What are the positive effects of drug addiction?

[Kerry]

"what are the positive effect [sic] of drug addiction?" —submitted by anonymous

I'm not sure if this is a sincere question or a prank. In any case, the topic triggers the following thoughts that may be of value/interest to others.

Given the number of people who experiment with drugs, and the significant number of people who eventually become addicted, it's clear that there are several positive effects (payoffs). A positive "payoff" is not always healthy (continue reading).

To paraphrase entertainer/philosopher/pod-caster Russell Brand:

Drugs serve a purpose—the time-consuming activities of searching, buying, hiding, sneaking, smoking, and the light-hearted happy discussions while high, (happiness that is no longer experienced at home)—give one something to do to fill the void.

I'd add that lecture-free conversations with peers, while high, are how teens process (and learn to put up with) the hypocrisies they are submitted to. I.e. The mind-blowing reasons legislators use for thwarting each other and for spending 2-5 billion for a submarine while daily (24/7) intending to have 40,000 homeless veterans each night[/url]. Intention here is measured by results.

A college-bound "A" student is on-purpose; a person on-purpose generates a field of energy that is self-sustaining. A "purpose" in life is all-consuming. Such a teen doesn't desire or have time to experiment with activities that could possibly negatively affect outcomes; they are relatively satisfied, if not happy, and have no need for pot. Conversations at home always end with laughter. They get "high" through genuine intercourse (communication).

Every teen who does drugs is communicating that they are not in-communication with anyone, especially their parents. 

Before you get bent out of shape from that statement; "in-communication" refers to a communication model, a way of interacting, in which all concerned communicate openly, honestly, and spontaneously, zero significant thoughts withheld from each other (the keyword being "zero"). I've yet to meet an adult who could not recall one or more significant thoughts or perpetrations they were, and possibly still are, hiding from their parents, partner, or their boss. The same addiction, to withholding significant thoughts from a significant person, applies to all divorced couples, and all (yes all) education and health-care majors, ergo, students have no choice other than to mirror the integrity of the adults around them.

Here's another possible button-pusher:

The majority of "teachers" teach future parents to teach their children to lie, evidenced by the fact that most teens con each other into deceiving both sets of parents so as to have sex. Teachers communicate (teach) this non-verbally. This topic is an excellent example of a mokita, a truth everyone knows that no one talks about.

Drugs are how a teen communicates to the outside world that their parents don't know how to get into communication with them or each other. It's how teens embarrass their parents, non-verbally communicating, first to teachers, then therapists, sometimes the police, that his/her parents are stuck doing their imitation of communication. The way their parents communicate, their communication model, doesn't produce happiness, aliveness, joy, or satisfaction. Concept of love yes, several moments of joyous love and appreciation throughout each day, no.
 
About family discussions at home*

Most teens are looking to recreate an earlier experience of love, of communication. They can recall a time when their parents laughed and hugs were daily expressions of love.

All (yes all) parents of teens who start doing drugs are withholding one or more significant thoughts from each other (there are no exceptions to this phenomenon). A teen has no choice other than to mirror the integrity of their parents. Virtually no teen discusses with their parents their interest and intention to try, say, marijuana or sex. Such teens also drag thoughts of guilt about masturbation throughout each day; while trying to study. None communicate truthfully or as spontaneously with their parents as they do with their fellow smokers. Most teens experience shame about how often they masturbate; none have been assured by both parents that it's normal.

Most teens start doing drugs via an invitation. The inviter, the introducer, touts the happiness of being high. The teen is validated when someone invites them to smoke pot. It fills the desire to be liked or accepted, even by someone clearly not interested in their grades/success; it provides immediate positive attention. "Whereas before I was a sad loner looking for love and happiness, now I have a group of non-judgmental 'friends' to rap and be happy with. This is considered a "benefit."

BTW: Few parents demonstrate and practice with their teen how to handle the "invitation" dialog.

About attention:
 
When crying doesn't bring a parent running sometimes a baby will noisily shake the crib; if that doesn't work some bang their head repeatedly against the crib. The reward for the self-inflicted pain, the positive effect, is that it works every time. Someone eventually comes running, feels guilty, hugs, etc. The mind becomes programmed to damage itself so as to get attention which it equates with love.

When one messes up life badly enough someone eventually pays attention, usually a public service organization does it for free. Doing drugs, or eventually becoming homeless, is a way to punish parents, teachers, and society for doing such a terrible job. For every drug addict there is a parent, teacher, clergy member, or social worker in the addict's life who is stuck doing his/her imitation of communication with the addict. When communication is experienced it always results in a natural high.

Underneath the need for attention is an unconscious intention to make one’s parents wrong for treating them (and each other) so abusively, for not training the addict to succeed. Slow tormenting suicidal behaviors are the best way to get even with one’s parents. Until an addict chooses to heal, the addict's pain becomes the parent's pain. A parent feels guilty if his/her child is homeless, or remains an addict, or is in an abusive relationship.

The trick with addictions is not to ruin oneself to the point where it's irreversible. Crash but not totally burn—taking as many with you as possible (including parents, teachers, clergy, social workers, friends, and therapists). Notice that the vast majority of addicts are absolutely intent on making sure their therapists fail; this, in part, because therapists do not have a communication-skills coach on speed dial for support when communication isn't taking place with say, an addict. Seldom do clients leave a therapy session having experienced a transformation. 

Suicidal behavior, behaviors we do that we know aren't the most healthful, might not appear to have a positive effect, yet it's a way out of the "rat race" while getting to blame someone for how life turned out.

A self-righteous person, a person who is stuck in being/acting self-righteous, is addicted to abuse and mediocrity. They unconsciously drive others crazy, even to doing drugs. Such a person holds that their addictions (sugar, white bread/rice, a hot dog's nitrites, condescensions, erratic driving, verbally/non-verbally abusing others) are not as bad as say, an addiction to alcohol or another mind-altering drug. For example: When a driver intentionally drives less than the speed limit, thereby controlling others, causing upset, they blame the person behind them for wanting to go faster. This thwarting behavior is called sabotage. Such an angry inconsiderate person has an enormous impact on his/her community.

Adults drive teens crazy, they cause them to do drugs and to play at the level of mediocrity. Parents zone out each evening in front of the TV yet expect their child to do excellent homework. It could be said that those driven to do drugs are serving the purpose of eventually forcing adults to give teens a valid reason to play at the level of excellence.   

The number of hypocrisies** adults support truly blows a child's mind. The paradoxes drive a child to despair. Kids go bonkers when they see their parents treating each other as they do. It hurts them tremendously. Drugs relieve the pain—a positive result. Teens assume that if these two, my creators and heroes, can't get along harmoniously then neither can I.  If parents put up with each other's abuses then how could I possibly do otherwise? If this is as good as it gets through interpersonal communication, then maybe drugs will make me happier. Notice that seldom does one see a truly happy cop; even how police communicate with each other, and the community, doesn't produce happiness.

Lastly, for some, drugs reveal possibilities. There are therapists who administer drugs during a therapy session to expand the patient's mind or to complete a veteran's or a child's trauma. Most everyone knows that The Beatles used drugs and produced some of the world's most memorable tunes and lyrics. Others know, from personal experience, that realizations and ideas arrived at while high are virtually worthless in the light of the next day. It's as though ideas must be created and implemented while constantly high, or, one must learn how to create ideas in the everyday drug-free reality so that the mind that came up with the idea uses the same reality to implement it.

Sex experienced while high though different is not created with a consciousness that allows it to be recreated (in all its magnificence) at will without the drug. Drug-sex is characterized by control and expectation. Usually, one partner (the drug provider) has a plan to have sex. There is little space to not have it. The surest way to destroy a relationship is to use a drug for one’s first sex experience with a potential partner. It completely bypasses the exquisite subtleties of extended foreplay. It will take considerable intention (thousands of conversations) to create the experience of mind-blowing sex with the same partner without the drug. Sex is only a small part of intercourse. The skills it takes to get high naturally through verbal and nonverbal communications are the exact same communication skills it takes to consistently create magnificent mind-blowing sex.

Kerry


* The majority of parents honestly and sincerely believe they are in-communication with their teen, yet all teens know they are hiding (withholding) one or more significant thoughts from their parents. Virtually all parents teach their children to deceive them—evidenced by the fact that most dating teens non-verbally con each other into deceiving both sets of parents so as to have sex.

** Hypocrisies:

Hypocrisies contribute to some teens going unconscious (escaping) via drugs: 

Teens, given a choice, will hang around those who laugh a lot. Most adults have lost their ability to laugh as teens do with each other; most adults have become serious and self-righteous. Most adults have lost their ability to communicate and don't even know they have lapsed into doing their imitation of communication. Most adults simply don't know that they shut down communication, that they are not a safe space for the truth to be told. This forces teens to withhold certain thoughts. Thoughts such as, "I wonder what marijuana is like." Most parents lapse into their lecture-mode preventing communication from taking place. Thoughts withheld sometimes manifest themselves as actions.

The majority of children are raised mostly by females (as mothers and teachers) yet for decades mothers have taught their sons to pay women less. One might rightly ask, why would a mother train her daughter to surrender to anyone who believes their daily activities are more valuable or more important? Keeping teachers begging for pay equal to any civil servant is a covert acknowledgment by the community; it communicates dissatisfaction and disrespect. It reveals dissatisfactions with their educations—that they could con a "teacher" into passing them with poor penmanship. Read: More Effective Communicators—men or women?

The government gives money to tobacco farmers yet spends millions on anti-smoking ads and pay farmers to not plant fields in a world in which children die of starvation daily. The horrendous hypocrisies drive many to drugs

Adults say to not smoke but children see teachers and staff smoking on the sidewalk outside the school.

Teachers teach their students to acknowledge their less-than-satisfying education by voting to keep teachers begging for school supplies and financial parity.

Students see overweight teachers who daily thwart the wisdom of their own former teachers of biology, nutrition, and physical education; the hypocrisy is a non-verbal communication, that what's being taught doesn't work. The overweight teacher expects students to master subject matter that they have yet to learn at the level of knowing.

When a child rides with an adult who goes over the speed limit it sends mixed messages about rules and laws. Seldom does a child experience being valued enough to successfully prevent an adult from speeding. It's confusing.

If cops can lie and deceive (sting operations), if the job can't get done honestly, then it means that lying and deceit are sometimes justified if the reason is good enough.

When a teen shoots someone with their parent's weapon, how come the parent isn't punished equally for setting up their child to use the gun?

When a child tells his/her first lie, and the parent can't hear it because they are so unconscious, it's the beginning of the loss of respect. The child can feel their face hiding the lie. How come the parent can't pick up on a simple nonverbal communication?

When children hear parents and adults complain and watch them put up with "stupid" problems it confuses a child, it begins to drive them crazy. It simply doesn't compute, it doesn't make sense, it blows the child's mind. If supposedly smart, educated, adults can't change these injustices then life must be truly hopeless. It leaves children with two choices; to play at the level of mediocrity like adults do, and learn how to lie, deceive, and get ahead at the expense of others, or go unconscious (through mind-altering substances) and try to survive.

Last edited 11/10/23[/size]