LIAM’S PAIN: WHY DRUGS WILL RUIN US ALL
- Jan Writer
- Oct 17, 2024
- 4 min read
Death has a strange way of sneaking into the lives of those who don’t expect it, isn’t it? Liam Payne, a pop star, a public figure, a man reduced to a headline because he became another casualty of society's most insidious enemy: drugs.
The white powder, the shattered glass, the fall—it was almost poetic if it weren’t so utterly tragic. And now, we mourn yet another soul lost to drugs, another name added to a hall of shame that has claimed countless.
There’s something repulsive about drugs. It’s not just the deaths they cause—it’s what they do to the very essence of humanity.
Drugs break us down to the most primitive form of being: desire and destruction. They wrap themselves around the soul, not like a lover, but like a parasite—a slow, sensual suck of everything good, pure, and capable. The allure of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, all these little monsters in powdered or crystalline form, tap into our most vulnerable human flaw: the hunger for something more, something deeper, something that makes us forget our limitations.
Take the Opium Wars, for example. There’s a lesson in that mess, but not the kind history books like to tell. In the mid-19th century, the British—savage bastards—pushed opium onto the Chinese population, creating a mass addiction that quite literally shattered an empire. If you think Liam Payne's drug-infested fall from a hotel balcony is sad, think about what addiction did to the entirety of China. It was a full-blown societal disruption.
“The empire of China is not likely to perish,” Voltaire said, showing that even brilliant minds could miss the mark. And yet, the Age of Humiliation began, and it wasn’t just because China was militarily weaker than the West. It was because the core of its society, its people, had been hollowed out by drugs.
Drugs are the great equalizer. Rich, poor, white, black, Chinese, American, the famous, the forgotten—they ravage everyone the same.
Then there’s Duterte—Duterte, Duterte, Duterte. Love him, hate him, that man wasn’t wrong when he declared a war on drugs. You think he’s a tyrant? At least he had the balls to do something about the pandemic of addiction.
The West loves to criticize, calling his tactics “inhumane.” But isn’t drug addiction inhumane?
Duterte saw something the West couldn’t see through its fog of human rights rhetoric: that drugs are the enemy.
Duterte went after drugs like they were demons in need of exorcism, and know what? He wasn’t wrong. It's easy to dismiss him as a tyrant, but it's harder to face the truth that drugs were already killing Filipinos by the thousands before his war ever did.
And this war? This is about something bigger—something universal.
The war against drugs isn’t just a war for clean streets. It’s a war for the soul. And religions across the world have long understood this. Christianity calls the body a temple, and anything that defiles it is a sin against God. Paul writes in Corinthians, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit?" (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Drugs don’t just destroy the body—they ruin the soul, they desecrate that sacred temple.
Buddhism speaks of the Noble Eightfold Path, where right mindfulness and right concentration lead to enlightenment. In their very essence, drugs are a perversion of this idea. How can one ever hope to be mindful when their mind is chemically enslaved?
Buddhism teaches, “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” Drugs are the antithesis of this—they promise a fake, temporary happiness that ultimately pulls you further away from the path.
Islam, too, holds a strong stance against intoxicants. The Quran speaks of "khamr" (alcohol and intoxicants), and how they are an abomination of Satan's handiwork, leading to sin and punishment. Drugs are the modern-day “khamr,” pulling people away from God and deeper into sin. Even the Quran knew that there was something inherently evil about substances that clouded the mind, prevented rational thought, and led to ruin.
If religion isn’t your thing, then let’s talk science. The human brain is a fragile, beautiful thing—200 billion neurons firing in sync. They create everything you think. You feel. You experience. Drugs destroy that.
Cocaine? Hijacks the brain’s reward system, sends false signals of euphoria that degrade the brain’s ability to feel pleasure naturally. Meth? Burns through the brain’s dopamine like a wildfire, leaves behind a wasteland of depression and desperation. Heroin? Doesn’t just numb pain. IT BECOMES PAIN. A constant, gnawing need that never goes away.
Addiction isn’t just a choice. It’s a rewiring of the brain itself. Once someone is hooked, their brain doesn’t just want the drug—it needs it.
And that’s what makes drugs so fucking evil. They steal your free will.
Even Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch, the superman who creates his own values, falls apart when faced with the cold, hard truth of addiction. No one on meth is becoming an Übermensch anytime soon.
Liam Payne. A fallen star, crashing headfirst into the earth, into obscurity, and then into death. It was drugs, again, that did it. Not fame. Not depression. Not some existential crisis. Drugs. He couldn’t escape them. Now, he’s gone. Like so many before him and so many after.
His death a stark reminder that no one, not even the rich and famous, is immune.
When we talk about drugs, we’re not just talking about chemical substances. We’re talking about death. We’re talking about the decay of society. We’re talking about the collapse of empires. The ruin of souls. The death of stars. We’re talking about a war, not just in the streets, but in the very core of human existence.
And the war isn’t over.
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