Broken and Blue: A Policeman's Guide To Health, Healing And Hope - Softcover

Silverii, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1728947383 ISBN 13: 9781728947389

Publisher: Independently published, 2018

Synopsis

Chief of Police, Scott Silverii, PhD shares over twenty-five years of life behind the thin blue line. He understands firsthand that danger, destruction and despair on the job leave many of America's finest broken. Broken and Blue: A Policeman's Guide to Health, Healing and Hope is the nation's leading resource for brothers in blue. Written by a cop, specifically for cops, Chief Silverii is not only an expert in police culture, but has overcome a life of personal pain caused by the same ideals police uphold as noble and defining of the alpha warrior tribe."Seeking help doesn't make you weak. It makes you whole, so you return stronger and better prepared to fight."Officers carry past personal pain from dysfunctional family lives, horrors seen on the job, or on the job injuries. Wrapping pain inside of body armor won't make it go away. The stress of serving the public only compounds the unresolved wounds caused by others. Police officers protect the public, but now is the time for them to protect themselves. Police officer depression, PTSD, addiction, domestic abuse and suicide continue to torment those who place others above themselves. Cops deserve better self-care, so they can provide better public service. Broken and Blue was created to help officers understand what it means to live a life of freedom from the pain of a broken past. Chief Silverii leads America's Finest from a sacrificial life of service toward a renewed beginning based on health, healing, and hope.Forward by Pastor Jimmy Evans, Founder of MarriageTodayLaw enforcement officers and their families live in a world of hurt, and that pain is accumulated over years of on the job trauma. LEOs and their spouses suffer, usually in silence, as the pain manifests into addiction, depression, alcoholism, suicide, and PTSD, just to name a few. When Scott asked me to write the foreword for this book, I was honored to do so, because during the course of decades of ministry and marriage counseling, I've seen what this pain can do to first responder marriages and families, and the destruction is very real. There are few resources available to help those who walk the thin blue line. There are even fewer resources that show you how to heal with Christ walking beside you. Scott has lived the life, he's battled, and he's been healed by the grace of God. There's no one better to share with you and show you how God can turn your past pains into something incredible for His glory. Law enforcement officers and first responders everywhere should read this book, whether still on the job or retired. It gives hope, it gives healing, and it'll change your life and the legacy of your family. Jimmy Evans

About this title

From the Author

This is without a doubt the most difficult but tremendously rewarding work I've ever attempted. Law enforcement provided a life I could've never imagined. It was exciting and horrifying, and in the end, I look back over the 25 years, and am humbled.First responder heroes are the best community of public servants our nation has to offer, but while we are helping others in times of hurt, we are walking off with pain that never heals. Why? Because we refuse to drop the mask behind the shield just to fit in. Asking for help is seen as weakness, and that's dangerous.Asking for help is wisdom. A whole and healed you will make you a better first responder, but ultimately it makes you a better spouse, parent, friend and a much better you!Broken and Blue comes out of my lifetime of pain, addiction and obsessions. It was written in love, light and healing. I want you to know the same peace and quality of life that I've come to enjoy. True Blue,Scott    

From the Inside Flap

Broken and Blue - Introduction
Everyone was busting each other's chops about how jacked over we got in our divorce settlements. We laughed about how much child support we paid, as if it were a badge of honor. Our seventieth-floor drug task force office wasn't only where federal investigations were made, but it was also a part-time boys' club therapy session.
The guys who had been remarried once were plotting about their next divorce as I beat my chest over the new woman in my life. I hadn't seen my sweet four-year-old son in six months, but I was taking care of someone else's child as we played house. My ex-wife and I were locked in a vicious, emotion-driven battle over out-of-state custody, but there I was, comparing notes with the most important people in my life: my brothers in blue.
Maneuvering through New Orleans's cruddy streets after hours was already tough enough, but I swerved my undercover police unit over to the shoulder and slammed it into park. I couldn't breathe. I clutched my chest to force air into my lungs. The only thing I could hear was a crazy gasping sound that wheezed out of my mouth. I was dying, and I sure didn't want to crash my unit while doing so. 
Looking in the rearview mirror, I didn't even recognize the shattered, broken shell of a man who only a year earlier was teaching fourth grade Sunday school at the local church while my wife and toddler son enjoyed the nursery. 
My eyes were full of water. Hot tears streamed down my face and into an overgrown beard. The arrogant bragging with the guys overwhelmed me until I couldn't think straight. It was a searing pain. I was a pathetic mess.
My cruiser rocked on old shocks as traffic zipped by. Horns honked and caring citizens offered encouraging four-letter words and one-finger waves. I guess I was parked more on the road than the shoulder. I recall crumpling over the center console to hit the hidden switch that activated the blue lights. The last thing I wanted was to get rear ended, or a uniformed cop rolling up to find me like that. It was humiliating. 
I was so ashamed of the things I'd said in front of my brothers. My sweet son and his innocent mother deserved so much better than that. I wanted to be a good husband and dad, but no matter how I tried, I failed. It was like some dark force was controlling my thoughts. 
I constantly tried to reassure myself that I wasn't going nuts, but there was no explanation for my excessive drinking, foul language, multiple anonymous sex partners, or the verbally abusive telephone conversations with my son's mom. I wasn't raised to be that way. 
It had to have been job stress. After all, it was New Orleans in the nineties. It was possibly the most dangerous city in America at the time, and the most corrupt police department. The FBI had wiretapped the entire NOPD. I was carrying federal credentials in a city crawling with dirty local cops. My job was to bust drug organizations and avoid having my cover revealed by the dirty cops. Yeah, it had to be the stress of the job. 
It wasn't.
I'd labeled myself as broken and good for nothing but chasing down violent criminals like an animal. I knew it took one to catch one. In my heart, I was falling apart because I'd lost my marriage and family. In my head, I knew what I wanted to do, but ego and anger stopped me from doing it. But why?
I was guilty, dead, and buried in my sin, but I was too stubborn to stop and surrender to Christ. I was going to fix it all by moving on and making things better with my newest girlfriend. Well, as if you haven't already figured out how that went, I married again on the rebound. After one and a half months, we were done. After eighteen years of more child support, we were finally done.
That was over twenty years ago, and oh, how I'd love to tell you once the second divorce ended, I put my life back on the rails and sailed smooth into the golden years. But I'd be lying to you. While my professional career skyrocketed like a stellar LinkedIn profile, my personal life remained mired in rejection, abandonment, addiction, and consistently crappy choices.
The kicker about sin is while we can be restored if we repent and ask forgiveness, there are still consequences. Some consequences take the form of alimony, child support, or a rental home while joint property is liquidated. Others attack our ego--public exposure, humiliation, loss of respect and career. Still others have a more serious and permanent effect such as addictions, disease, and death. 
My troubles didn't start with my first marriage. They began as a kid. I grew up Godless, in the shadow of a dominant, detached father. His physical intimidation and control through silence left me without ever having heard a kind word, seeing an interest in my life, or speaking the words, "I love you."
Family dysfunction screws up a lot of us, and the messed-up part is that we go years without a clue that how we were raised wasn't the way things were supposed to be. All we know is what we know. But that doesn't make it right. It just makes us hurt. 
To this day there is nothing I could've done to prevent or change history. But I did have the opportunity to control my response in the present. I decided to heal, and then God led me to share so you can heal too.
In case you were wondering about that day in New Orleans on the shoulder of the road, no I didn't die (obviously). Instead, I placed myself into a coffin called guilt, held a funeral called pain, and buried myself in a grave called shame. It wasn't until God's mercy and grace raised me up, brushed me off, and gave me the key to freedom from my past that I was able to live again.
I have that key, and I want to give it to you.
Scott

About this edition

• Publisher: Independently published
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1728947383
• ISBN 13: 9781728947389
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 202