Learning to Take Responsibility for Our Addictions and Problems

It isn’t just our experiences that lead to our decision to use drugs; it is also our beliefs and our worldview. We don’t turn to drugs solely because of peer pressure, childhood trauma, or bad parenting. While each of these things has an inevitable impact on our lives and can contribute to our choice to use drugs, none of them is solely to blame. I’m convinced I had two of the kindest, most loving, and sacrificing parents on earth, and I still became an addict. A holistic approach looks not only at which combination of experiences might have led to our drug use, but it also looks at which combination of beliefs contributed. I chose to use drugs.

I chose to do drugs because I thought they would meet a need in my life. I chose these things because my secular, humanistic, Darwinian, postmodern worldview taught me that my temporary existence here on earth was a cosmic mishap and that the only thing I could do about it was make myself feel good before I died and was gone forever. My worldview taught me there was no God and no greater purposes than self-gratification and self-actualization. Ultimately, fundamentally, each person makes his or her own choice. We each choose what we will do and why. It does not benefit us to blame others for a choice we made; rather, we would gain much more by looking at which beliefs led to these choices and why. A holistic approach does not negate nature or nurture. It must consider circumstances, biology, trauma, peer pressure, and parenting styles, but it mustn’t stop there. It must also consider how our ongoing thought patterns, habits, and actions are influenced by our belief systems, how the external life affects the internal, and how the two mutually play off one another.

This book is for those who are ready to find a real solution to the pain in their lives instead of numbing themselves with drugs, eating, masturbation, shopping, drinking, or whatever other form of instant gratification they keep turning to even though it causes more problems than it cures.

Discussion Questions

What do you think most influenced your decision to first try drugs?

Why does a secular worldview lead to hopelessness? When you take God out of the equation, if our origin is a cosmic mishap and we turn into dirt when we die, losing not only all that we worked for in life, but also all of our memories, is there any meaning to life?

It has been said the two things in our lives that influence us the most are the books we read and the people we hang out with. What types of people are you surrounding yourself with? What books are you reading?

How do these things influence your worldview?

How many tries do you think it takes to get addicted?

Now that we know how much it’s going to cost us, why do you think it is that we continue to pursue the buzz or high?