May 5th, 2019
Everyone needs something to hang on to, someone to depend on. The American Way is to be independent, but nobody stands alone.
This is why humans have a strong need to bond. We need to make sure we have what we need to survive. And what we need most in order to survive is other people. This is why we tend to get attached to others so easily.
The first person we usually get attached to is our mother. Opioids give us at least some of the same feeling we get from mother’s love. In fact, there are natural opioids in mother’s milk. The same is true for wheat. This could be why pizza and macaroni & cheese are such popular comfort foods.
Behind both the opioid crisis and the loneliness epidemic is a largely unacknowledged, “silent” epidemic: attachment disorder. If we don’t start with healthy attachment, we can end up with addiction. If we don’t have good bonding, we end up in bondage.
The risk of addiction is especially great today, now that so much is insecure. If we don’t have something to hold on to, something to believe in, we will grab whatever we can get our hands on. This is why deaths by overdose, along with deaths by suicide and by alcoholism, are being called “deaths of despair.”
An old expression says el vino es la teta de los viejos, “the wine bottle is the breast of the aged.” Today, the needle, the powder, and the pill are the breast of the young. Opioids are the new mother.