The pull of pills. . .

As I was talking with a parishioner about their health, the individual mentioned the difficulty had in trying to manage all their medications.  Mind you, we were here talking about prescriptions and not over the counter drugs.  In the end, the individual was taking some 26 different pills every day and some of those multiple times a day.  I am no doctor nor am I a pharmacist and I certainly am not in a position to challenge their medical advice.  What I am noting, however, is the pill train that many of us, especially senior citizens, are on.  On the other hand, my father was on no prescription medicines until his death and had only every been hospitalized once and that to replace both knees at age 80.  Along the same lines, I visit a 97 year old homebound retired nurse who takes no medications and lives on her own with visits from her daughter.  So where do you fit on this spectrum?  More or less?

We have come to expect to be on medication.  We tend to be disappointed if we go to the doctor and do not get a pill as a result of that visit.  We have been pushed into everything from vaccines to preventive meds that promise a great deal.  I am not sure they deliver.  What they have done, however, is to make us reliant on the pills and meds we take and incentivized the pill train.  On top of this, they have greatly maximized the power and influence of big pharma.  The evidence of this is on TV and the endless drug commercials by the big pharmaceutical companies who know that the pill train is making them big money.  Our question ought to be is it really helping us out and delivering on its promises?

In contraception this is even more true.  Believe it or not, the world of medicine and big pharma is worried that younger women are starting to look at the down side of the pill and choosing other forms of contraception.  Their fear, of course, is that this is the tip of the iceberg.  Indeed, the pill has been one of the most effective ad campaigns of the modern era and the beginning of what, for many, has been a life-long ride on the pill train. 

Speaking personally, I grew up being resistant to the idea that every pain means a trip to the doctor and the pharmacy.  When I married a nurse, I learned to trust and invest more in the medical industry.  At some point, however, both of us became concerned about power of big pharma and the one way street of more and more medications.  It was not cost related.  Our insurance is pretty good.  But it was exacerbated by the pandemic when the rush to a new vaccine became a stampede started by a combination of government, medicine, and big pharma.  I would not be honest if I did not admit that our trust in medical personnel and institutions has been shaken.  We are even now working to remove as many regular or occasional meds as we can and, believe it or not, some doctors are beginning to agree.  

The pull of pills is not simply the Bermuda Triangle of physicians, pharmaceuticals, and providers in medicine for profit.  It is our own inherent weakness.  We abhor pain and we refuse to practice any sort of self-denial.  We reject that any suffering must or ought to be endured.  We self-medicate with a host of things -- including some of what passes for religion -- in our pursuit of an easier, safer, painless life (and death).  Add onto this the idea that physician assisted or medically enabled death should be the painless and cost-free option available to any who desire it and you begin to see what I mean.  The investiture of the medical establishment with the power of God is a spiritual problem as much as it is a physical one.  We are in search of something sin has destroyed and, as a culture, we refuse to invest faith with any of the answers we desire.  We have turned Christianity into a means of accomplishing your wish list instead of an encounter with a holy and merciful God.  We look at the cross as if it were merely a symbol and we reject any call to discipleship that might mean we must bear one as well.  No, the pull of pills is marked by our push away from anything that costs us something in pursuit of an insular life.  The problem with this is that it does not lead to happiness or contentment.  In fact, it leads to even more despair, more pills, and more treatment of symptoms while the causes of our angst are ignored.

The pull of pills is a consequence of the transformation of the Christian gospel and worship into some form of therapeutic deism without doctrine or form and certainly without room for pain or suffering.  While some contemplate what sort of life this might be, I fear that it is the exact outcome of a religion in which doing what seems right in your own eyes is not only sanctioned but heralded.