Have you ever wondered what causes the rest of us to avoid using Meth? Imagine looking in at your life from the outside, as I look in at the life of the son of a dear friend.

He is a successful salesman with boundless energy and drive, has a nice home, an attractive wife, and just had his forth child. His first child was from a pervious marriage, and that's why the State took only the three kids living at home after they busted him. His three kids were put in foster care. That's harsh man.

His wife, the mother of their three youngest children, also does meth sometimes, maybe about half as often. She's a complete mess after losing her kids. Who can imagine what guilt this unhappy woman endures?

Maybe you can, because if you're using meth regularly I'm certain you can see similar situations developing in the lives of your friends, perhaps even in your own life. It begins with becoming paranoid, thinking that others are out to cause you harm in some way, then your life starts to fall apart.

That's how it started with the son of my friend. He came to her house shortly after Christmas, asked her to sit in his car so they could talk privately, then basically kidnapped her, wearing only her night gown and slippers in the freezing cold, and took her back to his house. Then he called her x-husband, his dad, demanding he come there so the three of them could talk. He came, they talked, the son yelled without making sense. He was incoherent. He asked my friend a question. As she answered he snapped aggressively, "What are you talking about?"

"You asked me a question and I answered it," she replied.

"No I didn't," he insisted.

The guy has gone crazy. Normally I am offended when I hear Child Services has interfered in someone's life by taking kids away from their parents, but the State absolutely needed to take those kids. Soon he'll be losing his job, house, car and wife, and he'll either die or go through hell to kick the addiction and start life over, friendless, from the bottom of the huge hole he is creating now.

Those of us on the outside see how meth messes with one's capacity to reason. It harms the physical brain by destroying the connections that help one think. Meth can cause you to forget what the truth is, cause other ideas to seem true which aren't, and a meth user sometimes can't tell the difference. Meth can make you crazy. If rotting teeth, rapidly aging skin and one's hair falling out weren't enough to prevent the rest of us from doing meth, losing one's sanity certainly is. Over the course of my life I have known about a dozen people who have done meth, and all but one became addicted and suffered as a result.

So that's how the rest of us see things, and we are wise enough to learn from the experience of others. Tens of millions of us have a genuine appreciation for the wonders that can sometimes accompany a drug induced high, but even if I imagine the meth high to be as glorious as I'm sure it must be, I'm not willing to trade my mind for a good high. I am not willing to give up being who I am. Other drugs are far safer. This one, heroin and a few others, are to be feared. It is insane to believe otherwise. That's why it's easy for the rest of us to stay away.

At 8:00 PM on Christmas Eve my friend received a call from the mother of the first child, the nine-year-old boy the State has yet to take away. This mother is also a meth user, and she called to ask my friend, who was watching the boy, if she would go out and buy him some gifts for Christmas because she had gotten him nothing. It didn't happen. They boy woke up at home the next morning to a sheet of paper, a note from Santa, saying he didn't get any presents because he had been a bad boy this year. He was a very bad boy, a brat from hell, but everyone knows why. When the families got together Christmas Day this young man went around showing everyone the note he got from Santa. It was heartbreaking.

These are all good people, with good souls, who deserve a better life, just like we all do. We've all got our challenges, and our list of stupid mistakes haunting our past. After more than 40 years the war on drugs has made it obvious that outlawing drugs will not prevent people from either using them wisely or abusing them terribly. Such decisions will always be a matter of choice. But when the truth is understood, the best choices become absolutely clear. Following the correct choice becomes an easy thing to do - because there is no other path worth following.