Hieromonk Procopius Pashchenko Solovetsky Monastery. Students of the department of social and youth work met with the hieromonk of the Solovetsky Monastery

Many of us have heard something about the issuance of methadone to drug addicts under the guise of drug addiction treatment by official means, by the hands of medical workers. But did what you heard give rise to a complete picture of the so-called methadone substitution therapy (MMT), the therapy of other opium drugs (OST), offered by some enthusiasts of the legalization of drug use as a panacea for the drug epidemic and one of the scientifically based, supposedly, in practice, repeatedly confirmed ways to get out of a drug addict? into a sober life? The presence of a unified view of this ambiguous procedure allows you to form your personal attitude to what is happening in the world of international and our, local Russian drug policy. Therefore, to understand the true motives of those who have been trying for more than two decades to offer Russia such a view on solving the problem of the growth of drug addiction in our society.

Are many people worried about the lack of a coherent understanding of the problem of MMT in their minds? "Drugs? No! No! It's not about me! It's not about my children! I heard that drug addicts seem to be treated with methadone. There are people in white coats, there are officials, they know better, but I'm not strong in medicine," such a position is not uncommon in our time. But trouble can come to every home. And it is precisely the complexity of the time in which Russians live that calls them to be vigilant and thoughtful. After all, we are talking about children, we are talking about the future of the nation.

This article is not saturated with scientific terms that make it difficult to understand the essence of the issue (there is often a catch behind the abundance of such terms). Here it is written about the essence of what is behind the concepts of "methadone" and "methadone replacement therapy". Having voiced the position of the supporters of the OST in relation to the problem of drug addiction, the article raises the question of a different view of drug use and attempts to legalize it.

The article was not prepared for a narrow group of specialists - doctors, psychologists, public figures, law enforcement officers and politicians who discuss among themselves at scientific conferences. It is addressed to the consciousness of the people, it calls each of us to wake up from sleep. Remember! Your vote can be decisive in another attempt to impose deadly initiatives on Russia under the guise of good ideas!

European Court of Human Rights and the problem of opioid substitution therapy (OST)

The informational reason for the preparation of this article was some events related to the substance known to the world's population as methadone. Before recounting the events themselves, it is necessary to briefly mention what methadone is.

Methadone is a synthetic drug. According to the Washington Convention of 1961, it is listed as No. 1 of the most dangerous drugs. The convention was signed by 120 countries, including Russia. In Russia, the use of this drug is prohibited by law (see Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation No. 681 of 06/30/1998). But some do not agree with this state of affairs.

Several people complained about the ban on the use of methadone in Russia for the so-called methadone substitution therapy (MMT). And the European Court of Human Rights began to consider these complaints. See details here: ruskline.ru

What is known about this approach to healing the souls and bodies of suffering drug addicts? In some countries, methadone is provided to drug-dependent populations participating in MMT programs. In some states, under the guise of drug dependence treatment, other opioid drugs are also offered: buprenorphine, Subutex, etc. Proponents of OST argue that the program helps lead drug addicts into a sober life. Is this statement true or not? That will be discussed below.

What consequences await Russia if the claims put forward by the ECtHR are recognized as justified?

First, significant financial costs. After all, the ECtHR has the right to award "fair satisfaction of the claim." And according to the verdict of the court, Russia will have to pay compensation to the winning party and reimburse all the costs of office work. At the moment, the predicted amount of payment to each claimant (there are three of them so far) is 20 thousand euros.

Why are the costs called significant if we are talking about 60 thousand euros (for three plaintiffs)? To understand the answer to this question, you need to know how decisions are made in the ECtHR.

If there is any precedent, the ECtHR makes a decision in a simplified form. That is, it gives a link to an already existing precedent. If this happens in the case of methadone, then the situation will develop as follows: millions of Russian drug users will have grounds to complain about the ban on the use of methadone in Russia. The presence of a precedent gives each of them the right to demand compensation. It is clear that the payment of total compensation to millions of drug users will be extremely difficult for Russia. Therefore, as an alternative to resolving the issue, according to a number of foreign scriptwriters, she will be offered to lift the ban on the use of methadone and, at the same time, introduce the principles of OST into circulation in the narcological service. People say about situations like this one: "Not by washing, so by skating."

What is the OST program, within the framework of which methadone or some other analogue of "street" drugs such as heroin, desomorphine or the same methadone is officially issued to drug addicts through special institutions? Because of what all the "cheese-boron"?

This article will not describe aspects of all the problems associated with OST. After all, the abundance of details can close the essence of the matter for a reader inexperienced in drug addiction subtleties.

Namely, I would like to bring the essence of the matter to the attention of Russian taxpayers, on whose money, in which case, the OST program will be implemented. And whose children, if the OST program is adopted, will be given a "non-street" drug from a special counter.

Those wishing to learn more about the problem can read its comprehensive analysis in the book Beware Methadone! (Berestov A.I., Tuzikova Yu.B., Kaklyugin N.V., publishing house of the Counseling Center of St. John of Kronstadt, 2006).

Some of the thoughts included in this article are drawn from it. First of all, I would like to dwell on the sections "Contra MMT - AGAINST" and "Serbia's sad experience".

HIV Risk: Causes

The first of these sections deals with the claim promoted by MMT advocates that MMT helps to reduce the risk of the spread of AIDS. Like, people get methadone in the form of syrup, and therefore stop using dirty needles. And, as a result, they stop getting AIDS from each other. As a result of numerous studies, which are described in the chapter "Contra MMT - AGAINST", scientists have come to different conclusions.

"Neither daily methadone use nor participation in needle and syringe programs have been associated with lower mortality." The data obtained during the research make us pay attention not to the problem of needles, but to the factor of sexual behavior.

The experience of the Swedish cities of Lund and Malmo has shown that the problem of HIV infection among drug addicts is not associated with the problem of contaminated needles. In these cities, bypassing Swedish law, a program was introduced to exchange used needles for new, clean ones. That is, the drug-addicted population could receive free clean needles to continue injecting drug use. Data on HIV prevalence in these cities were analyzed using data from the city of Gothenburg, where needles were not distributed to the population. And a curious fact turned out - the incidence rates in Gothenburg were lower than in the cities of Lund and Malmo. "It means that the spread of HIV depends on something else ...", the authors of the book conclude.

In the context of a conversation about the nature of "something else," the results of a study conducted in the American city of Baltimore seem relevant. Among the participants in the study, "important predictors of HIV infection were not drug-related activities, but risky heterosexual activities." This pattern also applied to "men who have sexual relations with other men."

If these data are superimposed on the scale of coordinates of Russian reality, then the picture will turn out like this. To reduce the level of infection of the population with HIV, one should think not about the introduction of OST, but rather raise the question of the "frankness" of various talk shows, television programs that promote those very "risky heterosexual activities." That is, the issue of regulating the promotion of risky (uninhibited?) sexual behavior should be put on the agenda.

Psychological effects of methadone use

In the second of these sections of the book "Caution - methadone!" touches are given to the psychological portraits of adolescents included in the MMT program. As a result of participating in this program, one teenager completely lost interest in "friends and music." Another "lost his last friends" and this fact does not bother him at all.

Words about the loss of interest can be reinforced with the help of a description that one woman gave to a young man she knew who was receiving methadone under the MMT program in Germany. The following text was written under the following circumstances. A priest sent her an article designed to motivate the young man to get well. After receiving the article and reading it, the woman stated the following considerations on the matter. “He [that is, an acquaintance], one might say, has turned from a person into a plant, roughly speaking, he has become completely stupid. Conversations on spiritual topics are of little interest to him, since he is not able to perceive them. His world is to sleep (from methadone he always sleepy), eat and play primitive computer games, also a TV to somehow kill time.He receives methadone every day in the hospital (according to the "humane" rehabilitation program for drug addicts - it's comfortable to send them to the next world) and slowly goes to death. This is a completely sick and degrading person. He rarely takes communion - there is no strength to force himself to go to Church... If applied to him, then such serious quotations in the text and their abundance will be absolutely incomprehensible to him, although this person has received an education. "

The declared essence of MMT/OST programs

The substance mentioned in this story, methadone, is presented as a drug of synthetic origin. Supporters of MMT, as well as OST, within which opiates are given similar in mechanism of action, argue that by using them instead of the “street” drug purchased through the criminal network of drug dealers, drug addicts gradually reduce the dose of methadone and eventually enter a sober life, free from any drugs.

The essence of the program can be presented in a more detailed form. For example, in the following: the declared essence of the OST program is the replacement of an illegally acquired drug with an officially issued drug of a similar effect. Since the dose of the latter is gradually reduced, patients, they say, eventually give up both their "street" drug and the legalized one, issued in a specialized institution. If it is impossible to stop taking their drug, they continue to take only the opiate prescribed to them. But already, allegedly, without such significant harm to health, as if they were taking, for example, heroin.

In order to analyze this series of statements combined into a concept, the statements can be considered separately. With this approach, the concept is divided into several parts. For example, as follows:

1) Do patients give up their drug as a result of switching to methadone or another "official" drug?

2) Do patients eventually refuse to take "official" methadone or its analogues?

3) Toxicity of methadone compared to heroin.

4) Toxicity of methadone itself; impact on the human body.

5) Is methadone a medicine in the usual sense of the word (drug addicts, after all, sometimes call their drug a “medicine”; they even have an expression like this: “treat”, that is, after using the drug, relieve discomfort)?

6) And, finally: why is the strategy of replacing the drug with methadone being chosen (and in some countries they have already started issuing heroin directly to the drug-addicted population)? Is it really impossible to do without this "chemical crutch"?

A consistent analysis of the concept of OST is important, since it has a lulling effect on many fathers, mothers and some specialists in working with addicts. They have the impression that a dirty, ill-mannered drug addict, under the supervision of doctors, is given some kind of sweet syrup. And due to the fact that the addict drinks this syrup, he loses the desire to consume his "street" drug.

The logic of the imagination of fathers, mothers and some representatives of the so-called "evidence-based medicine", namely, they are the most active in Russia in this field of lobbying for the ideas of OST, resembles the logic of television shows that advertise all sorts of things. Here are fat grandmothers talking about their irrepressible desire to eat buns and goodies. Then a close-up shows the mouth of some lady, in which the cake disappears. Then the floor is given to the leader. Being full of enthusiasm, he talks about the advertised product. The product, they say, discourages the desire to eat cakes. And then the viewer contemplates the smiling faces of the heroines of the program, who thank the manufacturing company for getting rid of the misfortune. They enthusiastically describe their reaction mechanism to the problem of overeating. If there is a "craving" for confectionery, it is necessary, they say, to accept the advertised product and the desire to eat sweets disappears.

A similar impression can be formed about MMT/OST if one takes to heart the words used by their proponents: "drug", "therapy", "maximum attainable standard of health". These concepts will not be used in the context of this article. And this strategy has its rationale.

It can be found in the works of Professor S.G. Kara-Murza. He believes that one of the main principles of protection against manipulation is "the rejection of the language in which the potential manipulator presents the problem." The professor advises not to accept the language, terminology and concepts of a potential manipulator. In order to get out of its influence, one should retell the essence of the matter, albeit roughly and clumsily, but in other words. The main thing is that when retelling, concepts are used that are translated "into completely earthly, tangible images - bread, warmth, birth and death."

That is, from the point of view of an expert, it is necessary to show what the concepts being analyzed correspond to in real life. And what do the declared principles of the MMT/OST program correspond to in real life?

Does participating in MMT/OST programs help people stop using drugs?

Do participants in "high-threshold" MMT programs (RT) recover?

An idea of ​​the real state of affairs can be obtained from the figures given by one "of the creators of this method" (Dole V.P., 1973). According to his estimates, "up to 90% of patients after the termination of the MMT program again return to taking heroin" . What happens to the remaining ten percent? Are they recovering? In fact, it is not proven that 10-20% of people recover as a result of undergoing MMT/OST. These figures are simply declared. Here lies a very important riddle for Russia, which you and I will have to unravel.

MMT/OST programs in Western European countries have a complex, multi-level structure. We are talking about the so-called "high-threshold" programs. Participants in such programs are offered more than just methadone. They are supported, advised, comprehensively patronized.

Imagine that in a certain country N. there is a developed network of rehabilitation centers of a wide range (secular and working on a religious basis), in which professionals work: doctors, psychologists, teachers, social workers, specialists in other profiles related to the problem of addictive behavior. And the dependent person chooses where to go: to which center, to which professional.

That is, with the appearance of demand in country N., an abundance of supply is born. When this abundance overflows, the overflowing part turns into an OST program (an abundance of resources often leads to a situation that is aptly described by one saying: "fat frenzy"). As a result, a person who has several unsuccessful attempts to recover can easily hear such words: "You have been here and there, no one helped you, nothing helped you. If you want, try methadone as well."

But even with such a development of the situation, the activities of the country N., aimed at the narcological patient, are not limited to the issuance of methadone. Counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, employment specialists, and other specialized services work with a person taking methadone or another special opiate drug. And some part of drug addicts, as a result of such massive care, theoretically has a chance to stop taking any kind of drug and socialize. But recovery in their cases occurs, as we see, not due to the use of methadone, but on the basis of the influence of a combination of other factors.

You can compare such a narcological kitchen with the kitchen described in the fairy tale "Porridge from an ax." The hero of the fairy tale - a soldier gets into the house where the old woman lived. When he asked her for food, she gave him nothing. Then the soldier went to the trick. He put the cauldron on the fire, put an ax in the cauldron and began to boil it. Taking a sample, he pretended to admire the taste of porridge. "It's a pity there's nothing to salt with," he said. The old woman gave salt. Tasting the porridge again, he said that it would be nice to put a handful of cereal in it. Then he said that there was not enough oil. And the old woman gave the necessary ingredients. So the porridge was cooked. When the soldier and the old woman began to eat porridge, the old woman was surprised: "I never thought that such a good porridge could be cooked from an ax." “When are we going to eat the axe?” she asked the guest. “Yes, you see, he didn’t boil it down,” answered the soldier, “I’ll finish cooking and have breakfast somewhere on the road!”

In fact, the rich porridge turned out not at all because of the ax, but because salt, cereals and oil were added to the water. The ax in the "high threshold programs" is methadone, and salt, cereals and butter are expert advice.

Chances of introduction of "high-threshold" OST programs in Russia if it adopts a strategy of "harm reduction" from drug use

"High-threshold" programs have two features that do not fit well into Russian reality. First, they are extremely costly for the state. And secondly, for their implementation, it is necessary to have an extensive highly professional service for the provision of specialized drug treatment.

There is currently no such network, backbone structure in Russia. The narcological field, unfortunately, reminds a simple person who has problems of an alcoholic or narcotic nature, and his relatives and friends, so far a desert with rare oases, where people and organizations of all sorts wander. Sectarians, occultists, other soothsayers, and those who simply want to earn money, focusing on fabulous profits, and not real help to people, come here.

Since the early 90s of the last century, a huge business sector has been formed, built on pumping money out of parents broken by such grief. As before, practically uncontrolled by anyone and nothing, not regulated and not standardized. Parents who lose their child are ready to pay any money for his recovery. Where to go, who can really help find the path to sobriety, and who is a charlatan and a swindler, they don’t really know. In their search for help, they often "stumble" on some "nomad" who deceives them once again. As parents were left to their own devices, so they remain in the status of "left to themselves", the years go by - essentially nothing changes.

And since there is no relevant infrastructure at the moment, it is in its infancy, only at the stage of creation and development in the form of the National System for the Comprehensive Rehabilitation and Resocialization of Persons Who Use Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances for Non-Medical Purposes, initiated by the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia, organized within the framework of the State Interdepartmental Program "Combating drug trafficking", approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of April 15, 2014 No. 299, it is impossible to introduce "high-threshold" OST programs in Russia in any way. If we hypothetically imagine that this will happen, then everything will come down to the silent issuance of methadone to drug addicts, which will help them feel relatively calm in search of a new dose of the "street" drug, and the relatives of the "legal methadone user" will continue to be kept in the daily nightmare of life with unruly and openly dangerous drug user. There is no need to talk about the very possibility of financing such high-cost programs at all - in today's Russian economic conditions it looks simply unrealistic.

The few benign institutions for working with people in difficult life situations, which in Russia at the moment are already carrying out their charitable activities, are financed with failures. For example, St. Basil the Great's Center for the Social Adaptation of Adolescents in Conflict with the Law in St. Petersburg, which shows good results in the socialization of "difficult" children and adolescents who come to them, is financed by the state intermittently. The institution survives on the donations of individuals and organizations.

After the completion of the social rehabilitation program, most of the guys stop going down the path of crime. They start studying and working. Teachers, psychologists and social workers involved in the rehabilitation process try to find an adequate approach to each pupil. During the rehabilitation course for adolescents, the necessary conditions are created for obtaining education (either in schools, lyceums, colleges at the place of residence, or in the evening shift school of the Vasileostrovsky district), life in the Center is regulated by rules, the implementation of which is controlled by the employees of the Center. All problems of young people are considered in the context of the family, individual work is carried out with parents who need psychological help and support. In fact, they try to give the children what a healthy, strong family could give. At the same time, many of the crimes committed by teenagers, one way or another, are related to the topic of drug consumption and drug trafficking.

At the moment, a paradoxical situation has developed with respect to the Center. Federal courts send teenagers to the Center, including in the sentence the obligation to undergo a full rehabilitation course at the center. But their employees must feed, teach and treat them, it turns out, at their own expense. The unique center is under threat of closure (you can find out how to help on the website svtvasilij.ru). The threat of closure of this unique center shows that there is no "overflowing abundance" in Russia. As the saying goes: "Not to fat, to be alive." And if so, is the question of introducing "high-threshold" MMT and OST programs in Russia appropriate today? Is it timely?

Teach healthy responses to avoiding mind-altering substances

This issue will not be removed even when the officials authorized to do so decide to find and use the mechanisms to support this institution. The survivability of the Center for Social Adaptation of Adolescents in Conflict with the Law, St. Basil the Great and other fine institutions like him is not an indicator of the proper functioning of the bureaucracy. Although the presence of such, of course, is of great importance. Such centers survive partly because they are supported by the combined efforts of a large number of people: citizens, townspeople, and simply Russians who are not indifferent to the fate of their Fatherland. People understand that today's teenagers and yesterday's drug addicts, who have completed their rehabilitation programs and acquired a stable habit of a teetotal lifestyle, will shape Russian reality tomorrow. The state of their minds and hearts will certainly affect the quality of the world around them.

What pictures will be generated by their consciousness, prompting them to appropriate actions? Pictures of stolen cars, scenes of psychoactive substance use, an environment corrupted by criminal money? Or pictures of the family hearth, the children born by them, the faces of relatives, friends, friends, the work needed to support the family, situations of disinterested merciful help to those in need?

It takes a lot of patience, love, and a willingness to help in helping a young person change their way of thinking. He needs to open his eyes to the fact that there is another life in which he can be a worthy and necessary person for people and his country.

It is important to help him understand that in this other, non-criminal life, the dignity of a person is determined not by the number of people he has broken, expensive cars, apartments, and not by the amount of alcohol that he can “take on his chest”, or by the type of drug. And dignity in this life is determined by the ability to remain oneself, without ceasing to develop both physically and spiritually, despite the aggressive pressure of the external environment. The ability not to become embittered, not to roll into bitterness when other people behave inappropriately. The developed habit of not giving up and not giving up in case of setbacks and temporary defeats, in response to every difficulty, overcoming it. And thus become even stronger. The presence of a deep conviction that evil is overcome by good. And also - the desire to preserve the "human" in the most inhuman conditions. This desire helped many people to survive and remain themselves under a variety of difficulties and circumstances. No matter what difficulties surround, no matter what circumstances develop, a strong person always remembers: one must not embark on the path of betrayal, one must not succumb to the desire to withdraw into hatred for the whole world and "brutalize". In order to educate the "human" in a person, he must be taught healthy reactions to the most diverse emotional impulses coming from the outside world.

Often, during their 16 years of age, "young wolf cubs" manage to learn to respond to impulses coming from the outside world, respectively, like a wolf: bite, "figure it out." The impulse coming from the surrounding reality, reflected in our consciousness, becomes a fact of inner life. Sometimes - a very unpleasant fact (fired from work - depression; quarrel with a girl or young man - despondency). Such a perception of the fact sticks to the mind like a rag soaked in caustic acetic acid. And therefore, a person has a strong desire to get rid of the "burning" through a change in the state of his consciousness. An altered state of consciousness is achieved through the use of various psychoactive substances (hereinafter referred to as PAS). When using surfactants, the problem does not go away, just the signal coming from the "rag" ceases to be relevant for a while. Something similar happens during the relief of pain with an injection of the anesthetic narcotic drug Promedol, for example, with a gunshot wound to the leg. The impulse going from the damaged nerves to the brain ceases to be relevant for a while. But the leg does not become healthy as a result of the injection. To radically change the situation, it is necessary to treat the leg. And in the case of "young wolf cubs" - to teach them healthy reactions to the world around them. Did you get reprimanded at work? Try to understand the essence of the reprimand and, having analyzed your misconduct, try to correct yourself. Argued with a girl? Learn to listen to her. Don't think of her as a second-class creature who has to sit silently alone while the "boys" discuss all their business.

Moreover, healthy reactions to the surrounding world can really be learned only with a complete refusal to take substances that change the state of consciousness. If the use of such substances is allowed, then the process of learning healthy reactions will be extremely difficult (if not disrupted). If it is possible to use surfactants, a person runs the risk of never going beyond the fatal closed circle in his behavior. His behavior will continue to develop according to the scheme: a personal oversight - annoyance at himself - a desire to get drunk (inject, smoke hemp, "spice", take "salt") in order to disconnect from negative experiences. Or: resentment towards a neighbor, a stressful situation - a desire to get drunk (inject, smoke hemp, "spice", take "salt") in order to disconnect from negative experiences. And so time after time...

The mechanism of this kind of response to difficult life circumstances is clearly visible in the autobiography of one person who used drugs. At one time he smoked cannabis, but he began to use heroin after breaking up with his girlfriend. “One fine day she left me,” he says, “Of course, it was my fault that we broke up. I thought that she was MY girl, that she should do everything the way I want. I go to her constantly found fault. I didn’t like it if she was a little late at work, although I myself came home late and constantly stoned. But when she left me, it was a very big blow for me. It was very hard and painful for me, as if "I lost something very important. I blamed her for everything and considered her the last bastard and bitch. By coincidence, that day I ended up with the same friend who once gave me a taste of cannabis. I told him about what happened, and he suggested that I try heroin. He said: “You know, when I first tried it, I felt so much better.” I didn’t even have a question about what it was, what would happen to me, etc. . And I tried heroin."

Why does a person need to learn healthy reactions if he already has a well-established scheme for surfactant avoidance of negative experiences? Yes, following such a scheme sooner or later leads a person to a dead end. But, being at the beginning of the path, few people think about the consequences. Before the consequences, they say, it is still necessary to live, and the consciousness is burned with caustic acetic acid already here and now.

Some people feel the need to learn reactions that do not involve substance use. But maintaining the determination to learn can be very difficult in moments of inner pain. Especially at first. And if the phrase “in which case you can use it” looms in your mind, or in a somewhat more veiled permissive form “if you really want, then you can”, the motivation to find healthy ways melts like an icicle in a hot palm.

Why is the principle of refusing to take mind-altering substances at the forefront of the rehabilitation and subsequent resocialization process in the vast majority of drug rehabilitation centers around the world? Because with a different approach, activities aimed at the process of rehabilitation and subsequent resocialization of pupils depreciate. Teachers are fighting, fighting over the problems of some boy, looking for ways to solve them. And suddenly this boy accidentally gets an appointment with an OT drug specialist. "Oh! Boy! I've got a wonderful remedy for you," says the OT narcologist, and puts the unfortunate boy on a methadone or buprenorphine program.

Exploitation of drug addicts and their relatives for income

In order to be included in it, it is often sufficient to have a diagnosis of drug addiction. Such a diagnosis is found in many young and not very Russians. Thomas Hallberg (Sweden), director of the non-profit organization European Cities Against Drugs (ECAD), talks about the second important factor. According to him, an Australian pharmacist "for supplying 20 heroin addicts with methadone can earn $40,000 in one year." Every thoughtful person can easily apply these data to Russia.

After all, something similar is observed everywhere in the drug-addicted world and in our country. "Huckster" (drug dealer, seller), seeking to expand the sales market, "puts" people on drugs (that is, accustoms them to drugs) with the help of various tricks. At first, he may seem kind and generous, "his" boyfriend. But the mask of kindness and generosity will be worn by them only as long as the newly minted client is not drawn into drug use. From the moment a mature client is included in drug addiction, the games of "huckster" in "good uncle" end. He in a rather rigid form gives the installation: if you want to inject yourself, smoke, sniff - pay. Yes, and an ordinary drug addict, it happens that over time begins to act according to the same scheme. He tries to "put" other people on drugs in order to become their supplier. And if this goal is achieved, then he begins to use drugs, it turns out that already at their expense, for himself - for free.

A similar chain takes place in some organizations (often sectarian) that claim to be involved in the rehabilitation of drug addicts. They don't have rehabilitation as such – they have indoctrination, recruitment, entry into a new kind of dependence, in other words, overdependence. But at the same time, they charge a considerable fee from their wards (or from their relatives), or cynically and mercilessly exploit their free labor. The activities of such organizations are largely based on deceit and knowledge of the psychology of grief-stricken parents. Those, as mentioned above and as any reader understands, are ready to pay any money in order to save their child. When parents seek drug treatment for their child, many of them are in a state of stun. Many of them, being knocked out of the rut by emotional shock, do not carefully read the multi-page contract for the provision of rehabilitation assistance. At the end of such contracts, there is sometimes a note that in case of violation of the discipline of the rehabilitation institution, the rehabilitator is expelled from the center. This postscript allows employees of a dubious organization to expel anyone in a few months. Parents are told that "all the guys are trying, only your child violates discipline." And they have the illusion that the problem is only in the difficult nature of the son (daughter). And parents may never have doubts about the professional suitability and integrity of the organization. Still would! After all, they were advised to apply to that very organization by a narcologist, who, it seems, can and should be trusted as much as possible.

And they do not know that such organizations enter into an unspoken (and perhaps open) agreement with some narcologists or psychologists, according to which regular deliveries of patients are made to them. In the people such things are called rollback. For example, the mother of her son leads to such a narcologist, and the narcologist says to her: "You know, there is one organization nearby. Great guys work there!" And for each patient sent to this organization, he receives a certain percentage from its leaders, which increases depending on the number of monthly deliveries. At the same time, the integrity of the organization for such specialists is not a matter of paramount importance.

"Low threshold" MMT/OST programs

Is there any certainty that MMT/OST programs in Russia will not work according to this scheme? Let everyone try to answer this question for himself. The thought process can be warmed up by some considerations. We have already shown above that the question of introducing "high-threshold" programs into the Russian narcological service is automatically removed from the agenda as untenable. If the issue of "high-threshold" programs is removed, then the issue of introducing so-called "low-threshold" programs is put on the agenda.

What is the essence of the "low threshold" program? If its meaning is described not by scientific terminology, which is difficult for the perception of an ordinary person, but in a simple way, then we get the approximate following: the issuance of methadone. Yes, of course, before the adoption of a "low threshold" program in a single country, enthusiasts say that not everyone will receive methadone or its analogues. Perhaps they themselves sincerely believe that they will be given out only to those people whose medical record contains several unsuccessful attempts to cure. Perhaps, according to this scheme, the programs will function for the first time. But then everything happens according to the proverb - "We wanted the best, but it turned out as always." All those who have a diagnosis of "drug addiction" on their card begin to receive methadone.

The introduction of "low-threshold" programs is thus reminiscent of the parable of the hedgehog and the bunny. The bunny was sitting in the house. Suddenly a hedgehog crawled up to the house and said: "Bunny! My paws get wet in the rain. Can I put them in your house so that they don't get wet?" Bunny allowed. Then the hedgehog began to utter the same tirades about the rest of the body. As a result of the bunny's successive concessions, he managed to stick his head and body into the house. And then, you see, the bunny had to leave his home. After all, when the hedgehog completely crawled into the house, he began to prick the hare with his needles. So it is with the MMT / OST program. At first, it is said that only those people who have six unsuccessful attempts to recover will be included in the program. But then the process of inclusion in the program begins to take place according to a very primitive scheme.

I recall the principle of the work of the European Court of Human Rights, which was mentioned at the beginning of the article. If there is any precedent, the ECtHR makes a decision in a simplified form. That is, it gives a link to an already existing precedent. The phenomenon of precedent also takes place in narcological practice. Just yesterday they started giving methadone to a person whose card contains records of six unsuccessful attempts to recover from drug addiction. But today a boy comes in whose medical record contains one attempt at an unsuccessful cure. The boy says: “I don’t know why I live. I have no meaning in life” (according to Viktor Frankl, 100% of drug addicts show a loss of the meaning of existence). Who will deal with the problem of the lost (or initially not understood) meaning of life? The program is "low-threshold" ...

This question can be put even more sharply. To be able to help other people in finding the meaning of life, you need to constantly be, as they say, "in the subject." It is necessary to constantly keep semantic landmarks before the eyes of the mind and heart. You need to be, if you like, extremely savvy in the analysis and feeling of various worldview systems. After all, a particular person could be faced with some kind of destructive idea. And now he can't bear her presence in his mind. In order to neutralize this idea-virus, it is often necessary to clearly explain what exactly is its harmfulness. To this idea it is necessary to choose an appropriate "ideological antidote". Furthermore. It is necessary to be able to present this antidote to a person in such a way that he understands your position, hears you and accepts what he heard. To learn to be understandable, you need to constantly polish your skills in the art of expressing your thoughts, in the art of dialogue. But who's going to polish those kinds of skills when it comes to a "low threshold" program?

So, back to the boy. You can probably already guess what answer he will get to his problem ... In the context of what has been said, the analogy with boots comes to mind. When a person acquires patent leather shoes, he admires them and wipes them. But after a few days, the first scratches appear. Enthusiasm for shoes is fading away. And, you see, a person is already starting to hit a soccer ball with them.

"The bunny leaves the house." As a result of the introduction of MMT / OST programs, attempts to bring a person to a sober life are meaningless. The teachers of the aforementioned Center in the name of St. Basil the Great, for example, fundamentally prepare a teenager for life without the use of substances that change the state of consciousness. And a narcologist working within the framework of the MMT program has other views on the future of the younger generation cultivated in his mind: "Oh! Boy! I have a wonderful remedy for you!" And he prescribes methadone to the pupil (to talk about a pharmacologist from Australia: just 20 pupils live in the center of St. Basil the Great at the same time).

If there is already a precedent for issuing methadone, if methadone is being given to at least someone, then over time, the process of distributing this now, after the introduction of the MMT / OST program that has become legal, is being put on stream. Thus, other approaches to the rehabilitation of the drug-addicted population are squeezed out of narcology. And there is no need to talk about resocialization at all. Under such conditions, it is impossible to ensure that 10-20% of rehabilitators recover, that is, enter a state of stable remission (stop taking drugs). Recall that these are the numbers that proponents of MMT cite when it comes to the results of their program. Moreover, as already mentioned, they are given in a declarative manner (the figures are not provided by the fact of the presence of recovered people).

Recovery depends in part on having social connections with sober-minded people

When raising the question of the results of methadone or other opium substitution therapy programs for drug dependence, one must ask oneself: what is the phenomenon of recovery connected with in general? The phenomenon of recovery is connected, of course, with the development of the spiritual component, but we are not talking about it yet. The phenomenon of recovery is also partly related to the presence of so-called "social hooks". We are talking about contacts with sober-minded people. With some of them, the addict met even before he became addicted. And with some - already after. It happens that an addicted person, moving towards recovery, becomes a member of the church community. Or maybe a spiritual child of some good priest. Communicating with him, with members of the community, with other sober-minded people, the dependent person gradually learns from them sober reactions to stimuli. He learns to respond in a sober way both to impulses coming from the outside world and to impulses coming from the inner world. His intellectual horizon expands, goal-setting leaves the narrow corridor "to find a substance and use it." That is, an addicted person begins to gradually climb out of the pit of addictive behavior into which he fell.

By the way, the mechanism of "social hooks" is also included in the system of rehabilitation of such institutions as the Center of St. Basil the Great. Many of his pupils grew up in dysfunctional families, someone even grew up without a father. They did not have before their eyes an example of healthy male reactions both to the surrounding reality and to their inner experiences (overcoming fear, etc.). In this institution, the guys are trying to give an example for which they could catch on. Male teachers working with children do not smoke. They know how to be courageous, but without aggression. They know how to be firm, but without a mat. They know how to rejoice, but without alcohol or drugs. And gradually, teenagers, without noticing it, adopt these skills. This is how they learn positive, vital social experience.

In a similar way, things are with an addict who has fallen into an environment of sober-minded or at least recovering people. He sees before him an example of a different, sober life. He sees that this life is real. She is interesting and busy. And as a result of contact with people living this life, perhaps he will want to live it. If an addicted person moves in an environment of his own kind, then it is very difficult for him to break out of the boundaries of his addictive attitudes. But it is in the environment of his own kind that a person who is included in the MMT / OST program rotates. And this is a real pathological vicious circle with no hope of healing from addiction and passionate habits that accompany it. A drug-addicted young man cannot go on a summer hike in the North of Russia like the pupils of the Center of St. Basil the Great for the whole summer - he is forced to stay in the city all the time, because he is chained to the dispensing window, from which he must receive methadone or its analogue every morning. Coming in the morning for a portion of methadone, he meets all the same drug addicts, leading all the same conversations on the same topic of drug use. And these meetings, these conversations constantly keep his attention on the topic of drugs. Drug addicts are distinguished by the fact that in the process of communication they mutually stir up each other's interest in the topic of surfactants, as they themselves say, "drive cravings."

Do people on MMT quit their drug and lower their methadone dose?

Heated interest leads to a strong desire. The craving wakes up, and what happens in the language of drug addicts is called "squeezing". "Nakhlobuchka" is accompanied by a hard to overcome desire to use surfactants, the thought of surfactants displaces all other thoughts from consciousness. The next link in this chain is often a breakdown (relapse) - a return to drug use. That is why, revolving in an environment of his own kind, a drug addict never leaves the drug addict niche he has occupied.

The theme of the dispensing window, from which a drug addict receives a dose of methadone, found its reflection in the American film "Gia" ("Gia", 1998). This film, which is based on real events, tells about the difficult fate of the queen of the model catwalk of the 70s of the last century. Gia Mari Karanji - that was her name. Having risen to the pinnacle of success, drawn into the frantic pace of life, Gia faced many, many problems. These problems were deep, internal, as experts say, existential in nature. But others did not care about the personal problems of the superstar. They were only interested in her external data. She has achieved tremendous success. Filmed with famous couturier Versace in Milan, Yves Saint Laurent in Paris. "Millions" of people wanted to photograph her for their magazines and advertising projects. For shooting, she received 10 thousand dollars per minute.

Gia Marie herself, by the way, spoke quite unambiguously about her fame. Somehow she indulged in daydreams about what she would do if she had her own children. And this is what she said: "I would tell them not to become famous, because I know that this does not work." Gia made this confession to the woman who introduced her to the modeling business. That woman said almost prophetic words to the young model. It is not known whether the filmmakers attached great importance to them, but these words were probably the main ones in the entire film. Gia heard these words before her first serious shooting. She was worried, and the woman tried to calm her down. "You'll be fine, just be yourself," she said. "Good. And how is it?" Gia asked. “If I knew for myself or for you the answer, life would be completely different,” is what Gia heard. Indeed, if the supermodel Karanji knew the answer and would have been herself, then her life would have been very different. She felt that she was tired of everything. She needed time to think. But she was told: "Not now. Now the whole world is at your feet", "Work. You will live later." And Gia never stopped. As a result, she got involved in drug addiction - cocaine, and after it heroin - integral attributes of the "bohemian" parties of recent times on different continents. For some time, Gia tried to switch to the use of methadone, which she began to take in the MMT program. But then she again fell into a steep dive and, as a result, could not stand it, broke down, died. Acquired HIV aggravated her condition, "the pain burned her and frightened her." So she wrote in her diary. It is not known if Gia cleansed her soul through her suffering. But, at least, it can be assumed that some awareness of the perfect in her woke up. She wrote that the pain that burned her was worth enduring for the fact that she "walked where she walked." "It was hell on earth, heaven on earth." It is impossible to say exactly what meaning she put into the words: "heaven on earth." Are these words a poetic turn used by a woman who wants to find at least some positive content in her life? Let's not guess. Words about hell on earth are enough to draw conclusions.

Did anyone care about the problems that Gia faced? Loss of oneself, an internal split, an attempt to find oneself are serious problems (lectures in which these problems are raised can be found on the website of the Solovetsky Monastery; the series of lectures is called "Know Your Calling and Follow It"). Some "specialists in chemical dependence" tried to "shut up" the crack that had formed in Gia's personality with methadone: "Get methadone, sign it" ... The ending is clear. Methadone is consumed, problems remain - behind the cosmetic mask of the official drug, the putrefactive processes of decomposition of the spirit, soul and mind continue. And behind them are the bodies. What result can be expected under such conditions? Is it legal to list a person as a recovering person just because he changed his "street" drug for officially issued methadone, buprenorphine or "Subutex"?

Here is what addictologists say about this (addiction or otherwise addiction is a state of human consciousness characterized by the habit of systematic escape from reality with the help of artificial, often chemical, means). Many specialists have the false impression that getting rid of the mode of implementation of addiction "solves the addiction problem." They mistakenly believe that "the main task is to rid a person of the way the addiction is realized." In fact, even having lost the opportunity to realize their addiction, a person does not cease to be an addict. With the mechanisms of addiction formed, the method of implementing addiction may change (one substance can be replaced by another). In this case, the person remains an addict, "but without realization." This concept was introduced into the world of science by Tsezar Petrovich Korolenko, a Russian psychiatrist, psychotherapist, MD, full member of the New York Academy of Sciences, honorary professor of the Novosibirsk State Medical University. C.P. Korolenko is one of the founders of modern addictology.

The same can be said about the nature of addictive behavior and the ways of its transformation into socially desirable forms of behavior in simpler terms. An addictive, dependent mechanism begins to form in a person as follows: a person is overwhelmed, for example, by the fear of death. Or, as mentioned above, he is tormented by a sense of the meaninglessness of his own existence. In scientific parlance, this is called existential frustration. To get rid of painful, depressing sensations, he tries to lower the threshold of his perception of reality through the use of alcohol. That is, in other words, he begins to get drunk quite often (see the example of a cloth soaked in acetic acid above in the section "Teaching healthy responses when refusing to take mind-altering substances"). Thus, gradually he is drawn into the systematic consumption of alcohol, then he becomes an alcoholic and begins to constantly come to work drunk. It reeks of fumes from him. And one day his boss, having given him a final warning, threatens to fire him. A person, being under the threat of being fired, stops drinking because of the fear of unemployment and thus becomes an addict without addictive realization. But since the addictive mechanism continues to function in his personality, the person finds a new form of realization of the model of his addictive behavior. In order not to embarrass anyone with the smell of alcohol coming from his mouth, he begins to use drugs. The addictive mechanism can be likened to the clockwork of a bomb. If the clock mechanism continues to work, then the bomb is bound to explode someday.

How is the described situation fundamentally different from the story that happened with Gia Karanji? After temporarily changing the type of addictive implementation, she began to use methadone instead of her drug. But since the clock mechanism continued to "tick", the bomb naturally exploded. A person afflicted by an internal personality split is a suffering person. And in order to prevent his consciousness from entering the experience of suffering, he stuns himself with a drug. Now, instead of his drug, he begins to use methadone. How can a person recover if the internal split remains? And where, after all, are these people who, using methadone instead of their drug, gradually reduce the dose and recover, entering a sober life without taking drugs? After all, the words about dose reduction, included in the concept of MMT / OST, also cause considerable doubt. Let's try to answer these questions together in the next part.

Hieromonk Procopius (Pashchenko) - resident of the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Solovetsky stauropegial monastery

N.V. Kaklyugin - Candidate of Medical Sciences, psychiatrist-narcologist, head of the public organization "Kind Heart. Kuban"

See chapter 26 from the book by Professor Kara-Murza S.G. "Mind manipulation".

See "Contra MMT - CON" from the book "BEWARE - METHADONE!!!" (Methadone substitution therapy in "Harm Reduction Programs")". Authors: Hieromonk Anatoly (Berestov), ​​Shevtsova Yu.B., Kaklyugin N.V.. URL: http://www.dp-c.ru/index.php /books/47-2010-11-29-13-59-36/79-2010-11-29-15-35-36.

Reaching the bottom, return to the light. Hope "Anthill". M.: Publishing House of the Counseling Orthodox Center of St. rights. John of Kronstadt, 2007. S. 13.

"Contra MMT - AGAINST" // "BEWARE - METHADONE!!!" (Methadone substitution therapy in Harm Reduction Programs)".

See "Intellectual and mnestic disorders of the personality" from the book of Abbot Anatoly (Berestov) "Return to Life. Spiritual Foundations of Drug Addiction, Drug Addiction and Law".

URL: http://solovki-monastyr.ru/abba-page/narcomania/.

See "Codependency" from Ts.P. Korolenko, N.V. Dmitrieva "Psychosocial Addictology" ("Olsib", 2001).

Procopius (Pashchenko), Hierom. "I [Lord]

I will establish the pillars" of the earth:

Worldview shift - detonator

drug boom and the collapse of society

What is the cause of the drug addiction of the planet? Dissatisfaction with society, dysfunction

families? Genetics? Yes and no. The way of thinking of modern man has changed, and

along with the type of thinking - and its relation to society and the family. In conditions of shifted

axes of coordinates the relation to a psychoactive substance (PSA) also became different.

The attitude to one's own life and to the life of other people has also undergone a transformation.

The worldview shift launched a number of processes that reshaped the very social order of life in a new way. And in this new way of life, the drug-addicted way of life is, rather, another round of social relations, a naturally formed stage of development, than some kind of accident that arose as a result of a law incorrectly adopted by someone.

A worldview shift can be likened to a shift in a manhole cover.

It shifted, and all the genetic predispositions of a person (anger, desire for voluptuousness) were left without cover. Seeing that nothing prevents them from jumping out, the hungry dragons from the dungeon rushed upstairs.

Let's weigh the problem of drug addiction in this context, throwing perplexed questions on the scales and going to the end in answers. In this work, where possible, a departure from the pseudoscientific language has been made. After all, the purpose of the work is not to create another storage unit for the library shelf, but to try to explain something to someone. And first of all, to those whom the topic of surfactants directly concerns, that is, young people. But many may not perceive scientific language. However, it is already accepted that the first pages are often written in the same pseudoscientific language. Those who find it difficult to master them can immediately move on to the next chapter.

Written in scientific language, a brief abstract is needed for several reasons.

Firstly, for people who are accustomed to this kind of bookish style. They perceive his breath in the text as a guarantee that the author is not joking. Plus, the very possibility of making a brief abstract is an exam for consistency.

After all, if it is not possible to formulate the main idea of ​​the work, then there is a possibility that it is internally contradictory.

The paper will focus on the fact that drug addiction is not an accidental phenomenon in the life of a single family. In society itself, tendencies are manifested that lead the teenager to a hole in the vein. Thinking about this topic does not interfere even with adults. They are seemingly sober and have a negative attitude towards PAS, they can even give the child a “beat up” on the occasion of a found pack of cigarettes or a “joint” of marijuana. But they are unaware that if they raise a child on the selfish attitude of “rowing everything for themselves,” then they are preparing him for drug addiction. If a person in his life is guided by the principles of selfishness and lives only in order to receive positive emotions, then most likely he will encounter drugs in his life.

In their brief, initial period of action, they will give him what he was looking for - pleasure. And when this time rushes by, giving way to vital decay, it will be difficult for an egoist to break away from drugs. After all, you can break away from one only by striving for something else, only by sacrificing what you leave behind. The egoist is not used to sacrificing himself for anyone and for nothing.

He is accustomed to aspire only to himself, and all the reservoirs of his soul, intended for life experiences and impressions, are already clogged, like the lungs of an asthmatic, with narcotic experience. Due to the fact that he is used to considering his thoughts as the measure of truth, and his emotions as the only thing worth living for, the narcotic experience merges with his personality, grows together with it. In order to break out of this trap, he needs to go to a different plane of life, where joys of a different, non-narcotic and non-egoistic order will become available to him.

Is it easy or hard for an egoist to enter the world of drug dealing? The one who has become everything for himself, takes other people's lives for nothing. For him, they are coins with which he thinks to buy self-realization by building a ship of his own dreams.

The ideology of selfishness is, in fact, the ideology of drug addiction. And you can’t cope with it by posting posters with a crossed-out syringe everywhere. The problem is deeper than it seems at first glance. And can it be solved without understanding its origins?

The tailor will answer us, who, having threaded the needle and thread in the wrong direction, is looking for an entry point in order to pull the needle through it in the opposite direction and make the right stitch. If the entry point is never found, then the continuity of the thread will be interrupted. How the continuous process is cut, the bloody victims of social upheavals tell. To thread the needle back is, at least, to understand why the way of life itself squeezes people into drug trafficking and drug use.

The narcotic code is sewn into the very fabric of society. The very DNA of the worldview has been damaged. And here we are not talking about random hobbies of random people, not about the fact that they didn’t understand something in their youth or their parents didn’t watch over them.

This is not about handicraft production, but about industrial-scale production. It is about the scheme through which the human material is passed.

If cracked vases appear at the exit from the conveyor line, then what needs to be done:

to buy more glue or to revise the mechanics of the conveyor? Of course, there are those who, taking a calculator, will make calculations. If it turns out that it is cheaper to glue vases than to reconfigure the conveyor, then they will glue them. But we are not talking about such people. It's about the principle: covering up cracks doesn't mean fixing the problem, it doesn't mean changing the process.

So, the promised abstract to work:

The process of formation and the main features of the drug addict's way of life can be described as follows: As a result of the merger of individual efforts of individuals who strive for their own self-satisfaction, a cumulative effort is born that changes the type of social life order. By reproducing itself, this lifestyle encourages people to seek answers to their life questions in drug use and the drug trade.

Conventionally, three aspects can be distinguished in this process: public, culture-forming and personal.

The social aspect of the drug addicted way of life As a result of a joint effort, which is made up of individual actions of society and individual actions of individuals, society is attracted to the hegemony (domination) of the drug addicted way of life.

Public consciousness in this way is characterized by an increase in the status of surfactants, the acceptance and justification of the surfactant itself and the profits received from the trade in surfactants. This acceptance and this justification is carried out on the basis of the society's acceptance of the ideology of hedonism, in connection with which the achievement of pleasure is perceived as the goal of being.

Neutralization of the religious worldview and cultural mechanisms that hinder the introduction of the drug addicted way of life into the traditional way of life also contributes to the formation of the hegemony of the drug addicted way of life. This mode is capable of self-reproduction. By his pressure, he inclines individuals to ensure that in everyday life they are guided by the norms of behavior that are characteristic of the hedonistic attitude. As well as the norms that are characteristic of the egoistic attitude.

The culture-forming aspect of the drug-addicted way of life

The essence of the egoistic attitude is that one's own "I" is placed in the center of the universe, and everything else loses its intrinsic value and becomes a means to self-gratification. Such an attitude in its main features duplicates the addiction attitude, the characteristics of which are determined by the property of the narcotic experience. It "brings the victim only to itself." At the same time, the surrounding world "does not have its own value", it "becomes more and more unreal and distant."

The personal aspect of the drug addict's way of life

The formation of a drug-addicted way of life is also facilitated by the loss and deliberate suppression of the mechanisms developed by religion and culture that form in the individual the desire for non-egoistic and non-drug ideals. However, the entry into drug addiction is due not only to the desire of the individual to have fun. Among other things, factors that attract a person to the hegemony (dominance) of internal confusion are important.

Its germ is present in human nature from the very beginning. "The disorder of human nature ... and is called original sin." This initial trauma was surrounded by mechanisms that healed its destructive radiation on society and on the individual himself. Religion offered a way for man to find inner integrity in God. After abandoning this path, after breaking the mechanisms developed by religion and culture, the bottle with the genie sitting in it was opened.

The development of internal confusion, often intensified by external confusion, is perceived by a person so painfully that he begins to strive to deny his own existence, to personal self-decomposition, to lower the threshold of sensitivity. The word “addiction” itself hints at the idea of ​​striving to lower the threshold of sensitivity (this: from the Greek /nark/ - numbness, sleep, and /mania/ - madness, passion, attraction). Achieving some success in this field is perceived by a person as bliss (a pulled out tooth does not hurt; happiness is what it was before the toothache [unknown]). In the development of internal confusion, the position of the individual is also responsible, which he takes in relation to God, to the world, to other people, to himself. Due to the position that is inconsistent with the spiritual laws of the universe, set forth in the Gospel, in which nothing is imposed, but only objectively existing laws are reflected, the person enters the stage of internal split, self-contradiction, which leads to a sense of the meaninglessness of the existence of the world and the existence of oneself. A person who goes against himself destroys his own integrity. In a fragmented personality, the logic of thinking is distorted.

When she enters an altered state of consciousness caused by surfactants, her logic seems to her consistent and quite adequate. There is a feeling that it seems to connect the disintegrated parts of self-consciousness together (this also happens in the state of sleep, when any absurdity may seem acceptable; you can, for example, fall upward). The transition to a sober state in this state of affairs is perceived as a total collapse of the inner world. Drugs in this case are something with the help of which a person, entering an altered state of consciousness, tries to look at the life of the world and at his own life as meaningful phenomena. In a sea of ​​nonsense, in conditions of a shifted coordinate axis and loss of orientation, drugs and a drug-addicted way of life become for some people an ideological starting point, in connection with which they have a completely understandable and achievable goal.

In the work "Worldview Shift" we will focus mainly on the social aspect of the drug addicted way of life, although others will also be partly affected. In more detail, each of them will be disassembled in its place. Culture-forming - in the work "Who loves, he is loved", and personal - in the work "Know your calling and follow it."

RELIGIOUS BASIS AS THE "MAJOR" IN THE SYSTEM

PEOPLE'S ATTITUDE

A religious perspective on psychoactive substance (PSA) addiction. Why is taking drugs bad?

What is the cause of the drug addiction of the planet? Those who wish to find the answer to this question will encounter various theories. To get acquainted with them, you need time and a certain skill. However, much will become clear as soon as we pose the fatal question: why is it bad to take drugs? You can answer it by turning to religion. “The Word of God warns us that drunkenness is a matter of the flesh, and therefore people who are addicted to alcohol will not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Gal 5:19-21).

Can I use alcohol-related data in an article about addiction? Can.

After all, alcohol is a drug. Hegumen Anatoly (Berestov), ​​a specialist in the rehabilitation of drug and alcohol addicts, noted that a person who regularly consumes alcohol "is a drug addict."

Why is alcohol and drugs bad? To answer this question, it must be analyzed from the perspective of eternal life. The thoughtful reader will be able to impose the "ideological network of coordinates" given below on other phenomena of his life. By analogy with reasoning about alcohol and drugs, other passions can be considered.

Alcohol and drugs distort the personality of a person. This distortion is the agony of separating the soul from the body. Patriarch Sergius Stragorodsky explains that the passions that a person nourishes in himself “distort his spiritual nature in such a way that in the next century it will inevitably have to endure torment.” According to the teachings of the holy fathers, the mood that a person created for himself during earthly life will become the content of his life after the grave. God, according to St.

Irenaeus does not punish sinners directly by Himself. The punishment for them will be the "vital element" that they voluntarily chose.

To understand the words about the voluntarily chosen life element, imagine a person who has brought up a strong feeling of hatred in himself. Each of us has probably had fits of rage towards someone. The constant surge of adrenaline robs you of sleep.

A person just dozes off and immediately wakes up from the fact that the blood is seething. And if a person filled with hatred dies, then he takes this state with him into eternal life. “The passions by which the soul lived here,” writes St. Theophan the Recluse, “will burn and sharpen it (there), like fire and a worm, and torment it with continuous and inevitable torment.”

Passions, remaining in the human soul, will continue to demand satisfaction, and there will be nothing to satisfy them. Therefore, a person will experience more and more increasing feeling of thirst. And “this unceasing torment will keep growing and growing, and there will be no end to this growth and strengthening. That's hell!" “Unquenchable thirst for sensual pleasures” and passions, according to St. Gregory of Sinai, correspond to the torments described in the Holy Scriptures. When passions enter into habit, their painful action becomes the germ of eternal torment.

Now let's apply what has been said to the case. Consider a scene from the movie Trainspotting, in which the protagonist of the film, Renton (Redhead), suffers from "withdrawal". The nightmare in which he plunged is recreated by the cinema quite realistically.

Here is what Renton said about himself as he lay on the bed in his room: “I don’t feel pain yet, but it will come soon. Necessarily. For now, I'm in an intermediate state.

Too sick to sleep, too tired to stay awake. The “breakdown” will soon come: sweat, chills, nausea, pain and a desire to prick. Desire like nothing I've ever experienced. It's already on its way." Renton could not satisfy the drug craving, as he was locked in a room by his parents. He began to scream. He was frightened by various images. They arose in his mind, and he could not get away from them.

Imagine that such a state is “fixed” forever.

If we assume that sweat and chills disappear after bodily death, then the picture still turns out to be bleak. There will be a psychological craving that will intensify and intensify. The desire for its satisfaction can be eradicated during earthly life through a way of life opposite to the former, sinful one.

The task of a person is to have time to enter that plane of life in which the desire for emotions is not a leading value. In this plane, the defining value is that which is connected with the Truth. On the way to the Truth, both pain and blood are possible. These sufferings no longer frighten a person who has found his highest good in the Truth.

If the transition to this plane of being is not made, then the process of receiving emotions remains the goal of a person. And the tragedy of the situation is that acquaintance with drugs gives a person the strongest emotion. He cannot forget the moment of contact with her. In everything he undertakes, he wants to see traces of her. He looks for repetition even when he tries to get rid of it. “Love, a crazy job, sports on the edge,” was what one man was looking for in an attempt to forget about drug cravings. It can be assumed that this is not the kind of love that elevates a person. But the one that causes the blood to boil.

About such love, one drug addicted woman in the past put it this way: “We loved heroin, money, courage more than each other.” Time has shown that the two people had little in common. What kind of relationship did they have? “It could be passion,” the same person wrote, “but not love, not something that can give people the strength to endure a long separation, for example, or some kind of test.”

If with the help of such love they try to “kill” drug cravings, then this will not lead to anything. The craving remains, only satisfied in other ways. With this approach, the person himself does not change. He is only trying to “overwhelm” with something the memory of the moments of “arrival”. These memories roll like a tsunami on the coastal city, on the brain and a few years after the change in life. And after separation from the body, the soul will be completely defenseless before them. She won't hide from them anymore.

The only way out is to change the person, to become different. "The main thing,

- says hegumen Anatoly (Berestov), ​​- to change the way of thinking, behavior and pull the drug addict out of the circle of drug addicts. To change the way of thinking and behavior means to give a person an evangelical worldview and an evangelical way of life.”

The potential for positive change at the time of death is exhausted.

“Unrepentant sinners after death lose all opportunity to change for the better,” is the testimony of the holy righteous John of Kronstadt.

The essence of the problem, as applied, however, to alcohol, is reflected in his reflections by Archbishop John (Shakhovskoy). To apply his words to the possible fate of Renton, one does not need to be seven spans in the forehead. It is said very clearly: "The drunkard will be incredibly tormented, not having a body that can be satisfied by flooding with alcohol, and thereby calming the tormented soul a little for a while."

Even if such extreme shots as Renton's "breaking" are not involved in the consideration of the issue, the picture still turns out to be bleak. In order to suffer forever, it is enough for a drug addict to fixate in his usual state, even after experiencing withdrawal. What is it, this normal state? “When I'm sober, I'm sick of myself,” - these words of one user of Pervitin, for sure, will be signed by many people who use drugs or alcohol.

But in a state of sobriety they will have to stay forever. When they are freed from their body, they will no longer have the opportunity to “tint” their condition with psychoactive substances (PAS). For there will be no veins to inject; no lungs to smoke; no nostrils to inhale cocaine, no mouth to drink.

In other words, depression and the whole range of negative emotions that are characteristic of PAS users, they will take with them into eternal life. There, deprived of the body, they will not be able to continue using, they will experience eternal “craving” without the ability to satisfy it. There will be no glass, no syringe, no arms, no legs. There will be only eternal thirst, increasing and increasing without end. This state of affairs will make dependent people incapable of a blissful life in the Kingdom of Heaven. In order to avoid eternal suffering, a person should, even during his earthly life, take care to overcome his passions.

The religious view looks at drug addiction as something that is soul-destructive. Here the position is clearly and unambiguously defined. And this certainty calls for the rejection of surfactants. Is the idea of ​​giving up PAS in modern narcological concepts?

Outside of a religious worldview, is there an obvious answer to the question: Why is taking drugs bad? Oddly enough, no!

Let's turn to three concepts that many are well aware of. According to these concepts, the main cause of the drug problem is the dysfunction of the family, society, and genetics.

According to the first, the violation of intra-family relations is the main factor in drug addiction. According to the second, society is to blame for everything. The third argues that the violation of some biochemical processes, inherited, is the main factor in entering into anesthesia.

Let's consider these versions outside the religious context.

First. Many assumptions have been made about how a person becomes dependent as a result of a violation of intra-family relations. So, for example, narcologist Sergei Belogurov reflects on what the “non-systematic or hyperprotective nature (that is, when adults think and decide for the child all the time)” leads to. With such upbringing, from the point of view of a narcologist, a socially passive and irresponsible personality is formed, which is mainly focused on consumption. It is assumed that this person is unwilling to make active efforts in order to build his future. And before the narcotic temptation, she is defenseless. After the drug use has begun, she cannot, due to her personal qualities, "perform difficult - long and difficult - mental work to return to the mainstream of a normal," non-drug "life."

The opinion of Sergei Belogurov is just a touch to the picture that is painted by modern narcology. Someone says that a child from a dysfunctional family receives various “mental traumas”, from which he tries to “close himself” with the help of drugs. Someone is trying to convince the public that in the soul of a child loved by his mother, a "half" is formed, which he, having separated from his parent, will try to fill with drugs.

We will not dwell on these versions now. On the topic "Drugs and the family"

should be discussed separately. Our task is extremely simple. It consists in asking the following questions: what is wrong with the child, "closing" from trauma with the help of drugs? He wanted to get away from pain and thus achieved the desired result? So what's the problem? Why can't he continue to act like this? And why is this way of avoiding trauma not worthy of emulation?

Second version. The concept of society does not clearly tell us that drugs are bad.

Dissatisfaction with society, the inability to realize oneself in one's favorite profession encourages a person to seek solutions to his problems in surfactants. What's wrong with such a search? After all, the result is achieved in some sense. Take, for example, a man who lost his job. 5 minutes ago he was stressed. And then he took it and forgot himself in a blissful smile. What's wrong here? And why can't all unemployed people be given free doses of drugs to alleviate their discomfort?

Third version. She says that some people are born with impaired synthesis of substances responsible for the feeling of joy. Not being able to enjoy this emotion in a natural way, people begin to use psychoactive substances. Their use is said to compensate for the lack of joy and happiness. And despite the fact that I want to say a lot about this version, we will postpone this desire. For now, let's just ask the questions: why can't drugs correct the imbalance that supposedly arises from a violation of the synthesis of endogenous opiates? What is wrong with drug addicts?

After all, there are people with diabetes who, due to the inability to consume sugar, use sweeteners? Do I need to stop using drugs that help correct the alleged imbalance? And if so, what is the reason for stopping?

Why is the question posed: why is it bad to take drugs?

For what? In order not to "sweep under the carpet" the problem itself. Professor Kara-Murza advises “to make an effort to find a clue for a question even in the most “round” statement, and to remember that the property of our mind is to avoid difficult questions, “sweep them under the carpet””. If a person learns to talk to himself, then his thinking "will surely get out of the rut provided by the manipulators."

One of the main methods of manipulating consciousness is squeezing the problem "into an artificially constructed context." Often this context is false. And the defense in this case will consist in the rejection of the "proposed formulation of the question." The imposed context should be replaced by another context, "built independently of the potential manipulator."

When they try to manipulate a person, he is offered such an interpretation of the problem, "which leads away from the essence." In this situation, one should act in accordance with the statement of Dostoevsky, who said that one must reach the “last questions”. That is, one should, having rejected the proposed interpretation, begin to raise questions himself. Delving into the problem step by step, a person quickly comes to the point from which he is diverted.

The words that drugs destroy health and shorten life are based on the recognition of the value of life. To get to the point, let's pose two fatal questions for society: what is wrong with a person who takes drugs? What is wrong with a person who sells drugs?

Let's not rush to "jump over" these questions because the answer to them is, they say, obvious. Yes, for some, the answer that PAS destroys health and leads to death may be obvious, but for millions of people who take PAS, not at all. Alas, the words that surfactants destroy health and lead to death are far from impressive for everyone. And here's probably why. This answer is acceptable only for those who recognize human life as significant.

A delicate nuance is that the evidence base for the answer is based on the belief that human life is a value. And implicitly it is assumed that such a belief is widespread. But human life is not always valuable.

One Russian tourist who returned from Kenya spoke of how a human life there costs no more than a pack of cigarettes. What about Kenya! For many modern teenagers, the idea of ​​the value of human life is not at all obvious. They have no clear motive to keep their lives from self-destruction. “Many drug addicts consciously choose self-destructive behavior (i.e. drug addiction) because they think that there is nothing in their life that is worth cherishing,” Sergey Belogurov, a narcologist, describes the situation.

In the absence of guidelines, human life is no longer perceived as a value. The most “obvious” statements cease to be obvious “I look like a leaky shell, an empty pile,” this is how the group “Dots” begins their song called “Istomok”. Is there an awareness of the value of one's own life in these words? This is not about conceited narcissism, but about the awareness of the meaningfulness of the life path, which does not allow a person to commit suicide.

These words are taken from the movie "Drunk" (1987), in which actor Mickey Rourke tries to realize in himself the image of Henry "Hank" Chinaski. Henry is a literary character created by writer Charles Bukowski. It is believed that Bukowski reflected his own life in this character. The writer, by the way, wrote the script for the film;

After filming, Mickey Rourke admitted the following: “After I starred in the movie “Drunk”, it seemed to me that I would no longer be able to act either mentally or physically. I was broken. Not by drinking or drugs, I was morally broken and, to some extent, broken ... ”Where did this scrap come from? Maybe the spirit of the actor was paralyzed by the philosophy of Henry, with which the actor tried to get used to? Didn't millions of drunkards, "chipped", "smoking" people endure such a breakdown? To understand the origins of this breakdown, let's turn briefly to the philosophy of Henry Chinaski - Charles Bukowski.

Take for consideration a poem by Bukowski called "The Failure to Be Human." The analysis of this poem shows us the direction in which we should look for the origins.

Bukowski writes: “People grab everything at random: communism, healthy food, surfing, ballet, hypnosis, group therapy, orgies, motorcycle riding, herbs, Catholicism, weightlifting, travel, healthy lifestyle, vegetarianism, India, painting , writing, sculpting, playing music, conducting, tourism, yoga, sex, gambling, drinking, hanging out, frozen yogurt, Beethoven, Bach, Buddha, Jesus, time machine, heroin, carrot juice, suicide, tailor-made costumes, airplane trips, New York City".

Here, music-making and hypnosis, healthy food and heroin are put on a par. Jesus for the author has the same meaning as Beethoven and Bach. And those, in turn, are only as important to him as carrot juice is important to him.

The world of a poem is like a line, which consists of points that are equally insignificant for a person. Everything is insignificant because there is no “main”, that is, with respect to which a person could determine what is significant in his life and what is not.

There is no axis of perception, thanks to which a person separates the important from the unimportant.

The poem fascinates many with its nihilistic pathos. But those who posted this poem on their page on the Internet will probably be surprised to learn that this pathos is not safe. Intellectual fusion with the ideological basis of the poem can start a process that A.G. Danilin described it as "schizophrenic personality dissociation".

The fact is that having lost the feeling of the “main thing” in his soul, a person is unable to logically explain and “link his experiences into a single semantic system”. When a person is deprived of a single center, then it will “break up into emotional fragments”, which consist of “pieces” of personal unity trying to be saved. Such particles tend to strive for autonomous existence. And each of them "will try to become the center of perception - to create a new "I" (new unity)".

Traces of such dissociation, decay, are visible on the canvases of artists who have experienced the impact of psychedelic (drug) culture. Their canvases, reminiscent of drawings of patients with schizophrenia, become "a receptacle for any" fragments "" of the material world, which was once significant for the author (fragments of photographs, figures, diagrams, etc.). The artist is reminiscent of a child who, having broken a mosaic, cannot reassemble it because he cannot "remember the whole - the images on the mosaic before it was broken."

Similarly, a mentally ill person who has gone through a personality breakdown due to schizophrenia, or a drug addict who has gone through a personality breakdown due to addiction, "trying to put together the pieces of his personality." In the drawings of patients with schizophrenia, one can read the need to find that force “which can again inspire or bring to the canvas the lost meaning”, and one’s own personality and the surrounding reality are lost landmarks. "The worlds of drawings reflect chaos yearning for the return of the Creator - the Logos of consciousness."

We will remember these drawings when we talk about the consequences of the collapse of the state.

Then we will follow the fate of the "fragments". Now we are interested in another storyline:

a person who has lost the opportunity to make a meaningful choice due to the loss of the “main thing”.

In the absence of the "principal", all values ​​acquire equal importance. The distribution of objects on a scale of significance becomes impossible. After all, we can prioritize only by correlating the object with the “main” that we have.

We are all probably accustomed to asking ourselves the question: how does the action that I need to perform relate to the “main”? If I need to be at my fiancee's birthday party in 15 minutes, should I buy wallpaper? If I'm already seriously late for the bride's birthday, should I buy wallpaper and stick it up?

The quality of the answers depends on how the person relates to the bride. Is the bride a value for a person or not? - that's the question. One has only to answer it correctly and the situation with the wallpaper will be decided.

To glue or not to glue? This dilemma is not a joke at all. One man, who became heroin addict shortly after this story, appeared at the bride's house only a few hours after the start of the celebration. Do you know what he was doing? It's funny, but he glued wallpaper at the request of a friend in his apartment. Such an event seemed to the groom more valuable than the mental health of the woman who loved him. She waited, she cried, she was nervous. But these obvious arguments were not taken into account by the young people.

Thus, there is no obvious answer to the question: to go to the bride or not to go. The answer depends on what is "main" at the moment. If “the main thing” is wallpapering, then this, of course, speaks of the decline in relations between lovers. But it's not yet a complete disaster. After all, the groom has at least some life guidelines. Total catastrophicity comes with the loss of the "main". If the "main"

becomes “like everything else”, then the opportunity to make a meaningful choice is lost. Such concepts as "more important" and "less important" are lost. Everything becomes equal, equal, equal.

Wallpaper, the bride, lying on the couch, a carton of milk, a punch in the jaw of a neighbor - what to choose from this for an evening activity? In the absence of the “main” person, the person will choose the image that flashes brightest in the brain.

Given the equivalence of images, a person, according to Danilin, "hears not what is important to him, but what sounds louder." After all, if values ​​are of equal importance for a person, then he cannot "feel the hierarchy of ideas and objects of this world." Developing this idea, A.G. Danilin writes that a table for a person in conditions of equivalence of images has the same meaning as another person. And life itself "carries the same symbolic load as death." The meaning of the concepts themselves is lost, with the help of which the selection of objects in the category “good” / “bad” and “love” / “dislike” is made. Memory and prior experience become an unnecessary burden. After all, a person who has lost the opportunity to appreciate the hierarchy of ideas can "digest only the momentary." Thus, the seeming excess of opportunities for making a choice "turns into an impossibility" of making a choice.

When it is impossible to make a choice, then a person chooses the only thing that he can "digest", that is, his momentary state. What does he come up with as a result? To thrills, drug addiction, alcoholism, eroticism and other contents that are included in the set of a person who has lost himself.

He thinks, “I can't make sense of the world. But I can feel my heart skip a beat in anticipation of a fight between fans, of which I am one. I can't comprehend my own life, but it is given to me to feel how a drug attack hits my head. I can’t figure out where to go next, but I fix how alcohol, burning my throat, turns me off from a world that I can’t comprehend.

In the absence of reference points, a person chooses the “momentary”

Such an ideological position is sometimes formed as a result of the collapse of values.

If a person has one, the main value, and suddenly it disappears, then the inner world is absorbed by chaos. The hierarchy breaks down, according to which other values ​​are distributed according to the degree of importance. And if there is no hierarchy, then the person finds himself in the conceptual world of the poem, with all the ensuing consequences.

“The use of intoxicating substances,” writes I.A. Zhmurov, - may be due to heavy, irreparable losses, loss or discredit of the most important values. An example is the words of a woman who lost two of her daughters. "Maybe I should sleep?" she asked. When the children were alive, she had a strong motive to lead a sober life. But they were gone - the motivation began to crumble.

Commenting on the words of Zhmurov, hegumen Anatoly (Berestov) makes an amendment. He points out that modern teenagers "had nothing to lose - they had no spiritual and religious values ​​from the very beginning, they were not formed." That is, teenagers were deprived of them. Here "we should not talk about loss, but about the initial absence of the meaning of life."

Adolescents were initially deprived of that “main thing”, the presence of which would allow them to make a meaningful choice. They were born in the conceptual world of the poem "Inability to be human".

In the absence of reference points, the disintegration of the personality occurs quickly. Explaining such concepts as honesty and sobriety becomes difficult. The story of one man testifies to how serious this state of affairs is. Its action took place during the Soviet Union. The average salary then was 120 rubles. And the butcher, who received from 20 to 70 rubles a day, began to invite the narrator who received such money to be his partner. And this is in addition to the salary. Of this money, the butcher gave 10 rubles to the store manager; 1-2 times a month I put 50 rubles on the scales for an employee of the ObKhSS (department for combating theft of socialist property). The official quietly stood in line, took a banknote from the scales and disappeared for a while. All that remained in excess of these bribes was the “pure” profit of the butcher, who knew how to masterfully outweigh buyers.

Why are you working in a factory? Come to me,” he called the narrator. The narrator was confused. Tormented by doubts, he approached his mother and asked: “Mom, why should we work at the factory for 120 rubles a month, when that comrade receives from 20 to 70 rubles a day?” “Well, you see, son… The thing is…” – and then she broke off.

Indeed, what is the answer to that? Say something and nothing!

Only later, having come to God, the inquisitive son realized that the answer to this question is rooted in the field of religious worldview. But since my mother did not have such a worldview, she could not answer anything.

“If a person lives without religion,” the narrator commented on his story, “if a person does not have an inner core, then I don’t know how he can resist.

Definitely, in some kind of hole will move out.

Harmoniously combined with this story are the words from a letter from one prisoner: “How quickly and badly when a person falls into sin, the interests of a person change,” he wrote. - When I began to weaken in spirit, those people whom I shunned yesterday because of their obscene behavior suddenly became my closest friends. Women with indecent behavior have become very respected, and even more ... This shows how weak I am after all. The reincarnation happened not in years and months, but in a few days. My child, for whom my soul ached, suddenly became indifferent to me. I, who was not afraid of a potential enemy in battle, became capricious, suspicious, squeamish about any trifles ... My brother-soldiers, with whom I served for many years, tried to save me, but I only began to avoid them. How vulnerable a person is, how fragile our foundations are if they are godless.

Such a "sliding", when it comes to young people, can occur within one day.

Here is the real story. One young man met near the Hermitage (the city of St. Petersburg) with a group of teenagers who "lived on their own." Some of them have left home. They lived in attics. If they wanted to smoke, they dumped the contents of the trash cans on the pavement and looked for cigarette butts in a pile of rubbish. Looking at this process, the young man thought that he could never behave like this. But already in the evening of the same day, he was surprised to find that he was reclining on the sidewalk puffing on a cigarette butt found in the urn. Drinking beer from a bottle thrown out by someone seemed no longer a terrible thing, but natural and familiar. In the evening, the young man began to think that he had always lived like this.

Why did metamorphosis take place in such a short time? Because the young man had no clear motive for not behaving like that. He did not have a valid criterion by which he could determine whether he was doing well or badly. If to the question: why is smoking “cigarette butts a bad thing?” - it’s still possible to answer at least somehow, then to the question: “why is the drug bad?” – is very difficult to answer.

In a secular society, there is no clear answer to the question: why drugs should not be used. Consequently, there is no clear motive in connection with which a person could not use drugs. The absence of a motive and evaluation criteria leads to the fact that a person's entry into anesthesia occurs easily and imperceptibly, as if naturally.

According to Natalia Markova, the atmosphere in which a person becomes “unclear what is good and what is bad” is forced artificially. A person loses his orientation in life if he falls into the shell of information "about the possibility of comprehending mysticism and the supersensible: about astrology, horrors, aliens, UFOs."

The disorientation pushes him "to an irresponsible entry into the world of drugs."

Yes, and not only as a consumer. But also as a merchant.

Naturally, many of us think that dealing drugs is bad. But many do not know how this can be justified.

A mother asks her son: “How could you think of selling drugs? Didn't you realize that you were ruining other people's lives?" Mom's argument is understandable.

It is based on the recognition that the life of another person is a value. For a mother, this is obvious. For my son, no.

People out of inertia talk about the value of human life, but, ask them directly, not everyone will be able to answer why they say so. They will answer that they got such a worldview from their parents. And those from their parents.

The first parents knew why they said that. And many of today's parents no longer know. And the problem is that people have lost that “main thing” in relation to which human life can be defined as a value. If there is no basis for the formation of conscious inferences, then how long will the memory of generations last?

With each generation, the conviction that human life is a value is weakening. Consciousness wears away with the question: why is it impossible to destroy other people's lives?

The question for modern society is a dead end.

Someone, of course, is trying to answer it through an appeal to the economy. "The company," they say,

“works more efficiently if workers communicate with each other in a warm and family-like way.”

Some firms do not skimp on organizing events during which employees can communicate with each other in an informal setting. Yes, corporate meetings bring a lot of positive things.

But anyway. Such arguments belong to the realm of human opinion. And opinions are weak arguments for an ordinary citizen. An example of this is the story of one little boy who later became a hardened recidivist. By the way, he made his living, among other things, by transporting marijuana from Kazakhstan.

"You have to be honest," - so his parents told him in his youth. But he early began to doubt the validity of parental words. “I look,” he said, “everyone is stealing around. And nothing! They live normally. My mother was a meat merchant. She stole - and nothing! Where is it written, I thought, that it is forbidden to steal?

Born doubt resulted in the first theft. The boy, who was thirteen at the time, stole a bicycle with an accomplice. In the glove compartment, the guys found 80 rubles - almost a monthly salary for that money.

When the guys were brought to the police, they "went into denial." The accomplices taught the teenager this simple technique. “Say that you don’t know anything,” the elder instructed. And after a while both were released. And it began: cookies, lemonade (the teenager did not drink or use drugs then). They walked in a big way. The hero of the story, seeing that he got away with the crime, realized: you can live like that. And with this theft began his criminal "career".

This boy had no serious motives to change his attitude to another. And the value of honesty was not obvious to him. Likewise, many people who use drugs do not have strong motivations to change their behavior.

And the value of sobriety is not obvious to them.

In view of the above, it is worth considering the following example. One teenager was caught smoking hashish by his parents. A family meeting took place, at which they tried to shame the teenager. “What you did,” your parents said, “is very bad!” And he take it, and say: “I tried it and didn’t notice anything bad. I thought hashish was okay.” Parents began to get nervous and indignant, but they were unable to challenge the answer. Indeed, what can I say?

The idea of ​​the value of life is based on the preaching of Christ

Outside the religious axis, it is difficult to prove that the use and sale of drugs

- This is bad. To understand this, it is enough to take a “sober” look at the main “anti-drug argument”. He is very simple. Everywhere we hear that drugs are harmful to health and lead a person to death. A little later, we will consider this statement in more detail and in the end we will understand that it is difficult to build a building on it with a sign “Prevention of drug addiction”. For now, we note that this statement is not self-sufficient.

It is based on the belief in the value of human life. Only by recognizing human life as a value can we recognize as wrong those actions that lead to its reduction or premature termination.

An interesting question: how do we know that human life is a value?

People partly knew about its value even before the coming of Christ. But in its entirety the doctrine of the value of human life was formed only after His preaching. A.G. Danilin wrote that "the idea of ​​a person as a separate person, free in his actions and responsible before God ... appeared 2000 years ago, after the preaching of Christ."

On the basis of Christianity, which became the norm "that created our souls", an idea was formed about a normal or "good" person, that is, about how he should be 'that person, according to many, should be attentive, kind, sympathetic, sensitive, understanding ... in relation to other people. “A good person should be confident, have an inner core, have a bright personality, self-esteem, the ability to stand up for himself, be interesting and responsible.” He "should treat another with love and responsibility and, at the same time, maintain independence - have his own individuality."

Continuing Danilin's thought, we can say that on the basis of these ideas, such familiar concepts for us as mutual respect, solidarity, mutual assistance were formed.

It seems fair that the statement that a person forms the principles of his behavior, based on the worldview that he possesses. There are principles, according to Vitaly Kaplan, and there is "a worldview on the basis of which these principles grow."

What happens if the foundation is knocked out from under a person, based on which he forms his principles? Principles are up in the air. They lose their justification.

Take, for example, this situation. A neighbor comes up to Mr. N and asks him for urgent help. The master is in a hurry to rush off on important and very important matters. What should he do?

Which development path to choose? Ignore the request or fulfill it, while infringing on their own interests? Mr. N thinks to himself: “I am a Christian and I believe that Jesus Christ is God. Christ commanded to love people. Therefore, I must show love to this person as well. So I have to help him."

And what will be the answer of this gentleman if he considers himself a materialist and an atheist? A person of such a mindset, if he is consistent in his judgments, should, in theory, see in a neighbor only a biological object, which consists of atoms and molecules. These molecules are basically the same everywhere. They make up the substance of a living person, a dead cow, and what is in a toilet used for its intended purpose.

With this approach to the problem, the answer, as you might guess, will be quite different. The scheme of reflections is not given in view of its rudeness and in view of the fact that it is already understandable.

Someone will object and say that many people are not guided by religious norms and at the same time they are kind. All this is so. But the kindness of such people is, if you like, "the remnants of former luxury." These people absorbed what the culture shaped by Christianity offered them. But the culture is changing. It does not look like a cube cemented once and for all.

Elements of culture are kept in it as long as there is an act of their conscious acceptance.

If the Christian element is not strengthened by the fact that people consciously accept it, then it "weathers out" of the culture. And if so, then the idea of ​​the need for love becomes less and less obvious. With the rejection of Christianity, this necessity loses its logical justification.

If people abandon the Christian worldview, then they can no longer explain to themselves why they should be kind. The rejection of the Christian worldview entails the rejection of the concepts that it has formed. Outside a religious context, they lose their meaning. People out of inertia still talk about mutual respect. But without an appeal to religion, it is difficult to answer the teenager's question: "Why should I respect anyone?"

And here we can see the tragic inconsistency of parents who forbid their children to go to church and try to eradicate the religious impulse in them. Do these parents not understand that they are digging a hole for themselves. Of course, their behavior is justified if the child is caught in the net of a totalitarian sect. But we are not talking about a sect here.

Let parents ask themselves the killer question: why should my children respect me? If children have a Christian worldview, then the answer to this question is not difficult. The child unconsciously but reflects: “I believe in God. And the Lord commanded to honor the father and mother. Therefore, it is fitting for me to honor my father and mother.”

If we remove the Christian basis from the mind and transfer the mind to the material-atheistic rails, then what will happen? Consider the best option, that is, one in which a person retains the idea of ​​​​justice. He reflects: My parents educated me and took care of me for 20 years. If I take them to a nursing home and pay for their stay in it, we are even.

At worst, the parents are the aforementioned "gathering", which, moreover, occupies such a scarce living space. What does a person do if there is a “gathering” of molecules in the middle of the room? Throws it out. Which, incidentally, is what happens to many old people.

What is the materialistic view of parents? From the concept of materialism, the conclusion logically follows that parents are pieces of meat that give the child money and food. Another conclusion follows from this: if the parents are not able to give the child money and food, then the child, it turns out, does not need to waste time on his parents. Yes, culture, the purpose of which is to educate the people, calls for care for parents. But this call is a tribute to common sense, an instinctive desire to protect the existence of continuity. But is this call and this desire justified by the logic of materialism?

If a person is just a stomach on his feet, then what can he care about such "sentimentalities" as culture, responsibility for the team and caring for the "old" stomachs that gave birth to him?

The parents themselves are to blame for their suffering in some way, who did not give their children a worldview basis that helps children perceive the life of their parents as a value. And some parents directly prevented their children from living in the faith.

In this regard, I would like to give an example. A young man married a Christian girl. They had a son. Happiness wrapped the family with its wings. But sometimes the mother-in-law's voice seeped through them. “Did you and your son go to church on Sunday?” she asked the young father. And this question annoyed him very much. “I want to go to McDonald's with my son on the day off,” he said indignantly.

Let's stop at this phrase. Firstly, going to the temple does not negate the prospect of spending a day off together. After the service, you can go somewhere to have lunch and go for a walk. However, that's not the point.

While the son is small, he will still be interested in his father's treats. But my son will grow up. So, what is next? At the age of 18-20, he will want alcohol and drugs. He will have friends who will come for him in cars and honk, hurrying him to the exit.

“Son,” dad will ask, “won’t we go with you to McDonald’s today?” “Dad,” the son will answer, “not today. They came for me. Come on, next time. Okay?" And the next time, everything will be postponed until the next time. And there - again until the next.

The point is clear. Common topics of conversation are lost over time. How much can you talk about food? The guy is already 20 years old, and he already wears two gas pistols under his jacket!

Common themes can appear only where people talk about the “main” and what is significant for both: for the father and for the son. Such conversations are always fresh, they are like a breath of air that strengthens a person. But the “most important” can be understood only when the understanding of the goals and meaning of being is assimilated: both one’s own and the whole world.

“Knowledge of goals,” as Lev Tikhomirov convinces us of this, “we can only seek in the field of religious testimony. It has always made people understand the meaning of their personal and world life.

Religious knowledge is open to people of all ages and professions. It is a platform where all generations can meet. And gray-haired old men, and young athletes, if they unite anywhere, then here.

And on other platforms, of course, contact is possible. But this contact will not be a union, but only a pastime. The son, glancing at his watch, will pretend to listen attentively to his father. And as soon as the car with the “guys” drove up to the house, the son would apologize and leave.

Until a certain time, the father will be needed by the son as a source of "pocket money". In the same case, if the son becomes financially independent, he leaves his parents. Not even in terms of moving. He leaves at the level of being - his parents cease to exist for him.

Someone with this scheme, of course, will not agree. Someone will say that there are, they say, a lot of decent people who do not leave their parents. Yes, of course they are. But they exist largely because they lived in a society that still remembered its religious roots. People by inertia used Christian concepts formed on the basis of the Christian idea of ​​personality.

However, the carriers of the Christian worldview are becoming less and less. As a result, there is practically no one left to watch. And there are fewer and fewer children who love their parents.

Not only to parents there is less and less love. It's getting smaller, basically.

And here it is worth taking into account the data of Danilin. He asked people to write down 10 qualities that, from their point of view, a "good" person should have. Above were the data of the survey, in which representatives of the older generation participated. If the same task is given to young people, then the answers of young people will look different. “Kindness and love for another person gradually disappears from them. They no longer believe in the need for love…”

The building of common values ​​is destroyed by the explosion of the religious foundation

Love, fidelity, honesty, feelings of duty and gratitude are lost, according to Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov, where faith in God is lost. After all, moral teaching and education are built on faith in God, who is “love and absolute goodness.”

Atheism does not teach morality in people. After all, “the very concepts of love and goodness are simply inapplicable” to soulless matter. Father Vladimir rightly remarks that "the vast majority of our people want the revival of a moral, honest, sober life, the restoration of the family, the birth of children, and not depravity and extinction."

As an example illustrating the thought of the archpriest, we can cite the holiday of the Day of Family, Love and Fidelity, which takes place in the city of Murom on July 8, the day of memory of Saints Peter and Fevronia, who have become for Russian people a symbol of loyalty and love to each other. These celebrations are gradually becoming nationwide and are celebrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg, Siberia and the Far East. The holiday resurrects the forgotten traditions of a pious family and calls to remember fidelity, love, family happiness, and respect for the elderly. He is slowly but surely transforming the city. In Murom, the birth rate is increasing and the death rate is decreasing. “Back in 2007, there were 296 large families in Murom, and now there are already 450!” Accident? You can answer this question by referring to the pages of Victor Nikolaev's documentary story "From generation to generation". One of the chapters of this book is devoted to the activities of Colonel Nikolai Dimitrievich, the head of the colony, on whose initiative a church parish was opened in the institution he supervised. Its existence markedly changed the situation in the "zone". The situation improved, “useful and necessary work was organized, from which financial support began to flow to families at will.” Something began to change in the life of the prisoners. Two of them “received letters from their wives with forgiveness and a desire for reconciliation. ... The young engineer was sent an official document stating that they would like to see him in his previous position with a good salary.

The change in everyday reality was statistically perceptible. It was reflected in real figures, which showed "the state of affairs in the colony before ... the church parish and after it." The number of parishioners compared to the total mass of prisoners was insignificant, like a fly's wing. Still, the parish kept "the prison world in balance." The number of parishioners increased over time. "Formerly hostile, they became friends."

Why is this happening? Much in a person's life is determined by what becomes the main thing for him, that is, the meaning of life. Human nature itself, as Lev Tikhomirov wrote, "encourages a person to seek the meaning of life and put all existence in harmony with it: his personal and generally human."

The question of the meaning of existence is inextricably linked with the question of the basic power of being.

Where to look for it: in God, in nature, in man, in the devil? Everything else depends on ideas about a higher power, “including our ethics and our duty, our tasks in relation to ourselves and all those around us.” Thus, the ideas of Christianity, arising from the teachings of faith and penetrating into the psychology of people, give them "the correct concept of what is due, noble, and honor." These ideas bring up in people certain requirements for life even when they do not think about faith.

The reverse is also true. St. Nicholas of Serbia, in his messages to the Serbian people from the Dachau concentration camp, states that “he who is without God is without truth and mercy. For the seer said: "The Lord loves mercy and truth." And for those who lose the Lord, it is impossible to keep mercy and truth.”

The saint believes that the crisis has befallen Europe precisely because it has lost "the concept of a terrible God and a holy man." Having perverted the concept of God, people ceased to be afraid of Him. And having distorted the concept of man, they ceased to be ashamed of people.

Interrupting the thoughts of the saint, it is necessary to define concepts in order to save some of the readers from embarrassment. It can arise when confronted with the word "fear".

So. God is not a punishing avenger. Jesus Christ revealed to mankind that God is the Father.

And the children of a good father have fear in their lives. Just not the same as the children of a sadistic father.

The latter are afraid that, having drunk, the biological father will beat them. And the first ones love their father so much that they are afraid of losing him.

The children of the Merciful Heavenly Father are afraid of losing the Divine Light that shone in their souls and delivered them from longing and the thirst for suicide. And, probably, more eloquently than excerpts from theological writings, this question will be clarified by the lines from Varvara's diary. Her husband Semyon called her one day and asked her, “Can you help your neighbor by committing a sin?” And here is what Varvara writes about this: “Semyon, having gone through the difficult path of a criminal life, was no longer afraid of anything in life. Today, Semyon is afraid of losing God, and this fear gives him the strength to make a decision: to refuse this kind of help to a friend.” Over time, Semyon completely moved away from crime. During the preparation of the next crime, when the roles were distributed, who should do what, Semyon announced to his accomplices that he would remain in the Church. “I have already made my choice,” he said. Surprisingly, the break with crime cost Semyon without serious consequences. “No hard feelings,” accomplices said over time. I made the right choice - to each his own.

Could Semyon, who was not afraid of anything in his life, be afraid of some philosophical doctrine? Could he, going on a crime, stop, remembering some thinker or public figure?

“Not bold, rich and learned people are ashamed,” says St. Nicholas of Serbia. “Only saints are ashamed. Nobody is ashamed of their crimes against Voltaire, Napoleon or Marx. Or in front of others like them, from which Europe created its pantheon without a halo of holiness. And although some thinkers call nature a deity, "no one has yet been afraid of the European professorial deity of nature."

The deification of nature logically leads man to atheism, to the denial of the existence of God. Lev Tikhomirov explains that belief in the immutable laws of nature does not provide support for belief "in free will." It remains to be admitted that the supposed divinity of nature has no personal character. And this recognition is tantamount to the recognition that the deity does not exist. Therefore, "atheism, the denial of the existence of God, is the sibling of pantheism."

The confrontation between two principles - religious and pantheistic (and therefore atheistic) - is presented by St. Nicholas of Serbia in the form of a poetic image. The Church is engaged in a dialogue with the ghosts, in which the saint saw the cause of the Second World War, "unprecedented in cruelty and horror."

The church told them to honor their father and mother. She admonished them not to commit adultery, not to steal, not to bear false witness. She urged not to want someone else's, taught to yield to the elderly, respect those in power, pray to God and observe fasts. She instilled in them the idea of ​​good deeds and repentance for sins.

The ghosts answered that their philosophers taught them differently: to separate from their father and mother, as from the bearers of a rotten past; kill anyone who gets in the way; consider adultery as a natural phenomenon, in the consideration of which one must take the example of bulls and donkeys; one should live freely, according to instincts, like tigers and bears. The philosophy is simple: "You are an animal and don't be ashamed of it, but live like an animal."

Is the Church's dialogue with ghosts only a poetic image, or is there a real basis behind it? History shows that this image is fully justified. Only after there had been a departure “from the Christian concept of man,” the interested parties, as Professor Kara-Murza wrote, were able to justify racism, and the racist ideology was the rationale for the forcible seizure of some countries by others.

The departure from the Christian concept of man was manifested in the Calvinist idea of ​​predestination, according to which "Christ did not go to the cross for everyone, but only for the elect." Out of the doctrine of predestination grew racial and social doctrines dividing humanity into higher and lower races, into poor and rich. "And the modern West grew up like a civilization on this racism." Suffice it to recall how, with a shortage of labor in the United States, millions of African men were captured and enslaved.

Specific historical events occurred as a result of a “worldview shift”, as a result of which the attitude towards a person changed. As a result of the “worldview shift”, the attitude towards money has also changed.

“Departure from the Gospel” is the reason why, during the Reformation period, a new attitude towards profit, unusual for a traditional society, arose. "The mere recognition of the godliness of usury, absolutely necessary for the development of finance capital, meant an important change in the theology of Western man." Here the professor refers to M. Weber's study "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".

Protestantism, which destroyed the sacred symbols, gave future manipulators a guiding principle: before mastering the minds of people, it is necessary to destroy the sacred images. "Storm of symbols" is a preparation for the process of manipulation of the masses.

Manipulation succeeds where it is possible to "turn off the means of psychological protection of each individual and social groups." Manipulation as a type of power became possible "due to the fact that the protective belt of symbols was removed, which gave strength to the consciousness of Christian Europe in the Middle Ages."

With the advent of the media, the possibilities of manipulators have increased. They do not always try to "convert" people to their faith. Their task at certain stages is that "to question all values ​​in general, to defame all sacred symbols and thereby remove the psychological defense against manipulation."

Here it should be taken into account that we are not talking about replacing one system of values ​​with another, equally integral. We are talking about the destruction of the system, about the relativization of values. By depriving people of moral guidelines, they are deprived of the coordinate system in which they could distinguish between good and evil. "Putting a person in an atmosphere of immorality disables his navigation system, it's like turning on a radio jammer to throw a plane off course."

As long as consciousness is “reinforced” with inclusions of irrational ideas, it is resistant to manipulation. Interesting fact. During the years of perestroika, which took place in Russia in the 90s of the twentieth century, the peasants turned out to be the most resistant to manipulation. The most prone to manipulation turned out to be intellectuals, people of a rational mindset. Those with suppressed traditional inhibitions were more easily confused than those with lower levels of education.

The logic of a person who has abandoned traditional norms and traditions is amenable to miscalculation.

And his thinking is not difficult to turn off. “The purest logical thinking and defenseless to the greatest extent,” says the professor.

As an example, he cites the well-known story of JSC MMM. After a massive advertising "shelling", people's minds were artificially split, and they began to invest their money in this company without any hope of getting it back. “Even after the complete and final collapse, July 29, 1994

thousands of people were queuing to buy discount MMM tickets.”

The MMM advertising campaign was focused on the idea of ​​easy money. She rammed rationally-thinking brains. But the lure of profit would be removed if "blocks of religious consciousness" were included in the stream of rational thinking. There would be a dialogue with the Old Testament commandment "to eat your bread in the sweat of your face." That is, there would be a barrier protecting consciousness from manipulation.

With the help of traditional thinking, rational thinking is strengthened. "islands of tradition", which are stored in the depths of historical memory, serve as "effective alarm devices." They "act automatically and are difficult to turn off from the outside."

Take, for example, numerous Russian proverbs. They say that no good can come from easy money and speculation. “If these proverbs, as a reflection of “implicit knowledge,” were included in the equipment of the mind, then when discussing the possible benefits of contributing to MMM, they would give alarming signals and would force many to heed the voice of common sense.”

"The armature of tradition in rational thought acts as a general mechanism to prevent consciousness from splitting." This conclusion is extremely important for us, because the splitting of consciousness has become a mass phenomenon. The splitting of consciousness (schizophrenia) can be caused artificially with the help of the media and various psychotechnologies.

A person with a split consciousness loses the ability to establish a connection between phenomena, cannot critically comprehend them. He "has no choice but to simply believe the conclusions of a pleasant announcer, an authoritative scientist, a popular poet."

Depriving the “main” in the world perception system, a person becomes absolutely suggestible. Based on the professor’s conclusions, let’s return to our old friend – Henry “Hank”

Chinaski. Remember, we talked about this individual, who, having not found the “main thing”, was in an atmosphere of “equivalence” of meanings? The prototype of Henry was the writer Charles Bukowski, author of the poem "Inability to be a man." In this poem, Christ and frozen yogurt were presented as equal values, equally worthless to the author.

Henry's philosophy shows that the "protective belt of symbols" was removed from his mind.

There was a "relativization of values". His thinking was not "reinforced with blocks of religious consciousness."

We have already said to you that a person in such a state of affairs can comprehend only the “momentary”. Now let's talk about another aspect of the problem.

The words of Mr. Charles are put into Henry's mouth: “I have always admired scoundrels, robbers, sons of bitches. I don't like clean-shaven boys with ties and decent jobs. I love desperate people, with broken jaws, a broken head and a broken life.

To understand the nature of this statement, one must be aware of the consequences of immersion in the "equivalence" of meanings. It would seem not to give preference to anything - this is the desired freedom.

Windy women and nimble men usually say this:

“We put freedom above all, therefore we do not bind ourselves with attachments. We live here today and there tomorrow.”

Ironically, lovers of freedom do find the treasure they longed for, only it smells like the unwashed linen of a wrinkled man who is waiting for death all alone. There are no children or grandchildren. There is nothing else to remember. In the memory of a person do not live the memories of that "genuine" and "eternal", which he, according to his strength, tried to serve during the days of earthly life. "What did I live for?" the man asks himself. And can not answer this question in the face of impending death. Horror splits the human personality. It is falling apart.

But this is all in old age, to which one still has to live. In youth, complete freedom, praised in various ways by lovers of talk, leads to unpleasant consequences.

“Hippies could not understand,” Danilin wrote, “that their “complete freedom”, enhanced by marijuana, mescaline and, means ... complete emptiness. Deciphering this statement, Danilin explains that "perception needs meaning as some kind of axis on which a person can string what he perceives." In the absence of such an axis, instilled opinions and images coming from outside will be "perceived as absolutely equal in their meaning." The choice will fall on that opinion and on that image that will act most intensively. This state can be called absolute suggestibility. “A person hears not what is important to him, but what sounds louder. He becomes unable to choose between things that matter to him and things that don't matter to him."

The image of which man has the greatest "emotional loudness"? Whose images attract the attention of Henry, who can only comprehend the "momentary"?

It is not surprising that images of such colorful characters as desperate people with a “broken head” attract his attention.

The image of which woman is most intense and "sounds louder"? What kind of women does Henry like? "I also like," he said, "downward women, swearing drunk bitches with their stockings down and painted faces."

These are the characteristics of a person who, when applying for a job, wrote the word “no” everywhere in the questionnaire. Including, in the columns "hobby" and "religion". His life credo is in the words: “I do not like laws, rules, religion and morality. I don't want to serve society."

It would seem that such a person is free. But really, no. Any, even the most destructive thought that enters his mind can be accepted by him as a guide to action.

A few puzzling questions about the motivation to cure people addicted to PAS.

How to jump over the problem of death?

In the worldview system of such a person, a psychoactive substance (PAS) is not evil. As Henry put it, “Being a drunkard is a special talent. It takes perseverance." Is it possible to challenge Henry's position and prove to him that he is doing bad things? Let's say someone took the risk to do this business. Henry is not stupid, and if he deigns to talk to his opponent at all, he will ask why he claims that drinking is bad.

The opponent says: “But you can't live like this. You must serve the community."

“I don't want to serve the community,” Henry replies.

“Every person should have a profession,” the teetotaler does not give up.

And Henry remarks philosophically on this: “In this world, everyone wants to do something. Some spit on it, but the rest are in a hurry to do something, to become someone: a glider pilot, a detective, a geneticist, a preacher, and so on. Sometimes I get tired of thinking about the things I didn't want to do, all the things I didn't want to be, places I didn't want to go.

… Save the whales… And all that… I don’t get it.”

For those who have not watched the movie "Drunk", we suggest that here the bartender comes to the rescue of Henry. "Best not to think about it," he says, pouring Henry a glass of firewater. “The trick is not to think about it.”

And Henry doesn't think. The need to have a profession is not obvious to him. And, we can assume that the value of human life - too. What will we offer him to motivate him to give up alcohol?

The question is not idle. And not only in the case of Henry, but many, many people. This issue is estimated at a huge number of human lives that can be saved in the event of motivation. And they may not be saved if it fails.

“Out of 100 drug addicts who come to us,” hegumen Anatoly (Berestov) reports, “no more than 40 people remain for rehabilitation. And this is not at all because of our poor work (we work better than 10 years ago), but because of the lack of motivation for healing against the backdrop of low spirituality.”

The creation of motivation is possible only on the foundation of some values ​​when the desire for some goal is awakened. But many young people lack goals and values. The desire to buy a summer house and a car is not yet a goal. A cottage and a car are not values ​​yet. Otherwise, a chipmunk should also be called a philosopher, who drags everything that gets in his way into his hole.

The formation of goals and values ​​depends on what a person chooses for the “main thing”. But today's youth has practically no “main” thing. He lives in an atmosphere of equivalence of meanings. And young people, in the words of Danilin, "are not able to feel the hierarchy of ideas and objects of this world."

When dealing with people of this mindset, we make one constant mistake. “If we are trying to teach or treat a “virtual” person, then we proceed from the fact that the main thing

- love for the family, conscience, or at least the desire to make a career - he has. But it's not. He seeks only to receive and consume.

On conscience, see the second part in the chapter “What is conscience? And how is its fading connected with the fading of the state?”

The psychology of people who use drugs is difficult to understand precisely due to the fact that they do not adhere to the values ​​​​established in society. Sharing his experience, narcologist Sergei Belogurov says that these people are "little interested in health, respect for others, peace and a clear conscience - if the above prevents them from getting drugs in quantities that satisfy them."

How to explain to a person that starting a family and working is good, but using drugs is bad? He doesn't feel sick. According to Danilin, he lives simply, well and cheerfully. And doctors, family members and friends are trying to persuade him to start a boring, from his point of view, life, that is, "study, work, think, create a family."

The difficulty of dialogue with an addicted person is reflected in the following anecdote. The collective farm was given a bonus, and the director of the collective farm gathered the people together to decide where to invest the money. “I propose to buy a seeder,” says the director. Moving along the path of labor mechanization, we will increase labor productivity. This means that we will be able to expand production and, as a result, increase profits. Who votes to buy the planter?”. The drug addict sitting in the last row gives a voice: “What the hell do we need her for?!” “Sure,” replies the director. We have a seeder. Then I suggest you buy a movie projector. After an active working day, we will show masterpieces of world cinema to the collective farm workers. This will promote the recreation of workers.

After a cultural rest, they will be able to work with greater efficiency. Well, and, as a result, their labor productivity will increase, which will lead to an increase in the profits of the collective farm. Who votes to buy a movie projector?” “What the hell do we need him for?!” – the drug addict groans again. “Okay, okay,” the director says. Let's hear from you, young man.

What are your suggestions? "Ah, let's buy a balloon!" says the addict.

“Original,” the director perked up. What is the purpose of the project? What is the plan for its implementation? "And we'll take it and burst." "Why?" the director was confused. “Why the hell do we need him?!” What idea and how to “ignite” a person? A dead end question for adults.

The trouble is that not all adults who pull a drug addict out of addiction themselves believe in what they are talking about and in what they are called to. If they do not have a sense of conviction in their own words, then they will not be able to ignite other people with their call.

How many adults sincerely believe that the family is a value? If so, where are the healthy families? Why are there so few? How many adults believe that an honest work of conscience is something to strive for?

Do adults understand what they are calling for? Do they themselves believe what they say? They will understand this if, with the utmost honesty, they try to answer the question: “So what?”

(The spelling of the question is borrowed from one photo from the Internet. Under it is written: “The argument that breaks all the evidence.” This invincible argument is the very question “So what?”).

With the utmost honesty, let a man put this question before every point of his life. Will the values ​​of his life stand such a test? But what if this question is taken up by a drug addicted teenager?

- You will have a family!

- Well, how "what"? You will find a job, you will benefit society!

If a person does not honestly answer these questions for himself, then it seems unlikely that he will be able to clearly explain something to someone.

The question "So what?" is a universal tool that can test the strength of anything. The question "So what?" practically omnipotent. He exposes the bottom in any system, he is looking for solid meaning. "And what?" - three letters, merging together, acquire a penetrating power with almost indestructible power. Filigree developed doctrines are rammed.

Let's start with the main thing, with the question of the meaning of life. For people who are addicted to PAS, this is an urgent issue. According to Viktor Frankl, 90% of alcoholics and 100% (!) of drug addicts show a loss of the meaning of existence.

So what do you live for?

Someone will answer: “Well, spend 20-30 years not bad, earn a lot of money.” But only the argument comes into force: “So what?” - how a person falls. No matter how he swaggers with his "goals" and "meanings", he will come to the line, beyond which everything is covered with grave decay.

One wealthy man began to think about changes in his life when he was faced with this question. He arranged chic birthday parties with sturgeon and dancers. But one day he thought. “Well, I arrange such holidays, and then what? What is the result?

Imagine: 24 hours a day, there is a person next to you who stares into your eyes and is silent. You wake up, and he looks into his eyes and is silent. You work, talk with friends, but you are constantly drilled into the eyes of a fiery stranger. His eyes silently ask you every moment: “So what? What's next?" And the worst part is that some people don't know what to say.

“The eye of death,” writes Ivan Ilyin, “looks simply and sternly; and not everything in life withstands her gaze. In the face of death, only that which is significant and sacred, only that “what is really worth living” can affirm itself in the face of death. And everything that is petty and false is lamented. The vulgar contents of life from the gaze of death flare up like sheets of paper. They "blacken, disintegrate and decay into ashes."

There is a childish joke about this. She's quite cruel, really. King Kong caught a man, put him in his palm and asked: “Well, so what?” “Yes, nothing,” the man replies. “Well, that's all!” exclaims King Kong, rubbing his palm against his palm in annoyance.

The joke is real. A man has earned a lot of money, he would live and be happy. An, no!

A tricky question sharpens him from the inside, to which he still cannot answer. Completely exhausted, the person says to himself: “Yes, nothing!” And he takes out a glass of vodka in order to, “filling his eyes”, disconnect from the “annoying interlocutor”.

And try to explain to him that drinking is bad. In the context of death, this statement loses its meaning. A person believes that in a few years he will be gone. And in case of refusal of alcohol, he will spend these years in the struggle. The first year will be especially hard. And why should he endure depression, fight, force himself? For family and children? Do you think he will listen? Understand, the person believed that he would not be. What difference does it make to him what will happen to his family and children! "Leave me alone! I have 10 years left to live!” - so exclaimed one man to the tearful requests of his wife to stop drinking.

Think about these words. Perhaps they have driven like a wedge into the heads of many members of the younger generation. Modern teenagers are extremely quick-thinking, among them there are many who are smart and quick-witted. Their mind is practical. To the proposals of partners, they immediately respond: “So what?” If the answer does not suit them, then they do not go to the deal.

The fatal question knits them themselves. It creeps in a quiet mist into consciousness. And, paralyzing the brain, he demands to find an antidote from himself. In search of an antidote, teenagers “scan” the reality around them with their inquisitive mind. And they don't find an answer.

This is how they begin to fall into the abyss.

Maybe the sight of the rapidly approaching earth will awaken in someone the instinct of self-preservation? And maybe someone will grow wings.

So the drug-addicted Sonya, the heroine of the film “Repeating Reality” (2010), walking along the railing of the dam, fell down into the seething abyss. Due to some extraordinary circumstances, she survived. And this is what she told her friends: “I already thought about suicide. But right before it happened, I suddenly wanted to live.”

It happens. Real life Olga Gavrilova, who repeatedly tried to quit drugs, tried everything: clinics, narcologists, psychotherapists, psychics. But everything was useless. “I knew,” she said, “that a drug addict lives for 5-7 years. My friends, girlfriends, acquaintances began to die. Almost everyone died, about 10 people. My friend Masha died. It shocked me. I got scared. I didn't want to die. I knew that getting out of drugs is a prison, it is death. Or a miracle. I started waiting for a miracle. At first very timidly, then desperately. I learned to ask: “Lord, help me, if You exist. I don't want to die, I don't want, I don't want to die! I can't live like this!" I repeated this cry to the Lord often, often, I was tormented, I was looking for a way out.

But it happens that the instinct of self-preservation does not “work”. The voice of instinct would drown out the tricky question "So what?" powerful slogan: "So it is necessary." Why is instinct silent? Could it be that the cold tentacles of meaninglessness had suffocated him?

The structure of thoughts of a person who sees nothing beyond the grave but total self-destruction was described by St. Justin (Popovich). On behalf of such a person, he exclaims: “What do I need progress for, what do I need all the endless torment and suffering that I endure on the accursed path from the cradle to the grave? Why do I need all my work, and joy, and duties, and love, and kindness, and culture, and civilization, if I die all without a trace? Everything that is called progress: and work, and duties, and love, and kindness, and culture, and civilization, all these false values ​​are vampires that suck my blood, suck, suck ... Damn them! Similarly, one asks oneself: Why should I be a decent citizen?

To die in a few decades? If death inevitably overtakes me, then why run from it? Moreover, this flight is often both painful and costly?

Why "pull the wave?" Wouldn't it be more logical to go towards death right away?

The result of such reflections was described two millennia ago by the holy Apostle Paul. The answer of people who believed in the invincibility of death sounds like this: “Let's eat and drink, because tomorrow we will die!” (1 Cor 15:32).

According to this scheme, one drug addicted young man lived. As a result of a serious study of economics, he trained in himself the ability to think logically. And reason with deadly frankness began to tell him that from the concept of the inexorability of death, the only logical conclusion is suicide. The young man chose the "softened option"

suicide - reckless burning of life in drugs and fights.

“If death is the end of man and mankind, then,” St. Justin writes on behalf of such people, “the best and most consistent step is to freeze in inertia full of despair and commit suicide.” It is noteworthy that upon hearing this saying, the young man nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened,” he said.

He managed to change the trajectory of his life path after mastering the worldview set out in the chapter “A Religious View on Substance Addiction (PSA). Why is it bad to take drugs?

How many “young men” out of a hundred learn this worldview? And how many remain with a materialistic approach to the problems of the universe?

This approach is highly inconsistent. On the one hand, a person is convinced that he is just an animal, from which, after death, a handful of rotting manure will remain. And on the other hand, some high impulses and sacrifices are required from him in the name of "world peace", in the name of family and society.

Remember these numbers: "In 90% of patients with alcoholism and 100% (!) Of drug addicts, a loss of the meaning of existence is revealed." And they try to explain to these people that they are ruining their own and other people's health, that they die prematurely, violate public order and do not benefit society.

Let's evaluate some of the arguments that drug and alcohol addicts are trying to call for life change. Consider these arguments from a secular, non-religious perspective. And in our assessments we will reach extreme limits.

Psalm 74 verse 4.

Alexander (Semenov-Tyan-Shansky), bishop. Orthodox catechism. M.: [Moscow Patriarchate], 1990. C. 21.

Anthony (Surozhsky), Met. Proceedings. M.: "Practice", 2002. S. 121.

Kremlin A. Original sin // Orthodox Theological Encyclopedia, edited by archbishop. Boris (Danilenko). 2nd edition. pp. 771–772.

Some thoughts on this topic are in the conversation of the same name Conversation “Through love to break out of isolation (part 1, part 2)”.

Some thoughts on this topic are in conversations united by the general title "Know your calling and follow it." Conversations: "Betrayal of calling", "Fragmentation of nature", "Inner hell", "Logos - the goal and path of life", "Focus on the main thing", etc.

"The Biblical Attitude to Alcohol". Brief synopsis of the discussion of the same name. Bible Debating Club, Montreal, Canada.

Anatoly (Berestov), ​​ig. Tobacco smoking, alcoholization and drug addiction // Return to life. Spiritual foundations of drug addiction, drug addiction and law.

Sergius (Starogorodsky), Patr. Retribution // Orthodox teaching about salvation.

Theophan the Recluse, St. Contemplation and reflection. From adj. Lives of St. Theophan and Services to him. M.: Rule of Faith, 2000. S. 460.

There. pp. 462–463.

See "Chapters on commandments and dogmas, threats and promises, - also - on thoughts, passions and virtues, - and also - on silence and prayer", chapter 34 in the fifth volume of the book "Philokalia".

Belogurov S.B. Why relapses happen // Popular about drugs and drug addiction.

From scratch. About those who stood at the edge. Ed. Holy Elisabeth Women's World. Minsk, 2003, p. 64.

Anatoly (Berestov), ​​ig. Orthodox programs for the rehabilitation of young people with addictive behavior // Comparative analysis of the Orthodox methods of rehabilitation and the program "12 steps".

John of Kronshadt, St. rights. My life in Christ. Repr. ed. 1893 St. Petersburg: Publishing house L.S. Yakovleva, 1994. Part 1. S. 43.

John (Shakhovskoy), archbishop. Apocalypse of petty sin.

Belogurov S.B. Who becomes a drug addict more often // Decree. op.

Kara-Murza S.G. Chapter 25 // Mind manipulation.

Belogurov S.B. What modern medicine can and cannot do // Decree. op.

Fallen Angel Mickey Rourke is 60.

Bukowski C. Inability to be human.

Danilin A.G. What is a "trip", or acute effects of action //. Hallucinogens, psychedelia and the addiction phenomenon. M.: CJSC Publishing House Tsentrpoligraf, 2001.

There. See Is there an addiction to?

There. See "Long-term effects of psychedelia".

There. See Hallucinogens in Human History.

There. See "One-dimensionality" and "virtuality.

There. See Epidemic of Mystical Anarchism.

There. See Uncertainty Throughout Human Life

Bukowski C. Decree. op.

Anatoly (Berestov), ​​ig. Intellectual and mnestic personality disorders // Return to life. Spiritual foundations of drug addiction, drug addiction and law.

Nikolaev V.N. From generation to generation. Documentary story. Spaso-Preobrazhensky Mgarsky Monastery. S. 100.

NOT. Markova is the head of the Center for Communication Research at the Institute of Socio-Economic Problems of Population of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a member of the coordinating council for the social stratum under the Chairman of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.

Hidden tempters or gear on the consumer (captured by information technology). M.: Publishing House of the Counseling Orthodox Center of St. rights.

John of Kronstadt, 2007. S. 254.

Danilin A.G. Unclear // Report at the seminar “The problem of marijuana:

obvious and obscure.

Tikhomirov L.A. Philosophy of History and Religion // Religio-Philosophical Foundations of History.

Danilin A.G. Decree op.

Vorobyov V., prot. The tragedy of religious education in Russia is approaching.

Kurbatov Yu. Capital of the family. How love changes the city.

Nikolaev V.N. Decree. op.

There. S. 135.

There. S. 139.

There. P.193.

There. S. 133.

Tikhomirov L.A. Philosophy of history and religion // Decree. op.

There. See "The Historical Development of the Basic Religious-Philosophical Ideas".

There. See "The Atheistic Embodiment of the Religious Ideal".

Nicholas of Serbia, St. Blessed is the Lord who awaits correction // Through the prison window. Messages to the Serbian people from the Dachau concentration camp.

From scratch. About those who stood at the edge. Minsk: St. Elisabeth Convent, 2013, pp. 79–80.

There. S. 94.

There. S. 97.

There. See "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom."

Tikhomirov L.A. Historical development of the main religious and philosophical ideas // Decree. op.

Nicholas of Serbia, St. The sun of truth is Christ // Decree. op.

There. See chapter 4, paragraph 3.

There. See chapter 23.

There. See chapter 10, paragraph 1.

There. See chapter 6, paragraph 1.

Bukowski C. Flint.

Danilin A.G. Is there a way to measure one's own ontological certainty? //. Hallucinogens, psychedelia and the addiction phenomenon.

Bukowski C. Flint.

Film "Drunk" (1987).

Bukowski C. Flint.

Film "Drunk" (1987).

Anatoly (Berestov), ​​ig. "Steps" and the truth about them // Comparative analysis of the Orthodox methods of rehabilitation and the program "12 steps".

Danilin A.G. One-dimensionality into virtuality //. Hallucinogens, psychedelia and the addiction phenomenon.

Belogurov S.B. Chapter 7 // Popular about drugs and drug addiction.

Danilin A.G. How does taking heroin change the psyche of a young person? // Heroin.

M., 2000. Anatoly (Berestov), ​​ig. Intellectual and mnestic personality disorders // Return to life. Spiritual foundations of drug addiction, drug addiction and law.

Ilyin I. About death. Letter one // Singing heart. The book of quiet contemplation.

Giant gorilla. character in many films.

Information and educational magazine №2. pp. 56–57.

Justin (Popocic), St. Progress in the mill of death // Philosophical abysses.

On August 21, on the day of memory of the Monks Zosima, Savvaty and Herman of Solovetsky, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia celebrated the Divine Liturgy on.

His Holiness was co-served by acting manager of the affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate, viceroy, head of the Administrative Secretariat of the Moscow Patriarchate, chairman, acting abbot of the Solovetsky Monastery, Archimandrite Methodius (Morozov), rector, monks of the monastery in holy orders, clerics and dioceses.

Among the guests of honor at the service were the Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation for Public Associations and Religious Organizations, Deputy Minister of Culture of the Russian Federation A.E. Busygin, Governor of the Arkhangelsk Region I.F. Mikhalchuk, head of the Primorsky district of the Arkhangelsk region Yu.I. Serdyuk, acting Head of Administration of the Municipal Formation "Rural Settlement Solovetskoe" N.S. Yakovleva, President of the Alexander Solzhenitsyn Russian Public Foundation N.D. Solzhenitsyn, members of the Board of Trustees for the revival of the Solovetsky Monastery and philanthropists.

After reading the Gospel, His Holiness Vladyka, dedicated to the spiritual feat of the Reverend Fathers.

During the Divine Liturgy, the Primate of the Russian Orthodox Church performed two ordinations of the inhabitants of the Solovetsky monastery. Hierodeacon Procopius (Pashchenko) was ordained a hieromonk, and Monk Markell (Kolesnikov) was ordained a hierodeacon.

After the Divine Liturgy, a prayer service was served at the shrine with the relics of the venerable founders of the Solovetsky Monastery.

Then acting the governor of the Solovetsky Monastery, Archimandrite Methodius addressed His Holiness with a welcoming speech. An icon of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Solovetsky, painted by the monks of the revived monastery, was presented to the Primate of the Russian Church as a gift.

Thanking those present for their joint prayer, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill addressed the brethren of the Solovetsky Monastery with a word of edification. The primate presented the monastery with the Iberian Icon of the Mother of God and asked the brethren to commemorate the monastery's archimandrite in prayer before this icon.

As a prayerful memory, all those who prayed at the Divine Liturgy received icons of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Solovetskys.

Press Service of the Moscow Patriarchy

On February 9, 2018, a meeting was held with Hieromonk of the Solovetsky Monastery Prokopy (Pashchenko). The speech of the guest of the University was devoted to the problem of spiritual burnout of people engaged in social service.

The meeting was held in the form of a tea party, which was attended by the confessor of the department, Archpriest Konstantin Strievsky, head of the department of social work Tatyana Valerievna Zaltsman, as well as students of all courses of the full-time department.

Father Prokopiy's speech was very rich and interesting. Basically, it was about the problem of burnout of people involved in social service. Burnout was considered as a spiritual state of a person who incorrectly places accents and calculates his strength. The topic of professional burnout in helping professions is closely related to personal development and the need to cultivate virtues.

Examples from life, patristic and secular literature were given on each topic. Father Procopius named books that are useful for students to read.

In gratitude, 3rd year students sang several songs, one of which was about Christian love.

Vorobyova Anastasia, 1st year student in social work.