Why Drugs Are So Enjoyable - The Power Of Intoxication

Us humans are like ships, lost in the ocean of life. We seek stable land and hope for guidance form the ocean's current, only to have it carry us on its own uncertain course. This often brings us towards feelings of helplessness and confusion, and causes us to desire to give up control as the captain of our ship.

We look for someone or something to give us a break form the difficulty of navigating. This relief often comes in the form of intoxicating substances.

Intoxicating substances allude to being worthy captains of our ship, but their destination is often limited to the shore of their own abuse.

The greatest hardship of life is life itself. We are in constant battle against its complexities and illusions. When we don't take the necessary steps to deal with such complexities and illusions, we are forced to dwell on them.

Dwelling on the difficulties of life forms knots in the wiring of our brain. Just like a knot in a muscle, these knots restrict our range of mental motion and inhibit a healthy operation of life.

In our efforts to loosen and alleviate these knots, we often find our self at the foot of intoxicating substances. But the end of the rope that they pull usually only further tightens them.

Humans are one of the only creatures on planet Earth to purposely form habit out of altering their own brain. This is likely a product of the complex maze that exists between our self and the world. And drugs create an illusion of smoothness.

Using pleasure-stimulating and mind altering substances is not always harmful. But the problem is our inability to understand how to sometimes create this same smoothness in life on our own.

It is this that causes the misuse and overuse of intoxicating substances and it is this that we must be concerned about.

People are not accomplices to the crime of drug abuse. People are victims of life's complexity and mortality, and drugs are merely a byproduct. And as a culture, we must understand and be compassionate towards this.

In order to understand how to appropriately handle substance abuse problems, we must first make sure we are appropriately handling human ones.