Let food be your medicine and medicine be your
food.” Hippocrates
Are You Contributing To
Opioid Abuse?
Are you as a parent, a
grandparent, a caregiver of children, unintentionally adding to the likelihood
that your children will grow-up to abuse drugs?
From the time most of us are
born we are indoctrinated to believe that we need drugs and invasive practices
to help prevent or “save us” from things that might make us ill in the future.
We are hoodwinked into believing that the only way to assure good health is to intervene with our
perfectly designed bodies natural processes for immunity and healing.
This belief starts immediately after birth
with all the inoculations thrust upon us to theoretically protect us against
anything and everything we might encounter.
The pharmaceutical industry has done an outstanding job at lobbying our government,
while at the same time spending billions upon billions of dollars to convince
us that this is the only way to protect our families. It’s as if God has made a mistake in designing
the human body’s immune system and we can’t possibly have enough faith to allow
the body to grow and mature as it should: drug and chemical free. (Click here to read how many shots are encouraged by age 18)
For most, the situation
escalates from there. The minute a baby
gets a tummy ache most of us ask our doctors to give us some medicine to help. A
few months later as they begin teething and experiencing pain in their gums, or
a fever, an easy solution is to just load them up with children’s painkillers
of all sorts. Soon, when they start school we get them their
booster shots, and even a few new ones to protect them in case there is an
outbreak of something. In elementary school they fall on the
playground and they skin their knee, but not to worry, the well-meaning school
nurse might be able to administer a pain-relieving pill for that as well. And then a month or so later they stay at
home in bed with a stomachache, and while watching the t.v. a commercial comes
on promoting that there’s another pill or a liquid that can help. Diarrhea, no problem! There’s a drug for that
too! In fact there’s a medicine, a pill, an injection that covers us for anything
that can possibly “go wrong.”
The child grows a little
older and the teacher lets us know that he or she is having a hard time paying
attention in class (no joke, they are bored stiff!) Not to be too concerned
because of course, there is a solution.
She suggests that there is a prescription pill for that too. We want our kids to fit-in and to do well in
school. We want them to be healthy yet
we are all too quick to find a doctor to (once again) prescribe something
because we are too busy or too lazy to change the child’s diet or find other
natural ways to help them succeed in class and in life.
Fast-forward to high school
and the same student is having a tough time studying for a test. Along with the well-meaning advice of other
parents, and another doctor appointment, sure as heck there is yet another drug
to help with that too. *Meanwhile, at
the same time, high schools all over the country are conducting assemblies
encouraging the youth to stay “drug free.”
A year or two later and at around
16 years old, unfortunately the same student’s parents have filed for
divorce. The teenager is having a tough
time sleeping and is dealing with anxiety and worry. A quick trip back to the doctor and they are
given yet another drug to help with sleep and to assist them in dealing with a
myriad of emotions. To “dumb them down”
and numb them so they can’t even feel, and to hopefully make them “all better.”
At
this point in the teenager’s life it’s unlikely that they can make it through
the weekend without drinking a bit here and there (it’s a great painkiller for
a while) and why wouldn’t they try
the latest pill since it will help them have more fun, help them fit-in, and
help the emotional pain go away for a while?
If any of the above sounds familiar you are among the majority of people
who started out innocently brainwashed into believing that this is the right or
the only path to follow when it comes
to raising children. Yet, in truth, many of the things we perceive as unnatural
and painful (physically, emotionally, spiritually) are just small chapters; sometimes
longer episodes, in life that help us to grow, mature, and gain character. Physically, even something as simple as a
fever acts to kill bacteria and viruses that are competing to take over our
health.
Think way back, once again
about that little baby or that very young child. What if we questioned and became educated
regarding every foreign substance before we allowed it to be put in our perfectly
healthy child? What if natural,
drug-free remedies (including changes in the diet) were used at a young age to help
mitigate the discomfort of teething? Or massage was used to help a headache or a
stomachache? What if a parent did the
necessary research and tried the variety of functional medicine modalities
available, including the addition of specific nutritionally rich protein drinks
(food) to the diet to help with all kinds of symptoms and issues? What if they found a practitioner who could
naturally release neurological pressure on a child’s brain, which could also
help with behavioral problems? How about
taking a child to a specialist who could give the child, and the parent, real
life tools for success for the future?
What if we cared enough to spend the time
necessary to investigate and to learn what it is that our children might be
sensitive to? Things like certain
chemicals, food dyes, and GMO that are in a lot of what we eat and drink.
Most importantly, what if we
lived our lives as outstanding examples for our children and young people? What if we showed them that when we got a
headache, a stomachache, or experienced any other unpleasant challenge in life,
we didn’t first grab for a drink or a pill, yet instead handled situations in
holistic ways? What if they saw us pray,
saw us use relaxation and deep breathing techniques, saw us mediate, and
witnessed us seriously seeking to find what could be adding to the inflammation
and stress response of our perfectly designed human bodies? What if we shared our knowledge and educated
them to grow in this way?
In closing, my question is
this: Why are we so surprised when our
child or grandchild begins using drugs that we have not supported or given to
them? If you’ve read the model I’ve
sketched out above, I think one answer could
be that for their entire lives they’ve
been taught that there’s a pill or a potion that could solve most all their
problems.
If more of us would embrace and practice the
faith that we profess to have instead of looking for immediate “quick fixes,”
in a half a generation I believe we would see a huge dent in and reduce the
occurrence of substance abuse, including alcohol, opioids and other mind-altering
drugs.
My opinions are just food for
thought.
Disclosure: I realize that many of you are dealing
with life-threatening situations and are doing the best you possibly can. My opinions start with a person who has been
born perfectly healthy and they go from there. The above is not meant to make
you feel badly or shamed in any way.
To contact me for questions or health/nutrition advice you can email me here:
To contact me for questions or health/nutrition advice you can email me here: