being well - part 1

so, how you feelin? are you well? we all wanna be, right? and so many of us believe we gotta have 'pharmaceutical help' to feel good...

(Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, I do not play one on TV, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!)

I will say this: we have morphed into a society which believes that there is a pill or treatment for EVERY ILL, and I believe we have allowed ourselves to become WAAAAAYYY overprescribed! Especially with regard to mood-altering drugs.

...now everyone of you who read this - all 3 of you - will commence to cite reasons why you gotta have your Xanax or Prosac or Caduet or Ambien or whatever the designer-drug-of-the-day might be to 'make it'... or why YOUR kiddo HAD to HAVE Ritalyn or some other drug to 'pay attention in class'.... or how your aunt is a much better person when she's on her (fill in her drug here).

....and again, because I understand way less about this than more educated folks, I suppose I should back up and restate the disclaimer....

but I still stand by my statement that, for the most part, we have bought into the mentality that for every ache and pain - physical or emotional - there is a pill to fix it. So, we take our drugs...

we O.D. on our Ambien to make us sleep and pop another pill to help us wake up... we take our capsule to make us happy and another to keep us 'level'... we take our Lisenopril to regulate our blood pressure, and our Caduet to lower our cholesterol AND hypertension... and on and on and on the list goes...

so what's my point?

there are 2:

1. illness is a reality. and mental illness is every bit as real as physical illness.
2. most of us could be well and enjoy good health without medicating ourselves (are there exceptions to this? certainly - thus the use of 'most' instead of 'all' - the problem is, we all think OUR particular malady is worse than anyone else's and, thus, believe that puts us in that 'minority' which MUST take meds to be well)

I wonder - just spitballin' here - if, for instance, the guy who takes the lisenopril twice a day to regulate his high blood pressure could exercise more and eat less (or better) and control his illness (which he brought on himself with 40 years of not exercising and eating well) without medication?

I happen to know the answer to this one, because I know this guy really really well... and the answer is YES!

What about the rest of you? are you giving yourself insulin shots so you can 'eat whatever you want', then sitting down to a 3000 calorie 'diabetic-coma-on-a-plate'?

my fear is we begin to rely on the wrong thing.... we believe we gotta have a drug, so we forget about good living and prayer and devotional time and exercise, etc...

I just wanna encourage us to think through our dependence upon medication. that's all

(continued)