It is possible
to develop a rational approach to the drug abuse problem. It's
also possible to design a rational drug control policy. But to
be effective, each must be based on real alternatives to drug
use. And those alternatives need to be incorporated into our
educational system to better prepare our young
people for living and coping with crises.
Such alternatives
might include training in perceptual awareness, in communication
skills and interpersonal effectiveness, in problem-solving, decision-making,
stress management, and personal growth.
It's a big order,
but it will take big people and bigger actions to fully counter
the allure of drugs of abuse.
Because the simple
fact is that drugs (and alcohol) are alluring. They promise to
set right in an instant or an hour the accumulated failure and
torpor and insecurity of a lifetime.
And regardless
of the many (and well-documented) drug tragedies involving rock
stars and athletes, and the heart-rending testimony of abusers
and abused alike, it's likely to continue to remain so. And that
seems attributable to a flaw in our character even more pervasive
than the flood of drugs on American streets.
Because the ultimate
appeal of drugs and alcohol is deeply rooted in our national
consciousness -- or more properly, our national unconsciousness.
It springs from the media-fed belief that we somehow need something
external to us -- perhaps the right automobile or haircut or
toothpaste, but certainly the right home or right mate -- to
somehow save us.
It won't, and
it never has. Because when it comes to avoiding the deadly sweep
of drugs and alcohol in our lives, the only possible thing powerful
enough to save us is ourselves.
And saving ourselves
(and each other) will require information, to combat the ignorance
and intolerance that's swollen up around both sides of the issue.
It will require patience, because no problem that's grown to
the dimensions that drug and alcohol abuse currently share is
going to disappear overnight. And it will require hard work,
because it's just plain hard to reverse the tide of time and
history.
But that is the
challenge, and that is the opportunity: to remind ourselves,
for as long as it's needed, that there are -- and always will
be -- many human alternatives to drugs of abuse for those who
seek them.
