Article December 31, 1990 Issue

Spiritual values: an antidote to drugs

Christ, Truth, empowers man to be free.

Julio C. Rivas T.

My friend, a Vietnam veteran, was two courses away from receiving his bachelor's degree when he got killed while making a cocaine deal. He had dealt drugs on the side for several years. He had often expressed a desire to change his ways. To my despair, the violence of the drug world got to him before he changed.

What is it that can keep one from drugs? What kept me from falling into drugs? In my own experience it was never a lack of availability, because drugs were frequently offered to me for free. I would say it was the spiritual values that were instilled in me at home and in church. Besides keeping one headed in the right direction, spiritual values have the power to free those who are trapped by the drug habit.

What are spiritual values and where do we get them? They are the spiritual aspirations and desires that we derive from God. When we realize that man's real being is the spiritual reflection of God, divine Spirit, we discover that all good comes from God and is ours to demonstrate in the spiritual qualities and desires that He imparts to us. Had my friend realized that his real manhood came from God and that it remained always pure and God-like, his intermittent desires to change would have been impelled and brought to success by the saving power of the Christ.

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