This drug abuse talk again… Sigh

Hello folks! Welcome to a new month! How’s the year been? Good? Great? Achieving? Working hard? Feel like there are some things you need to work on, change around? It’s all in your hands!

Let’s start by catching up a bit – won’t dedicate a full post to it because honestly I’m tired of writing about the effects of drug use/abuse. Ditto ranting about drug trafficking, especially to countries where the penalty is death. So, I’m not saying drug trafficking is ok (God forbid), I’m saying that if you have given yourself over to the devil (or allowed the devil to use you according to former President Goodluck Jonathan), why not help your career by staying out of countries where the penalty is death? Na wa.

On drug abuse, and the recent death and internment of Bobbi Kristina Brown, I have a few things to say. Not to her family (who must be in so much grief all we can/should do is pray for them to be comforted) but to the rest of us who are still privileged to be in the land of the living. Not because we’re better, more righteous or whatever. God is just merciful. But we have a part to play.

Illicit drugs were, are, and will always be a bad thing. There is no way abusing drugs (even if it is cough medicine I hear people sniff to get high) will ever produce a positive result.

Michael Jackson – 50.Whitney Houston – 48. Phillip Seymour Hoffman – 46. Cory Monteith – 31. Bobbi Kristina – 22. She’s the latest entrant to the list since the post I wrote titled, “learn from it, don’t be it”. How hard can it be to say no to the first whiff, injection, smoke? What are you even doing amongst people playing rough play like that? Let me sound like my father a bit and say that do you think Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, etc. would be where they are today if they spent their time sniffing whatever it is that ends up destroying the mind and the body? How do we by ourselves become the architects of our own destruction?

Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s death hurt me in a different kind of way. This man was an addict, cleaned up, was drug free for at least 8280 days, then fell off the wagon again. And this time it killed him. Would to God he had stayed clean another 6 months from the 8280 days; he might still have been here.

Don’t start. Don’t try it. If you’re sad/depressed/feeling bad, pray. Shop (more like window shop). Go out, hang out with your friends. Call someone close on the phone. Pray. Sing. Dance. Sleep sef!

But in the name of everything pure, leave drugs alone. There is no light at the end of that tunnel.

Love, light, and warm fuzzies,

FGS.

Another one bites the dust…

Cory Monteith. Michael Jackson. Whitney Houston. What two things do these names have in common? Fame/wealth. Undisputed access to tons and tons of money, acclaim, all that good stuff.

The second thing is illicit drugs/death. Whatever it is they snorted, smoked, injected or inhaled, it led to their death, and very early too. Cory Monteith was 31, Michael Jackson was 50. Talk about lives being cut short.

Exactly one week ago, when I heard Philip Seymour Hoffman had been found dead on the 2nd of February with a needle still stuck in his arm and heroin (a special type called ‘Ace of Spades’) in packets around him, I was sad, then angry, then sad, and angry all over again.

Sad – he died young, he was just 46. He was very popular too, an Oscar award winner, and recently starred in Hunger Games (which by the way I have never watched and don’t think I will ever see because I don’t like fight fight).

Angry – are there not enough examples to prove that drugs are a sure way to die early?

Sad – heartbroken for his family, his wife/partner and their three young children. His parents, and the stigma of being related to the person ‘who died with a needle in his arm’.

Angry – what on earth made him go back to drugs after 23 years of being drug free? Whatever could have entered him all over again? They say his drugs could have been laced with something else. Ok, but why take them in the first place? Why?

I’m sure I could go the sad and angry route a few more times, but I won’t.

Psychologists say anything you do for 30 days becomes a habit – this man had been drug free for at least 8280 days! Then according to a report I read, he started abusing prescription pills, graduated to heroin, and then on to this substance that took his life.

I chatted with someone recently, and he told me the amount of thanks and gratitude he got because he gave him a $5 tip. 5 dollars. Reports say just weeks ago the now late Seymour withdrew $1200 from an ATM to pay for these drugs. $1200 on drugs when the next man is almost throwing a party because he was gifted 5 bucks.

Here’s another reason why I am angry – a child is attracted by the flickering light of a candle, and they want to touch it. Most times we let them because we know once it hurts them that first time, they most likely will not go back to it again. ‘Most likely’ because children have the attention span of a goldfish! Bless them.

23 years after, did he forget? Did he become so wealthy that he felt that the drugs would ‘fear/respect his money’ and not harm him? What was he thinking? The Bible says that the things that are written are unto us for examples.

Just like I wrote the ‘learn from it, don’t be it‘ post when Cory Monteith died, I’m writing again  – say NO to drugs. Say No, and mean it so much that whoever asked you before will be convinced you are not interested. You shouldn’t even be friends with such people in the first place!

RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Related articles

• Philip Seymour Hoffman Didn’t Have to Die
• I couldn’t agree with this more…
• Hope defeats fear!

Learn from it, don’t be it

When I was younger my father would always say that the stories we read in the Bible are supposed to be examples for us. So when you see that Solomon gave a thousand burnt offerings to the Lord and God came down to ask him what he wanted, it kinda tells you that to see extraordinary from God you need to do extraordinary right?

In the same way, when you see people punished for disobeying God’s laws, you automatically know that there will always be a consequence for wrongdoing right?

Do we agree? Good.

I’m not ‘preaching’ today, so this is not one of the ‘welcome to church, get out your Bibles’ episodes, I just want to address something I can’t stop thinking of. I’m also going to try to appeal to the part of our brain that houses (or should house) common sense. You know that part where you debate stuff before you decide to go ahead with them or not? Yep, that one.

Why on earth, in the name of all things pure, and decent, do people do drugs? What is the attraction that cancels out the simple logic that it is deadly, dangerous, and never ends well? Are there not enough examples for us to see that this is a very bad thing? I don’t get it!

Every other year we hear of one high-profile person or the other, cut down in their prime at the peak of their careers by something they could easily have done without. Easily.

Michael Jackson – cause of death? Cardiac arrest, acute propofol intoxication; midazolam, lidocaine, diazepam, lorazepam also noted in autopsy report. He was 50 at the time of his death in 2009.

Whitney Houston – cause of death? Drowning, complications of cocaine and heart disease; Flexeril, marijuana, Xanax and Benadryl were also found in her body. She was 48 at the time of her death in 2012.

Lil Wayne (not dead, yet after this episode, at this rate it won’t be long)

Most recently, Cory Monteith passed; he was 31, thanks to a mix of heroin and alcohol. What? I don’t know about you, but where I come from it is a bad thing for parents to bury their children. Especially when they were lost in less than dignifying circumstances (not like there is ever a ‘good way’ to die but you get the idea).

There is a more comprehensive list of the causes of death here.

Regardless of what it is called, crystal meth, ecstasy, heroin, coke, and weed, whatever – to my mind if you are not sick you don’t need medication. Why burn your candle form three ends? Spend your money to purchase poison (and they are not cheap), spend money to treat or orchestrate your withdrawal but the biggest loser is your body, your temple which you should ordinarily cherish and pamper. I feel the same way about cigarettes and alcohol.

Would you prefer to learn from examples or you’d rather you were the example? I’m saying that because trust me, any fraternizing with drugs will not end well. At all.

The Bible says to “flee all appearances of evil”. Ladies and gentlemen, flee means to take off from wherever you are when someone offers you stuff you know has no place in your body, not wait for the niceties of ‘on your mark, ready, set, go’. Ain’t got no time for that.

It means to run, and sever all ties with such people before they sever your ties with your destiny!

Too many examples around; let’s be guided.

Related articles

• Testimony of a Former Prisoner (opendoorssg.wordpress.com)
• Basketball mogul arrested for heroin sales. (thasportsjunkies101.wordpress.com)
• Understanding Why Drug Abuse Happens (paxhouse2013.wordpress.com)
• Supply and Demand (juwannadoright.wordpress.com)
• The Painkiller Epidemic – Dangers of Legal Prescription Drugs (arcpointelkgrovevillage.wordpress.com)
• Signs of Substance Abuse in Teenagers (combataddiction.wordpress.com)
• Drug deaths in Scotland remain high, figures show (scotsman.com)