My wife, Claudia, and I went on a hiking trip and visit to Antelope Canyon in northern Arizona. After our first night in Flagstaff, we discovered that one of the world’s leading classical guitarists, just back from a Carnegie Hall concert (and a few days before he was scheduled to offer a concert in our hometown of Tucson with $35 tickets), was performing for free on the Northern Arizona University campus. We went, sat in the fourth row, and marveled at the beauty of the performance; his strumming made his guitar seem like several instruments playing at once and his fingers danced on the fretboard.

Our spirits fell considerably the next morning when we started talking about a young man who had taken care of our technology needs for several years. He was an excellent classical guitarist. But he was an unhappy soul who had been addicted to opioids and eventually died a tragic death in a drug deal gone bad in Phoenix. As we talked about him, I started thinking about the causes of addiction.

I recalled the story of a friend I knew about 40 years ago who blew out his back playing basketball in San Francisco and was bedridden; even trying to minimize trips between his bedroom and the bathroom because of the intense pain. He was prescribed codeine. One pill did nothing. Next day, the doctor said, “take two.” The pain broke. Suddenly his back was fine, his mood soared, and he took off to cruise the streets of Chinatown. Never mind the pain relief. He loved the calm feelings of contentment from the codeine. He had been prescribed a bottle with 30 pills and started taking a pill a day for 12 straight days. He loved it and considered upping his dose. It was clearly his drug of choice. But on the 13th day, he started to think about things, looked ahead, and said to himself:

“I can’t keep doing this. It will become a problem. It will interfere with my life.”

This man had a romantic partner and a clear path to a successful career. He loved how he felt on codeine but understood the risk of addiction and started to spread out his consumption of the remaining pills. His supply lasted several months. He never developed a drug problem. No addiction.

That story reinforces my belief that one of the mechanisms for preventing addiction is to have joy in living and a meaningful life with purpose and established goals. Drugs feel good in the moment, but they can’t be the sole source of joy. And there needs to be something more important than immediate pleasure to counteract the desire, impulse, and urge to get high.

The same principal is equally true when individuals want to overcome drugs problems. They need to find other sources of pleasure and have something more important in mind for themselves to mitigate the desire for immediate gratification and to be willing to invest the enormous amount of effort required to overcome serious drug problems.

Sadly, many of the clients we serve in The Seven Challenges have very little optimism about their future. That’s one of the reasons it is so important that we talk about and emphasize the future in Seven Challenges sessions and journals. We ask our clients about their dreams, goals, and plans for the future. We try to inspire hope and optimism. We invite them to consider working on any issue that stands in the way of attaining success with their plans and goals for the future. This points to the importance of Challenge Six:

• Adolescent program: We thought about where we seemed to be headed, where we wanted to go, and what we wanted to accomplish.
• Adult program: Challenging yourself to look at where you are headed, where you would like to go, and what you would like to accomplish.

Our clients need hope, a sense of future, realistic goals, and a pathway to success. We need to believe in them. We can be an inspiration. We can be the ones who inspire hope, help them chart a positive course, teach them skills that facilitate success, and help them overcome drug problems.