Drugs and alcohol and why people use them

 I will start this chapter with paragraph 2 from page 270 of the text from the foundation for inner peace version of Course.

“Indirect proof of truth is needed in a world made of denial and without direction. You will perceive the need for this if you realize that to deny is the decision not to know. The logic of the world must therefore lead to nothing, for its goal is nothing. If you decide to have and give and be nothing except a dream, you must direct your thoughts unto oblivion. And if you have and give and are everything, and all this has been denied, your thought system is closed off and wholly separated from the truth. This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream is sacred to you. That is why God placed the Holy Spirit in you, where you placed the dream.”

In doing research for this chapter I looked up alcoholism and drug use on the Internet. I soon realized there was much more material than I could ever write about or even read. So how do you explain the use and legal sale of substances that cost us as a society more than we could ever imagine? How do you explain people drinking themselves into a state of intoxication and then having an automobile accident and living in a wheel chair for the rest of their lives? How do you explain someone smoking two packs of cigarettes a day for forty years and dying of lung cancer, spending their last days in intensive care, hooked up to an oxygen tank so they can breathe? And remember, these substances are sold legally, at the corner convenience store.

The way you explain it is to understand that one sentence in the quoted paragraph above. This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. That sentence does more to explain the state of the world than any other sentence I’ve ever read. There are of course other explanations for the state of the world but that sentence sums it up as well as anything.

As Course students we see things differently. The use of alcohol, illegal drugs, and legal mind-altering drugs is common because people are trying to cope with an insane world. They think if only they can use enough alcohol or other legal mind altering substances the world will be a better place, or they will be able to cope.

As Course students we understand that we are not insane. We further understand there is no ideal state to be achieved, since we are not separate from God. We exist in the world of time doing Gods Will until the physical body and the ego perish and our Spiritual Being reunites with our Creator. There is no need to use alcohol or other mind altering drugs to cope because we already exist in that ideal state others are trying to achieve.

As you might have noted this was a very short chapter because there just isn’t a lot more to say about drug and alcohol use from a Course perspective. In closing I would once again point out the value of the workbook and utilizing it as a means of seeing the world differently.

RR-ESM