America is a land full of drugged up people of all ages for just about anything.  Even without Obama care in effect yet for all people , anyone can walk into any emergency room in any hospital and walk out with some kind of drug for some ailment.  I grew up in a house with a father whose first remedy for any ailment was to “Shake it off! Get out there and exercise you will forget the pain.”  Even for depression, we were told to think about something else.  Now everyone is being bullied and taking all kinds of pills for depression.  Play the harmonica and be silly!  You won’t be that depressed anymore. Right Dad?

The Baseball World Series is approaching with one team contending with an undefeated record.  Even baseball greats like Alex Rodriguez have been plagued with a drug induced history.  Not a very good role model for the 8 year old kids working the gloves with his name on them. So you tell your depressed kid to work it off and get out there and play some baseball and he is thinking about the drugged out hero of baseball.  Can anyone get out of their rut these days?

I agree with the Sports Announcer Bryant Gumbel when he asks, What should we do with guys like Alex Rodriguez who lied about his performance enhancing drugs he was taking?  Should we embrace him? Pity him? Scorn him? We can easily understand any of those reactions because I think he is a liar and a fraud.

I don’t understand all the shock and outrage over his alleged drug abuse because frankly, this country is crazy about drugs.  Modern Americans reach for a drug for any and everything.  The problem is real and not imagined.  It is why we consume more pills than any other nation on earth.  It is why TV advertisements are relentlessly selling us Deralin, Abilify, Solaria, Enoxaparin and dozens of other drugs we never even guessed we supposedly even need.

The numbers don’t lie. Americans are only about 5% percent of the world’s population but yet we take 80% of the world’s supply of pain killers.  A whopping 90% of the world’s Vicodin.  We have 4 Million kids on Ritalin and 22 Million women on anti-depressants; perhaps  from having to deal with all those wild kids now on Ritalin. 30 Million adults are on sleeping pills, 32 Million on steroids, and another double digit amount of people on a drug you can’t even pronounce there are so many letters in the alphabet to describe it.

The mess goes on and on and on.  So, think whatever you want to about Alex Rodriguez.  With so many moms and dads as part of a national drug induced epidemic, how can we pass judgment on him?  Just because he is rich and famous and is supposed to be a role model for our kids?  Well, mom and dad should be a role model too.  The best and biggest role model and start by loving each other instead of divorcing each other.  Shake the hate off, think of what you used to love about each other that made you decide to make those impressionable depressed bullied kids committing suicide at age 12.

Lets stop crying about the ball players setting a poor example for our kids and get ourselves off of all those drugs too.  Just because it is advertised on TV doesn’t make the stuff any good for us.  Skip the expressions of shock and outrage over his actions.  Everyone cheats and tries to find the easiest way out to achieve things; it is just that most of us don’t get caught.  There is no denying that drug use is everywhere, even on the ball fields of supposedly regulated professional sports teams.