WebWordsArticles - Addiction

Alcohol is a drug. It is seriously addictive, highly toxic, cheap, socially acceptable and legal. However, our dependency on it - and all mind-altering substances - is deeply worrying.

I am firmly of the opinion that alcoholism is an illness, just like an addiction to gambling; in fact, any addiction. It may be something in our genes. However, its prevalence is threatening the future of our society, as more and more people "take to the bottle" in order to uplift, disinhibit, relax and forget. People turn to alcohol in particular, for many reasons. However, in the main, because it is easily available and cheap. This does not mean to say that pricing it out of the reach of people will solve the underlying problem. That was proven not to work in America, during their "Prohibition".

Our society has become a victim of its own success. We have changed our environment to such an extent, that it is virtually unrecognisable from what it was even just 50 years ago. Along with that, we have changed our behaviour. We have given ourselves rights, freedoms, expectations, but we have failed to give ourselves responsibility for those privileges and, as a result, we have too few boundaries. We live in an increasingly unequal world, where the few have incredible wealth and power, which shields them from many of life's realities, and the many have barely enough to survive. Young people have always lived for today, because they are young. However, if they can see no future, because the current generation is destroying their world, what can they see for themselves, other than a lifetime of want, poverty and destruction? We have healthcare that can cure many of life's ailments, but we have become increasingly dependent upon it, expecting it to save us from all of life's pitfalls.

We seem to have a dependency on anything unnatural; fast cars, thrills, rubbish food, refined sugar, violence and, above all, money. We cannot live without these "essential" ingredients of our lives, because we have been taught to crave them. We have been taught by those who have, to want and desire more and more, because it fuels the commerce that drives us; the wealth that makes our lives easier. However, it is these very things that are destroying us, because they are destroying the world that gave us life. There are now so many people on this planet, that finding safe places to put them all is becoming difficult. Even America has resorted to building flimsy homes in the path of most of their tornados, and then wondering "how did that happen?" Hoping to find ever more inventive ways of surviving these natural disasters. In the towns and cities, space is at a premium; the pace of life is increasing, we live in "24 hour" societies, where darkness is replaced with Sodium and Neon lights, so that we may buy and consume more and more sugary, fatty, salty food, and fill our lives with electronic gadgetry. The simple life has gone; it has been banished, because we didn't believe it was fair. People are crammed in tight spaces, forced to live in closer proximity to each other, where the wail of a myriad of different sirens and nerve-breaking claxons sound. And pollution tarnishes the air we breathe, to the point where bureaucrats determine that we are in breach of international legislation. However, their efforts are but a drop in the ocean; the ocean of Humanity's destructive nature, which is destroying ordinary people, because they are too feeble to help themselves. Is this Evolution: the survival of the fittest? I doubt it, because if the fittest are prevailing, it is they who are destroying Life.

The results? An obesity "epidemic", Diabetes, depression, anxiety, Cancer, sexually transmitted infections, Ebola (caused because of a stupid desire for infected "bush meat"), violence, aggression, religious extremism; the list is almost endless. And all because we are rushing towards our own undoing, for, despite our great intelligence, we are too stupid to stop and think about our past and how we were designed to live: with Nature, not constantly against it.

Our society prizes youth and beauty; wealth and power, rather than innocence, virtue, honesty and decency. Because so few of us are blessed with all of the more desired traits, we are increasingly ostracised; outcast and discriminated against. Even in our legal system, the "beautiful people" are treated more favourably than the plain looking; the "ugly" or the simple.

Is it any wonder why people are turning to alcohol and drugs, in order to take themselves away from all of this? It is my belief that this is part of the modern "Human condition".

An addiction usually destroys its victim. Our addiction to technology and "progress" (and I use the term loosely) will, ultimately, be our own downfall. If we want to cure drug addicts and alcoholics, we must first cure the disease in our society. Then and only then will we stand a chance of making a happy, sustinable future. It may be too late, though. Let us hope it is not.