Addiction Schmaddiction

Apparently within ten years, doctors will treat addiction as a disease. Which means, according to a recent Newsweek article, the sufferers will get medicine.

Better living through chemistry.

Once again.

Scientists and doctors are actively researching and using new vaccines (read: drugs) that will cure your addiction to…anything: other drugs, cigarettes, brownies, alcohol, maybe even that guy who won’t call but works it so well you can’t help but accept him into your bed every lonely, sad, Saturday night.

And so with this dependence on liquid courage, manufactured willpower, and pharmaceutical intervention, we take another step in the long journey away from personal responsibility.

A journey that will never bring us back.

We continue giving up our own personal power to a drug or drink and then pretend a new drug will somehow “cure” us. Unbelievable what people believe.

Addicts trading one addiction for another is nothing new. Smokers often give up cigs for cinnabons. Opium and cocaine were first sold as cures for alcoholism. Food addicts find new love with exercise equipment or extreme sports.

And then there’s Jesus. He’s the drug of choice for many people who made such catastrophic mistakes blinded by artificial highs that they now need the blinding high of forgiveness and redemption just to make it through each day.

Blind either way.

But fine. To a certain extent, whatever works. I’d rather someone put a “Beam Me Up, Lord” bumper sticker on their car and set out to convert the world rather than continue beating the wife and kids.

Whatever works is right.

But I’m afraid that if we focus on medicine instead of ourselves, we’re missing a golden opportunity. Whipping a demon is badass. Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and ending a vicious cycle Grandpa started is something to treasure.

There’s nothing in a pill to be proud of.

If we become a nation or a people drugged out of self-awareness – how do we grow? How do we evolve?

Tests of character and strength make us stronger. Granted, there are people who fail such tests and wind up dead as a result. Okay. Drug them because the alternative is unacceptable. But many people who could find the strength within will choose the easier route instead.

Come on. Don’t pretend we’re not the laziest g*damn generation ever.

Remote controls, drive-ins, and Michael Bay movies are popular for a reason.

And how does this help the crystal meth or crack addict? They can't afford to treat their children's asthma much less pay for expensive solutions to their own problems. Solutions that don't make the colors in the sky "bug out."

New and more expensive drugs are not a way out of our drug problem. Addiction vaccines don't tackle the root of addiction; they simply mask the symptoms.

Which may be enough. For some. Cause drinking enough to choke a horse while screwing the same jerks over and again gets old. And sometimes it's better to just make the bad go away. Without developing the skills for how to prevent it all in the first place.