The Advantages of Drugs and Alcohol

There are some people who seem to become immediately addicted once they try drugs or alcohol. For most it seems to take some time to become addicted. The length of time varies significantly. There is a period between first use and addiction during which substance reliance develops. Before we become dependent substances we first become reliant on them. I became aware of this important aspect of addiction over a period of time.

I used to be involved with a drug prevention program aimed at kids. The premise behind our efforts was kids use drugs because they are lacking in self-esteem. I doubted this as I recalled having fairly healthy self-esteem when I started using alcohol then marijuana and later LSD. Some of adolescents I encountered in prevention classes seemed extremely self assured despite their positive attitude about drug use!

The Houston PBS station once televised a series on sex addiction presented by Patrick Carnes author of, Out Of The Shadows. He was of course focused on sex but I think his explanation of how intelligent, competent people, from good families, can become reliant on sex, also works for drugs and alcohol.

I will do my best to explain. At the simplest we could just say that people drink and use drugs because it is fun to do so. This is pretty accurate but it is too broad to be useful. The other extreme would be to say that every individual uses drugs and alcohol for individual reasons. Also accurate but way too narrow to be useful. Patrick Carnes listed four desires he said people choose to meet through sex. I liked his list, so I co-opted it!

The first of these desires is escape, the second is excitement, the third mystery, and the last fulfillment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any of these desires! We all want to escape from time to time there is nothing neurotic about the desire to get away form it all upon occasion. Similarly we need some excitement, some of us need quite a lot, others just a bit. Everyone has a degree of curiosity, and that curiosity creates a desire for mystery. And who wouldn't want to feel fulfilled? No one that's who. How do we normally go about meeting these desires? Typically in lots of normal ways like the ones listed below.

Typical ways of escaping our routine might be, reading, watching TV or going to the movies, taking a trip, watching sports, shopping or going fishing. We might find it exciting to ride a motorcycle or practice martial arts. We might find online gaming exciting, or roller-blading, dancing, or going to concerts. Going on a blind date could be mysterious, so could dining on ethnic foods, reading a mystery or foreign travel. We all want fulfilling careers, or at least hobbies. We look for fulfillment from our family life, in friendships and in our religious or spiritual life.

Okay now it is time to get real. Escaping into a book requires an interesting read and the ability to focus, sometimes our problems may be too pressing. TV is often boring and movies take planning and then some fool keeps talking during the show! You go on a trip only if you can afford it and are allowed time off, then when you get there it looks just like any other place - fast food and tourist trinkets. You may not catch any fish, there is nothing to buy on your shopping trip or it all costs too much! Sometimes there is no escape. Excitement; Motorcycles are expensive and no fun in bad weather. Martial arts involves repetitive exercises  that are not all that exciting. Online gaming can get old fast, after a while all the games seem the same. Roller-blading requires skill and decent weather or you have to do it indoors going round and round in a circle. Concerts are expensive and the band you want to hear never plays locally more often than every few years. Mystery; Your blind date shows up and it's your ex! The ethnic food you order smells bad and tastes worse. You solve the mystery you're reading by chapter three. Fulfillment; Sometimes family life is more trying than fulfilling, friends sometimes take but don't give and listening to sermons gets boring!

I know I am painting a bleak picture, the point is all the above ways of escaping, finding excitement or mystery or achieving fulfillment involve luck or skill or money or can only happen occasionally or need others to cooperate. Sometimes, perhaps frequently they do not work out as well as we had hoped they would.

Using drugs and alcohol has advantages over the above methods of achieving our desires for escape, excitement, mystery and fulfillment. For one thing drugs and alcohol are relatively cheap. It's a lot cheaper to get drunk or high than it is to take a trip, buy a motorcycle or raise a family.

Using drugs and alcohol requires very little skill. Keeping crack crackling is something people master rapidly.  Playing golf requires skill, mastering martial arts takes discipline, taking a course in astrophysics is hard work and gaining fulfillment through spiritual practices requires devotion but getting loaded is easy.

A person can use drugs or alcohol anytime they want to. Fishing requires appropriate conditions, hang gliding also requires the correct conditions, gazing at the stars through a telescope requires a dark clear night away from city lights, engaging in a fulfilling career requires a confluence of many circumstances, using narcotics just requires Internet access or access to a pain clinic or two.

The cooperation of others is not required in order to get drunk or high, not so if you want to veg-out watching TV and your spouse wants to talk, or you are excited by the prospect of having sex but your partner isn't, you cannot go on a blind date by yourself, family life requires a family, all these require others cooperation but you can peak on LSD in complete isolation.

Finally when it comes to luck drugs and alcohol have it all over these other methods of reaching our desires. Catching fish requires some luck, so does watching sports for excitement, or solving a puzzle even having a good relationship requires a fair amount of luck. Not so with drugs and alcohol, you can depend on them, they are reliable.

The truth is drugs and alcohol have all kinds of advantages; they are relatively cheap, they are readily available anytime anywhere, they are easy to use - the drug does all the work, and they are reliable, they consistently work the way you expect them to work. None of those other means of reaching our desires have all these advantages. That is the problem! The problem is not that drugs don't work. The problem is that they do!

It is because of the easy access, relative cheapness, ease of use, no assistance needed and reliable efficacy of drugs and alcohol that intelligent, well mannered, self confident, people from good homes wind up relying on them. We need to admit the truth and understand that everybody, smart or stupid, crazy or sane, is vulnerable to the advantages of drugs. They work and that is the problem!

The advantages of drugs and alcohol lead people to rely on them. Too often reliance devolves into dependence. It is subtle process that happens before we realize it. More about that later.






Russell Mai, LCDC, AAC