Pill Popping Morality Examined
Pill Popping Morality June 17, 2014
Breakpoint’s John Stonestreet writes about potential fallout from possible new prescription therapies on the horizon for PTSD or other mental health disorders involving flashbacks or bad memories or treatment to improve behavior in these articles:
It seems evident that some in our “instant gratitude” culture desire that every pain, or even mild discomfort or emotional negative thought be addressed by a rapid-acting pharmacological remedy. In the years since I began counseling, this has been a mindset that has needed to be addressed with some students. In at least some of the cases, the young women who came to us had learned this behavior of dependence on pills from their mothers. Others have told us that their descent into substance abuse began when they were prescribed a medication for pain, depression, or sleeplessness. They found that the feeling of release they felt from the immediate malady became more of a temptation than they could resist, leading them to progress from using medication according to doctor’s directions to abusing the prescribed medication, then to pill-seeking behavior to self-medicate, then to use of illegal street drugs. In some cases, the realization of how valuable such escape could be led to greed and becoming a dealer, too. What began naively as an effort to obtain relief from a legitimate negative, painful condition became instead the illicit pursuit of a pleasure and/or financial gain that took over one’s life. It is a slippery slope from useful medical therapeutic benefit to self-destruction.
Such unintended consequences will often accompany seemingly irrelevant decisions early in one’s journey toward addiction. But for many, once the process has begun, judgment quickly becomes clouded, justification of one’s behavior begins and eventually one becomes convinced that life without the medication (as well, perhaps, as the money) is impossible.
The opportunity offered by Titus 2 Partnership and similary Christian recovery programs is the illumination of a path to freedom from the individual’s perceptions through lifestyle changes that are mediated by, first and foremost, a relationship with Christ and embracing Christian principles, instead of pill popping. There are conditions for which medication is medically necessary, but simply adding one more pill for another symptomatic complaint becomes counterproductive.
Mindsets are very resistant to change. The Apostle Paul points out that the way we think is both the source of the problem and the way to the solution in our lives.
Romans 8:5 – 7 “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.”
Romans 12:2 “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Jesus Christ said that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy that the Messiah would bring
good news to the poor.
binding up the brokenhearted,
proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners, (Isaiah 61:1)
This is accomplished through relationship with Christ, who brings healing. That is what Titus 2 Partnership’s ministry to women in addiction is here to do.
