It is a curious fact that even though pleasure does not stop the pain of suffering in the long-term, human beings seek this supposed respite over and over again. Alcohol, drugs, gambling, wanton sex: since they do not address the root cause of the suffering, they do not end it, but indeed prolong it, obscure it, and make it worse.
But again and again, these supposed escapes from reality are sought, and the purveyors of vice are only too happy to provide them. Due to the fact that our culture is based on the consumption of products, and alcohol and drugs are the perfect products in such a system, liquor companies and drug dealers make billions upon billions of dollars a year increasing the suffering of those who are trying to escape it. There is no “perfect drug”: they all in their own way increase suffering, and those who seek them out are living a lie.
I do not think that alcohol and drugs should be unavailable. On the contrary, I believe that making them illegal is simply another way of avoiding suffering which makes it worse. Avoiding the suffering caused by drug use through prohibition makes matters worse, and the suffering of these intoxicants is then amplified by the illegal context in which they are taken under. I say to those who take them and ask me “What would I do about my suffering?” and I say to them, without joking, “Suffer!”
I am not a Buddhist in the sense that I do not try to teach a method to alleviate suffering. I say: Do your suffering, and do it now before it becomes immense, and you will reap benefits. Clean your room before it becomes an unimaginable mess. Brush your teeth before they rot out. Get a job before you’re unemployed and on the street. Cook your own food, before your food budget gets out of control. Do your own work, and do not defer what you can do to others, for it is better to do one’s own work. Do your work well, put effort into it (effort in work is suffering), and you will benefit.
There are many healthy respites for the suffering of everyday life, and all of them involve suffering! Exercise is a healthy respite, and involves suffering. The same with any hobby that costs money: the loss of money to buy the materials for the hobby is a form of suffering. Cooking nice meals requires work. On the other hand, going to a bar and drinking does avoid temporarily the suffering in one’s mind that leads one to do it, but there are consequences in the hangovers, loss of money, health problems, addictions, and making a fool of oneself. I say it is best to seek forms of suffering you actually enjoy, that have benefits rather than detriments.
Addiction is actually the nature of the human desire to avoid suffering: when people defer their suffering over and over again, they get involved in a cycle that requires increasing efforts for decreasing returns, which is how an addiction works. Peoples’ suffering becomes ever greater, and the next shot of whatever dope one has picked as their poison–whether actual dope or metaphorical dope–requires one to put more effort into obtaining it, and so the increase of suffering caused by this human behavior is multifaceted and fierce in its destructiveness.
There is a need to suffer to overcome these kinds of addictive behaviors: it requires work, effort, perseverance. Humans do not have to constantly defer their suffering, although they do. It is better to suffer a pin-prick than be run through with a sword a year later, but for some reason humans always seem to choose the sword.
