The Abuse of Substance

I am going to climb myself up on this moral soap box for a moment. Please forgive me because harm is in no way my intent nor is offense.

Last night, I had to crawl out of my bed and drive an hour away from home to retrieve my son from paramedics at a concert he attended (against my advice) because he glorifies being high and decided to take some drugs from some strangers with no knowledge of what he was putting in his temple (body) just to get that high.

Now, I could write a book on how substance abuse has affected my life and I certainly have not held back on sharing it with my son.

I am compelled to write about is this misunderstanding that people seem to have that a substance is good or bad. I feel as though the substance is simply a tool to serve the need of the person using it. Therefore I do not find the harm in the plant itself. I find the harm in the desire of the people to be removed from the reality of the present moment. I find the harm in the need to be numb, the need to be above what is, in a superficial way. I feel the harm in making a substance your lord.

In this case, my dear boy was void of thought for anyone besides himself and caught up in a mere feeling. I can speculate many reasons why this is the case but whatever the cause may be, every person who was touched by his choice had to feel the reality of his misplaced worship and even more so some were harmed by his choice to engage in the use of a "harmless" substance.

I am troubled with his choice not to respect the power of that decision. His choice to ignore what was right in front of him for what he mistakes as love for the substance. His choice to abuse and almost lose his temple in search of something he foolishly perceives can be found in a substance and not inside of his own freedom and rationality. His choice to engage in arrogance over love.

I have not completely processed this. I am still making an attempt to understand the message this incident is carrying for my soul.

For now my heart aches for my boy, my heart aches for all of the dear ones who begin this way and find themselves tangled in the web of what we know as substance abuse.