Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everyone. Thanks for listening to Wake Up, Look Up, a podcast where we connect events happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I'm Zach Weihrauch. And in today's episode, we're talking about a new addictive drug, and we're asking the question, are we paying attention? Now this is not prompted by an article that I read in the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or the Atlantic.

Actually, none of them have covered a growing phenomenon that exists around this product I'm getting ready to tell you about. But this is from an actual press release from the Food and Drug Administration, the government entity that exists to regulate the things we put in our body, whether because we're eating them or taking them in a medicinal way. And the FDA issued a warning, kind of, letting companies that make this product, know that they're on alert for a new product called kratom. Now kratom is sold in gas stations, convenience stores, those kinds of places as a kind of energy supplement. And it's used, quite honestly by a lot of people that are trying to either get out of opioid addiction or those who are looking to modify their pain without taking a prescription drug.

That's because it has a kind of dulling effect. It's a stimulant that can mask your pain. Taken in high doses, it actually functions a little more like a sedative. And the FDA is getting concerned on a growing level that it's habit forming. And the whole reason I went looking for some information to share on this podcast about kratom is that as a local church pastor, I am actually starting to hear more and more stories of people who are blowing up their lives with this product.

In fact, I talked recently to the director of a substance abuse recovery center who said this drug, this product is the number one problem that they are starting to see. Now kratom is used by an estimated one point seven million Americans to treat pain, anxiety, depression, and opioid withdrawal. It's being it's being sold as a product that provides benefit with no downside. But the problem is is that its active compounds are binding to the same brain receptors as opioids, mimicking their effect and also replicating the dependence that they tend to produce in people. So while you're taking a product you bought at the gas station that's telling you it can do many of the same things without any effect, you're actually just forming an attachment, a dependency, an addiction to a different substance.

And, of course, that's a problem for Christians because while the bible doesn't talk about kratom or opioids or modern medicinal realities because, of course, it was written, two thousand years ago, the bible does talk about not being controlled by anything under outside of the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Bible tells us in first Corinthians six, verses nineteen and twenty that our body is a temple. It belongs to God. Now listen, that passage gets taken out of context a lot. It it isn't intended to say that we can't get tattoos or that you can't eat a bacon cheeseburger, but it is tem it is it is written to remind us that we do belong to God and that the danger, of course, of submitting ourselves to anything that is habit forming is it takes a body that belongs to God and makes it a body that at least on a fundamental craving pragmatic level, really belongs to something else.

In this case, an addictive substance called kratom. It's also dangerous in this way is that anything we take to mask how we're feeling runs the risk of never having us deal with our feelings at all. In Proverbs fourteen twelve, we're warned that sometimes what looks like help can actually lead to destruction. If you're struggling with anxiety or depression, if you're unhappy in your life and your answer repeatedly is to go to the gas station and pick up an armful of kratom, you're not actually dealing with the problem. The bible calls you to a greater kind of vulnerability, a crying out to God, a turning to a brother or sister in Christ, and saying I'm not doing well.

And certainly, medicine in the right setting might be part of the answer, but it's never gonna be the only answer. Community, the development of a relationship and dependency on God need to also be part of the equation. First Peter five eight reminds us that God has called us to sober mindedness, to an alert state of vigilance. The truth is that anything that dulls your mind and creates a dependency dulls your craving for God. It dulls your sensitivity to the Holy Spirit.

And as a result, you walk around being led by something other than God, which, of course, isn't good for you in both the ways that it takes you places you don't wanna go and further away from God himself. The Bible tells us in Galatians five that we've been set free for freedom's sake, that God desires his people not to be enslaved to anyone or to anything. God has destined you for a life of freedom. So why would you give that freedom up for dependency on anything? Listen, if you are taking kratom, you need to hear, not me, you need to hear the FDA saying, you are stepping into a world you do not want to be in.

You should seek help. Call your local church. Reach out to a friend. If your kids are taking it, talk to them. If you don't think your kids are taking it, still talk to them.

Listen, this is a growing problem that's only gonna get worse if we don't bring it into the light and continue to challenge our fellow Christians to seek dependency only on God alone. This drug is a problem now. Let's start talking about it so that it isn't one tomorrow. Hey. Thanks for watching this episode of Wake Up, Look Up.

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Have an article you’d like Zach to discuss? Email us at wakeup@ccchapel.com!