kind of like a square. And you're kind of right, but you can actually still make a square work if you just make one small adjustment.  What you want to do is strafe left or right and quick boost diagonally back. Because what this does is stack your left and right velocity on top of your forward and back velocity, which doubles your chances of throwing off the intercept. If you have a lot of energy to spare, what you should do is throw in some jumps on top of that and try and travel in a backward zigzag. If you do this, you should be able to dodge virtually every projectile in the entire game. But there is one aspect where the traditional circular dodge still applies in Armored Course 6. And it's most easiest done with quads in the air while hovering. Remember when I said the best way to dodge is a circle? Well, watch what happens from the enemy's perspective when I position myself up here. You see that? Now we have the circle. And from this position, as long as I'm traveling in a circular pattern, if my enemy is on the ground shooting, nothing is really going to hit me here. And from this position, you should never travel in a straight line. If you want to run or chase someone, do it in a zigzag. If you want to stay in place and avoid, do it in a circle. And if you're on the ground and you need to get out, diagonal back, left, right, and jump. So that is how a raven dodges a perfect system. I hope that helps and as always, I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you next time.


Well, hello and welcome to Understand Men Now. I'm Jonathan Asley of johnathanasley.com and I'm so excited to be doing this live stream for you today. Our topic, the five steps to stay high value when he doesn't call or text. Really quickly, if you're brand new to my YouTube channel, please hit the subscribe button, hit the bell so you can be notified of new videos. And if any time during this video, the content resonates with you, please hit that like button so I could be seen in the YouTube algorithms.  It's direct, a little tough love and a lot of heart. And occasionally I use expletives to enhance the sentence. So if an F bomb or two isn't your cup of tea, I suggest logging off right now. Lastly, these are my thoughts, my perceptions, my opinions. By no means do I suggest this is the truth. You have to decide the truth for yourself. I'm a bit of a contrarian, so my advice goes contrary to public opinion and tradition. So then again, I invite you to explore my content to see if it resonates with you or not. All right, let's jump into those five steps to stay high value when he doesn't call or text. So whether it's a man or woman, when someone begins to communicate less with us, especially if we've invested time into getting to know someone, that can feel very frustrating. That can be very, what's the word? Not demoralizing, what's the word I'm thinking of? I mean, certainly frustrating, but it can certainly wear on us emotionally when we think we're getting to know someone and then all of a sudden they start to pull away, they start to communicate less, you start to feel something different. And this is certainly very natural to feel frustration, maybe a little bit of anger, maybe a little upset. It's natural to feel that way when you think you're building something with somebody and then it's not happening. So I just want you to understand that this is very normal and we are in such unique times then when we were back in the cave man days where the only people you made it with were in your tribe, if you will. And then as we grew into larger villages, most everybody knew everyone. And then when we started to live in towns, there was a sense of community around us. And when we did connect with people, most of the time these things lasted for a lifetime. And certainly this was true for the most part up until probably about a hundred years ago. And then certainly with the invention of divorce and I say the invention of divorce, certainly the proliferation of divorce starting around the 60s and 70s, at least a much greater percentage of divorce, we see a whole different shift in mating practices and the mating ritual. And quite frankly, dating is a relatively new phenomena. Let me repeat that dating is a relatively new phenomenon. Dating didn't exist back in the cave man days or even thousand years ago or 500 years ago. You pretty much, up until about a hundred years ago, if you wanted to get laid, you had to get married for the most part. And quite frankly, when the term courtship was invented, if you will, courtships only lasted a few weeks because people wanted to get laid and they got married. Nowadays, people, that's why dating, you know, a lot of people fantasize about the idea of courtship, especially from a romantic sense, because it feels so good to be romanced into a relationship, romance to falling in love with somebody. It feels so good and chemistry feels so good. And yet there's a deception to chemistry of two people don't share the same values, their lifestyles aren't wonderful, and they lack a level of emotional maturity. So I'm here to encourage a different way of viewing the process, not from the fantasy way. And what I mean by fantasy, many of you are suckling on the nipple of romance as the indicator of relationship success. In fact, many of you are so desiring of romance to feel good about the process instead of actually vetting someone to determine if they're a really good partner to be in your life, to think about compatibility outside of chemistry. And if you're not familiar with my relationship iceberg chart, I'm gonna put it up for everyone to see.  But below the waterline, in other words, the meat of this iceberg, if you will, is compatibility that shared values blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. That's the more important piece. So this whole fantasy around romance and being romanced so you can feel good about someone is just the surface level if you're not digging underneath. So then what, then you're thinking, okay, Jonathan, I'm gonna start digging underneath. I'm gonna think about compatibility in a more conscious way, which is great. I'm here to encourage that. So why does someone start to communicate less? And I wanna spend a moment leaning into that because oftentimes that person's life is going through some level of chaos. Maybe they're going through a contentious divorce with an ex. Maybe they have a contentious relationship with their ex. Maybe they're going through some professional chaos in their life that's consuming them, especially for men, because men identify with their professional life as to who they are as a person. So if someone's going through professional chaos, the ground underneath them is in solid to actually form a fully committed relationship with someone. Maybe they have some issues going on with their children if they are divorced and have children. Maybe that's part of the process. Maybe they have some health issues. Or worse, maybe they're not consciously thinking about commitment because most human beings, especially after going through divorce, are thirsty for connection, companionship and sex, but not necessarily cognitive of the whole understanding of the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. This is why ladies, I repeat this over and over and over again.  And the reason why you purchase two copies is if you're gonna begin a relationship with someone, then start asking the better questions to understand the mechanics. This teaches you the mechanics to a healthy, happy relationship. And it helps build intimacy in the process. And intimacy means into me you see. Instead of focusing on romance, I know so many of you are suckling on that nipple of desiring romance instead of actually genuinely getting to know someone to determine if they're right for you. And think back thousands of years ago, it was a lot easier to determine someone was right for you because when you grew up in a small tribe, everybody knew each other, they felt safe with one another. They felt safe with one another. Now for the most part, we're meeting total strangers in the dating process, primarily through these little devices. And we know so little about them to feel safe in our heart. And this is true for men and women. This is true more so for women, it's important, but for men as well. But since men are typically driven by their penis, we'll be gung ho to get laid. That's why you guys all hear about men love the hunt. They love the chase and let them hunt and chase you because if they capture you, they claimed you.   And more importantly, is this person emotionally mature enough to be in relationship?  This is why if you're not familiar with my emotional maturity relationship skills chart, I want you to take a look at this. By the way, at the bottom, it says this isn't a fact that's an opinion, but I say roughly 20% of the population has clinical issues, borderline personality, bipolar personality, narcissists, sociopath. And while some people can use medication to work on this and people that actually have addressed their issues like borderline or bipolar disorder, they have a chance for a healthy relationship. If they're not addressing their issues, it makes it very difficult to be in relationship with them. And then I say over here, roughly about 20% of the population is emotionally healthy and have good relationship skills. And I'm being ridiculously generous when I say 20%, it's probably closer to three to 5%. And this is you ladies as well.  And I want you to stay for about 20 minutes because I'm gonna share why. Bear with me about 15 or 20 minutes. I'll share why most of you are not. And then most everybody else is in the dysfunctional realm. This is why it's important to understand this instead of listening to the bullshit dating advice you hear over and over again. Like I say, and I joke, you guys know, if you follow me, you know, I love to joke about the feminine energy coaching. And while I am all for personal empowerment and being in your power and loving on yourself, in fact, I wrote a book about it called What the Heck Is Self-Love Anyway? A Journey of Personal Development, Self-Health and Spiritual Work so you can feel good about yourself. And by the way, there's a link below to check out all my recommended books because the number one emotional health issue for people is I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable and I'm not likable. And nothing triggers this like dating and relationships. This is why I'm such a big proponent of people doing the inner work, doing the work so you can actually lean into a healthy happy relationship. And whether or not someone does pull away and stops texting or they stop communicating, you still feel so good about yourself. So we're gonna lean into those five steps for that high value person. So when someone does pull away, you don't have to freak out when it happens. So I'm gonna put on my trusty glasses. We're gonna pull out our notes right here, bum, bum, bum. All right, number one. First thing to do is don't overanalyze what's happening. Don't overanalyze what's happening and worse, don't make it about you. Don't make it about you being wrong or something bad about you. One of the fundamental principles to understand in relationship is, look at chapter one in my book says, speak your truth, do it with kindness. And later on in the book chapter nine, it says, if it's sincere and from the heart, you can't say the wrong thing to the right person. So when you're with the right person, they're most likely not going to pull away, maybe temporarily for a minute if someone is stressed out, garden variety stress, they might temporarily pull away for 24, 36 hours. But if you're seeing 48, 72 hours, a week not leading in. They're a week or so not leaning into the conversation. Don't make it about something being wrong about you and don't overanalyze it. We'll talk about that in a few minutes as well. Number two is remember, you are good enough.  In fact, I want you to look at my bracelet here, what it says. I don't know if you can see that. It says, I'm enough, I'm enough. Can you see, or let me put the I'm enough. I wear this as a reminder that no matter what happens in my life, if someone judges me, if someone ghosts me, if someone rejects me, it's okay because I am enough and I invite you all to lean into that. This is why I say personal development, self-health and spiritual work is like a vaccination to emotional chaos. It's like shoring up your heart so that no matter what the guy does, you're in such a good place that it doesn't matter what he does. What matters most is how you feel about yourself.  You are lovable, you're not likable. And again, I want you to wait till shortly after this because I'm gonna lean into this in a lot more detail. Number three, whenever you're feeling anxiety or fear, whenever you're feeling anxiety or fear, I want you to recite the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer, the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. It's also known as the hapono, ponopono, ponopono. And that what the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer is, I love you, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, thank you. I love you, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, thank you. I love you, I'm sorry. Please forgive me, thank you. Like giving yourself a shot of B12, you're giving yourself a shot of love. Forgiveness stands for forgiving love. And I invite you to recite the prayer on a regular basis whenever you're feeling abandoned, you're feeling frustrated, you're feeling anger. Maybe you're feeling a bit of judgment for someone else because they shifted their energy towards you.  And if you need that little help, recite the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer because that's what love would do and that's how love would respond. That's what love would do and that's what love would respond, how love would respond. And number four, I want you to understand that humans are an emotional wreck with weak emotional skills coming back to what I shared here. Most humans are dysfunctional, yourself included.  And when we understand that most, here's the thing, most men are actually good people. Most women are good people. They're just bad at this process. And most people don't genuinely try to hurt another, hurt another. Most people just don't feel safe. So when a guy is pulling away, when he stops communicating as as much is something's going on in his life where he doesn't feel safe to lean into the relationship. And that's okay too. That's okay too, if that happens for him. He's on his journey, you're on your journey. And I want to remind you again and recite that don't overanalyze, remember you are enough, recite the Hawaiian forgiveness for understand humans. And then lastly recognize, recognize misalignment and a lack of resonance. A misalignment lack of resonance. And what I mean is when you're misaligned with ladies, so many of you are so hyper focused on the chemistry piece and not focused on compatibility that you don't recognize how misaligned you are with another one. But Jonathan, chemistry is the indicator of relationship success. No, that's called fantasy. That's called magic fairy dust. And so many of you are suckling on the nipple of I need you to love me so I can feel good about myself. I need you to love me so I can feel good about myself. Men and women alike. And it starts by doing the work within oneself. If you're not familiar with the work of Mary Ann Williamson, I highly recommend checking out the book, Return to Love by Mary Ann Williamson. This is the CD version. Highly recommend checking out this book. So you return to your own love first and then you'll recognize that it doesn't matter if he pulls away, if he doesn't call, he doesn't text because you are in your sovereignty.  And this isn't about leaning back and giving a guy space. This is about leaning into yourself. And guess what?  And I say that a little tongue in cheek. You can do it in a much kinder way. Okay, remember my book, Speak Your Truth To Over Kindness. But get on the horn with him and ask him what's going on. But Jonathan, all the other dating coaches tell me not to do that. If every other dating coach was so right, then why are people miserably single? This is why I said I'm a contrarian. Try something different. Lean in instead of leaning back. And most importantly, lean into your sovereignty, lean into your self-loves, lean into your self-worth because ultimately that's how you're gonna stay high value when someone doesn't call or text. So I just wanna remind you again, don't overanalyze.  Recite the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. I love you, I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you. Understand humans are emotional wreck and ridiculously flawed and lastly recognize misalignment and a lack of resonance. And by the way, my whole coaching program, my private coaching helps to fine tune your intuition, particularly in the area of alignment and resonance and compatibility. So check out the link below to a free discovery call with me to see if working with a coach is right for you. All right, I think we covered the five steps to staying high value when he doesn't call or text. I hope you found value in this. Please post a comment below. If you have something to share, please add that. Since this is my live stream, we're gonna do Q and A portion for a few minutes and those listening to the live stream right now on YouTube, you can post a question by writing the word question and posting your question there after or purchase a super sticker super chat. All the funds from the super sticker super chat goes to a scholarship fund in the name of my son Connor as like who passed away a few years ago. That's a picture of him there, isn't he cute? And that's a picture of him there. One of my favorite is my son Colin there. The monies in the scholarship fund go to defray the cost of personal development for those who are seeking personal development work and also donating to the charities that I most believe provide value which includes the Hoffman process and insight. So there's a little dollar sign in the chat box to purchase a super sticker super chat. And by the way, if you're listening to the audio recording you can certainly donate to me via PayPal as well. All right, before I take questions I do have something I wanna share with you centered around understanding why we may not feel good enough, not lovable, not likable. So I wanna share with you, this was, I don't know if you can see this really well but this was a rock I found. I think it was in Santa Barbara area. I hope you notice it looks like a heart, okay? Now I want you to, this is a great example of love and we all started as human beings. We started as babies, pure love, pure heart, okay? We started as pure heart. And as we age and we have life experiences this is what happens to us.  This is how all human beings are operating today with a lot of dirty rags, dirty plastic bags around us and all of this is judgment and shame and resentment and comparisons and all the muck that we've accumulated since we were babies. And then we stopped being our shining loving self. We stopped being our shining loving self.  And we start to see who we are maybe just a little bit not fully it takes a lot of personal development, self-help work to get there. And so recently I shared publicly that I did a psilocybin journey in my community and I shared this because and I wanna explain this for a moment because several people judged my actions. They criticized it and they judged me. They said I'm bad, I'm a drug addict. I'm a bad person because I do this. Let me share with you why I do these journeys because just like this illustration I just showed you what the medicine does. And by the way, this is a natural plant that grows in the ground that God invented for those religious people that criticize me God invented this plant and almost throughout everywhere in the world this plant is a very acceptable source for healing because it breaks down all the barriers and allows you to be in your heart-centered space which allows you to touch your divinity that allows you to touch your higher self. And I share this with you and I do it in a controlled environment with a shaman and a group of people. What was interesting about this journey was there was seven people and at the end we share our experience with each other and as each person shared, I said, I'm this person. I'm this person. I'm this person. I'm this person. I'm this person.   American Indians didn't say this was bad. Judgment comes from human beings who don't understand and we are riddled with so much judgment and being told what to do. And I certainly believe in God's laws of don't commit a crime and don't tread on others and don't kill. But you know what? What's most important is your own individual journey on learning to love on yourself. It's not about finding a guy or a gal in your life. It's about finding the relationship within. So I choose these experiences as an opportunity to become a better version of myself. This is why I'm a big proponent of everyone considering reading this thick-ass book called A Course in Miracles, A Course in Miracles. Look how fuck, this is thousands of pages, thousand plus pages. I spent three years studying this. Do you know what the miracle is? The miracle is a shift in perspective. The miracle is love. What would love do? How would love respond? That's my invitation for every one of you. This isn't about leaning back in your feminine energy and letting a guy claim you.   You are enough. And that's my invitation. And this is why I scream at the top of my lungs. And this is why I recommend so many different books to invite you to do the work because most humans have terrible relationship skills. You don't know actually how to get to know another human being. And if you're not familiar with the Malcolm Gladwell's book, I just got this called Talking to Strangers. What we should know about the people we don't know. Folks, we are meeting total strangers today. It was so much easier when we grew up in tribes and towns and villages because most everybody shared the same values. Your lifestyles were similar to one another. It made it so much easier. And now it's harder to feel safer. This is why I encourage radical honesty. Radical honesty right from the get-go. Ladies, don't focus on romance. Focus on interrogating the motherfucker. And I say that with a lot of tongue and cheek and love. Focus on asking better questions. It's not whether or not the guy paid for the valet or who pays for the date. What matters most is, is this person shared the same values with me? Is this person's lifestyle gonna fit with mine? And more importantly, is this guy an emotional, by the way, he should be doing the same thing. Is he an emotional grownup? And just like for me, I vet for emotional maturity from women.  And just because you have a capacity to vomit your feelings doesn't mean you're good communicators. Most people are bad at this. So Jonathan, how can I have hope in this? You know how you can have hope?  This relationship with your heart. And let me just tell you this, when you find that love in your heart, you're going to attract a wonderful human being in your life. First, it's yourself. And then you'll attract a great partner in your life if that's what you desire. If this is what's meant to happen in this lifetime. And guess what? We get to do this over and over and over and over and over again. So guess what? If you don't get it this time, you'll get it the next time. And that's okay too. That's my opinion. Told you I'm a contrarian. So I hope this resonated with you. I'd like, if this resonated with you, give me a thumbs up and give me an amen. And if it didn't, then I'm not your... I was gonna say guru, but I'm not a guru. I'm not your guide. I'm not your guide. And that's okay too. Go find that person that resonates with you. I want the people in my tribe because I resonate with you and this is making a difference in your life. And if it is, please give me an amen. All right. We got time for a few questions. All right, we've got a few amens already. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. All right, I did see a super sticker earlier. So I wanna thank JB for a super sticker. By the way, again, you can purchase a super sticker. Super chat goes to the Connor Asley Scholarship Fund. All right, JB writes, I've been dating a guy for three months and we're taking things slow. How do I get him to warm up more to being more affectionate and kissing? Jump his bones. Okay, first off, I'm not a big proponent of taking things slow. I'm a big proponent of jumping into the deep end by being radically honest with each other. So purchase two copies of the book, eight dates by Drs. Julie, Drs. John and Julie Gottman.  Now I'm saying that a little tongue in cheek, but kiss him. You can kiss him too. You don't have to wait. But maybe you should decide if you're a good fit with one another. Don't, folks, I'm not a big proponent of taking things slow because you're doing nothing while taking it slow. Be radically honest right early on because that's gonna build intimacy into me you see. And if you're not familiar with the book, and by the way, it's currently out of print. It's called Oral Sex, talking and listening to your way to passionate intimacy. Find books similar to this and learn deeper intimacy. Check out the book by Barbara DeAngelis called Making Love All the Time so you can learn to communicate at a deeper emotional level because taking it slow is called slow death or slow agony or slow suffering. Now I'm not here to suggest you jump into bed with someone right away.  So don't drag things out for months. Get radically honest right from the get go to determine if you have a good candidate to invest your heart with someone. Otherwise you're gonna be doing this. What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results. So JV, I wanna thank you for that. I really appreciate that question. Thanks so much. All right, we're gonna take one or two more questions. So let's go swimming. Just a reminder, Alexander says, I love you, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you, the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. Exactly. Let's go swimming. Cassidy writes, he says, I deserve better. I know he's depressed recently suffering a huge loss but it also seems like he's not that into me anymore or anyone, how do I proceed from here? Cassidy, great question. So I don't know how long you've two been dating but I'm a big proponent. Look at it. My philosophy is more focused on people who wanna be in partnership. Now, for those who want casual relationships, situationships, friends with benefits or polyamorous relationship, my advice isn't the best advice for you. My advice is geared for people who want to either live together with someone or who want to get married with someone. I believe in partnership. So depending on how long the two of you've been dating, how serious are you talking about partnership? But Jonathan, the dating process is about getting to know one another. Yes, I get that the dating process is about getting to know one another. This is why Rome, as I said earlier, the fantasy is centered around romance equaling relationship success, chemistry indicating relationship success. I'm here to say the only chance a relationship has, if you get radically honest on what are your values, is your lifestyle blendable and this person emotionally mature? And it sounds like this person is going through some emotional chaos, which means they're not in a good position to lean into a relationship. So do this.  If you've been together two months, it's a whole nother ball game. Okay, if you've been with someone for two years, it's time to have a heart to heart about what they're going through. And either you're gonna work together as a team, you're gonna work together as a team, or he's gotta do, and by the way, he has to do work on his own. He might wanna see a therapist. He might wanna see a light coach. He might wanna do the work, the Hoffman process or insight. And you might both wanna do this together. But guess what? If he can't help himself, you can't help him. It's not your job to save someone else. It's your job to heal yourself and then lead by example. So in that particular case, if it's only been a couple months, cut your losses. You don't wanna be with somebody who's depressed. Those are not really fun people to date, okay? That's my invitation for you anyway. I hope that helped. Thank you so much for your question, Cassidy. I really appreciate it. I wanna thank, oh, we have another super sticker. Oh, thank you all so much for the super stickers. I really appreciate it. So one Christian Spanta says, question. Does a woman need to have her life 100% in order to hit the dating scene? I'm looking for work and in between life decisions. Great question. Nobody ever has their life 100% in order. So guess what? You're in good company. Nobody does. But here's the thing. If your life is 10% in order, work on your life. If it's 20% in order, work on your life. If it's 50% in order, work on your life. If your life is 60% in order, lean into the dating process. Here's the thing, life is a journey. It can be if you choose personal development, self-help and spiritual work.  And up until that point, that's okay, but if you don't feel like the ground underneath is you solid, then don't date. I know a lot, for example, women who are raising children and their children take up a majority of their time, makes it very, I'm using this as an example, makes it very difficult to lean into a relationship with someone who wants to do 100% relationship and they only have a capacity for 50% of a relationship. I'm here to say, unless you're capable of giving a majority of yourself to someone, then focus on what you need to focus on until you reach that level, whether it's job, children, health, whatever it is, work on yourself. And when you reach that level of two thirds, you know what, I think I got my shit together, that's when you can start doing it.   So just like you don't wanna be with them, they don't wanna be with you. Have at least two thirds of your life together, then go for it, at least. And whatever two thirds looks like for you, that's my invitation for you anyway. Is this sinking in? Is this resonating? Please let me know. Oh, and you also said you have my book and the untethered soul. I'm so glad the untethered soul is a great, great book. So good job. Folks, I'm gonna take, oh, and you said thank you. I appreciate you speaking to the percentages. You're very welcome. You know what? We're gonna cut this live stream short today. I wanna just go back to what I shared earlier. Folks, I'm a big proponent of not following dating advice. It's funny, somebody made a comment. How could I take relationship from advice from a person who is in a relationship? Folks, while I call myself a dating and relationship coach and I understand, okay, I want you to picture this. Somebody is in a relationship and they're married and they're giving dating and relationship advice. Okay, they did it once their way, okay?   It is a mess because of the dysfunctionality of human beings. When I come to the table and this is not to brag, this is just a, and I'm not trying to validate anything. I'm here to say I recognize the emotional pain most everybody who's single looking for love is going through and my only advice, when I say only advice, my advice is all geared on loving on oneself and anybody can do that whether they're in a relationship or not. This is why I'm such a big, this is why I recommend my book over and over and over again. The journey of life is a journey to finding that peace within ourselves, that heart within ourselves, that love within ourselves and when we do that, when we begin that, then we can invite a romantic partner in our life. But if you're not working on your soul, it's gonna make it very difficult to have a juicy, delicious, healthy, happy relationship with someone. If you're not feeling good enough, you're not feeling lovable and you're not feeling likable. So that's my invitation for everybody to do the inner work so you can be prepared for that juicy, delicious relationship that makes you feel yummy. Ah, you know what I love you means to me? It means I'm here, you matter, we're important. I've got your back, I'm not going anywhere and I only want you and my hope is that the next time you say the words I love you to a man or woman and you say it to each other, it means I'm here, I'm present. You matter, it means you're important to me. We are important, that means the relationship is a separate entity and it's important. I've got your back, that means I'm gonna be there for you.  That passion, that loving peace and that's my invitation for everybody. So my hope is going forward, the next time you say the words in a romantic sense, I love you. I hope is that's what you're experiencing and my hope is this work brings you much closer to attracting that juicy, delicious relationship where you don't have to worry about whether or not they're gonna call or text but if they don't, you can remember and I'm gonna recite this one more time. Don't overanalyze, remember you are enough. Recite the Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. Understand that humans are riddled with flaws and lastly to recognize that alignment and resonance is the person that you're meant to be with and choose partners who are compatible with you not based on romance and chemistry by shared values, blendable lifestyles and emotional maturity. Are you with me? Give me an amen. All right, we're gonna wrap up this live stream today. As I, by the way, post a comment below. I'd like to hear your thoughts. I do my best to read them all. If you have questions for me. If you'd like to talk to me, check out the link to a free discovery call to see if working with a coach is right for you. If you can't afford a coaching, check out my membership group called Midlife Love Mastery. Check out my book or go to Instagram and follow me on Instagram and you can write me a message there as well. All right, I'm gonna wrap up this video as I always do.  I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay. I'm gonna ask you to turn to someone, a pet, a teddy bear, a pillow and give it or them a hug of love because hugs are a great source of love. And let's face it, we could all use more love in our lives. Thanks a bunch. I wanna thank Elaine and Martisa and Yasmin and Ray and JB and Claire and one Christian and yoga preacher. Thank you all so much and thank you all for the super stickers and super chats. Have a wonderful day. Bye now.


Bulgarian Special Forces participates in Strong Balkan 23, Exercise, in Albania. Bulgaria was among eight Balkan countries, whose Special Forces units took part in the International Exercise Strong Balkan, 23, B9, in Albania. The Defense Ministry said on Friday. The exercise took place between October 31 and November 10, and was part of an annual joint training initiative of the Balkan country's chiefs of defense. Training were units from Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, North Macedonia, Turkeya, and Montenegro, and observers from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bulgarian Special Forces' participation in such a format is an important stage of their preparation and, an opportunity to deepen joint partnership with. The Balkan countries, which is a prerequisite for enhancing security and, maintaining peace and stability in the Balkans, the ministry added. The exercise aimed to enhance interoperability, personnel training, conducting and monitoring special operations and, implementing, NATO procedures and practice. Standard operating procedures were updated during the planning and conduct of special operations in a multinational environment. In addition, the operation of the special operations in the Serbian MMPS, which combined with the experience of the team, is very important for the special operations of the Balkans. Today, the service in the system is, in the perspective of NATO, very important for the development of the special forces, and very important for the strength of the recent interoperability in FAA, today, for the development of the special operations in the MMPS.