Martini Spoken Here

Part IV of the Addiction Issue: Understanding the Elements of the Perfect Storm: Land (our body), Wind (what surrounds us), Water (our emotions). What needs to happen to create the perfect storm of addiction?

Even though I’m a grown up and well versed in so many methods of stress release, I can’t seem to keep myself from occasionally falling down an emotional rabbit hole. I know and even teach many ways to support the human body and mind, but even with all of this education, I still have to subsist daily undoing the repercussions that stress and living life in these here United States creates in my body. Chronic illness, depression, mood swings, headache, backache, inflammation, fatigue, addiction, weight gain, carb and sugar binging...all of us are dealing with one or more of these issues and so are our kids. With the inside and outside influences we are subjecting ourselves to, we are bound to see dis-comfort leading to dis-stress and then finally, dis-ease. So then, how do we expect ourselves, lest of all our children to remain healthy and balanced in the life we are striving to live?

Kids...they don’t have our maturity or a skill set to draw from. They aren’t equipped with coping techniques or the appropriate brain mechanisms to understand healthy boundaries. Many are simply surviving without peace at home, maybe even forced to live through their parents divorce drama. And unless they are completely isolated, all of our children are exposed daily through school and every form of media to our anger, hatred, violence, name calling and judgment. All of this negativity transmitted through their eyes, their ears and energetically through their bodies. What are American kids witnessing and thereby inculcated with that is pushing them over the edge towards drugs? Truthfully, we shouldn’t be wondering why they (or any of us) self medicate. We should be wondering why any of us would choose to live sober!

Emotionally and mentally we are all trying to find happiness and peace. We can try to change what is around us by moving out or moving through the discomfort. We have that control as adults, but children can’t physically get away from what we have created for them. They can’t remove their bodies from what feels bad. They are forced to endure, and since they can’t escape with their bodies, that only gives them one choice...to escape from and with their minds.

There is no mystery surrounding self medication. “I don’t feel good. I need something to make me feel better.” Whether it is our body or mind (or both) that is feeling this or “speaking” it, we as humans will always try to bring ourselves into a “feel good” state of being. If a child learned at a young age that they could change a mood or physical depression by going out to play and exercise, stay off sugar and carbs and eat a healthy diet; if they watched their parents change situations in their community by taking control and getting involved, putting out positive, forward-thinking speech and writing...if they were shown how to channel negativity through journalling, meditating, praying and speaking to trusted loved ones...if they saw their parents strive more to love and forgive than ridicule and demean, then would they have the means to manipulate out of negativity in a way that actually portends a bright future? Would they grow up as powerful adults with high self esteem who “self medicate” with self-love instead of substance? How could they not? One of the most important factors that contribute to drug use...the understanding that it is not “monkey say, monkey do. It is “monkey see, monkey do.”

If a child learns to deal with stress by watching us drink or smoke pot to unwind (even if it is occasional), complain and blame others for our plight in life (even by just saying “Them”), sit and watch mindless TV (even if it is just “The Real Housewives” on in the background) or succumb to life issues by being in and out of states of anger, depression, anxiety and fear, well then we can expect our children to be doing the same. In fact, all of the stress we subject them to would make them self medicate in any way they possibly can. Depending on the shape their bodies are in already, that can be anything from food to alcohol to drugs to adrenal-driven behavior to cutting to anorexia to binge eating to bullying to joining a gang to sexual activity to exploitation of their own bodies. It is a human need to want to be happy and loved and to belong and fit in. Kids will find a way to fulfill these needs irrespective of the long term repercussions, because they only understand right now, this minute, today. We are the ones who are watching out for their long term wellness. They don’t have the ability or wherewithal to portend anything better than what they are feeling NOW. In other words, the moment they are living in is the moment they react to. If we don’t give them better choices to make and a better body to fortify those choices, they won’t take the high road. They will always take the easy road...the one they believe will lead to comfort. The one that can temporarily override their negative emotions and make them feel good.