The Drug Symptom

What drives young people into drugs? Most people say it is peer pressure, but, is it? In order to understand why people do drugs, what we first have to understand is what do drugs have to offer? What makes them so alluring? Most people will say it’s the pleasure experienced or the relief of pain; I say it’s the escape from reality. Let me first make a note in that we are not talking about a dependant addict, someone whose body needs drugs as to continue functioning, but rather the user who is starting, who is already “addicted” but not yet dependant on it. Why do these people do drugs, why did they persist on taking them even though we are heavily bombarded since childhood about how bad drugs are? The answer is quite simple; it is because it provides a route of escape from heir own painful lives. It’s the way in which a teenager can escape the fact that nobody loves him, that he is mistreated; the way a grown up can get over the failure that hangs over his or her shoulders, the memories that torment each night and accuse during the day. It is a way to relief spiritual and emotional pain.

Humans are all born with a terminal disease that consumes us from the inside out slowly but steadily; it’s called sin. Sin is having failed God and thus be separated form his presence, he same presence that should be in the midst of our own soul, yet since we are tainted by sin, God’s place in us is empty, and this emptiness becomes an all consuming void that deprives humans of joy, hope and merriness. Sure, we experience temporal happiness, but not a lasting one, since this void will consume it eventually. It is this void which demands more, it demands to be filled, yet nothing besides God can fill it, and so, it will continue to demand for more and more until it consumes us. Drugs are pain suppressors, and that is what they do, they suppress the pain caused by this void, the constant demanding that we experience due to the void and they shut it down completely, until the drug is washed form our systems. Then, we need more, because the pain returns stronger for we have felt what it is like not to experience, and to bear it once more is simply overwhelming. This is what drives million of junkies to look for another fix.

Most doctors speak about corporal dependence; I speak about a spiritual one. Our souls become dependant on them; corporal dependence is just a symptom, a consequence of our already dependant souls. Millions of teenagers and adults turn to drugs to find the soothing sensation they have craved for their entire life, to find the love of a parent; to find the warmth of a home; the forgiveness for past sins and even to silence their conscience which keeps telling hem that their life has gone array. Drugs are not physical issue, and until we start realising that we are fighting a losing battle. The battle of drugs is fought at home and won at home since a teenager who has had a good family life, even if he where to try out drugs, would never become addicted for he won’t find anything new in it, anything good. Drug addiction is not a disease, it’s a symptom, and we should start treating it as such.