Drug use is ravaging our society; not just recreational use, but the widespread unmoderated use of pharmaceuticals, as well. But the over-prescribed pharmaceuticals issue is for another blog post; here, I would like to discuss recreational usage only.
Throughout my teenage years, whenever I would hear anything about recreational drugs, I would glamorize the usage of them and their good effects, while disregarding and therefore negating my understanding of the severity of the bad effects that I knew of.
Aside from a skewed understanding of drugs, I, like most people, didn’t understand everything there is to understand about them (and I still don’t and never will) from the standpoint of their effectiveness by the time I started using them. The good highs that we get when using drugs aren’t really the harmless land of epiphany that we like to revel in, and the comedowns aren’t as single-faceted as a soft landing upon clouds while coming down from a high… they are more than that. An inevitable long-term crash waiting to happen from continued use is a better way to describe it than an ease down, as our brains and minds and bodies get used to living in highland, while our tolerances, wasted time, and use of money grow to a point where we can not appease our desires. Then, some drugs are easier on the user than others when it comes time to fall down from the long-term high, but that’s only in some people. Every drug has the potential to be a huge detriment in the life of at least one user, and you never know if that user will be you, and the detriment is huge and not worth the risk, or the high. There are healthy, natural activities and alternatives that give the same effect of a high, but for more prolonged periods of time and without the risk associated with recreational drug use.
Even all the way until recently, I didn’t correlate the almost-exact similarity between recreational and pharmaceutical drugs. I used to understand the idea of self-medicating, but I never understood how really, truly the same it is as prescribed medicating, but without the guidance of a professional in the field of medicine. They are called drugs for a reason- or medicines- and they all have the same risk. The high is something that the user gets from using too much, and a high can’t be extended forever. Eventually, there is a comedown back to baseline, but that baseline is lower than the high was, and if the user was at the high for too long, the baseline seems like a low. And oh how low can one go…
Now, imagine a society where much of the youth population glamorizes that land of high. And, using the information I just gave about comedowns and baselines, please deduce what happens when young people grow up and out of the highs they volunteered to be a part of and achieved, unknowing of the lows they might be subject to. That, combined with the difficulty of adult life as compared to the ease of childhood that constitutes almost all peoples lives, and we have an unstable society of adults at lower-than-baseline and capable of dropping even lower whenever something throws them off. Hence psychotic breaks, etc. They are much more prevalent than most would like to imagine. And they are egged on by societal factors.
An unstable society leads to unstable individuals, and vice versa.
Currently, we are on a downward spiral that is unsolvable but by a great unified effort, and there are a few possible scenarios, but something needs to be done. One idea is to completely abandon recreational drug use, a measure made easier by pharmaceutical medications not being considered the standard solution for all ailments, but one still possible to achieve even if doctors still prescribe pills as long as we can really all come together to impart the understandings of true danger associated with recreational drug use that I have highlighted in this blog post. One compromise would be for doctors to prescribe recreational drugs to people who desire them and who would do them anyways, therefore moderating the usage- but the users would have to be willing to listen to their doctors in any case imaginable, including the case of complete abstinence in some individuals; this scenario requires trust, however, to a greater degree than most people are currently displaying in this society. Which brings me back to phasing out drugs from our society completely- pharmaceutical and recreational use.
We need to, as a society, turn to healthy lifestyles of beneficial activity, beneficial diets, and beneficial relationships, and not only because it’s the righteous thing to do- but also because we are on a rocky road headed towards the edge of a cliff, and our car is almost too fast to stop in time for our salvation.
Hopes For Stability 