A Life Guided by How We Feel The Opioid Epidemic in America

Science & Reason: A Life Guided by How We Feel The Opioid Epidemic in America

How you feelin’ today? The Jackson 5 asked in a song, “Can you feel it? There is even catchy phrases like, “You’re catching feelings.” All the advertising and marketing is geared to evoke a feeling. We live in a culture that is guided by and geared to how we feel. With the fast pace of life and the pull on our emotions from every direction, people tend to not be able to keep up with life’s ups and downs. When this happens people tend to turn to outside methods, like Opioids to self medicate and feel good. The inability to face life and think logically has lead people to look for ways to escape to “their happy place.” A place where we feel good, numb the mind and leave reality. This has led to an increase of drug abuse, addictions, and death in the country over the last 20 years with Opioids blazing the path of destruction for many Americans. 

Everyday, more than one hundred fifteen people die in the United States after overdosing on Opioids according to the National Vital Statistics System of the CDC. Over the past twenty years the misuse of and addiction to Opioids, including prescription pain relievers, Heroin, and synthetic Opioids such as Fentanyl, has risen greatly and has become a serious national crisis affecting public health as well as social and economic welfare. It makes us wonder, how could this crisis happen? 

This all began in the late 90’s with little concern for our health, little to no understanding of long term effects, and no conclusive testing. The pharmaceutical companies, at the time, reassured the medical community that patients would not become addicted to Opioid pain relievers. Because of this, healthcare providers began to prescribe Opioids at a much greater rate toting that they are safe and non-addictive. This led to widespread diversion and misuse of Opioids before it became clear that they were highly addictive. By 2015, more than 33,000 Americans died as a result of an Opioid overdose, including prescription Opioids, Heroin, and illicitly manufactured Fentanyl. By 2017, Opioid overdoses increased by 30% in 45 states. That same year an estimated two million people in the U.S. suffered from substance abuse related to prescription Opioid pain relievers, and 591,000 suffered from Heroin abuse according to the Center for Behavioural Health Statistics and Quality. At the slightest bit of pain or after an injury or surgery doctors readily prescribed Opioids to their patients. But in this day and age of high stress, low tolerances to being able to cope and deal with life, as well as physical pain, we see how problematic this becomes. 

Let’s take a look at how Opioids affect a person and what makes them so addictive. When Opioids travel through the blood they then arrive in the brain and attach to the Opioid receptors in the brain cell. The cells release signals that muffle one’s perception. In other words, it is affecting the way a person perceives things, changing how you think you feel. This is not restricted to just pain. It is changing or muffling your perception of reality. In a culture that has focused on how a person feels and in particular, living in “the feel good” culture, we see how dangerous this has become. Living in a culture of high stress, social pressure and depression, as well as such emphasis being placed on not hurting anyone’s “feelings” people now seek an illusionary world that makes people feel like they can do whatever they can to not feel bad, never have disappointment, never feel pain. For many, the Opioid use started out as pain management but since it changes your perception of how you feel about everything, not just pain, we see how this can unwittingly become an avoidance of reality. Even more people, especially teenagers and young adults, are raiding medicine cabinets across the country to get their escape from negative feelings. 

Let’s consider that 50 years ago we did not see this high use of Opioids and mass destruction on American society. This was not because these drugs did not exist. Opioids were used to treat soldiers in the 1860s during the civil war and many soldiers become addicted to them. Opioids have always been highly addictive, no matter in what form. Two things made this the perfect storm; the edict that they were safe and not addictive made by the pharmaceutical industry and medical societies and a shift in cultural thinking to avoid feeling pain and negative feelings. We do not learn in society today how to work with our emotions but instead how to block and avoid them. Between alcohol abuse, prescription drug use like Opioids, and screen time, there are a multitudes of ways to avoid our feelings instead of dealing with life honestly and logically. Thwarting emotions is not good for mental or physical health. It’s like pressing on the gas and brake of your car at the same time, creating an internal pressure cooker. 

So, let’s take a look at all the confusion that has been imposed on us in society. Everything we see today is exalting our emotions and feelings over logic and rational thought. However, there is an emphasis on fun and always feeling good. Pain and negative feelings in anyway is something to be avoided. Nature simply does not work this way. Nature does not give a choice to pick one thing, good feelings only, and leave out the bad. That is simply imbalance. And it comes with dire results. Turning to Opioids, destroys the body and mind and for many have caused death. This affects not only the individual, but the family structure and thus, the community. It reminds me of something my Grandmother used to say to me, you can’t take the good without the bad. With the great destruction that we see Opioids doing to society, it’s time to start really researching how natural and safe are these drugs that are being pushed on us. Clearly, these drugs that we are being told are safe one minute only show themselves to be dangerous the next. Maybe we should stop working so hard not to feel bad and blindly following the latest medical and pharmaceutical trend and learn how to keep up with life’s changes and reality. If we did this, we could put a stop to the onslaught that the Opioid epidemic has wreaked over America.