Allow me a little reflection here...and let me just qualify that my emotion spills from a place of concern for our family members and friends who are themselves victims of this crisis. And as part of a broader community, by extension, is a crisis affecting us all.
When did drinking lots of water, making time to relax and get some fresh air stop being sufficient to relieve light stress? When did having a wholesome family life or friendships, where members cared for and enquired after each other, visited and shared a meal, where friends came over and actually listened to your concerns become less important than popping a happy pill? Taking a cup of chamomile tea or other herbal tea and much needed rest be easily replaced by sleeping pills? Indulging in morning yoga and stretches be replaced by stronger and stronger doses of ibuprofen that soon became ineffective and required a Norco, and then a Percocet, and then a Dilaudid or Morphine, and so on? Some good old Traditional Chinese Medicine - acupuncture, exercise, herbal remedy, massage, aromatherapy - as a complimentary or alternative therapy be considered less effective than strong and mentally-altering modern pharmaceuticals? When did having a happy, fun-filled, bigger-than-life kid become a problem to quelch with an ADHD prescription medication? Have we tried channeling that energy to something useful before we resort to the newest, most convenient media sensation? Why do we ask people to "rate their pain" when they never said anything about pain? When did we get to where EVERYTHING has a clinical diagnosis? I could go on and on but you get the gist. And I know that this is a very sensitive topic and has too many tentacles to blanket assess. That there are accidents, and trauma, and diseases that require comprehensive treatment and pain management. The fundamental point I am raising here is that many 'ailments' begin really small and at a manageable place, where we have simple and natural and human tools in our arsenal, before they escalate. We miss the point where we nip them in the bud and then we start down the proverbial rabbit hole.
I grew up in a society where you didn't have a chance to be "in your own space" or room long enough to feel lonely. That in itself, now in retrospect, was therapeutic. If life threw you a curve ball, and it did a lot, you picked up and kept going because it was part of life. You ate some dirt, got the common cold and your parents said, "You're ok. It will make you stronger". We built our immune systems rather than suppressed them. "Homeostasis" was one of my favorite words in Nursing school. One definition is: "A property of cells, tissues, and organisms that allows the maintenance and regulation of the stability and constancy needed to function properly." In layman's terms, our body's natural ability to right itself. We so often overlook this powerful tool.
With all due respect to modern medicine and all the doctors out there working hard to keep us healthy, let's not forget that nature provides us with powerful tools. That if we treat our bodies right, they will do well by us too. As nurses, the American Nurses Association states that "As health care providers practicing on the front lines of the opioid epidemic, registered nurses are qualified and well positioned to play a leading role in assessing, diagnosing, and managing patients battling addiction". And I am thinking, maybe we start educating people about the dangers of addiction and giving them resources to manage the underlying problems so that we take more of a proactive than a reactive stance. This is just my personal opinion and by no means professional advice on the issue.
