Roads - Are All Straight and Narrow?

With apologies to the Almighty, I confess my weakness to deny believe in one straight and narrow path to temporal productivity. As I see it, a person does not reach a crossroads of two roads diverging, one to the good reward and one to the evil punishment. Instead, the deeper one delves into solutions to complex problems, the more crooked  paths he encounters that could possibly lead safely to the destination or to certain danger. At such a crossroads, one path quickly turns into a choice of twenty instead of a singular, well-marked intersection.The discoverer of these new roads could ignore them, or he could explore them, thus testing the roads as future dangers or even positive paths for future travelers.

Take the Scioto County epidemic of drug abuse, for example. To declare war on the problem means a soldier in the cause is responsible to reacting to all fronts, traveling down many unknown paths, and risking both losses and victories. The many roads that deal with victims, the many roads that deal with recovery, the many roads that deal with law enforcement, the many roads that lead to legislation, the many roads that lead to financing, the many roads that deal with government -- they all must be taken in good time. A true commitment to the fight requires walking many minefields of personal and political resistance. Often the enemy is camouflaged and difficult to perceive.

I can relate only personal experience; however, to believe that one can limit himself to being a good citizen and ignore four-fifths of the problem is ludicrous. Almost immediately upon contacting drug abuse in Scioto County, a person realizes its parasitic branches have a deep-seated attachment around the heart of our area. I, personally, believe that no one solution will work. Pill mills, internet prescriptions, illegal entry and dealing, stealing from family drug cabinets, black-tar heroin, meth, and other problems face the area. Some people here must be removed and further arrests must be made. Only a prepared, educated populace can fight well on all fronts.

Whose life is worth saving? My answer is all. But without people walking down some dirty, forbidding paths, the problem will worsen. The age-old image of addiction is something that must be discarded. In a denial of attempting to even understand the term, we refuse to see that even we are addicted to something in certain ways, and we miss the power of a helping hand. Many of us are addicted to food, to sex, to alcohol, to games, to television, to strange behaviors, to cell phones, to power, to money, to status, to "doing our own thing," and even to religion. Somehow, the stigma of drugs wedges distance between ourselves and the addict.

The many roads that lead to the solution of drug addiction offer a twisted path. Those who pioneer these roads commit themselves to confront all dangers and enjoy all understandings along the way. To find rewards will be as likely as finding a four-leaf clover. To find words and pleas of help will be as common as finding pebbles under bare feet.To find solutions, one after another, will take years and years. Limitation represents a word unknown to the seeker of wisdom and knowledge. Seeker is, instead, a more helpful term of understanding the role of commitment. And, if this seeking must be done down new paths that branch from the straight and narrow, then someone must volunteer to pioneer.