Pubdate: Thu, 25 Jun 2015 Source: Springfield News-Leader (MO) Copyright: 2015 The Springfield News-Leader Contact: http://getpublished.news-leader.com/Forms/LettersToEditor.php Website: http://www.news-leader.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1129 Author: Farris Robertson Note: Chaplain Farris Robertson is the director of Recovery Chapel. LOSING THE SECOND BATTLE OF WAR ON DRUGS We have lost the War on Drugs and are now losing the battle for an emotionally stable society. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that 52 million Americans have used prescription drugs for nonmedical purposes, that 54 percent of such drugs are obtained free from friends and relatives, and that 62 percent of teens that abused prescription drugs did so because they are legal, cheap, easy to get and provide plausible deniability when caught. Americans consume 75 percent of the world's prescription drugs even though we only represent 5 percent of the world's population. We also have the world's largest percentage of population incarcerated for illegal drugs. The mindset of health professionals is a big part of the problem. They meet together and discuss how some of us are wired wrong, maladjusted or chemically imbalanced and what medicines to try. They help market dangerous psychotropic medications. This issue is near and dear to me because I was a brilliant, maladjusted young man who had attention deficit disorder decades before it became popular. I found medicinal alcohol and drugs at age 15 and didn't come out of that downward spiral for 16 years. Now, almost 30 years drug- and alcohol-free, predominantly sane, and sadder but wiser, it is important for people like me to speak. Today I work with recovering addicts who are often chemically imbalanced. They are typically proscribed medications by practitioners who are modern-day witch doctors, trying this drug, then that one, then hurriedly changing to a third when the patient presents with antisocial behaviors. The pharmaceutical companies make money, the professional community stays busy, but the patients and taxpayers lose. Society pays for the addicted who are in jails and treatment centers. I work with men who have been medicated so long they have lost themselves and become walking laboratories for psychotropic experiments. They are often overdosed and dependent on prescriptions. My oldest son inherited my childhood hyperactive nature. He is now a scientist for the federal government and a brilliant scholar, but at age 6 a neurosurgeon wanted to experiment with him. The doctor looked at me and said, "I see where it comes from." While he was right in his diagnosis, his solution was a dark cauldron. We refused treatment. Some of the world's greatest genius has come from imbalanced people. I can testify: 1. God doesn't make mistakes and created me with a chemical "imbalance." Who's normal? 2. God made me more temptable than most by alcohol and drugs, but He didn't compel me to use them. I did that on my own. 3. God will use my wildness to bless the world if I cooperate and stay as pure as I can. If we are to win the battle for emotional health, we need to teach people how to live with life's frustrations without making excuses, engaging in antisocial behavior, or using drugs. Medicating them is only a stopgap measure at best and reinforces the many delusions that already accompany addictive living. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom