Niketu Iralu
Saddam Hussein used chemical poison to terrorize and control his opponents. Accusing him of making biological agents and nuclear bombs also, Bush and Blair invaded Iraq to destroy Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Iraq war has shown WMD are a most formidable global issue, and increasingly menacing and unmanageable.
Alcohol and drugs are chemical agents that are disabling and killing Nagas in alarming numbers today. Speaking from my family’s costly experience I agree with the view that for Nagas alcohol and drugs are indeed “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. And their power to paralyze our society is equally formidable. Our problem is we think we know. Yet this article is less about drugs and alcohol and more about our human errors and mistakes which make these chemicals such dreadful killers of our people, and more dangerous than they need to be. What follows is a layman’s attempt to understand the crisis and to do something about it.
Drugs and alcohol do not kill brutally and instantly as military WMD do. But their destructive impact on society turns out to be equally fatal because addiction creates spiritual ‘black holes’ in families, like those in outer space, into which everything disappears – lives, hope, joy, creativity or development of any kind. The virtual massacre by addictive substances taking place makes no news as the killing occurs softly, silently and slowly, with the victims’ families suffering the prolonged agony equally, probably humming in resignation the beguiling song “Killing me softly”. Reduced to watching virtual slow-motion suicides taking place in their midst, most families wrestling with addiction withdraw from life’s vital challenges. This weakens them further. Addicts bent on denial and those who can ‘handle’ chemicals are likely to say it is not that bad and I should not generalize my experience. Others may say I am being too negative and melodramatic. Yet addiction has become a many-headed monster of a crisis and can it be denied it has seriously paralyzed our society?
Our tragic error is we fight the wrong enemy leaving the real enemy free to destroy us. Nuclear bombs or RDX explosives are extremely deadly weapons. But they are inanimate, mindless things that can do no harm if left to themselves. They are not the enemy of mankind. Drugs and alcohol too are lifeless chemicals that cannot harm anyone if we do not foolishly misuse them. We use drugs and alcohol to make us forget our problems. Some seem to think to be casual is cool and fashionable! We think we have solved our problems if we forget them for a few hours. Our mistake is in refusing to sacrifice our selfishness, pride, fear or prejudice to be responsible to do what is right, best or necessary. We end up being “solved”, or miniaturized and enslaved. Many die prematurely. Such simple but fatal errors mislead all of us so easily.
Karl Jung, the Swiss psychologist whose thinking on addiction and recovery is highly respected put it this way – “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering”. In my own attempt to understand addiction I have found Jung’s insight the most complete and convincing. Addiction is a psycho-spiritual crisis and it can only be resolved there. The crisis gets worse if we go elsewhere for solutions, to chemicals or other quick-fix trips.
“To live is to grow. To grow is to change. To grow fully is to change often”, said Cardinal Newman. The meaning and purpose of life is fulfilled through all-round growth of body, mind and character. The price is changing often and totally.
I believe these two observations show us where the battle is and how we are to fight to “grow fully”. Let us not think only “addicts” are afflicted by neurosis. A session of the Annual Convention of American Psychologists started with the statement “The good news is only 20% of Americans are psychotic. The bad news is 80% are neurotic”.
Scott Peck has said, “Thinking has become a grave issue in our increasingly complex world. If we don’t begin to think well, it’s likely that we may end up killing ourselves”. (“The Road Less Traveled and Beyond”). He says his books are a crusade against simplistic thinking because life is difficult and complex and there are no easy answers and all are required to be “the change you want the world to be”. (Gandhi).
God made this point at the very beginning of our human story. He came to Cain and asked, “Cain, why are you angry?” and challenged him to “do what is right”. Cain was told, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it”. (Genesis 4). We can say God required Cain to go beyond his neurosis of bitterness and self-pity and so live that he may build the society needed by his growing community! Acceptance of responsibility by him would be legitimate suffering to do what needed to be done.
What is ‘neurosis’? The word is from Latin ‘nervus’ and Greek ‘neuro’. I shall venture to say what I think Jung meant. Neurosis starts in us when we respond to situations only at the nervous, emotional level of our likes, dislikes and fears. Our response to what is required of us by life is neurotic if we are guided by fear, pride, praise or selfishness. But we become dissatisfied with our neurotic responses because our conscience, spirit and soul are telling us to be and do something else. The inevitable result is guilt, unhappiness and insecurity, or neurotic obsession. Is this not a psycho-mental-spiritual crisis? It is at this point of acute vulnerability that we most easily turn to mind-altering chemical substances and other addictive diversions. For many, by the time the unreality of the instant paradise that chemicals can create is discovered, addiction has already taken over.
Consider Christ’s crisis at Gethsemane. Was he, being human also, fighting a temptation to make a neurotic response when he pleaded to be spared from going further to the terrible pain and shame that lay ahead? I believe he was when he said “Remove this cup from me”. I love and trust him all the more for being transparent about his crisis, rather than being like some gods who are too good to be true. And my life is given to him because he showed the way for mankind, accepting to obey God’s will, rejecting what he wanted, thereby inaugurating Christianity. Christ accepted the “legitimate suffering” involved in doing what he knew needed to be done. Neurosis found no place in his truthful response. Was not Arjun also facing and defeating the neurotic fear/temptation/confusion not to fight the battle that confronted him on the Kurukshetra plains that fateful day, the reason why he touches us so deeply? We are reminded of Dr. Marie Curie, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood”.
The price we pay to be responsible human beings is legitimate suffering. When we decide to be and do less, the substitute is always neurotic insecurity or spiritual crisis. All addictions originate in unresolved spiritual crises controlled by neurosis. We are “fearfully and wonderfully made” to fight with all our heart, mind and soul to worship God, to grow fully and wonderfully, changing as often as necessary; deteriorating fearfully if we refuse to do so. To ‘worship God’ means to wholeheartedly be and do as we are meant to by Him.
“You desire truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part you will make me to know wisdom”. David discerned this when God brought him face to face with his terrible crime. If like him we too choose to obey the ”wisdom” God does show us deep down, we make a fresh start instead of slavery to neurosis, addiction or worse. Drugs and alcohol need not be WMD for us.
(Courtesy – “Katalyst”, Entrepreneurs Associates, Nagaland, Kohima).
