Drug addiction is a worldwide problem. It is devastating the youth of the countries at a speed that is unimaginable. Kashmir, over the years, has also seen a huge surge in the drug addictive people. Some years ago, the menace was prevalent only among ill-counselled and unlettered people but now unfortunately; the menace has spread among the students as well; the students who are the future of our society.
The reasons why our youth consume drugs are countless. But the most explicit and defined reasons behind this are: Watching Hollywood and Bollywood movies and serials that portray drug consuming character in a heroically glorifying style, mental frustration of youth due to unemployment/joblessness, financial precarity, lack of proper parental counselling to the adolescent boys and girls when they are going through the periods of storm and strife due to the hormonal changes during the age of developing adolescence, troubled relationship with one’s parents, siblings, spouse or friends, lack of moral education, broken homes, disturbingly unending political conflict in the Valley, easy availability of drugs in markets though clandestinely, and the most cognizable reason is the non-serious attitude of the so-called social ameliorators of our society who do not underscore the ill-effects of drugs in their sermons, seminars and speeches. Every year 26 June is celebrated as the International Day against Drug Abuse but its effects do not lost long on us.
Drug addiction, as we know, has a range of bad effects associated with it. It not only devastates the physical health of a person but also nonpluses the soundness of his/her psychological mechanism. Due to this, a drug addicted person becomes a social outcast and it becomes very difficult for him to get adjusted in a good social coterie as nobody accepts him.This results in his social ostracization. This social ostracization never permits him/her for marriage. This is the most tragic result of drug addiction.
When our youth feel frustrated because of one reason or the other, they consume drugs in order to get the temporary relief from this mental frustration; hardly knowing that this drug consumption cannot remediate their mental anxiety and ennui.
There is a dynamics of drug addiction prevalent in our youth. Some use injections, some use bottles, some consume it with cigarettes, and some use boot polish etc. This is all the more unfortunate! Our youth should sublimate their urge to drugs by way of what Sigmund Freud calls ‘Transference’. It means instead of banking on drug consumption they should find some friendly and profitable alternative to it.
Our youth should desist from this illegal and inimical drug addiction because drug-addiction, instead of solving the problems of any person, actually doubles it. But a drug-addicted person considers it the other way round, for as the dictum goes ‘when the wine is in the wit is out.’ Our youth should prove themselves courageous in every difficult situation for Napoleon Bonaparte aptly says, “Courage isn’t having the strength to go on – it is going on when you don’t have strength”.
One can easily de-addict and detox oneself from the menace of this drug addiction by following some effective means. The most effective and expenses free measure is that of physical exercise or physical games. Physical exercise or for that matter involving oneself in physical games is the best antidote to any sort of harmful addiction. Physical exercise and games make us physically strong and mentally sound. Keeping this in mind, our youth should take part in physical exercises in order to remain physically strong and to kill the boredom and ennui of every sort. They should enroll themselves in fitness centers in order to make their physical bodies fit and their mental health sound because a Latin adage tells us that Mens Sana in Corpore Sano (Healthy mind in a healthy body). It means that healthy mind is possible only in a healthy body.
When we consume drugs we are actually proving ourselves lazy, inert and helpless in front of these life destroying drugs like heroine, liquor, cigarettes and all that. With related to cigarette Samuel Johnson, the English essayist and lexicographer, uses a very playful and effective quote. He says, “A cigarette has fool at one end and fire at another end.”
We should resist against these life taking stuffs because consuming a particular drug further aggravates the problems of a person. It makes him physically frail and economically bankrupt. Physical exercise in comparison costs a person nothing and makes him/her physically as well as mentally smart and sound. When a person participates in any sort of physical exercise or any type of entertaining game it generates serotonin, a chemical that plays a key role in such body functions as mood, sleep, digestion, and sexual desires. The generation of serotonin through physical exercise drives away from the mind of a person every sort of complicated worldly cares. But it is very unfortunate and tragic on the part of our misguided youth that they snowball their problems by consuming drugs in their cozy chambers instead of taking part in exercises and games.
Apart from physical exercises and games, there are many other entertaining and the same time lucrative activities through which our youth can unburden their worldly cares and concerns. Reading of literature is one such activity. If a person feels cornered and helpless, he should read self-help books like Codependent No More by Melody Beattie, Spirit Junkie by Gabrielle Bernstein, and Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis and Larry Sloman. All these books are about the flipsides of drug addiction. Besides reading these books, reading of novels and non-fictional literary works can also save our youth from being the victims of drug addiction. Reading moral and religious literature is the most efficacious means to say goodbye to every sort of drug. When we go through religious and morals books, the textual content and the subtext sublimates our so-called socially unacceptable instincts and desires into socially approved behavior andacts. In addition to this, family and friends can help a victim in getting rid of this menace through proper counselling and advice. Our police can play a major role in stopping this menace by acting sympathetically tough with the victims.
Drugs, as have been tested scientifically, provide a temporary relief and peace to the disturbed and disoriented mind. Drugs, as we know, usually target the reward system of the person’s brain. They flood the person’s brain with a chemical called dopamine. This chemical triggers a feeling of intense pleasure because of which the person keeps taking the drug to chase that high. Once the effects of the intoxication are over, one feels more dogged by fears and frets.
My dear youth! drug addiction is not a solution to any vexing and baffling problem rather it worsens the problem by blocking the faculty of judgment, decision-making and memory. Besides this, drug addiction is a social taboo and has been prohibited by every religion. We should prove ourselves strong by resisting the temptation to drugs, for discretion is the better part of the valor.
Dr. Bilal Ahmad Dar is an English Lecturer. He has done Ph.D and M.Phil in English from AMU. Besides that, he has qualified UGC-NET and JKSET for Assistant Professorship .He can be mailed at:[email protected]
