At first, after using alcohol or drugs, you are joyful and ready to party and have a good time. However, alcohol and most drugs are actually categorized as a “depressant”—meaning that after a brief high, the chemical is actually meant to cause you to be depressed. Many people—especially alcoholics and opium-users (such as heroin addicts)—like the substance because they have put their negative feelings aside for a time. Unfortunately, that feeling is very temporary, and then they feel depressed for a much longer time—then they want to go back to get more of the substance so they can feel good again. This is a perpetual cycle of depression, and the only way of escape is to get out of the substance that is bringing you down.
They give you energy
After using alcohol or drugs you feel that you could do anything, lift anything, you are ready for anything—especially meth or coke. Certainly those drugs do grant a person more energy for a period of time. However, all of these substances actually are tearing your body apart. They increase your chance of getting Hepatitis C or liver damage. They leave your body feeling more tired, and long term use causes you to die young, possibly from overdosing or a greater chance of an accident, but the use itself will eventually kill you. Long term alcohol or drug use is a slow suicide.
They make you feel smarter
A person using alcohol or drugs, when they are in their “high” stage, they feel that they are having great insight that they wouldn’t have otherwise. This is especially true of those who use marijuana, meth, coke or psycadelics. However, the opposite is actually true. Most drugs (and certainly alcohol) slow down reaction time, and slow down the brain processes. The “insights” some people get are simply rambling, which leaves them feeling that while they were high they understood everything, but once they came down they forgot what they had understood, and their notes or drawings don’t make sense anymore. The reason for this is that there was no great understanding, just feeling. Drugs and alcohol actually make you stupider, but you only feel smarter. This is a dangerous combination.
They help you deal with your emotional issues
There are people who have real social and emotional issues and they can take certain drugs or drink alcohol and they feel “normal”. A person with ADHD might take meth and feel better for a while, while another person can take heroin and their pains are gone for a time. However, all of these solutions are only temporary, and when it is over, you are stuck with an addiction that does not solve any of your problems but actually gives you more.
They cover up your shame
Many people who use alcohol or drugs have deep issues of shame, in which they feel rejected or a failure, and they use their substance to cover up this shame so that they don’t have to experience it. But when they come out of their high, their feeling of shame is deeper than before, because they realize that they have failed even worse due to using the alcohol or drugs. The substances are simply shame machines, which do not pull you out of the shame, but they continually grind you back into it, deeper and deeper.
They make it easier to deal with people
While a person is in their “high”, everyone seems so easy to deal with. The shy person can suddenly speak easily with others and the socially inept can be confident. However, everyone who has to deal with someone under the influence of drugs or alcohol does not find them easier to deal with, but think of them as jerks. The reason for this is that the person who has used is actually apathetic about what responses they will get to what they do. They are confident because they no longer care about other people and what they really need. And the others around them are stuck dealing with this person who is a stupid and doesn’t care about other’s feelings—in other words, a jerk.
They help you forget your problems
Alcohol and drugs are the great “cover up” so that all of our problems and pains and difficulties are forgotten for a time. Unfortunately, this forgetfulness isn’t just a “black out” but a form of chosen schizophrenia. Alcohol and drugs actually make you into a different person, one that is deceived and foolish, one that doesn’t care about anyone or anything and makes life for everyone around them worse.
They make you feel all is right between you and God
For those who are concerned about their relationship with God, when one is high, they feel that their relationship with God is the best it has ever been. They do not feel condemned before God, they feel positive and everything is good. However, God himself says that a person who is “filled” with a substance, such as alcohol or drugs and so cannot control themselves, they cannot be filled with God’s Spirit. God’s Spirit is essential for living the Christian life, and the one who drinks or uses are actually exchanging the substance for a Christian life. Although they feel right with God, they are actually at a low point, and God will not listen to their prayers at that point.
They make you feel all is right between you and the spirit world
It is true that alcohol and drugs open a person up to the spirit world and makes them more influenced by that alternative world. Unfortunately, the Bible says, that most of that world around us are filled with demons and evil spirits that want to destroy us and to tear apart our relationship with God. Every time we use, we are opening ourselves up to demonic influence, which will destroy our lives one bit at a time, until our whole lives are a misery, a life of destruction both for ourselves and those around us.
They make you feel good about the future
For many people, alcohol and drugs gives them hope for the future. The Bible says, however, that the best hope for our future is the kingdom of God—God in us right now and us in God’s people and life. This is the true hope and blessing of God. But those who are characterized by alcohol or drug use do not have a part of this future, they cannot participate in this hope. The life they are now living is the best they will ever receive— and it is a life heading toward misery and death. And after their death they will gain nothing from God but punishment for the misery and apathy they have given to others and to God’s will.
Alcohol and Drugs feel like more life—but they are ultimately misery and death.
