Macklemore (Ben Haggerty), the rap singer, recently teamed up with President Barack Obama in the president’s weekly radio address. (Reported in The Seattle Times on15 May 2016.) The two discussed growing drug addiction in the U.S.

Drug addiction is no longer a disease mostly of the poor or of minorities. Some have criticized the country for a lack of concern about addiction when it was perceived as a problem for poor blacks. Regardless, addiction is a tragedy needing attention. It robs the victim of a meaningful life while robbing the country of gifts the addicted could give to society.

Macklemore, in noting the cost of addiction disease, speaks from experience. Though sober now, he has struggled with prescription drugs and alcohol.

Addiction is not a new problem—alcoholics have been around since drinks were fermented to preserve them. However, all sorts of new ways to inebriate oneself now exist. The emphasis on pleasure as our main goal in life has fed the search for self gratification.

We no longer raise our children to “amount to something”—to serve. We want them to be happy—surely a goal no one can consistently reach. No wonder we consider unhappiness as an intruder with no right to trespass on our psyches. We must end it with a pill or a drink or an injection—even if we threaten our own self-destruction.

Concerned with the needs of the physical self, we forget to strengthen the inner self.