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Overcoming Drug Dependency

Fourth. The lack of community hospitality, effective communication among family members, intimacy, and commitment to one another, plus our being too busy, all add to our emotional emptiness. Many wives and children are left feeling lonely, frustrated and starving for meaningful companionship. Many turn to alcohol or drugs to escape their emptiness.

Fifth. Our continued decline in moral standards has weakened restraint and inhibitions making it very easy to start on a downward path.

Sixth. Another characteristic that has pervaded modern society is our desire for instant gratification of all our wants—including instant relief from pain. Drugs falsely promise a quick fix.

Seventh. Above all, our society as a whole has forgotten God. Most of us claim to believe in him, but not enough for it to affect our lifestyle. Our society has focused almost all of its attention on technological and materialistic advancement. Consequently, we are close to being an emotionally and spiritually bankrupt society. The subsequent emptiness is overwhelming for the many who turn to drugs to anesthetize their inner pain.

What, then, is the answer to the drug problem?

1. Seek help. If you or a loved one have a drug problem, admit it and seek help immediately. Check with your minister, family doctor or local hospital. Support groups such as Cocaine Anonymous, AA or other "Twelve Step" programs can be life-savers. Admit the severity of the problem. Act immediately. Don't wait until it is too late.

2. Accept responsibility for your problem. Nobody else can fix you. Only you can change yourself. Accept responsibility for doing just that.

Cocaine 'has been boiled down to
hard and mean little pellets of crack,
giver of euphoria, taker of lives.'

3. Understand your emotional and spiritual needs and ensure that you get these needs met in wholesome ways.

4. Build a network of supportive friendships. Disassociate with friends who are still involved with substance abuse. This is critical. Build a network of friends who are committed to wholesome living. Without doing this you will have little or no chance of overcoming your addiction.

5. Maintain high moral and ethical standards. Without being rigid or legalistic, realize that God's moral laws, like his universal physical laws, are for our safety and survival. With God's help it is essential to begin to live in harmony with God's order.

6. Realize that there is no such thing as instant peace or maturity. Peace comes from within. It comes from facing and resolving inner conflicts, learning to meet our needs in wholesome ways, developing our emotional and spiritual natures, taking good care of our bodies, and growing in every area of our life.

7. Finally, turn to God for help. We happen to be spiritual beings with a need for God who can make a much better job of our lives than we can—if we genuinely want him to. As we commit and trust our lives to him, and ask him to face us with the truth about ourselves, he will help us accept and deal with our problems realistically. Jesus said, "Do you want to be made whole?" If so, commit and trust your life to Christ today and every day of your life. With his help and loving support from understanding people, and specialized professional or highly trained volunteer help, you can learn to say "no" to drugs.

1. Readers' Digest, January 1987, p. 35.    
2. Psychology for Living, September 1986, p. 12.   
3. Reader's Digest, January 1987, p.31.   
4. Ibid, p. 32.   
5. Time, September 1986, p. 31.

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All articles on this website are written by
Richard (Dick) Innes unless otherwise stated.