This is a  post I wrote in response to a former drug councilor who said that a 357 magnum was the best treatment for drug addicts. ‘08

************************************************************************

While I struggled with real drug addiction for years there were those (we'll say human and otherwise) who kept on showing me love at every turn. When I'd get clean then go right back to heroin over and over again, they kept loving me. When I stepped on their every effort to help me, they kept on loving me. I remember a methadone clinic worker telling me that my failings were no different from anyone else’s failings. Just messier, less socially acceptable and easier for some folks to use as fodder for their own delusions of superiority. I've been clean since 1972. Of course if that worker had had a 357 magnum the world would have one less banjo picker to worry about :-) On the other hand, there'd also be one less social worker reaching out to unwed mothers, one less special ed teacher with an advanced degree working with emotionally needy kids, One less young mother home schooling her kids in an atmosphere of caring and love while involving herself in helpful community projects, one less R.N. working with aids and T.B. patients and one less 22 year old now overcoming her own trial with the fire called meth. She'll be alright too.

The superficial, surface reasons people use drugs are as varied as the people who use them. The inner needs that drive us are the same for all of us. All of us. We're the same. We have the same inner needs. The course of our lives can be mapped as a search for understanding and fulfillment of those needs. Some of us run from our inner needs, some run towards them. In every case, each one of us takes a wrong turn here and there. Some of our wrong turns are really dramatic and outwardly visible.....even catastrophic. The whole world sees this kind of mistake and stands in self righteous judgment. Some of our wrong turns are equally awful but well hidden. Most are so acceptable to our friends and society in general that we spend years or maybe whole lifetimes never realizing we've missed the mark. But in the final analysis, the difference in the seriousness and gravity of our mistakes might not be near as great as we'd like to think. A miss may be as good as a mile. And the road to bridging the gap between ourselves and others; the road to bringing about an honorable and successful finish for ourselves and others may be through love.