The Fix for America’s Inferiority Complex (aka Drug Problem)

Bigger! Better! More! Win! Celebrity! Money! Power! Greed! Success! More! Bigger! Better! Compete! Win! More! More! More….

These are just a few of the words that come to mind when I think of what America’s message to its citizens has become over the years. We as a country, albeit the media, corporations advertising, etc. have placed an enormous amount of praise on the almighty dollar instead of the almighty God. We’ve placed an emphasis on being more like Kim Kardashian and less like Mother Theresa.

America: We’re suffering from an inferiority complex and we’re abusing drugs when we can’t measure up. This Anxiety/Depression epidemic you created is the number one cause of drug addiction.

Warning: please watch for junk sites with poached content!

I often receive messages from people with links to content they feel I may be interested in sharing on our Facebook page. Recently a number of these links are bringing me to content stolen from this blog to junk sites riddled with ads.

Those of us touched by addiction are preyed upon from the moment we go onto the web looking for resources or treatment options.  It is for this reason I have no advertising on my blog. I have been approached by a number of companies looking to advertise everything from books, videos, for profit treatment facilities, and counseling services. Just today I received an offer for a pay per call link, where I would be paid for every call generated from my website to a treatment helpline. As we will be filing for a nonprofit soon, we could certainly use the money – but this is not the way.

Addiction is a hot topic online right now – my blog has had close to 3 million views, and our Facebook has just shy of 9K followers.  I don’t appreciate people finding another way to line their pockets with our pain.  I have always allowed any and all nonprofit and not for profit organizations and websites to share my words. Even as the ‘stolen content’ articles are being shared the message still gets out – and that is truly a good thing.

The sites I am writing about are created simply to generate revenue without doing any work.  We can, as consumers, become more aware of what we are sharing.

Please keep an eye out for these junk sites and don’t help them profit by taking advantage of us while poaching people’s work. They are easy to spot. Many of them have medical and health in their name. Much of the time the articles will be posted by ‘admin’, the post will be loaded with ads, and the article may cut off abruptly. If it is a site loaded with articles and none of them have a link back to the original post that is also a clue.

The Winding Path to Heroin: Part I

Recently on our Facebook page I asked people to tell me about that day they switched from pills to heroin. I had heard enough stories to know that almost nobody began with heroin, and even when they switch most have zero intention to ever touch a syringe. So what happens. How do they get there?

Often after an article about the drug epidemic is posted online, and more specifically when Narcan is mentioned, there will be the comments of ‘just let them die’, ‘Darwinism at its best’, ’thinning the herd’ ‘they chose this life, so the get what they deserve’.

Every addict is someone’s child, sister, brother, mother, father, loved one. The scathing attitudes and opinions others wield so safely at home on their computer are like gut punches to those in addiction as well as those who love them. They are especially painful to those who have lost a loved one to overdose. More importantly, they perpetuate the stigma that people in addiction don’t deserve compassion or treatment — simply ‘let ’em all die’….. 

Let he without sin cast the first stone:

• Those who never broke any rules in adolescence, who never thought they knew better and didn’t take risks – including (but not limited to): driving too fast, underage drinking, sneaking out of the house, underage sex, binge drinking, smoking pot, taking any drug not prescribed to you, shoplifting, vandalism….
• Those who as adults have never drank to get drunk/buzzed, driven while drunk, driven while stoned, blown through a red light, driven above the speed limit…..

Many of us made poor decisions and broke rules as adolescents, sometimes even into college and beyond.

My question to all of the baby boomers out there. Where would your parent’s prescription pills have fallen on the above list? Pills were being passed around high schools in the past few decades like joints in our day. If you would have smoked a joint in high school or college, would you have tried some Oxy, smoked or snorted it? ‘It’s just the stuff your mom takes for her back pain you know.’