Saturday, December 11, 2010

Why Do People Use Drugs

This is a discussion question that is part of an assignment for my Chemical Dependency class that just started.

This was the question:

Why you think drug abuse is prevalent in society today? Submit at least five top reasons to justify your answer.


This is my answer. Looking through a lot of the other answers, many were answering from the text, so I decided to go a different direction.

I'm reading this question as looking for five reasons for why I think drugs are prevalent. So according to that, this is about the only direction I can go. Generally, I don't integrate my faith with my coursework, but in the end I really can't get around it with this question (not that I think there is anything wrong with that. While I am always processing things within the context of my faith, I usually don't express it as so. People vary on that).

When I work down to the very core of the issue, I think people use drugs because the world is broken by sin. Sin not just the act of doing something wrong, but it flows through all of creation, tainting what is good to varying degrees, so that nothing truly works the way that it should. Here are five reasons that I think are results of sin, and also support why drug abuse is common in our society.

1. People hurt, physically and emotionally. They seek to ease that hurt, avoid it, feel better. Drugs alter their mental state so that for a time, they can feel better and avoid pain. They also enjoy feeling relaxed or thrilled.

2. People get sick. Either in the case of mental illness or physical illness, they often self-medicate or drugs can be given to them that are addictive.

3. People are mean. Child abuse, sexual abuse, crime, prostitution, human trafficking, etc.. Stronger people take advantage of weaker people, and unfortunately, drugs often flow through these situations.

4. People want money -- and from the lowest level of dealing and smuggling, to the highest level of organized crime, there is money in drugs.

5 People crave things that hurt them. While drugs are actually harmful for the body, a sin-broken body can crave and desire and adapt to being "fed" chemicals that are bad for them, at least for a time, but still continue to crave and desire them even when the harm is very very clear..

2 comments:

Amie said...

Coming from someone that has used drugs and has many drug addicts in her family. I think your reasons get to the crux of the issue and point appropriately to the reasons behind the reasons, so to speak. Good words.

Anonymous said...

These are the same reasons i've given in my anthropology and sociology classes. People don't always realize that people do harmful things because they are hurting in many different ways for many different reasons. In the classes people just say the same thing, "because they want to do it," that people are stupid, they want attention and those didn't bother to explain their reasoning. At the time I didn't think to add my faith to it. I wish I had.