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Fun of high inevitably ends, even for rich kids like Paris, Al Gore III
Published on Tuesday, Apr 08, 2008
Dr. Dave: Citizen John Q. writes us that his grandson just got busted for pot. ''He's healthy, good looking and well educated, with a loving family and every door in the world open to him.'' Dr. Dave and Bill, do you understand why someone like that gets addicted?
Bill: Ask a kid to describe heaven on Earth, and more often than not they'll give you a picture of Al Gore III the day he was stopped by the cops: speeding along in an expensive car, the music playing and all the booze and dope you want right there with you.
Dave, I was at a Malibu AA meeting once where I heard a young woman describe what's wrong with this Madison Avenue image of happiness. ''I used to daydream about the perfect little white Chrysler convertible, red leather seats, a Thermos of martinis beside me and I'm wearing just the right white miniskirt, riding just a little high up on my thigh . . .
''And one day I finally bought the car. I hadn't driven fifty miles before I began to feel disappointed: It wasn't such a big kick after all. Did I think to look inside my spiritual self to cure this nagging anxiety that everyone else in the world was having a good time except me — and maybe I didn't deserve it anyway? No, my first thought was, Next time I'll get a Lexus! It took me three more years of a sordid marriage to a drunk millionaire to realize living in a 10,000-square-foot house does not make you five times as happy as owning a 2,000-square-foot house.''
AA describes itself as a spiritual program, not a religious one. I believe the life of the spirit covers a vast rainbow of ideas, religion being only one. You may feel belief in God is the first, most vivid color in that rainbow but spirituality includes just about every value invisible to your accountant. Which is another way of saying what you never believed when your mother first told it to you as a kid, Virtue is its own reward.
For people like Paris Hilton, Al Gore III, John Q's grandson (and, let me hasten to say, me too), booze and dope start out as fun and so we often feel getting sober means the end of fun. But how many of us found in sobriety that merely showed how narrow an idea we'd had of what fun meant? In my lexicon, fun is a spiritual value, too.
Truth, friendship, beauty, marriage, family, compassion, loyalty, books, romance, art, aesthetics, the beach and the sea, going for walks, going through rehab, playing baseball well, falling in love, doing volunteer work, the Zen of golf or tennis, the beauty of a tree or a child, taking care of a sick cat — all these merely begin a list of human endeavors which are at least fun, and may in time become sources of the passionate transfiguration we seek in religion or drugs, which reminds me, I left out my own personal favorite high — skiing.
Good luck to you, John Q. and your grandson, too.
Dave Moore is a licensed psychologist and chemical dependency professional. Author Bill Manville hosts an addictions radio show. Addictions & Answers will appear occasionally in the Tuesday Health section and every week on Ohio.com.
Dr. Dave: Citizen John Q. writes us that his grandson just got busted for pot. ''He's healthy, good looking and well educated, with a loving family and every door in the world open to him.'' Dr. Dave and Bill, do you understand why someone like that gets addicted?
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