Drugs Are a Solution That Become THE PROBLEM

Teen smoking

I started taking drugs when I was 14 and continued heavily until 22. My mum tried hard to get me to quit—some of my worst memories are of her crying because she saw the mess I was in but couldn’t stop me. One of the biggest problems people who haven’t done drugs have in trying to help people who are on them is realising all the ways drugs seem to help, which is what this article is about.

I regularly ask drug users how drugs help them, and 99% of the time the initial response is that they don’t, they know drugs are bad. Users say this, not because they believe it, but because that’s the view that is forced on them by others. But I always persist, saying—there must be some way it helps, otherwise why would you do it, and eventually most of the users will tell me what they like about the drug.

In my days using, Ecstasy was one of my preferred drugs. My God. The pleasure rush from Ecstasy is literally out of this world. The euphoria, the feeling of connectivity to the world, the feeling of love for your fellow man—it’s heaven, a pure bliss state. To this day I don’t think I’ve ever had such an incredible 8 hours as I used to get most weekends as a teenager. So, to just tell someone using how bad drugs are, how there’s nothing good about them, all that does is make the person out of touch with you and the walls crash down and your chance of helping them is gone.

Blurry picture of an addict

The fact is that drugs make people high—that’s why they do them. That sounds ridiculously obvious, but in a world as full of lows as this one, the temptation of a chemical or medicinal high, is high. And if you ever want to get anywhere with a drug user it’s essential that you recognise that they use the drug because it offers them a solution. That 8 hours high I used to get was the most fun I experienced, it gave me something to look forward to, it was just a pure pleasure experience in amongst the other sides of my life which were progressively becoming a nightmare.

Now, the fact is that the more I took those highs the more I would get my lows, which all contributed to that nightmare. The lows were so low I hit and went below bottom numerous times—almost dead. I destroyed everything in my life, my mind, my relationships, my will to live. And yes, that nightmare was directly caused by the drugs. That’s the easiest thing in the world to see IF you are not the one taking the drug. The person taking it sees the high it gives them and that’s what they focus on and that’s why they take it. So to just focus your conversation on how the drug is destroying them only serves to alienate you from the person you’re trying to help.

This may sound very strange, it may go against every pro-survival impulse you have, but if you’ve banged your head against a wall by warning someone you love about all the dangers of drugs and got nowhere, try it, because it works—ask them how the drug helps, when they tell you it doesn’t help, persist, say there must be some reason or they wouldn’t take it, and finally they will give you a reason. ACKNOWLEDGE that reason! Your head may very well scream out at you to tell them why that reason isn’t valid or a thousand reasons the drug is bad, but stop, doing that hasn’t worked before, so why will it now? Instead, just listen, and acknowledge them. Then ask are there any other ways the drug helps, and again acknowledge the answer, no matter how strange or wrong it may seem, just tell them you understand or give a basic acknowledgement like OK or I Got That.

Fraser Scott

What will happen is that for the first time someone will have heard their true view on drugs and not told them they were wrong, and from then on they won’t have to go on proving themselves right by taking the drug. This may seem far-fetched, but I’ve got so many people off drugs this way and it’s one of my proudest things, so try it! Just do exactly as I’ve laid out above, and if you have any questions tweet me about it: @fraserkeescott

Once a person knows that you are not telling them how wrong they are, once they see you understand them and they open up to you, that's when you can help them and their relatives to find a solution to get them off of drugs for good—Narconon is a drug rehabilitation programme which starts by getting a person to sweat out all the old drugs from their system and then helps them find the true cause for why they started taking drugs in the first place. It's the most effective program in the world. Contact them today.

Good luck!

Fraser Scott

AUTHOR

Fraser Scott

Fraser Kee Scott is a guest blog writer for Narconon United Kingdom. He is an art dealer who owned two galleries in London and works with some of the biggest bands in the world producing and selling album art, raising over $1.2m for charity with one particular mega star band.

NARCONON UNITED KINGDOM

DRUG EDUCATION AND REHABILITATION