What's Wrong with a Little Fear?

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I often comment on trends and events that happen in the world at large as if I had any control or influence to change them.  When I reflect on that, I see how silly it is.  I usually can't even influence my own family, but I still gripe and rave.  Well, here goes--what's wrong with a little fear?  I don't mean the kind of neurotic panic that Monk expressed.  I am not suggesting we hire armed guards to go to the grocery store.  But let's be real:  There are things that we should fear and we should teach our children to be afraid of.

Start with drugs.  We have accepted drugs into our society so completely that nobody thinks they will hurt you.  This includes prescription and recreational drugs.  Get this folks--they are the same.  They work in the same place in your body--the neuronal synapse.  Well, maybe antibiotics really attack a bacteria, but they may play around in the synapse, too.  Some substances never leave your body once they have gotten in.  Some change your body in ways that are permanent.  Some of the lasting effects have not been discovered yet. 

We need to be very cautious about using them.  It's O.K. to tell your children to be fearful of drugs. 

I am amazed at how we reframe and sanitize ideas and language so that really disgusting things become accepted.  Illegal drugs are now called recreational.  It's so much fun to become a blithering psychotic! 

I'm really out of it in the drug thing.  The minor tranquilizers that were prescribed by the doctor caused internal feelings and emotional experiences that I did not enjoy, so to me it was not recreational at all.  I did avoid the ulcer, but I told him that I had to find some other way to deal with my stress and anxiety.  Drugs were not my out. 

Maybe that was a good lesson.  I hope I can share it with other people.  Here it is:  Face the hard decisions in your life.  Taking a drug will not change the reality of your siuation.  When you come down or sober up, life is still there waiting.  The corollary to that lesson is this:  The drugs may have consequences you didn't expect, but living a righteous and honorable life will, too.

Teach your children to fear drugs.  Surely the fear is no worse than the drug.