Would you rather diabetes or lung cancer? What if it was complimented with doom scrolling, porn or gambling? Maybe you’d like to disappear into online tarot or horoscope readings?
These are the fabulous choices before us. Anything to grease the wheel of the daily grind. Lest you be ground to dust.
With the collective weight of daily life weighing upon us. Its the soft immersion into alcohol, the wild alertness of caffeine or the sharp focus of nicotine that blunt the edges of the relentless cog.
There is a feeling of living paycheque to paycheque, of just surviving until the weekend. The only thing keeping you from that oblivion are the small mercies of addiction. Pick your poison, its the only path to tomorrow. Each type of addiction is only a variation on a theme; coping and hoping mechanisms. A combination of dealing with right now and a star on the horizon. Would banning these small miracles help? Eliminating the coping mechanism, doesn’t eliminate the stress – the drive to partake in it.
Society surrounds people with poor choices and is then shocked when people choose poorly. Can you believe that guy is smoking? Yeah, it was his only option.
There is a hierarchy of hiatus. From their lofty heights, the pot smokers and vapers look down on those with a cigarette between their fingers. All of which spit upon the fat. At least the meth smokers have the decency to be thin.
The cruel reality is obesity is increasingly a proxy for poverty. Junk food is often the cheapest option in both time and money. Due to taxes on cigarettes and laws prohibiting regular use of drugs and alcohol, options are few.
The irony is they all search for the same thing: escape. They make the best choice available to them, for a little holiday from reality.
There is a push to demonise these behaviours but what are the alternatives?
If your answer is meditation, then spare me. You’re going to tell a plumber, stuck in a wall space, spiders caressing his neck, while poop slides gracefully down his forearm to just focus on his breath?
Or the customer service worker bearing the brunt of yet another clients misdirected anger, to be more mindful, think of the positives?….. Which are?
Though I enjoy the vestiges of a book or magazine. And have witnessed a person diligently reading whilst sitting in a DJ booth in a night club. In general how practical is it to whip out Great Expectations or Lord of the Rings at work? With the cost of not-living as it is, the slow strangulation of mortgage/rent payments. Or the feeling that everywhere, everyone wants a piece of you. There is only so much that Charles Dickens and J R Tolkien can do.
Alternative sources of stress reduction are needed. There is walking in nature, being in the presence of art and great architecture. Or listening to music, can help.
However these options aren’t available to most people, most of the time. Unlike the plethora of options for addiction, available at any time. Perhaps you could try driving very fast, taking objects at speed? Very effective, but annoyingly illegal and temporary.
As you can tell, I have many questions but no answers of substance. Until they can be found, perhaps toleration is called for?
I’m not suggesting turning a blind eye to children vaping nor am I championing a surprising come back of heroin use. But perhaps a reprieve from scorn and judgement. Neither of which help the addict, but only serve to make the scorner feel better.
The next time you see an obese person appreciating the exquisite crunchiness of a KFC bucket, the hyperactive gentleman from sales downing his third energy drink or an elderly office worker enjoying her umpteenth cigarette. Pause to consider what lead to that moment and let them be. Or at least let your tongue stay silent. For that person, its hope and a cope.
A rise in practical solutions are needed;
- subsidised low cost, real protein and veggie based breakfast and lunch at key transport hubs.
- nicotine gums and patches are subsidised by the Australian PBS, you will need a script.
- mandated green spaces and rooftops in commercial buildings, gardens in shopping centres and factories. Something that might uplift people, not glorified pool toys and fake grass.
Most of us are only one divorce, demotion or downturn away from falling into the entropy of stress – being torn to pieces by the wheel. Can you really begrudge those of us who throw out a life line? Who cast our eyes to a world beyond the grindstone? What is the alternative?
Date published: 23/08/2025
Writer: L Cannon