WARNING ! ! !

Don’t drink or drug!       Don’t drink or drug!      Don’t drink or drug!      Don’t drink or drug!       Don’t drink or drug!    
        Don’t drink or drug!

Could I make myself any more clear?

Maybe.

Don’t experiment.  Don’t try it (whatever it is that could be addictive).  Don’t think you ‘can handle it.’ Don’t cave in to someone else’s pressure or persuasion.  Don’t think it could be a temporary solution to an immediate problem.  Don’t think addiction can only happen to ‘losers.’ Don’t look at the ‘pretty people’ in advertisements or actors on television or sports ‘heroes’ who give the impression that they handle it just fine or that it increases their effectiveness as winner in society.  They know otherwise. When they look in the mirror they know that they are not a winner. Don’t hang with those who are users.  They may have laudable or attractive qualities but this isn’t one of them.  I used to tell my children, ‘If you stand near a campfire you will soon smell like smoke—whether you want to or not.’  In short, don’t start!  Please, don’t start.

I heard replayed a 1995 interview yesterday with Mary Tyler Moore, a vivacious actress who died earlier this week.  Her story, like that of all addicts, was tragic.  She had been an alcoholic in her years of stardom but few in her vast audience knew it.  She didn’t even know it herself (denial and blindness to reality in the early stages is just the way it is with addicts of whatever stripe, as she admitted) until it became undeniable.  She handicapped herself. Only until the physical and emotional and social costs to her became unescapable did she get the help she needed.  Even then, her regrets plagued her until her death. She had the money and other support to get the help; most addicts don’t.  Don’t start.

I did not know Mary Tyler Moore but I do know some people who had / have addictions.  These people are all around us.  We could (perhaps) help the street addict by giving them $5 when they hold up their cardboard sign on a street corner.  But I doubt if that helps much (if at all).  We could do other things for those less visibly afflicted to direct them to A.A. or other support groups and help sources.  Or we could do what I am doing here—making a proactive appeal to those young people or those older people who have never started on this road to hell.

 

For those of us who have all of our lives steered clear of these substances I would hope that you, too, would use your moral influence to raise the warning voice to the yet-unaddicted to not only save them, but save our society.