Addictions

Is It Wrong For Women To Be Addicted To Sexually Explicit Romance Novels?

Romance Novel - Public DomainAbout a billion and a half dollars will be spent on romance novels in the United States this year.  These novels will outsell the categories of “sci-fi, mystery, and fantasy combined“, and they will account for more than half of all mass-market fiction paperbacks sold.  To say that they are popular would be a vast understatement.  Many of these novels are “clean”, innocent and even inspirational, but many others are extremely sexually explicit.  In America today, 64 percent of all Christian men and 15 percent of all Christian women admit that they have viewed pornography within the last month, and we correctly label this as a national moral crisis.  But are women that can’t get through a day without reading a sexually explicit romance novel that much different? (Read More...)

Philip Seymour Hoffman Is Just The Tip Of The Iceberg Of The Raging Heroin Abuse Epidemic In America

Philip_Seymour_Hoffman - Photo by Georges BiardAccording to the federal government, the number of heroin addicts in the United States has more than doubled since 2002.  Yes, you read that correctly.  In fact, it is being reported that heroin-related overdose deaths have risen 84 percent just since 2010.  The truth is that the recent death of Philip Seymour Hoffman is just the tip of the iceberg of the raging heroin abuse epidemic in America.  Heroin is cheap, it is potent, and it is very similar to the legal painkillers that millions of Americans are currently addicted to.  According to ABC News, Hoffman was found “with five empty heroin bags as well as many as 65 more bags that were still unused” when his body was discovered on Sunday in his New York apartment.  It is a great tragedy, but the reality is that tragedies like this are happening all across the United States every single day.  Heroin is the the number one killer of illegal drug users, and as heroin use continues to rise so will the number of dead bodies. (Read More...)

These Two Traps Are Absolutely Destroying The Next Generation Of Young Men In America

Have you ever noticed that our young girls seem to be far ahead of our young boys and that our young women seem to be much more “together” than our young men are?  Have you ever noticed how many young American men almost seem like zombies and find even the most basic human interactions extremely awkward?  Well, this didn’t happen by accident.  Researchers are finding that there are two traps in particular that are absolutely destroying the next generation of young men in America.  One is video game addiction and the other is pornography.  In the old days, the parks and ball fields of America would be flooded with young boys after school was done for the day, but now our parks and our ball fields are very quiet.  So where did all the boys go?  Well, they are all sitting at home staring into computer screens.  Yes, there are also young girls and young women that are addicted to these things, but the truth is that these addictions are far more prevalent among young men.  Unfortunately, it is not going to be easy to reverse the damage that is being done to the next generation of young men in America, and that is very frightening. (Read More...)

How Will History Remember You?

How are you going to spend your life?  When it is all said and done, how will history remember you?  Unfortunately, these days most people do not spend much time thinking about those kinds of questions.  Most people just kind of stumble through life without any clear direction or meaning.  Sadly, our society makes it far too easy to remain “comfortably numb” the vast majority of the time.  We are absolutely addicted to entertainment and there is more of it available today than ever before – television, movies, music, video games, sports events, food, gambling, shopping – the outlets for feeding our addictions are seemingly endless.  But do you really want to spend your life feeding your addictions and keeping yourself entertained as much as possible?  The following is a saying that has stayed with me my entire life: “Life is like a coin – you can spend it any way that you want, but you can only spend it once.”  If the fact that we are all hurtling through space on this giant rock is just some kind of cosmic accident and life really does not have any meaning, then yes it would make sense to fill up our lives with as much pleasure as possible before we die.  But if life really does have meaning and the things that we do today can have a permanent impact on the future, then perhaps many of us need to start thinking about what kind of legacy we are going to leave behind once we are gone. (Read More...)