Article June 26, 1978 Issue

The healing of drug addiction

[Original in German]

HANS-JOACHIM TRAPP

Why do people turn to drugs? What are they looking for? Can Christian Science heal drug addiction? What can I as an individual do to help solve the problem? These are important questions.

Drugs are taken in an effort to achieve happiness, for pseudo-religious reasons, for the attainment of self-knowledge, and perhaps most often in an attempted escape from problems. One who takes narcotics is signaling only too clearly, "I'm in trouble." He believes himself unable to cope with typical daily-life difficulties, such as fear of competition, increasing loss of individual identity in the mass, unemployment, failure, social isolation, and loneliness.

Drug addicts are obviously looking for something they think they lack—fulfillment, freedom, love, companionship, security, communication, identity, inner peace. Since these are attained only through self-discipline and spiritual inspiration and the way to them is generally long, the temptation to look for a shortcut is understandable. But to believe that we can attain desired conditions through a process that requires no more work than swallowing a pill is to indulge in self-deception.

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