Americans have always been restless. We are, after all, a nation of immigrants and once those immigrants arrived here they kept moving. The impulse to move and to keep moving is driven by dissatisfaction. Sometimes it has been dissatisfaction with the religious status quo. Most often, however, at least since the early nineteenth century, it has probably been economic dissatisfaction that has driven immigration to America and movement within America. Nevertheless, and I am happy to be corrected on this point, it does not seem that, as restless as we have always been, we were always afflicted with drug addiction to the degree we are now. There can be little doubt that the USA is awash in drugs. Authorities have stopped an almost unthinkable amount of Fentanyl from entering the USA so far this year. According to the CDC, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses from in a 12-month period through April, 2021. That is a rise of 29% over the previous year. In 2020 about 93,000 people died from Fentanyl overdoses.

The Modern “War on Drugs” dates to the Nixon Administration. Advocates of legalization argue that people have always abused narcotics. They point to opium dens and worries about alcoholism in the nineteenth century. Still, when the number of Fentanyl overdoses rises from about 50,000 to 93,000 in a single year something new is afoot. Fentanyl is one of the most powerful narcotics available. Obviously it is a dangerous drug. First responders now regularly carry NARCAN to counter the effects of drug overdoses.

Why do people begin to abuse alcohol and drugs (and especially dangerous drugs, e.g., LSD, Fentanyl, Heroin) in the first place? Alcoholics Anonymous, NA, et al. tell us that addicts have a “disease.” They cannot explain how addiction is a disease or how people catch or develop this disease but this is the language they use. Before disease they claimed that people became addicted to alcohol because of an allergy. More plausibly, sociologists and economists point to severe economic conditions in some parts of the country prompting hopeless and helpless people to self-medicate, as they say in the drug treatment business, thus leading to addiction and, too often, to death.

Drunks and addicts are not drunks and addicts all their lives. They become drunks and addicts. There are some drugs, e.g., a new strain of Meth, that have a powerful, life-dominating effect almost immediately but typically become addicted over time. Why would someone seek to anesthetize himself via Fentanyl? How hopeless and helpless must someone be to take that risk?

Still, the more question persists: Why do need to  anesthetize themselves in the first place? Brendan W. Case argues that, as important as economic factors are, there is a factor that sociologists and economists overlook: the spiritual vacuum created by Modernity. The German nihilist Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) saw more clearly than most what the “death of God” would mean for the West. It leads to despair and anomie, lawlessness born of the lack of external norms. Why did young people turn to dangerous narcotics such as LSD in the prosperous 1960s? Baby Boomers, who had grown up with busy, absent Fathers (who were dealing with their own demons from World War II and Korea) sought community in communes and contact with the transcendent via LSD and weed.  In the 1980s they turned to cocaine. In the 90s it was Prozac.

We anesthetize ourselves to dull the pain of loss and the grief that comes with it. People in rust belt towns, Appalachia, or a trailer park in Southeast Nebraska (see the work of Chris Arnade) might be anesthetizing themselves as the grieve over the loss of their economic and social future. Lonely widowers anesthetize themselves to cover the pain of a missing spouse. Returning veterans anesthetize themselves to deal with nightmares and persistent headaches. A culture anesthetizes itself to dull the grief from the loss of transcendent meaning, the loss of heaven as a reality, and the loss of salvation. As Jesse Jackson might have said, the West has traded hope for dope.

Christian, the addicts and drunks in our towns and cities are our neighbors. The lonely, hurting, and the unemployed who have lost their sense of identity and purpose are also our neighbors. The addicted and anesthetized post-Christian West, stumbling about in a narcotic haze between Covid lockdowns and the next booster shot is our neighbor.

We anesthetize our souls because we know that death is stalking us and we fear that Nietzsche is right, that this life is all there is, that life is nothing but the will to power. The Reagan-Bush-Clinton prosperity cycle did not heal our souls. It just funded more expensive meds. The quest for a material utopia under Ohama-Trump-Biden has not healed our souls. It has only divided us into warring, raging tribes screaming at each other.

President #46 is not saving us and #47 will not save us and anyone who thinks he can is an idolater. The thing our neighbor needs more than a job  and a jab, more than getting clean, is the Savior who came forth from the tomb. Our neighbors have given up Christ for crystal meth and made themselves more miserable and hopeless. The West presumes that it is too Enlightened to believe in a Jewish Messiah who was crucified and raised but are we? If we are so Enlightened, if we really as wise as we think we are why are anesthetizing ourselves to death? To be sure, we should not turn to Jesus for happiness and certainly not for euphoria. He is not the next drug. We should turn to Jesus for who and what he is: salvation from destruction and the wrath to come. We have abandoned him but he has not abandoned us sinners. He is still calling, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). Fentanyl is a an anesthetic. Christ is rest for the restless.

We are trying to anesthetize our conscience but users wake up. We all have to face the mirror. We cannot silence the voice inside that tells us that we are image bearers and that God is displeased with us. We are not wise. We have become fools. Life is not less meaningful. It is we who have forsaken the source of meaning: the God who is, who spoke, who described, who names us. If you are reading this, if you are near despair, it is not too late. The Savior will hear you and do for you what pills and booze can never do: redeem you from the pit of destruction (Ps 103:4).

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

Resources

• How To Subscribe To Heidelmedia
• The Heidelblog Resource Page
• Heidelmedia Resources
• The Ecumenical Creeds
• The Reformed Confessions
• The Heidelberg Catechism
• Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2008).
• Support Heidelmedia: use the donate button below.
• Help For New Deacons (And Others) Regarding Homelessness And Addiction
• Atheists, Christians, AA, And God As I Conceive Of Him
• What Does an Alcoholic/Addict Need?