Substance Abuse

This is my expository essay on substance abuse about drugs and alcohol effect as humans for Language Arts class.

Why do people do drugs and alcohol? What’s the point of endangering your life over some stupid drink or pill? Maybe there are problems in their life and they use these things to relieve the stress. Maybe they just want to fit in with the rest and be cool and accepted. But beyond all that, there has to be some reason why drugs and alcohol are used so widely and I’m aiming to find that out.

The earliest traces of drugs started around 5000 B.C. Priests and spiritual figures used smoking to drift off into a world of peace and deep thought. According to history, even the highest of people smoked and did drugs. Later the practice of smoking spread across the world. From Asia to Australia to Europe, smoking was becoming popular and more forms of it came about like cannabis, also known as “weed”.

Although spiritual men like the priests in 5000 B.C did it, did they really know the hazardous effects smoking has on the body? In Singapore many people have died at the hand of smoking. Smoking causes many diseases involving the lungs that are usually very fatal like cancer. The worst thing is, once you’re in too deep with smoking you cant get out, because the highly addictive chemical nicotine is in cigarettes. That’s why quitting is one of the hardest challenges in a smokers life.

At the same time that smoking harms the body in many ways, it can also be used for a little bit of good. For example, medicinal marijuana is given to patients who have painful sicknesses but at the same time smoking also can give sickness like cancer. Cigarettes are also a good stress reliever and have saved people from depression many times before.

Along with smoking and marijuana, there are more dangerous things too. For example, alcohol. Alcohol has killed countless people with its harmful effects. People usually just see at as a drink to have fun or to party, but alcohol could end your life in one night as you know it. In 1997, Americans drank an average of 2 gallo­ns (7.57 liters) of alcohol per person. This translates roughly into one six-pack of beer, two glasses of wine and three or four mixed drinks per week. That much in one night could send a person into cardiac arrest and easily kill them. Already 1,057,195 people have died from alcohol alone this year! That’s over a million and the year is not even halfway over yet. This shows the danger drugs and alcohol has on us people. Whether we drink it for fun, or to act cool, or to numb the pain of depression, its not worth it.

In conclusion, drugs and alcohol have been in our past for so long we think of it as human nature to smoke and drink. A lot of people still don’t realize the death toll that substance abuse has on our population. It may relieve the pain or stress you have, or make you fit in with the other people, but in the end you will lose. Would you rather have fun and get drunk for one night and die? In the end its just not worth risking your life on things so dangerous. Your life is worth more than a few beers and a pack of cigarettes. That’s how the whole thing of substance abuse is and that’s how it’ll end too.