by Melissa Hathway
We all move through our lives, working, resting, caring for people – generally looking for some form of meaning and fulfillment, and there are almost as many styles of fulfillment as there are people. Nevertheless, some people find themselves – through myriad reasons – trying to gain meaning from transient and pointless activities such as taking drugs.
These activities can appear to give pleasure and can offer brief happiness, but this is a venire, behind which there is a void – only a true structure of belief in life can lead to meaning, and mistakes like taking drugs can only cause waste, poor health and long-term sadness. Most importantly, people who have drug problems require the material care which will help them to quit their habit, alongside the teaching and reflection which will help them to create order in their life.
Drugs
The nature of recreational drugs means that they will always be a false source of consolation in people's lives. This is because they provide empty pleasure without the benefits of having worked for happiness or a type of happiness which actually means something. For example, drugs like heroin work by affecting certain receptors in the brain, called opioids, which are linked to feelings of pleasure, fulfillment and the lack of problems. Simply injecting or smoking heroin is enough to achieve the immediate result which is characterized by an intense high; the most important fact being, however, that this high is entirely empty and fake, it results only from the manipulation of the human nervous system.
Contrast this to the happiness which a parent feels when they succeed in teaching their young child a new skill. This experience will be valid and deep, based on the patience end devotion which they will have applied in order to keep helping their child even when they fail and on the knowledge that this new skill will help their child in their own life for years afterwards. It represents success as a parent, the happiness of which is partly dependent on the fact that successful parenting is not guaranteed, it has to be earned. Drug addicts, for a variety of reasons, choose quick and guaranteed –but ultimately flawed – highs, while shunning the real fulfillment which is on offer from wholesome activities around spirituality and family.
Withdrawal
Most areas where many people live should feature some form of withdrawal center where drug addicts can seek help to tackle their addiction and the health risks which it proposes. Of course, drugs cause a number of ills in the societies which they effect as well as in the addicts, such as crime which is caused by impoverished people with addictions who steal to get their fix, alongside the notorious violence of cartels and dealers as they fight for custom. The vibrant city of New York, despite despite being a great, open and productive settlements, has a significant level of drug addition, partly due to how the presence of so many potential customers attracts dealers to the area. Nevertheless, Connecticut has a developed well-ordered medical system, and Connecticut withdrawal centers should offer a high level of treatment to help someone with drug problems to tackle the damaging behavior which threatens their life.
Addiction
Addiction can manifest for a variety of reasons. While many people start taking drugs and get addicted simply because they want to feel good, many take drugs as a way (mistakenly) of dealing with problems in their life. For example, if someone suffered emotional trauma during their childhood, drugs can be a way to stop the pain which this experience causes them, which can, itself, lead to addiction. As such, a huge number of addicts are so not because they're lazy, but because they are hurting. Of course, it is the duty of the family, of the individual and of society to show people like this kindness and attention, so that they can deal with their problems effectively rather than covering them up with chemicals.
Overall drug addiction represents, while significant, a misapprehension about life and how it is to be lived, one which almost always leads to destruction. Therefore, the best way to counter misapprehension is through its collision with the truth, and therefore with the truth of God's law on Earth, and how through this truth people can act to attain virtue in this life and salvation in the next.
Our Lord Jesus Christ taught that self-control and temperance are the buttresses of a good life, teaching people to master themselves and to live responsibly like him can potentially avert the modern problem of drug abuse which threatens society.
When people have faith in God and themselves they can take control when previously they were aimless. Drug abuse and many other social ills are often part of the social pain which is caused by the modern, artificial, consumer society – for the health and salvation of all people it is necessary to return to the calm of an organic society which is based on the natural order and ordained by God.
For more information about how we live in an organic Christian society, please go here:
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