Healing Metaphysics Home > Archive> Altered States - Drug Use

Article by Michael Finn
Copyright Michael Finn

As opposed to the utilization of mind-altering substances in tribal/traditional lifestyles over the centuries, drug usage today is, by and large, unguided and therefore misguided.

"...What the rites of initiation hoped to achieve was separation from
the parents, transmission of the sacred history of the tribe to
provide spiritual grounding, and preparation for the
responsibilities of adulthood. In our own culture there are no
meaningful rites of passage into adulthood and thus many
youth prolong their dependency. Our culture has become so
heterogeneous, and has lost its mythic moorings in any case,
that we can only transmit twentieth-century beliefs in
materialism, hedonism and narcissism – with some computer
skills thrown in. None of this provides salvation, connection to
the earth and its great rhythms, meaning or depth to one's
journey."

(The Middle Passage, James Hollis, Inner City Books, 1993)
http://www.innercitybooks.net

Ritualistic processes, shamanic journeying, spirit questing, initiatory rites; these are basically all missing within contemporary western culture, leading to drug use outside of a solid or traditional context. Drug use nowadays, especially within urban precincts is largely characterised as being recreational and also anaesthetically inclined: a panacea for the fallout from: racism, sexism, boredom, cynicism, a sense of meaninglessness, if not hopelessness, and so on.

Where resources are low, i.e. unemployment, fractured family life, depressed life opportunities, poor educative means etc., you will find drug use is high. Ironically, it is also endemic in the polar opposite of society; those who have much of or everything they will ever need (not necessarily want), manage to keep drug cartels busy.

The panacea of the disenchanted, disenfranchised, maybe. What needs scrutiny is our 'collective need for props'.

On a far less scrutinised note, an enormous chunk of humanity (those who have access/affordability), keep coffee growers, breweries, distilleries, wineries and tobacco growers in business. This is the business of providing substances guaranteed and designed to 'alter one's state'. Thus state-changing is a global activity and one avenue of it, substance use, is a cornerstone of day to day living.

As a consequence of the seeming indifference of political forces, and media bias, the limelight cast upon 'drug use' falls, by and large, solely upon 'hard drug users' and 'addicts'. It is an absolute joke to suggest that drugs are an accursed demon belonging exclusively to those who are most obviously the disenchanted and disenfranchised, the 'city shadows'.

A smoke screen effect conveniently ensues.

Until the smoke clears, no real progress is possible in regards effective drug-abuse reform, education or prevention. And sadly, community endorsed substances like alcohol will continue to be an influencing factor in around 50 percent of all road accidents …………a far too easily tolerated tragedy.

Addiction to pharmaceuticals is another entirely troubling matter. Demand for these legal and widely available drugs, engenders rapid pharmaceutical industry growth, at times, a seeming juggernaut, and the foot's not on the brakes .In the dusty wake of market profits lie the people affected by a chemo-revolution gone mad.

I am not at all opposed to the appropriate use of any useful medication to treat disease states, as long as the practitioners prescribing powerful therapeutics, exercise the personal responsibility essential to the act. Namely, for the benefit of the client, ensure that advice is also dispensed regarding what in fact people are ingesting, the realities of side-effects, the duration it will be required and so on.

Educate as much as medicate.

Also, ensure the client receives advice regarding other health promoting practices and therapies (appropriate to the condition being treated),which will effectively improve their health status and lessen the chance of creating drug dependence.

Here's an extract from a recent national newspaper, which highlights the problems of another drug use which ultimately causes far more injury than good.

(The Weekend Australian) Health Section Saturday July 26th, 2003.

'Diazepam – the generic name for Valium – was created from a simplified version of Librium.'

'Valium was the most prescribed drug in the U.S. between 1969 and 1982. At its peak in the 70's, Hoffman La Roche's parent company,Tthe Roche Group, was selling about 2 billion Valium pills a year, earning the company US$600 million a year... ...Diazepam is sold in Australia by several pharmaceutical companies as: Valium, Antenex, Ducene and Valpram. In 2002 – 2003, 50 percent of prescriptions for diazepams in Australia were for Valium.

Almost 2 million scripts were issued for Diazepam in 2002, costing consumers and government more than $13 million.

Valium and other benzodiazepines, were marketed as fast-acting, non-addictive and as having no side-effects. It seemed too good to be true.

And it was.

Dr. Jean Lennane was Director of Drug and Alcohol services at Rozelle Hospital in Sydney during the 1980's.

Lennane believes naivety about benzodiazepines created countless drug addicts – people who suffered from stress and social anxiety and innocently followed their doctor's instructions.

"There was a time when I was seeing heaps and heaps of people addicted to benzodiazepines," Lennane says.

"There were a lot of them and they were in two groups; the poly-drug addicts, who will take anything they can get their hands on, and the other group – people who have not had any other drug problem and they find they have become hooked by taking a normal small dose of one of these drugs. And they were the much larger group." Lennane says.

So much for the track record of just one drug, in one country.

What are we really facing?

A determination distinguishing 'drug use' as distinct from 'drug abuse,' would be most helpful, at least in terms of gaining perspective on the entire, complex drugs issue. Knee-jerk reactions by politicians/law makers and hence enforcers, are ultimately ineffectual, reiterating old, outdated, pavlovian responses.

There are no winners in a 'war' on drugs.

The western-alliance jihad against 'drugs' isn't being waged on any of the right fronts, is flawed from its outset, missing the mark with predictability. Political platitudes and hardline posturing merely marginalize those citizens who are already fringe dwellers.

It should be a war against social isolationism, wealth (and therefore) resource disparity, societal cynicism, community disconnectedness and 'blame culture'.

Heavy handed ineptitude doth not engender understanding, nor progress.

(By the same token, military force can depose a tyrannical regime, as in Iraq. But can 'Americocentric' think-tanks disengage from their own self-fulfilling gaze effectively enough to begin to even comprehend the complexities of the Muslim way of life?)

A cohesive society requires on-going forums on drug use, populated by elders who can create policies characterised by compassion and insight and not merely ballot box popularity.

Musings: Why are drugs (vis a vis – access to certain altered states) so seductive, so enticing?

What social, economic, collective or personal factors become nails in the coffin?

Lets resolve to discover more about the actual nature of drugs and the 'drug experience', rather than being reflexively and naively focussed on what's ostensibly bad about them.Concentrating compulsively on the latter hasn't changed things whatsoever.

Rather it drives drug use underground, creating dangers, an unregulated marketplace, another realm of exploitation and gaols full of people who choose substance use not favoured by the opinion in force at the time, and (other criminal acts aside), whose crime was self – inflicted.

Suggested starting point

• Everyone own up to their own personal and collective 'altered state' proclivities: e.g. if you put a bottle or more of wine, beer etc, away of an evening, don't condemn, out of hand, a person who finds solace in simply another substance. One thing which is blatantly obvious in this culture is that a huge alcohol problem exists, one which is rarely discussed and which consumes families in its own draught of excess, oblivion and abuse. This is not to mention the ubiquitous carnage on our roadways, where many lives are lost and countless others ruined.
  
  When one small sector of society receives inordinate legal and political condemnation, this biased glare creates a huge shadow in which everyone else hides; thus secreting away the exact same realities operating in their very lives. Admit how much you crave that drink, that coffee, that next cigarette, that downloaded porn, sugar hit, that addictive tendency………
  
• Reflect on the genesis of that craving. Locate the addictive tendency inside each one of us, which values 'state-changing'. Realise that this is a common ground and cease stereotyping drug use as a problem occurring to someone else. Almost every family is directly or indirectly connected to the effects of substance use/abuse in some way.
  
• If you wish to help a friend or family member survive the heavy gravity of drug lure and / or addiction struggles, discuss frankly (providing dialogue is possible; I realize it is often not) the important issue here of how difficult it is to change.
  
• Everyone needs to make public, within families and communities, their own struggles with change and how difficult it is to shift into it, until and unless dire circumstances force your hand.
  
  If nothing else, drug use as a social connector speaks lots about something in society which requires attention. It represents some aspect of social change, which is having trouble with its own metamorphosis and subsequent mainstream acceptance.
  
  Where does this change initially generate from?
  
  Basically, though problematically, from within each individual.
  
  The challenge to embrace radical or even moderate change then, becomes either one's growth curve, or more of one's inner impasses and possible self-destruction.
  
  Remember, the road for a person dealing with substance reliance is going to be a life-altering one. One unfortunate side of this is that a renewed, non-addicted individual ultimately returns to a life consisting of some social fabric, friends, food for the spirit.
  
  One needs, at this point to create a new social circle. This is an extremely formidable task for many and it is where one can succumb to the old gravity all too easily.
  
  Paucity of self-confidence (as opposed to cleverness dressed as confidence) is a root feature of many addictive personalities. Enhanced self belief requires heaps of attention and effort – the person needs the succour of social support. We are talking about self validation here, so steps toward renewal will be slow and gradual.
  
• 'All cards on the table' approach. (At least, give it a go) Find the space and time to talk about the presence of drugs/substances in our own 'normal'lives, within our respective societies.
  
• Find out if there are any similarities between the different 'time spirits' we may have grown up in.
  
  Each generation, I believe, has a type of time spirit, a 'zeitgeist'. This spirit is constituted by the codes of conduct, the general beliefs, the behaviours and habits of a generation. These are deep seated, entrenched attitudes. Their importance lies in the fact that often, amidst family discord around drug problems, there's a generational clash simmering. This makes communication potentially difficult, stymyeing progress and challenging every level of the family's structure and balance. If we are aware of the clash of spirits, we might be able to locate a truce somewhere between them. Here, both sides are behooved to change.
  
• Become aware just what it is (e.g., what state or experience we are wanting to repeat), i.e., what is so alluring about the drug experience; discover the attractive power of the drug. Do this so that you become truly able to 'walk a mile in their shoes'.Find out what else is /has been going on in the life of anyone struggling with a substance demon.
  
  These efforts create empathy to hopefully guide the advice we give and temper, by reflection, the judgements we make.
  
  This requires patient respect and a deep understanding that an addiction is in part, an unconscious attempt by the individual to embrace a sense of wholeness in some part of their life. The wholeness sought, becomes hijacked unfortunately, due to the destructive effects of drugs on: decision making, confidence, clarity, responsibility-mindedness and the ushering in of social isolation. Wholeness is threatened by a lack of solid, grounded, life experience, for those also requiring the presence of authentic role models and elders.
  
• Become aware of detox processes which exist in unusual places.
  
  Click the link below for an example:
  http://www.thamkrabok.org.au
  
  These ideas are proffered in an attempt to instill a fuller, more real context for meaningful, spirited debate within drug forums and amidst political office and to plumb at least some of the social backdrop to drug use; to create awareness and experience and to reinstigate common sense.
  
  Sharing these creates a space to examine any reflexive, ill-informed judgements, pronouncements and 'holier than thou' condemnations, presently rated, it seems, ahead of reform, reintegration programs and a societal acknowledgement of responsibility in part. Let us take more interest, as a starting point.

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