Day 3- drugs and alcohol

I thought that this would be sooooo incredibly easy!

Nope.

oops?

Sorry.

For the past few days, I thought that I would be funny and write something such as

Bad.  Don't do them.  Why would you want to?

And end it with that.  Sadly, I can't.  I've been thinking about it too much.  As far as my beliefs go, I abstain from alcohol and drugs.  As far as reality goes, I've tasted alcohol (didn't like it, thank you), I use it to cook (like flaming desserts), and I'm not really afraid of it- but it's not something I would ever order again (had a glass of wine when I was 18).  I don't really see the need for it.  If you want the benefits of the wine, order a pure glass of unpasteurized grape juice.  If you need to 'take the edge off'- take up a hobby or get a pet.  If you want to kick back and relax- drink a cream soda straight from the bottle- that's about as much excitement as I need.  The alcohol doesn't do anything for me.

I've also been guilty of abusing medications with alcohol in them when I feel horrible- that I am guilty of.  I could easily finish a whole bottle of Nyquil in a single day- not good for my liver in multiple ways, but when I feel horrible, I'll do anything to feel better.

Which brings me to drugs.  Drugs are bad, don't do them.  Too bad my entire livelihood is dependent upon them.  I don't take drugs unless I'm sick- and then I abuse them, right?  Drugs have a place and time.  People that abuse drugs to the non-functioning point need help and I believe that includes marijuana.  I don't have a firm stance one way or the other in regards to marijuana- frankly, because I haven't researched enough about it.

It reminds me of conference this past Sunday, if anything hit me so hard it was this...

"when I was 8 years old, my father looked me in the eye and told me, never have my lips tasted alcohol and never have I smoked a cigarette.  I did the same to each of my children and I know that each of my children look forward to the day they can do the same to theirs..."

I can't do that.

 Ouch.

Sure, I've never smoked a cigarette, but I've played with them.  I've used them to light fireworks, start a fire, buy and give to people (specifically people at my old job), etc.  My job was to buy the things that they couldn't buy for themselves.  I couldn't just not buy the cigarettes because my morals stood in the way.  Then I would be acting in prejudice and all sorts of other legal crap that could lead to my termination.  Along the lines of that, I've set up and helped a quadriplegic patient smoke weed before when his caregiver was sick (she would usually help him and share).  I said no to his peer pressure to smoke it, but I was still surrounded by all the smoke, touched it, rolled it, lit it.  The claim was, aside from all his medication, it was the only pain reliever that worked effectively.  I have no place to judge. I also wouldn't be comfortable ever giving a statement that I never smoked it without the disclaimer that I did everything else with it.

So I guess my stance is this:  there is a time and a place for alcohol and drugs.  I use alcohol to cleanse people and I use drugs to heal people, but never would I take them without proper, medically sound reasoning.

Now didn't that just sound pathetic?

People argue all the time of the medical uses of red wine, the healing effects of marijuana- legal and medically sound or not.  I do not have the ability or power to make such a strong statement as that Elder did that day, and I think I'm ashamed of it.