Everybody is different. In some instances, moderated drug use or drinking may be a good alternative to abstinence.
Life is meant to be fun. Some people need to drink or use drugs socially to loosen up, be happy and really have a good time.
As a former drug user who has weathered my mammoth share of negative consequences do to addiction, I am convinced that for some people moderate drug use is a sensible, workable alternative to total abstinence.
Using some form of mind altering substance is natural for human beings. Man has been getting high since the dawn of time. Getting high in one way or another is a natural to human beings as having sex.
Upon researching this subject, I found that primitive people, it seems, used a wide variety of inebriating plants no matter where they lived on this planet. They were used by almost every tribal people I came across in my research, in many different ways.
For the most part, these substances had very positive effects on the people that used them, and positive effects for the societies of which they were a part. People need mind altering drugs like alcohol or marijuana to lose social hang-ups and gain the personal self-confidence to allow people to have fun, be happy and love life. It is as cruel and unnatural to as human beings not to get high as it is asking them not to have sex.
People are different. Drinking and drug abuse are different. Addictions are different. In some instances, moderated drinking is a viable alternative to abstinence.
While for some people it is easier to not use at all rather than use occasionally, for some people it is easier to use upon occasion that to not use at all. These people need to wind down and let off steam regularly or they will become unhappy, discontent and frustrated to the point they could do something stupid, even risky to validate being alive. These people often look forward to their regularly scheduled occasional fun. Rather than asking of people impossible abstinence, it is better to ask they get only get high as much and as often as it takes for them to stay sane.
Apparently I am not the only person who feels this way, since there are already countless controlled use websites, groups and societies listed all over the Internet.
To ad to the argument for controlled, occasional drug use we must also bring harm reduction to the table.
Harm reduction (or harm minimisation) refers to a range of public health policies designed to reduce the harmful consequences associated with recreational drug use and other high risk activities. Harm reduction is put forward as a useful perspective alongside the more conventional approaches of both demand reduction and supply reduction.
Many advocates argue that prohibitionist laws criminalize people for suffering from a disease and cause harm, for example by obliging drug addicts to obtain drugs of unknown purity from unreliable criminal sources at high prices, increasing the risk of overdose and death.
Still, critics who are concerned that tolerating risky or illegal behaviour sends a message to the community that these behaviours are acceptable have no better, workable, doable alternative.
If you have the answers, or if you just have some feedback, Addicts Anonymous readers love to read all about it in your comment. So, please leave a comment today, maybe even NOW... you know you want to!
Written By: Tom Retterbush
Sources
Harm reduction (Wikipedia)On the Genealogy of Drug Abuse and Addiction (antiochsb.academia.edu)
Health Magazine
