When we pour ourselves into the form God made for us, we are happy and fulfilled.  When we ignore that and mold things our own way, we are miserable.

I think addiction is a fine example of the latter.  Addiction is on the far end of the sin spectrum.  Addiction is the Gollum principle at work – slavery and dehumanization in action, the fruit of a life devoted to sin.  All sin is eventually a form of addiction, and you see that quite clearly when you read about addictions, for “He that sins is a slave to sin,” as Our Lord told us (John 8:34), and is made a slave by means of a progressive de-humanization, of greater and greater loss of will and reason to the drug of choice that controls us.

Take, for example, this story from the Drugs Forum website.  What strikes me is not so much the sin itself, and not even the rationalization of sin (which I wrote about earlier today, “A Dialogue with the Devil and a Chat with Bill Clinton“) – since we all rationalize our sins.  What strikes me is how much this young woman is like other single young women I know.  My other young friends may not be meth users, but read this and then let me explain …

SWIM is pretty outspoken about her MJ use [MY NOTE: This site uses odd acronyms.  SWIN means “Someone Who Isn’t Me” – although in this case it’s almost certainly a third-person way of talking about one’s self; and MJ means marijuana], as she truly feels it being illegal is just plain silly in comparison to alcohol and what it can and does to people. Pretty much everyone in SWIMs life is aware of the fact she smokes.  … 

SWIM took up smoking meth in the last 6 months or so, casual user, few times a month and ONLY three people know, the three people she has done it with. SWIM plans to keep it that way. SWIM however, doesn’t feel bad that everyone doesn’t know, unfortunately the stigma attached to this particular drug is definitely one that could get her in a heap of trouble and she is smart enough to know that. 

SWIM knows so many people who smoke MJ, but luckily for SWIM, tends to smoke at home alone most times, so wouldn’t have to lose a lot of long time friends. SWIM has no intentions of stopping MJ, it helps her with her bipolar disorder and she enjoys it. 

As for the meth and other recreational drugs (ecstacy, shrooms and xanax on occassion), well, SWIM knows that if and when she decides to stop, those three friends can’t come around any longer, hence why SWIM thinks keeping a smaller circle of friends who use the drugs you are considering coming off someday is your best bet. 

SWIM is single and lives alone with her dog. SWIM rarely ever feels guilt. Granted, the times of going overboard and doing too much, things like that, normal guilt, but that’s it for her. SWIM feels that everyone has the right to do to their body what they like. SWIM is just smart enough to know that not everyone needs to know everything about what SWIM does. Maybe SWIM digs the secret side of the meth, maybe that’s part of the allure. 

SWIM functions completely normally on MJ, but doesn’t go to work high, EVER. Luckily, SWIM can get through an 8-10 hour day no problem. Granted, SWIM has a one hitter and a stash in the car for the ride home, but doesn’t spend her day thinking about when that hit will be. MJ just helps her chill when she gets home from work, unwind and clear her mind. SWIM smokes about an ounce of the really expensive stuff a month, so a 1/4 a week. A lot to most people.

SWIM for the most part (she’s had her moments) partakes of meth on weekends and any other drug, such as shrooms or ecstacy. SWIM will not lie and say she hasn’t tweaked during the week, gotten little sleep and took a hit to wake up for work. Luckily, that has happned ONCE and SWIM felt tremendous guilt over that and it set her ass straight. SWIM is very passionate about work and while she kicked ass at work that week, she felt horrible knowing that she was disrespecting her employer and her own beliefs regarding conduct at work. 

Now of course there’s plenty of irony here, “I’m not an addict because even though I use daily and have to smoke on my way home from work, I’m not obsessed with it.  MJ is no problem even though in my case it’s been a gateway to meth, ecstasy, shrooms, etc.  I know meth use is dangerous, but I have it well under control, and can stop whenever I want to,” etc.

But beyond the irony is how similar this young woman’s attitude is to that of other “Single Young Females” whose focus is on their careers and their dogs.

The fact is – women are not made for this – not made to be “single young professionals”.  This is not the form God molded for women.  A woman is meant for far greater and far more mysterious things than climbing the corporate ladder and doing enough amphetamines to get her through the day.

Or, as the prophet G. K. Chesterton said …

Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.

Am I saying that all single professional females are secretly meth addicts?  Of course not.  But the ones I’ve known who have been most eager about their careers have had about them something of the great and sinister temptation or even preoccupation that “SWIM” describes in her own life.  Perhaps they are not sneaking into closets to smoke meth with co-conspirators who are as psychologically disturbed as they are, but they may be sneaking into closets to have “experimental” Lesbian encounters, or to have affairs with married men, or to find better ways of picking up guys at bars and having nearly anonymous sex with them – all of which are examples of devotion to power.

Power is the antithesis of love, and women know this more than men do; they know it naturally, in their bones.  But women in our feminist culture – especially women who have lacked any kind of father in their lives (including God the Father) – are encouraged to become Whores for Power.  They end up seeking the kind of power and control over their pain that comes from getting high, power and control over men that comes from promiscuous sex, power and control over desire itself that comes from perverse sex – and this lust for power leads inevitably to lives of sterility, lives of loneliness in an urban apartment with a toy dog and an emasculated on-again-off-again live-in boyfriend, lives of greater and greater lust for control accompanied by a greater and greater loss of meaning.

And this we call “women’s liberation”.

One of the many real life “Faces of Meth“.