the appeal of drugs

having taken no drugs whatsoever in all my life, i probably am not the most qualified person to talk about drugs. but funnily enough, there have been days, today being one, where i get tempted by the idea. where does the appeal from from?

for me, i think i relate the idea of drugs as being a means to go from your initial state (a) to another state (b).

why would that be helpful?

the want usually comes from an unhappiness with where you are now. getting to state b isn't necessarily a better one intrinsically, only, the reason why it is preferable is because the state a Must be escaped at any costs - if state a can be avoided, then it must be avoided, the heart says.

things other can drugs do this.

escape into a good book
escape into your headphones
escape into a computer game world

drugs is not the definitive means to get to a different state of affairs than the one you're in. the funny thing is, the escape is short lived. and here the lie becomes less potent. the promise is escape. no-one while tempted to get off their face will hear from their tempter about the morning after. no-one hears, or remembers, that the escape isn't actually an escape at all, rather, a temporary glitch in the programming of normal life.

the appeal of drugs is interesting. it never suggests that state a itself is open to change while still being state a. it never says that we have available the means to happiness in all circumstances, that state a can be the place we live in and yet be satisfied. i believe that real life has a beauty and a potency of its own that i am meant to discover.

so, since there is no real escape, there is no call to be hoodwinked by things that look like escapes. only, to seek out the beauty in what is already here.