After my recent post on Attention Deficit Disorder, I received an avalanche of comments and questions regarding the appropriateness of using prescription medications to feel better. In particular, readers want to know if it’s ok to use them. How do they relate to the Law of Attraction? Is using drugs not just “cheating”? Or could they even possibly block us from manifesting what we want?

As regular readers of this blog will know, I very rarely, if ever, see things in black and white. My world is made up of shades of grey. I evaluate individual situations, people, and circumstances and I try very hard to stay away from absolutes. This is one of the reasons why I was careful not to mention drugs in my post on A.D.D. I wasn’t about to make a statement like “Stop medicating your kids, already!” It wasn’t because I don’t think that we are overmedicating our children. I do. Just as I believe that our entire society, in general, is ridiculously overmedicated. But I will not ever say that no one should take painkillers, antidepressants, Ritalin, chemotherapy, etc. etc. etc. Because I don’t believe that, either.

Drugs are good. Sometimes.

First of all, I’m going to use the word “drugs” instead of prescription medication. I don’t distinguish between illegal drugs and meds. The fact that someone with an agenda that I don’t agree with has decided to declare certain substances illegal doesn’t affect how I see them or feel about them one bit. I do distinguish between plants and chemicals, but that’s for another post. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to refer to all of these substances as drugs. But, as you’ll see, for me, this word doesn’t have the negative connotation that it has for many others.

I view drugs in the same way that I view Traditional Medicine – they’re great tools for helping us to treat the symptoms of resistance. They do not directly help us treat the cause, but they can be of great value indirectly. What do I mean by that?

Well, let’s say that I have a headache. It’s a bad one. Now, I have a couple of choices. I know that some kind of discord within me has caused this headache. I can try to figure out what it is and release it, which would then make the headache go away. Or, since the headache is getting my attention in a big way, I can simply focus on something neutral, which will cause the headache to dissolve or lessen, and THEN I can try to figure out what caused the pain in the first place.

The problem arises, however, when that headache is interfering with my ability to focus; when it’s so bad that it blocks out all other facets of my reality. In that case, I may try to distract myself by taking a nap. But what if the pain is so bad that I can’t sleep? What if this pain is interfering with all of my efforts to get rid of it, much less figure out what caused it in the first place? Well, in that case, my intuition may lead me to another solution: an aspirin. I’ve experienced the effect of a painkiller many, many times before. I KNOW that it will make my headache go away. I have a strong, established belief that it will help. The painkiller itself has an energy, and one that my physical body responds to, given that it also fits into my belief system.

Now, I could decide that to be a pure Law of Attraction Master, I should be able to take care of my pain with my mind. Or, I could remember that

1. Nothing is as important as that I feel good
2. Everything is energy, including drugs
3. Everything is a manifestation. Including drugs. It’s not NOT LOA, just because the solution makes sense to skeptics.

And so, I take the painkiller. I feel better and then I hunt down the thought or belief that caused the headache in the first place. The painkiller wasn’t the cure for the underlying cause, but it was a tool that helped me to get to that cure.

Should you take anti-depressants?

I’m dedicating a whole section to anti-depressants, since I’ve received so many questions about this class of drugs in particular. Should we take them or are we actually doing damage to our ability to grow by using these meds?

While I can’t tell you what to take or not take, I can tell you this: Anti-depressants are a crutch, just like all drugs. But sometimes you need a crutch. If you break your leg and you have a cast, you’re not going to hop about and refuse to use crutches out of principle, are you?

If you are in such a dark place that you can’t even imagine the light anymore, and these drugs make you feel better, make it possible for you to meditate, to become self aware, to face your fears and focus your thoughts in a better feeling place, make it possible for you to do The Work, then why would you decline to use them?

I don’t have a problem with people using drugs to feel better. The “problem” from my view arises when they think that these drugs are the cure. They are not. The problem arises when people do nothing but take the drugs. They feel a bit better, but they don’t progress from there. They take the anti-depressants, but they don’t get into therapy. They take the painkillers but they don’t go after the cause of the pain. They may spend years on these drugs. That’s like spending years walking around with a cast and crutches and never wondering why that bone hasn’t healed.

Drugs are a temporary solution

If you’re unable to feel better and a drug helps you to do that, and yes, I’m talking about medications that help you physically, as well (like blood pressure meds, pain meds, thyroid meds, etc.) then by all means take them. Why not? But see them as a crutch, a temporary tool that is helping you to feel better so that you can focus on releasing the underlying cause. The goal of using any crutch should be to be able to STOP using it at some point. The goal should be to heal, not just cover up the symptoms.

Emotional ailments are caused by resistance. Physical illness is caused by resistance. If you’re feeling horrible and asking for relief, and the Universe leads you to some meds or a surgery or some kind of treatment that will make you feel better, use them! They are part of the manifestation you’re looking for. If you’ve gone through 20 doctors who couldn’t help you and then suddenly, you find one that can, don’t you think that this is a manifestation? You kept meeting up with doctors who couldn’t help you because you weren’t allowing the solution in. When you did (usually, because you got desperate enough to give up), a doctor who was a match to providing part of the solution came into your reality. By all means, jump on that opportunity. Just don’t stop there. Keep opening yourself up to more and more of those solutions that will lead you to being healthy and happy. Don’t settle for just “better”. Go for “better and better and better”.

Stop demonizing drugs

You may have heard me say that I can’t quite remember the last time I took a painkiller. It’s been years. It would be easy for me to take a certain amount of pride in that: I am so “evolved” that I no longer require chemical assistance in order to make a headache go away. Thankfully, I’m not that big of a douchebag. The truth is, it’s been years since I’ve had enough pain to warrant a painkiller. But if I were to suddenly be in a great deal of pain, if I were to break my leg and end up in the hospital, writhing in discomfort, you better believe that I’d be screaming for those meds. My tolerance for discomfort and pain have gone DOWN (why do we take pride in a high threshold for pain? Why do we think it’s a good thing to be so used to pain that we can handle a ton of it?). The higher my vibration gets, the less willing I am to put up with even a small amount of discomfort. So, if I were to actually be in pain, I would take the damn pill in a heartbeat. My first priority would be to feel better. And THEN, I’d get to work on why I manifested that pain in the first place, so that it wouldn’t happen again.

To take the meds or not to take the meds?

So, how do you make the decision to take medication or even more difficult – to give it to your child? As I said, I see nothing in black and white. Each situation is different. If you’re in so much discomfort that you can’t even conceive of feeling better, take the meds.

If your child is truly suffering, and the meds help, then let them take the drugs for a while. But if, as is often the case, it’s not your child who is suffering, but someone else, like you and the teachers, if the goal of the drugs is to make YOU feel better, then you may want to think again. If you’re just trying to medicate the child into compliance, if the main reason for even considering them is YOUR fear that by not fitting in, the child will end up unsuccessful and unhappy, then take a step back. Remember that your child is just as powerful as you are. Remember that your child will be just fine. He is creating his reality, and you don’t get to do that for him. You can’t, actually. It’s also not your child’s job to make you feel good. So, if you’re just trying to control the circumstances around you, so that you can feel better (and trying to make his teachers happy is also a way for you to feel better), remember that this doesn’t work. Only you can make yourself feel better.

If your child is not actually suffering, or is only suffering because you or someone else keeps telling them to change, then meds are not the answer. Let your child be Who He Really Is. He remembers that so much more than you do. Let him show you the way. He knows exactly what to do. All you have to do is listen.

Use your Intuition

In all instances, no matter if you’re making the decision for yourself or someone else, take a moment and get quiet. Stop the fear from running your life. Then, find that voice inside yourself, your intuition, and ask it what you should do. What do you really want to do? How does taking the meds feel to you? Which course of action really feels better?

And if you still can’t figure it out, you can always take the drugs and then see how it goes. Many parents have started their kids on Ritalin, only to then realize that the whole thing felt really off, causing them to stop the meds. Sometimes, you take a medication only to realize it doesn’t work for you, or it does, but it comes at a really high price (horrific side effects), and so you stop before any damage can be done. Remember that you get to change your mind. You get to try different solutions and see which one feels best.

While I do think that the ultimate goal is to be completely drug free, there’s nothing wrong with making use of a crutch when needed. As long as we understand that it is temporary. Medication can be a tool that we use to help us feel better (or even reach new heights of consciousness). And if we see it as such, we don’t have to demonize it or push against it (the worst thing you can do is to take the meds, but feel awful about it). We can accept that drugs are another option available to us in the grand buffet of life. Sometimes we’re a match to using them to help bring us relief, and sometimes we’re not. If we keep the primary focus on feeling better, always feeling better, and not settling for “better than before, so good enough”, we will continue to manifest more and more effective solutions for ourselves. And while that will certainly include achieving higher states of consciousness, insights and clarity, it will also include the invention of more effective drugs. None of the solutions on the buffet are “bad”. None of them are inappropriate. They all have their place. Your job is not to judge the options, to declare them right or wrong. Your only job is to focus on feeling better and then use those solutions that you resonate with. Rinse and repeat in perpetuity.