LETTER: Take responsibility for yourself

To the Telegram:

Drugs affect every facet of your life, in one way or another.

Everything you put into your body, into your mind affects you in some way like a drug, just in different ways.

Food can be a drug; it can be used for good or bad.

Too much refined sugars, flours, greasy foods increases your chances of becoming diabetic, can cause heart problems, obesity and raise other health issues.

It has been demonstrated that we, as a nation, are becoming addicted to different chemicals within processed foods. Our bodies and our minds crave these chemicals just like a drug. Caffeine, tobacco, alcohol are all drugs,.

Lack of exercise affects our minds and bodies, like a drug, after days and years of doing nothing, our minds become nothing.

Diabetes, high blood pressure, can cause bouts of anger, depression, which can cause crime, elevated levels of domestic abuse, public violence, suicide and more. Drugs of the body, mind and soul are interconnected.

We, as a nation, need to begin with the basics, start teaching our kids that a healthy mind and healthy body turns into a healthy human being. This helps to work at the beginning of a healthy community, then a healthy world. It all starts with one.

Milton Creogh, who works extensively with the Elks Drug Awareness Program, has a great program that teaches UR Choice Ur Voice, an edutainment training program. He teaches kids they can make the choice to say no to drugs. One voice turns into two, and on and on.

We really need to stop the media from saying its ok to take drugs. Michael Jackson, Elvis Presley and other famous people have died because of drugs, yet they are still idols to millions, why is that?

The message being sent to our children is that it’s OK to take drugs, it will make you famous. There are no real role models out there for our kids to look up to; they are all either stoned or have no ethical morals. It’s time we speak out against those who use drugs, and start looking for people who — as the old saying goes — get high on life.

Michele Obama is a great role model; her Let’s Move campaign is targeting obese children with healthy eating and exercise. A healthy body becomes a healthy mind. How about parents for a change becoming role models for their kids, by doing what’s right? Eating right, staying active and staying off drugs. This will show kids, by example, about how to be a good person, a good neighbor, by being responsible for their actions.

We have lost sight of what is right and wrong. We no longer feel we are responsible for our own health, job or monetary issues. We have a long list of who to blame things on and lawyers are becoming rich because of it.

It’s time we step up and say “hey, I can do this.” President John F. Kennedy’s statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” should be our mantra for everything. It’s a simple matter of getting away from being a society of what about me and once again becoming a strong nation of what about them.

When Grover Cleveland was President, he vetoed a bill to appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas. He wrote “Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our National character.” Maybe he was a man ahead of his time.

We, as a nation, as a community, and as people have forgotten how to take care of ourselves, what will become of us if there is no government? If there is no big brother to watch out for us? What if there is no farmer to grow our food, no doctors to sew up our wounds, what then? Gives you something to think about doesn’t it?

Cristine Crum,

Superior

Tags: opinion, letters