I have been reading about how some well known celebrities ( one book with an introduction by Patrick Kennedy ) struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction -often both. Even the " atheists " among them insist that only a Higher Power could finally save them from a hellish abyss on this side of paradise.
ANY young person who has no higher purpose in life, finds no MEANING in it, is most certainly vulnerable to the drug-alcohol escape .
I blame both capitalism - which brands you useless when jobless- and a decline in the concept of TRANSCENDENCE in the United States since " The Death of God " was proclaimed on the cover of Time Magazine in that tumultuous year of 60s.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl explained in his classic " Man's Search for Meaning " ( which I first read in 1968 ) that a person can deal with any oppressive situation as long as he or she has a WHY to live.
Blood chilling Evil news might remind the more literate of Dostoevsky's insight : " If God does not exist then everything is permitted . Even murderous nihilism and suicide. Even a final NUCLEAR holocaust.
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