http://www.newsweek.com/id/177587
Americas Top Killer: Us
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29658961/
Lifestyle Can Undermine Medical Treatment
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article704221.ece
Drug companies 'inventing diseases to boost their profits'
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29997884/
7- and 8-year-old Went to School Stoned
On the second day of January 2009, Newsweek ran a story (the first story above) with a headline that announced the newly known leading cause of death in the United States. It should have been the biggest story in the media, generating major discussion. It wasn't. Instead there was hardly a flutter of coverage, relegating it to quiet dismissal and quick oblivion.
Well, now you know: The #1 cause of death in this country is, in fact... self-destruction. And of course no one wanted to talk about it because the topic itself has become ubiquitous. It has seeped into our cultural fabric to such a degree that we do not even seem to notice it anymore.
Self-Destruction is now the new normal.
Vices used to be eccentric, chic; it was a part of someone's style to be drinking a martini or seductively inhaling a cigarette. These were the peripheral accents to an individual's character. 50 years ago, there was still an innocence to it---we didn't know of the dangers we socially imbibed. Now we know exactly how every single drug, intoxicant, and medicating behavior affects us, and you would think this would dim usage down to a small margin. No-- astonishingly, it is the opposite. Today, addiction has gone mainstream and become a defining part of our identities. "I am an addict." "I am an alcoholic." "I am a stoner." "I watch porn all day."
Everything in the marketplace is now unceremoniously described as an addiction- every new pill, every new TV show and new brand of frozen yogurt. We have normalized the presence of a constant craving and our helplessness to it. It has come to the point where now, when our neighbor goes into rehab for the third time in 2 years, the only thing we can think to say to them is to offer to water their plants while they are gone.
We would rather talk about drug legalization and argue about that, than ever discuss the real question: what is the cavernous need which people have, that they are starving to satiate so badly? Why are we so dependent on something outside of us to induce a certain feeling inside of us? What happens within you if you don't use? Meaning> for all of you who are, say uh, toking up on a regular basis who think you are impossibly hip... guess what: dependence, of any form, is a giganto sign of avoiding yourself = the ultimate weakness. How tres sexy.
As of 2004, the average American had TWELVE annual drug prescriptions. One can only imagine what the stats are right now in our world climate.
It is official: we have now successfully pathologized the whole of life as one big disease. Whatever the question is, the answer is to take a pill.
A culture of addiction and self-destruction can only become so prevalent when the masses of society are living in a way with none of the joy of life and none of the relief of death. If we are honest then we can admit there is a void of numbness that for most people gets skimmed right over... until something happens that forces us to choose, to quote from Andy Dufresne in Shawshank, to either get busy living or get busy dying. The fallacy perpetuated in an addiction culture is that one needs to hit the bottom in order to wake up; this is not the truth. A great percentage of crisis is avertable, owing itself only to the fact that when our own existence becomes so anesthetized, our life seems as if it is passing by the window out of a fast moving car. This is because we continue to go faster and faster, becoming ever busier, with more technology to be more productive... never realizing what it is we are actually doing: anything and everything to avoid being alone with ourselves. And so over the cliff we are driving, one by one, at full speed ahead. It is the greatest tragedy and waste in this world to live and yet never be fully alive; to deprive oneself of the devastating beauty and wondrous freedom and fulfillment this life is meant to hold.
Watch carefully the film The Libertine. I have said it hundreds of times to thousands of people I have worked with to help them awaken and learn self-connection, to experience peace for the first time in their lives: A doctor can only save your life on the operating room table. The other 99.9% is all you. This entire project is dedicated to teaching people how to save themselves at a time when self-destruction has risen to an unprecedented systemic level in our culture. In 1953, Flannery O' Connor published a story entitled "The only life you save may be your own." She knew.
Call Out: Have you ever asked someone how they feel when they are smoking? (Not from a snarky, douchebag-esque rude way---but to ask them genuinely what they experience and what their body feels, while inhaling formaldehyde and the other 4,000 carcinogenic+ chemicals?)
Talk About It: Why do we think that taking a pill solves everything? Do you think addiction is behavioral choice or a biological disease? Have we become addicted to addiction? Is rehab and AA really the best we can do? (Check the success rates on both.) Why do you feel self-destruction has now become so prevalent? Has it become normal to you?
Suicide has gone up worldwide 60% in the last 45 years according to the World Health Organization. Why do you believe that is?
p.s. The Newsweek article also suggests the government should intervene to protect us from ourselves. (Wow, those might be the most disturbing grouping of words I can imagine.) What do you think about that?? (Please see the next post on the furtherance of this idea, in the Politics section, entitled The Instant Gratification President.)
« « Denial Is The Greatest Danger Of All| The Instant Gratification President » »
I am SO GLAD someone is speaking out on this. I know too many people who take a pill as if it is candy. I definitely think addiction is NOT a disease. At all. I think treating it as a disease removes accountability, which is dangerous. Self-destruction is something I see everywhere. No it is not normal to me. It is scary how bad things have become and no one seems to notice. It is like every one of these posts is just tripping me out... Why didn't that Newsweek story that talks about Self Destruction as the #1 cause of death get more press?? That is crazy. But when you think about it, it is absolutely true. I am watching everyone around me coming unhinged. These are successful "together" people who I am seeing fly off the handle more and more. They are so angry. And they are all on something.
Thank goodness we are talking about this now. We need to be. These kids are getting the meds from where? The parents!
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On Addiction:
Addiction is no disease from my perspective vices and habits will occur but true addiction will spread like a cancer, a slow motion suicide that affects everyone around people who have drowned deeper into a full collapse like a black hole "my suffering shall become yours and we will be crushed together."
Addiction has it's roots and why! There is no blind addiction you don't wake up and say damn I need to be a junkie, sucking dick for crack sounds like a great way to go, I always wanted to rob a family member for a fix.
The mirror is a terrifying experience and if it could talk the sounds of shattering would echo the halls, sooner then later you will have to face the truth.
On pills:
Great solution you have all kinds of pent up pissed off anger and sorrow eating you alive lets just numb you then you can be another ticking time bomb. It's like adding a few extra feet of wire to dynamite and they should put a warning on anti-depressants that say warning will not prevent suicide.
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I believe that addiction is a virus, in that it hurts not only the person with the addiction but all of those around them. I definitely believe that the person with the addiction convinces themself that it is a disease and that there is nothing they can do about it. They are medicating something deep down in their soul that they are not willing to face. These people need help and the help they are currently getting is not working!
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My last relationship was with a man that when fine was fantastic, but when not fine was a depressed alcoholic. When an incident set him off, it would last for a period of time before he got a grip and went back to normal living.
On the last go round, he was prescribed Effexor - his depressive/alcoholic period lasted seven years and progressed to far worse levels than I'd ever seen when he went through his up/down/up cycle without the intervention of medication. He found the medication impossible to wean from. He has finally gotten himself cleaned up, but still sees himself as a victim of his circumstance and practices self-deprivation rather than excessiveness. The basic problem - failure to deal with what is at the root of the problem. THAT is at the core of addiction. And - on topic - instant gratification.
We are SO medicated because we want to "just take something so that we can get back to what we were doing!" Not, um, perhaps.....look at the reason WHY and make the necessary and appropriate life choices/changes that will allow us to move forward? No - that would be hard work. And we don't do that as a culture. So the guy who is already 60 pounds overweight with the big belly that eats hot wings for dinner takes Pepcid so that he can keep eating his hot wings and then takes Viagra to deal with the sexual side effects and then has a heart attack from the strain and then gets medical attention and then gets put on Lipitor to deal with the heart problem/blood pressure and the high cholesterol.....and on and on it goes. People - FACE the things that are making you unhappy . Figure out what they are. Do the work to change them PERMANENTLY. Don't just slap a band aid on it.
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