May 2008
An advertisement in the paper caught my eye. It showed a good-looking young woman sitting in front of an ivy-clad garden wall, one leg crossed demurely over the other, eating profiteroles from a plate balanced on her lap. She was advertising the blouse and skirt she was wearing.
OK, perhaps I do look at pictures of attractive blondes rather longer than my wife would consider proper. My eyes lingered on this picture for another reason, though. Surely you don't sit with your legs crossed if you are going to balance a plate of profiteroles on your lap. And wouldn't it be a good idea to protect that pretty skirt with a napkin? What was an expensive dining chair doing in a garden anyway? If that was ivy on the wall, how was it managing to sprout two white carnations?
You get the idea. What at first sight was a very natural picture of an appealing scene was in reality nothing of the sort. Once you looked at it critically, it was obvious the whole thing had been set up in a photographer's studio. The girl was pretty and so were her clothes. The rest was illusion.
I guess illegal drugs are like that. For those whose lives offer little, the promise of something that can take you out of yourself could seem very appealing. When you look more closely at the alluring prospect, however, there turns out to be a very different reality behind it.
Here in CHESS we have dealt with too many people whose very personalities have been marred by drug misuse. We need to do all we can to help those we meet to look below the surface of the offers made by those who simply want their money.