Choosing Happiness Even When Life Is Hard by Frank Minirth & MD

Author:Frank Minirth & MD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012070, SEL016000, PSY010000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

Follow-Up

Loneliness can be overcome. Tools such as the ones in this chapter are among the best techniques to combat loneliness. Try the ones that seem to fit your situation. Consider consulting a counselor or physician. Loneliness may be tough at times, but it can be defeated.

10

Drug Abuse

Pursuing Freedom

Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.

Joshua

A twenty-five-year-old male came into our clinic. He said that during college he would occasionally become intoxicated. About three months ago he had come under tremendous stress and increased workload at his job and had begun to binge drink on weekends. Recently he had begun to drink daily, not just on weekends, and was having trouble going to work. His story is more and more common today.

Do you or does someone you know have a drug problem? Here is a quick check called the TWEAK test:

T: increasing tolerance of the effect of drugs

W: worry of friends

E: eye opener needed to get going

A: amnesia experienced

K: has tried to cut down

Drugs and alcohol play significant roles in destroying the mental and physical health of twenty-first-century Americans. Today drug abuse is a major mental health problem. The number one cause of death in our country relates to smoking and the abuse of nicotine. The number one cause of highway accidents is related to alcohol, which is also a significant factor in family violence. And alcohol is involved in 50 percent of homicides.

In the late 1970s there was a decrease in the use of hallucinogens, PCP, and marijuana, and barbiturate abuse was not increasing. Cocaine use increased in the 1980s, then leveled off, but recently has begun to increase again. Heroin use is on the increase in middle-class families.

Illicit drugs have a stranglehold on America. More than 50 percent of young adults have experimented with marijuana. Heroin and cocaine abuse has moved from the back streets into the upper middle class of corporate America. Inhalants are beginning to rob us of our preteens. Some athletes use anabolic steroids, in some cases resulting in aggression, depression, and even death. Probably one hundred thousand deaths per year are due to drug abuse.

Drug and alcohol abuse costs $85 billion per year. Most often, abuse in the workplace involves alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine. Intoxication and drug abuse increase accidents, decrease performance, increase broken equipment, and create defective goods. Chronic use causes increased absenteeism, increased job termination, a demoralized workforce, and theft.

Ironically, although they are alluring and seem to offer relief from the pressures of this life, drugs of abuse will never bring their users the joy and peace for which they yearn. The only true answer for our deep dependency needs rests in a personal relationship with Christ, who offers an abundant life.

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