Cartoons Courtesy of
John Glashan

THE RETURN -
BY OLLIE BIRCHWOOD
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ADDICTION
The last few centuries have seen the rise of drug addiction to a point of critical mass. Is it the extremity of a pendulum swing? or is there still some way for the pendulum to go?
 
Addiction itself is not seen as that much of a problem. People happily claim to be addicted to anything socially acceptable.  What is actually acceptable changes from one social interchange to another, one peer group to another and one culture to another. Thus addicton enters the procenium of society’s current enactment as we play out our lives.

Few of us are not addicts of something nowadays.  We can tell because the advertising industry, who are always in the know are using the word addiction in the social climbing products like perfumes and designer branding.  So addiction creeps into our lives as an acceptable thing all round. 

THE PROBLEM
Yet addiction is the problem of all problems because it is undermining society at large and every individual is deeply affected. It is the reason we continue to tolerate a corrupt ruling elite who create and control through it.
 
I am a parent of an 'problem' addict and a spouse of another, a cousin to another, not to mention my best friend, his teenage daughter and two ex bosses. As a child and in my life I seemed drawn to addicts as people. I did of course accept the enlightened view that as such I was one myself taking my substance vicariously through others without being ‘hooked’ myself. I put this over to some people who tossed their heads and scorned the idea that they were anything to do with this at all so I decided to write a book about it.
 
A SOLUTION
Like any problem - a solution is the holy grail.  The drug scene is not really one big problem – there are thousands of different ones piling high like a tower of Babel – a viariety of drugs, temptations, methods,  therapies, opinions and a political stance with every one just like a free offer to go along.  Worse – these problems have attractions and repulsions for each other that change as with the weather.  It’s such a sticky mess that even the thought of solving any of them is not even fascinating as a dinner conversation. Nobody knows what to do about it, so only people with an investment bother with this particular grail ­ - by now a holy only to the addicts themselves.
 
BALANCE
There is no balance in the fluctuating energies.  No direction or progress in something that has been around for as long as memories have been able to remember. After many years of observation and not a little involvement I came to look at it as not a mess of problems but something simple.  I started to think that only a small shift in moral & ethical attitude could correct the balance.
 
The purpose of this book is to locate the pivot upon which the drug problem revolves in a circular reference… always pointing back to money – but is it really? We could find ourselves suddenly with only a very low percentage of chronically ill individuals. The majority of addicts would regain their humanity. Families will thrive, create and live life in happy communities.  This is not idealistic or unattainable. This is reality.
 
A critical mass of knowledge is needed for a swing of this kind. We have reached it - or are about to reach it.  The human race is in a condition where we are aware of everything and unaware of what exactly to do.  In other words – what’s next?

WHAT NOW?
The first effect of the return to humanity would bring natural changes in law and punishment. This seems too huge a problem to even contemplate in the light of current affairs.  Yet looking at the condition of addiction, in a different way, removes strong filters from the view.  It reveals a different design and real living colours. We are locked into a way of thinking. Bound by restraints from our archetype.  We wear a formidable ball chained to our feet impeding our progress. While we imagine distant future generations ‘discovering a way’ - here we are wondering ‘does it matter?’

IT MATTERS



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