Let me clue you in on something: Your bias is showing, and while I'm sure it comes from a serious place of care, concern, and pain, it's offensively reductive.
As in I already hate your book for supposing substances used or abused is a problem. Life is a monumental series of problems and our species has adapted for thousands of years. Unless your book is 90% about alcohol then it's starting from a premise of Puritanism that will not sit well with probably a large swath of your intended audience. They will - and research will - shred it without mercy, and rightfully so.
How we treat our bodies and lives as individuals is incredibly diverse. I would submit switching out "drugs" with "Religion of Choice" and see how interested people are in joining your perspective.
I've been medicated by necessity for my entire life and not by my choice. I choose to identify any and all substances I take as medication now, and I will admit that I'd call my lifestyle inherently addicted to modern medicine. I would not be here without a wide swath of legal and stigmatized substances, from basic stuff like tobacco over the years, to more exotic compounds like designer steroids or other mind-bending, reality questioning opportunities throughout the years.
I guess what it really boils down to, in my case and - I don't want to infer here, but it's hard not to with my 20 plus years of adulthood - is that it's none of your business what I put into my body whether it's between me and a dealer or doctor, and I have a gut feeling Peter maybe felt a similar sense of privacy and shame.
You know, because people like to publicly shame drug addicts and throw them in jail in the US on the regular, and unless your book has a roadmap to fix this terrible misunderstanding of human nature and lack of compassion, well, it's part of the problem a lot of society refuses to recognize, accommodate, and adapt our lifestyles to understand and address. I think Ozzy Osbourne said it best: "Sobriety sucks"
You may have legitimate medical conditions that require treatment with drugs, but that is no reason to minimize the problems of drug addiction. It's a plague on society, and causes massive amounts of damage to not only the addicts themselves, but also their friends and families.
Sobriety sucked for Ozzy because he had heroin withdrawals. He was obviously not endorsing drug abuse, but empathizing with the struggle of overcoming addiction. Unhealthy people may say working out sucks, too, because it's hard. But in the long run it's rewarding. Sobriety should be celebrated.
As in I already hate your book for supposing substances used or abused is a problem. Life is a monumental series of problems and our species has adapted for thousands of years. Unless your book is 90% about alcohol then it's starting from a premise of Puritanism that will not sit well with probably a large swath of your intended audience. They will - and research will - shred it without mercy, and rightfully so.
How we treat our bodies and lives as individuals is incredibly diverse. I would submit switching out "drugs" with "Religion of Choice" and see how interested people are in joining your perspective.
I've been medicated by necessity for my entire life and not by my choice. I choose to identify any and all substances I take as medication now, and I will admit that I'd call my lifestyle inherently addicted to modern medicine. I would not be here without a wide swath of legal and stigmatized substances, from basic stuff like tobacco over the years, to more exotic compounds like designer steroids or other mind-bending, reality questioning opportunities throughout the years.
I guess what it really boils down to, in my case and - I don't want to infer here, but it's hard not to with my 20 plus years of adulthood - is that it's none of your business what I put into my body whether it's between me and a dealer or doctor, and I have a gut feeling Peter maybe felt a similar sense of privacy and shame.
You know, because people like to publicly shame drug addicts and throw them in jail in the US on the regular, and unless your book has a roadmap to fix this terrible misunderstanding of human nature and lack of compassion, well, it's part of the problem a lot of society refuses to recognize, accommodate, and adapt our lifestyles to understand and address. I think Ozzy Osbourne said it best: "Sobriety sucks"