If you value good footing and traction, a slippery slope is not where you want to be. I recall at least a couple of times being near the edge of water and fighting feverishly to keep my footing and not fall into the water or fall down in slippery clay mud (and then into the water). In the end though, not a big deal – a little water, a little mud, a little embarrassing… it all washes off.

But, there is another slippery slope that is far worse and the stakes a much greater. That slippery slope is called medication. This applies to most medications for most conditions, but for today I’ll aim most specifically at pain medication. Prior to covid there was increasing talk about a different kind of pandemic, one with devastating effects and with no short term solutions – the opiod pandemic. Affecting millions and millions of people across North America, taking away purpose and love and often eventually life altogether, it was, and still is truly a pandemic. And nothing has changed.

So how does this happen? It goes something like this – people have an injury, new or old (and getting worse), they seek help from certain people and institutions, and due to preset prescribing regimens these people are bound to, they end up with an opiod drug often for relatively minor problems. Just this week I’ve heard 2 different stories about people being given opiods for minor problems. In wisdom one person decided not to take them and in the other story the person described years of torment that still lingers because they followed the wrong advice. And I have heard far too many of these stories.

I could describe what it looks like to become addicted to drugs like these, but it is so common now, most of you probably know someone’s story or have first hand experience.

Think you are isolated from the opiod’s and this has nothing to do with you or anyone you know… let’s talk diabetes. With type 2 diabetes, it is an even longer slippery slope – start when you are young by ingesting far more sugar (and even worse sweeteners like aspartame – which is now shown to be a significant player in diabetes), and combine that with the highly sedentary lifestyle of our youth these days (average preteen is 6+ hours on cell phone/day and average teen is 8+ hours/day), and what you have done is create the perfect circumstance for your sugar utilizing systems to fail.

Opiods and diabetes are a non factor in your life? Good! How about anti-depressants? 10 years ago conservative estimates showed that a third of our adult population were taking mind altering drugs. When you take drugs, there are slippery slopes all over the place!

Research shows nearly half of Canadian seniors average 13+ medications/day. And that research is over 15 years old. The same research done 5 years earlier showed it to 11 medications/day. Ie. it is even worse now!

So, who’s advice are you going to follow? I suggest you build a foundation on rock.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

CHANGE A LIFE, SAVE A LIFE – GIVE SOMEONE A COMPASSION CARD TODAY!