Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Horrific Life or Drug-Induced Haze

This one’s tougher for me to talk about. While I’ve deal with sex, weight, and abuse, I’ve never really gotten into drugs – not even alcohol or nicotine. It’s easy for me to slip into a platitude about how great life is and how drugs never make anything better, but that’s all bull. Life sometimes sucks, and drugs don’t make anything better but they let you forget for a little while.

The main problem with drugs, including alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, is that they distract you from the problems in your life. They don’t “take care of” the problems. The problems are still there. You’ve just side stepped them for now. But they’re still waiting and lurking, stalking you. And they seem insurmountable, because the pain that comes with them cripples you. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Truly big problems are tough to handle, so break it down. Break it down from “my life sucks” into “I hate my parents/spouse/etc., my job sucks, I am tired all the time, etc.” Life sucking is too large. Get specific, and then fix what you can. Tired all the time? Go to bed a little earlier. Can’t because you have too much to do? Do what you need to earlier, get some help (which is more important – a few bucks or the extra sleep you get because someone else is taking care of the lawn), refuse to do some things (use paper plates and plastic forks for a while instead of doing the dishes), and get some of those irritations out the door. Or maybe your neighbors are too noisy. Get some ear plugs. Can’t sleep with ear plugs? Learn how. You aren’t getting any sleep now any way, you may as well use that time learning how to sleep with ear plugs.

There are solutions to the smaller problems, and once you get the smaller ones out of the way, you can see the bigger ones – if you’re not high, drunk, or buzzing. The bigger ones can be taken care of, too, once you get your energy back away from all the little ants that were biting you (the irritating smaller troubles). Sometimes you don’t want to see the solution, so you blind yourself intentionally. Sometimes the solution seems to be worse than the problem. If you need drugs to be able to live with your current situation, there has to be something better out there for you.

We live in a time with a lot of resources, particularly in the “larger” nations. Since you have access to the internet (since you’re reading this), find some free advice, a group that’s going through the same things you are, reduced fee or even free professional help.

Get rid of the reason why your life is horrific, and you won’t need the drugs. Good luck.

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