The Schizophrenic Epidemic and Marijuana Use

Yes, there is an increase in psychosis and schizophrenia over the last few decades.  No one is denying it, and all studies point towards a genuine upward track.

I found several very interesting articles linking marijuana use to this rise, along with the general societal stigma of mental illness:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-stigma-of-the-hidden-schizophrenia-epidemic-8360498.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/is-this-the-tobacco-moment-for-cannabis-8349054.html

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/teens-who-smoke-pot-at-risk-for-later-schizophrenia-psychosis-201103071676

I find it right annoying that people want to call marijuana 'safe' when we pull toys off the shelves because less than 1% of the users suffer a preventable injury.  The numbers for marijuana brain-injury are much higher.

Yes, I said "marijuana brain-injury."

These studies demonstrate that marijuana is linked to lowering IQ points, along with triggering psychosis and schizophrenia.  The brain is being injured by marijuana.

You may think that I am being hypocritical because I think that marijuana should remain illegal, whereas I am not calling for a new Prohibition when some studies point to 8% of Americans as being problem drinkers or alcoholics (actual medical diagnosis for alcoholism is around .06%).  Here's why I think there is a difference:

We have laws banning underage drinking, which are important because the human brain continues to develop until age 25, and we know that alcohol consumption during development has negative consequences.  However, after this critical time, long-term severe brain damage (the proverbial 'wet-brain') takes a level of alcohol consumption that most alcoholics never achieve.  Studies are showing that it takes far less marijuana to do the type of long-term damage that alcohol can rarely accomplish.

Perhaps this has to do with the fact that the body does not fight THC as it does alcohol, or that marijuana is now so much more powerful than it once was prior to hybridizing and concentrating.  The reasons are so much less important than the results: 'moderate' amounts of marijuana have a significantly deleterious effect on the brain for a significant segment of the population.

So, you may drink and run the risk of being addicted, or you can smoke pot and run that risk as well as irreversible brain damage.  After all, the type of psychosis and schizophrenia they are talking about isn't temporary.

I think the increase in marijuana use, coupled with its increased THC levels, has much to do with the modern spike in psychosis and schizophrenia.  This is a message that should not be tucked away in medical journals because marijuana has become a political issue.

If you are concerned about public health, then this is really something that should be discussed as more than just an attempt to "kill everyone's buzz."

The Church is a Hospital, Not an Asylum

There are many Fathers of the Church who teach about the Church being a ‘hospital’ for the healing of those wounded by sin.  This is a very helpful and hopeful image, and one that we should all take seriously.

The problem is that too many people confuse ‘hospital’ with ‘asylum.’  What do I mean?  Well, back before all the wonderful progress we now benefit from in the field of medicine, psychiatric patients and others who could not be treated went to an ‘asylum.’  Asylums were warehouses for the untreatable.

The assumption was that your case was ‘incorrigible’ and could not improve.  The asylum was a refuge from the demands of the world in which you could not function.

Too often, people confuse the metaphor of ‘hospital’ with ‘asylum.’  They know they are wounded and in need, but also think that there is no use in trying to change.  They find the tolerance and patience of the clergy and people very comforting, because these others seem to be willing to accommodate and number inappropriate outbursts and abandonment of personal responsibility.  After all, the ‘hospital’ is for th sick, right?  Don’t sick people behave poorly?

Yes, they do.  But, they behave poorly in large part because of the rigors of the healing process rather than the refusal of treatment.  They come to the hospital with the desire and commitment to be healed, not to avoid healing.

If you don’t want to be healed, then you go to the asylum.  The Church is not an asylum, storing up the purposefully infirm.  We are not supposed to be a storage lot for madness.  You enter on the condition that you are willing to follow Christ anywhere, even to the point of surrendering yourself in any way.

Madness is to hold onto one’s self.  The denizen of the asylum is utterly self-possessed, since he cannot be treated or wants know help.  Therefore, his illness leaves him utterly alone.

When we come to the hospital that is the Church, we place ourselves under the care of the ‘doctors’ (read clergy and monks) and ‘nurses’ (laypeople) who help us return to health.  To do what?  Why, to join the ‘staff’ and become a healer.

Hospitals heal so that the healed become healers.  Asylums do nothing but shelve our problems… and ourselves.

Spirituality & Economics - Part 1

This is something I started on recently, and will roll it out in parts because of the length.

When we think of spirituality, we usually do not associate it with economics.  For most of us, economics is the study of the material.  Webster’s Dictionary defines economics as “The science of household affairs, or of domestic management”, while Word.net defines it as “The branch of social science that deals with the production and distribution and consumption of goods and services and their management.”

The word ‘economics’ comes from the Greek οἰκονομία (oikonomia, ‘administration or management of a household’), a combination of οἶκος (oikos, ‘house’) and νόμος (nomos, ‘law’).  Academically-speaking, economics is the study of how things are attained and preserved.

But, the real importance of economics is that it studies the means by which goals are achieved.  Quite literally, it is the study of efficiency.

After all, economists don’t really set out to find the worst way to run a household, or a state’s finances.  Such discoveries happen along the way to finding the best way.  This search for what is best is at the heart of economics.

Sciences, such as engineering, seek the most economical means to build a building or a machine.  Science not only seeks to understand what things are, but how they are best to be used.

In this sense best use, economics is not bound to materialism.  Our pursuit of scientific knowledge is always about mankind.  Men do the exploring, the learning, and ultimately benefit from such advances.  We do not teach our chemistry discoveries to fish, nor do we share our knowledge of quantum physics with bears.  Scientific knowledge is only of value to man.

Now, if we examine man closely, we see that he is more than a material creature.  Despite whatever theories may be held about the spiritual world and the Divine, one thing cannot be argued: mankind has always yearned for something beyond the material confines of this world.

This is not to deny that men have had their doubts, or even individually rejected God, but larger societies have always had a religious element within them.

Even atheistic societies, such as Socialist states like the Soviet Union and China, developed religious elements.  An ‘eternal,’ transcendental worship of the ‘worker’ as well as Party leadership, was much the norm.  Look at the parades and public events of these regimes… how can one avoid noticing their religious tendencies of ritual and super-natural air?  Even in atheism, there is a notion of humanity reaching out beyond the human person to greater things.

Religion provides a ‘cosmology’ for humans to fit themselves into.  It gives purpose to life beyond the fulfillment of impulses and desires.  But, religion does something else: it explains how one is to live, and this living out of religion is spirituality.

Thus, spirituality is the ‘economics’ of the human person.

More to come...

'Kids Without God'... You Are Alone

Never mind that statistics show that children in religious households tend to do better overall in terms of behavior and happiness:

http://www.livescience.com/15236-religious-parents-mixed-blessing-kids.html

When the kids share the beliefs, studies show they have benefits as well:

http://www.livescience.com/3198-spirituality-religion-kids-happy.html

But, there is always someone out there who can't be happy with that, so now you have the 'Kids Without God' project:

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/kids-without-god-atheist-activists-launch-shocking-web-site-to-convert-kids-teens-into-non-believers/

Let's just call it what it is: atheists trying to recruit, just as much as "children's ministries" in Christian circle try to draw kids into religion.  To a great degree, I don't care much about atheists doing their own 'evangelism.'

The real reason I am drawing attention to this is their motto: "You are not alone."

But, that is precisely what an atheist is... alone.  Their insults about 'imaginary friends' aside, the whole message of atheism is that life ends at death, there is no spiritual reality, and there is no God.  You are alone.

Humans are left to themselves to find meaning and purpose.  What you give to others lasts only in the minutes of this life, and beyond them there is nothing.  Death is the bitter end, full stop.

Telling kids they are 'not alone' in their doubts is one thing, but the real message of atheism is utter loneliness, and there are lots of atheists who like it that way.  They sense it as liberating.  They can do as they please.

But, for children, this loneliness is destructive... it isn't even what they want, which is that the motto 'You Are Not Alone' is made to address... in a bait-and-switch kind of way.  I can think of no religious equivalent: "Believe in God, and He will leave you alone."  perhaps the weird hellfire-and-brimstone approach comes close, but the cure that is preached is one's attention to God... hardly being left alone.

Religion itself is not isolating the way atheism is.  Atheism requires one reconstruct all the various 'safeguards' to human sanity that religion naturally provides.  One must find fellowship, distinct boundaries, accountability, meaning, and ultimately hope in order to live as an atheist... all without the help of religion and its spiritual benefits.

The atheist struggles with his desire to be 'alone' with his innate need for companionship and ultimately salvation from his problems.  Without God he is stuck with his material resources.  The believer is not.

Let's also not forget that this same atheist child, due to his insecurities, will likely experiment with alcohol and drugs.

Then, where will he be?  What can his new atheist friends do for him then?

Counter-Cultural

Orthodox Christianity in the US has always been something of a ghettoized affair, relegated to a few secluded ethnic groups.  Now, that it is emerging from the confines of racial groups (don't make the mistake of confusing Anglos and Greeks with that silly term 'white'... they are apples and oranges), Orthodoxy is emerging as a 'counter-cultural' phenomenon.

Orthodox Christianity is something which goes against the grain of American religion and politics.  It has no existing categories in which to fit, because those who hate American religion often find much less to reject in it than the name of Christ.  When it comes to politics, then there's a whole other level of confusion: Orthodoxy has thrived under Socialist and Capitalist systems.  It does not require a political system to cooperate with it in order to work, because it assumes Caesar will win and kill you anyway, so get about preparing to meet God.  

Genuine sobriety is also becoming a counter-cultural movement.  In the early days of AA, you went from the hard-drinking days of the 1930s through the 1970s, which merged seamlessly into the drug scene starting in the 1960s until now.

AA made its mark: we have a lot less public drunkenness, and the three martini lunch is less acceptable than it once was.  But, we are getting 'stoned' on lots of other stuff now: prescription drug abuse is at an all-time high, internet and porn addictions are skyrocketing, and people are eating themselves to death in record numbers.

Moderation, the hallmark of sobriety, is not only under attack, it is losing.  Our society rejects it as a value.  Instead, we are supposed to follow our desires... well, except when they become obviously evil.  Sure, we can have all the sex we want with whatever and whoever we want... just not with those kids.  Then we wonder why kids get molested, when we have rejected the idea of self-control and self-denial?

As a society, we can't even tell our kids to pull up their pants, and yet we are supposed to tell them about how to be adults?  Is anyone paying attention to this?

Self-control is no longer in vogue, and so Orthodox Christianity and sobriety represent 'rebellions.'  We are no longer teaching people to fit in with society, but actually to stand against it and withstand the full brunt of its animosity.  There is no 'blessed homeland' to return to: the sober man does not return to the warm embrace of his community for more than a second before it becomes obvious that he's not going to play ball like he used to.  He won't party with his friends, and he won't indulge in the angry indignation of the group as he had before... if he wants to stay sober.

The addict is the 'off scouring' of society as much as the Christian when either chooses God over society.

Both are counter-cultural movements, and both recovering addicts and Orthodox Christians would do well to remember this.

'Restore us to Sanity'

If there is one 'weak link' in the AA narrative, it is this notion of being 'restored to sanity.'  This comes up more than a few times in the Big Book, and represents the trajectory of recovery at the time the book was written (~1935).

What does this mean?  It means that one was part of society at one point, but then veered off into alcoholism, but the 12 Steps helped the alcoholic return to a healthy society and thus becomes healthy.

But, what if society itself is no longer 'healthy?'  Can we return to 'normal' social conventions and expect to have true health?

As I mentioned in the previous post, our popular culture no longer celebrates maturity, but rather immaturity.  Our 'celebrities' not only look young, they act immature.  We enjoy their antics, and then go on to imitate them.

Yet, we also crave the respect of maturity.  We wanted to be treated as adults while doing our best to ignore adulthood.  A big part of my life as a priest in a medium-sized parish is trying to get adults struggling with maturity to get why their kids don't respect them... the kids don't respect them because the parents are acting like their 'friends.'  And, that's not just about having informal chats, but they see their parents literally act like children.

Children are impatient.

Children are oriented towards play.

Children are impulsive.

Children are often selfish.

Children are more interested in immediate gratification.

Children are unable to understand 'fair play' and consistency.

Children are able to deny 'cause and effect.'

A case in point: I deal with a number of 'healthy,' average adults whose whole lives center on their vacations.  They obsess about recreational vehicles, and they always are dresses like they just escaped from a vacation resort: shorts and Hawaiian shirts... even in 60°F (15°C).  Then, they complain how others ignore their opinions, their children don't respect them, etc.

Try as I might, and as unhappy as they are with the results, they refuse to change.  This is immaturity.  A mature person changes his mannerisms to suit his surroundings, because he realizes this accommodation will eventually result in better results.

I have dealt with addicts who were raised by 'hoodlums.'  Is recovery going to work for him if he keeps going back to a dysfunctional neighborhood?

Judging from our politics and social problems (widespread pedophilia, substance abuse, divorce, etc.), we have become resigned to dysfunction, and with it comes an acceptance of it.  It has become the 'new normal.'

But, how much of this 'new normal' is that cause of addiction?  This is a question I do not hear too many people asking, because the answer may be more than we can bear.

But, we must ask.  We must know the truth.

Brain Development and Binge Drinking

Here's another dire warning about the effects of heavy/binge drinking on brain development:

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/binge-drinking-traps-brains-in-adolescence-brisbane-research-shows-20121109-291t0.html

(With much appreciation to one of our readers for the tip... keep 'em coming!)

Here's where we should be getting really concerned:

It found irreversibly altered the brain, keeping it in an adolescent state.
And the earlier in life someone starts bingeing, the worse the possible outcomes.
"Because it inhibits part of the brain's development, binge drinking over time keeps people in an emotionally immature state," Queensland University of Technology Professor Selena Bartlett says.
"This often leads to huge problems when in their 30s and 40s when people come face to face with the demands of life."

What are we talking about here?

Well, the study seems to indicate the possibility of permanent damage to the brain because of drinking, one that is 'subtle' and characterized by emotion problems rather than, let's say, a catastrophic loss of function.

When does this binge drinking occur for many young people?  College (at least in the US).  

We need to ask ourselves some tough questions: most colleges 'tolerate' partying and alcohol consumption.  It is an 'acceptable' activity on most campuses... but are institutions of higher learning turning out students with stunted emotional growth?

This study points in that direction.  During the last phases of emotional development, alcohol is introduced and deadens the process.

There has been an explosion of what I call 'perma-teens'... men and women in their 30s and 40s who have emotional problems we used to only associate with adolescents.  Men like Chris Farley, Russell Brand, and Adam Sandler have made reputations for portraying characters in modern entertainment which glamorize this state of being 'stunted.'

While the bodies of children have been going through puberty as younger and younger age, the reverse is true about passing into adulthood.  Our politics have embraced this idea that 'adult children' should stay on their parents' medical benefits until 25 years of age... where a generation ago such a person would have been married and had kids.

Is binge drinking part of this?

We need to look more closely at society and see if this is part of what is happening to our community.

In my next post, I'll discuss the religious and spiritual ramifications of this 'arrested development.'