What are You Maintaining?

​There is a phrase that I’ve been hearing, and thinking about a bit lately: Maintenance Drugs or Maintenance Medications). What does that mean exactly, and how does that concept apply to other spheres of life? 

Following is a definition for Maintenance Drugs: “Medications prescribed for chronic, long-term conditions that are taken on a recurring basis. Some conditions that may require maintenance drugs are: high cholesterol, diabetes, or high blood pressure. 

The use of these drugs has been normalized to the population by the drug industry through unrelenting advertising on television, in doctor’s offices, and on the internet. Many believe these drugs are an unavoidable part of every day life, and growing older. Health Care Professionals are often quick to prescribe these drugs, and make little attempt to get patients to make serious, required lifestyle changes in order to avoid taking these ‘drugs for life’.

Generally, people with high cholesterol EAT TOO MUCH FAT; people with diabetes EAT TOO MUCH SUGAR/CARBS/FAT; and people with high blood pressure are often SEDENTARY, OVERWEIGHT, AND OVER STRESSED. There are people who are predisposed to these illnesses, and therefore they must take these medications to stay alive, but the majority of these lifestyle illnesses are self-inflicted. That may sound harsh to some, but it is true.

These drugs suppress our body’s response to our unhealthy choices, and maintain our ability to be fat, sick, depressed, and stressed until the next major medical crisis occurs. It is 'bandaid' medicine with no thought of curing the under lying causes.

Prescription drugs can also be used to mask unhealthy mental conditions such as stress, depression, anxiety, and other untreated psychological conditions. These drugs suppress the way we are, and the way we really feel, so that we may continue to ‘kick the can’ down the road.

Prescribed drugs are not the only things we use to mask our problems, and unhealthy behaviors.  Illegal drugs, or misused pharmaceutical drugs, as well as alcohol are other devices we use to cover up our feeling, and problems, which allows us to avoid dealing with them, NOW.

​Ask yourself, what are the things that you are *maintaining* right now? 
* Maintaining Illness
* Maintaining Pain
* Maintaining Stress
* Maintaining Fear
* Maintaining Paralysis
* Maintaining Sadness

Maybe you are taking a lot of prescribed medications, maybe you are taking pills you shouldn’t be taking, or drinking a lot of alcohol to help you cope with the problems in your life. So, you find you are able to MAINTAIN for a while longer; perhaps a decade, a year, or maybe just another month until your body, and mind can no longer compensate.  There is no way to know for sure.

As you look at your maintenance existence; maybe you realize that you can do better; that you deserve to live better; that you were put on this Earth for something better, or you want something more for yourself.

The wonderful thing about our bodies is that they are always in healing mode, and always ready to return to health, if we take care of them. Everything can begin to change for the better tomorrow, today, or this very hour - it is as ever, your choice…
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***PEACE***