Surrender To Heal: Seven Ways to Rise Above The Battlefields of Life (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780972852807)

On the surface, the life that Mr. Reggie Smith is presently living seems quite unassuming. He is married for 25 years, the father or four children, three grandchildren and lives quietly in their tree-lined subdivision in Cobb County Georgia. That just goes to prove the point that Mr. Smith is making. The point that Reggie makes more loudly with his life, than he could ever say with words, is that there is a great deal going on in our families and communities that we are not talking about and people are dying needlessly from STIGMA, and the lack of information. You see, Mr. Smith is among the more than 1 million (registered) people in the United States living with HIV. There are many more that may be infected without knowing. There are many who know and because of fear of stigmatization don't say anything about it publicly. Yes, Reggie Smith, author of the much loved book "Surrender To Heal" - 7 Ways To Rise Above The Battlefield Of Life, is a long time survivor of HIV/AIDS. He asserts that there are many long-term survivors who have been having success using a holistic approach to healing and his life is certainly proof that it works! Hailing from the mean streets of the Southside of Jamaica, Queens (NY), the neighborhood that produced L.L.Cool J, Russell Simmons, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, he survived the war that was waged against young black men in urban America, only to find himself, like many of his peers, a potential casualty to biological terrorism. The devastation of AIDS in our society, especially in the Black community, has created an ongoing post-traumatic stress reaction not unlike that of September 11th and the DC Sniper, except it is much more pervasive and cost our society much more in the way of financial and human capital. In the midst of this pandemic, it is incredible that there has been no public outcry loud enough to shift the priorities from war and destruction, to healthy dialogue concerning a greater shift in human policy.