Addiction and its social impact
Addiction is a persevering thing. Of course, perseverance is the central part of the package for those in the grips of addiction. Except now, rather than a positive and hopeful term, the context suddenly becomes dismal and foreboding. The perseverance of addiction has ruined bodies, alienated friends, and destroyed marriages. Addiction has taken away children of parents and parents of children. It is impossibly easy to start and impossibly hard to quit. It can be as pedestrian as a cup of coffee in the morning, or as hedonistic as a line of coke at night. It can be as foreign … More
reflections from the underground, part 2
Addiction; Predator and Prey When an eagle seizes a salmon too heavy to carry yet its talons cannot release it, they both plummet. The predator becomes prey of the sea. My dearest friend lost her 39 year old son in this epidemic of poisonings with the contaminant Fentanyl. He was addicted to heroin; with compulsions, lack of control, negative consequences, tolerance leading to higher dosing and avoidance of brutal withdrawal symptoms. He often made use of rehab, recovering for years at a time; Narcotics Anonymous, clean needles and longer acting narcotics. Tragically he was not using pure medical heroin, or his own supply at … More
Addiction to Pleasure
Pleasure. How tricky has our relationship to this basic human drive become? Wikipedia defines pleasure as “…a broad class of mental states that humans and other animals experience as positive, enjoyable, or worth seeking.” Merriam-Webster offers a simpler perspective: “A state of gratification.” Since time immemorial, people have largely misunderstood this primal drive, especially its most tantalizing expressions of sex, food, and drugs. Entire religions, laws, and philosophies have built their bedrock of morality in attempts to curb or control this basic impulse deeply embedded in us. But if we break it down, what does it really mean to gratify … More
