Spiritual values: an antidote to drugs

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.

Jesus wanted to do right and did do right because he fully identified himself with Christ, God's spiritual idea. This spiritual idea is divine Mind's ideal, the only man there is. This real man is what we need to identify with in order to feel the impulse of Christ in our daily actions. As a mortal sense of life and identity yields to the Christ-idea, our humanity becomes more Godlike.

In the Bible the Apostle Paul speaks of man's relationship to God when he writes, "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." Since God, Spirit, is all substance, He only expresses that which is spiritually good. Hence man as God's reflection cannot be a corporeal mortal; he must actually be spiritual.

How encouraging, then, to know that we have a spiritual nature to draw on. Spiritual values are not noble goals beyond our reach but aspects of the Christ which we, like Christ Jesus, are heirs to. Acceptance of this fact helps break the hold of drug dependency and sin. It gives us the physical and moral freedom to prove in daily life man's God-given freedom.

As we pray to demonstrate in practical ways our spiritual likeness to God, we derive a feeling of closeness to Him. We actually feel His love for us. And in a unique way we feel special and important. We enjoy a different kind of satisfaction—one that is not dependent on temporary "highs." Feeling our oneness with God is a satisfaction that drugs can never give. Spiritual Joy and pleasure supersede anything drugs can offer. As this pure and undefiled joy fills a person's heart, more and more he or she moves beyond the lure of drugs. In fact, a natural repugnancy toward drugs develops, and they are seen as incompatible with one's newfound happiness.

The study of Christian Science instills an entirely different perspective on life. It tells us that in spite of material appearances, man is not a complex biochemical organism with a mind and personality inside. What we are, Science reveals, depends upon what

God is. Being Life, Truth, and Love, He is, for instance, the source of all health, all intelligence, all strength, and all purity. We find healing as we ourselves spiritually reflect His divine nature.

Step by step this understanding replaces both physiological and psychological chemical dependencies with spiritual strength and freedom. We go even further than the desire to be free of drugs to the understanding that our real selfhood is a spiritual expression of Him who is divine Life, Truth, and Love.

It is important to remind ourselves of this spiritual fact innumerable times when starting the battle with drugs. The battle demands daily, consistent, prayerful application of Truth's ideas. Christ, Truth, gives one the determination to persist and gain sure victory. When we go beyond a sinful and corporeal sense of ourselves, we are freed from the mental trap of self-condemnation that would keep us repeating the same mistakes. We find courage and inspiration in the permanency of man's Christlike being. God made man and the universe spiritually perfect and He maintains them so.

The spiritual view of life that Christian Science presents is not an escape from daily troubles, which is the case with drugs. Quite the opposite: spiritual truths transform our character and thereby heal our troubled hearts and minds. They imbue us with the dominion God gave to man "in the beginning," as Genesis states.

One could say that the spirituality Christian Science reveals in us opens our eyes to man's inherent value. We find who we are and what our purpose in life is. We learn to base our worth and self-esteem on God's love for us and on who we are spiritually. This overcomes the poor self-esteem that is common to drug addiction. Discovering the pleasures of serving Spirit, God, proves to be a barrier against drugs. We are oriented away from the delusive and illusive pursuits of pleasure in matter. For underneath the wealth and sensual pleasures promised by illegal drugs is the utterly false promise that in matter we will find the peace and happiness that only Spirit can give. In fact, this shortsighted material expectation is what fuels society's overwhelming dependence on both legal and illegal drugs.

How incisive, then, is this statement by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, from her Miscellaneous Writings: "More thought is given to material illusions than to spiritual facts. If we can aid in abating suffering and diminishing sin, we shall have accomplished much; but if we can bring to the general thought this great fact that drugs do not, cannot, produce health and harmony, since 'in Him [Mind] we live, and move, and have our being,' we shall have done more."

While a supportive family, loyal friends, and a good job contribute to an individual's freedom from drugs, they have not always been found to be enough when attitudes and desires were governed by the pursuit of life and pleasure in matter. But our attitudes and actions do change when we learn more of man's spiritual existence in God, who is all the life and substance there really is. No longer are we fooled by materialism's cheating claim that health and happiness are material and that we can get them through drugs. We learn that health and happiness are divine Love's spiritual gifts to man.

Beyond the political debate about more law enforcement, or drug rehabilitation centers, or government job initiatives, lies society's need to look to a new and higher sense of life for health and happiness. While we support all right human steps, society must eventually advance beyond strictly material definitions of existence and glimpse something of the Life that is Spirit. When this is done, the innate goodness we see in humanity is secured by spiritual understanding. This spiritual understanding and the spiritual values it nurtures are the key to breaking society's drug dependency.

The earth, O Lord, is full of
thy mercy: teach me thy statutes....
Thy hands have made me and
fashioned me: give me understanding,
that I may learn thy commandments....
Let thy tender mercies come unto me,
that I may live: for thy law is my delight.

Psalms 119:64, 73, 77