The Impact Of Drugs In “Sonny’s Blues”

Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” explores drug use and its impact on families. Addiction to heroin destroys artistic talent, relationships, and lives. Sonny is using drugs to escape a stressful, depressive and painful environment. Baldwin is not quick to judge Sonny’s addiction because he wants the reader to understand the devastating effects of substance abuse and how the brain can be involved.

While millions of people may be struggling with drug addiction, sending these people to prison isn’t a solution (Eagleman 203). Drug addiction is a brain issue. Therefore, it’s important to develop strategies to focus on brain operations to improve drug addicts’ ability to control their impulses.

Once addicted to drugs, it is hard to stop. Sonny describes being high on the drug when he says, “When she was singin’ before,” Sonny said, abruptly. “Her voice reminded m for a second of what heroin felt like sometimes, when it was in my veins.” It feels cool and warm at the same. (Baldwin 17.) Sonny is saying that you need courage to avoid trying heroin after tasting it.

In comparing heroin with shooting music, the person who has used heroin feels like they are in another universe. When someone uses heroine, they only think about the immediate feeling and not its long-term effects. Sonny was swept up in the now versus future battle, and he didn’t think about long-term drug effects. He was looking for excitement at the time.

Eagleman writes, “To the brain, the present is always the only thing that matters. The future can never be more than a shadow.” The power now is what explains people’s decisions, which feel good in the present but are bad for the future. People who take drugs or alcohol even when they know that they shouldn’t. Sonny’s heroin abuse was not about destroying his life or the relationship between him and his brother. The only thing he cared about at the time was feeling high. Therefore, the decision to use drugs is a perfect manifestation of now-versus-the-future battle in the brain.

The brain controls drug addiction. Therefore, impulse management is an effective strategy. Sonny, for example, exemplifies the power of impulse control by saying that “sometimes I feel like I won’t get out and will never leave, and at other times, I believe I’ll return straight away”. But I will tell you that I would rather blow up my brains to avoid going through this process again. Sonny compares drug addiction to a loud music, to demonstrate the power of the addiction and the impairment of the person’s ability think clearly.

Sonny’s experiences with drugs have taught him that overcoming addiction isn’t easy. Sonny says he would rather die than go back to jail because of his drug addiction. As he becomes aware of the dangers that drug abuse can bring, he begins to control his impulses and resists the temptation. Eagleman explains, “because drug addiction occurs in the mind, it is plausible that there are also solutions.”

It is important to learn to control your impulses if you want to stop using drugs forever. If you are tempted to relapse to drug use, consider the long term consequences.

Social interactions are also important for everyone because they help them feel like a part of the community. In “Sonny’s Blues”, for example, the narration emphasizes social relationships with the statement that “and they treated them as though he was his family while I wasn’t.” I was mad and he became mad and I said that he could just as easily be dead than live like he did (Baldwin, 13).

Sonny’s older brother doesn’t understand him, so he looks for other people who do. He feels that he and his brother are not related because the brother does nothing to appreciate his brother for who he is. Sonny’s younger brother is hurt because he doesn’t feel like Sonny considers him as a brother. Sonny’s family is very important because they allow him to do the things he enjoys. Families are not the same blood.

Ideal family members are those who give you love and a sense that you belong. Eagleman says that the brain controls socialization because “all this social glue” is produced by circuitry within the brain. These networks monitor people, communicate with others, feel their pain and judge their intentions.

Socialization has an impact on the feelings and emotions people experience. Social beings, like humans, are what makes us happy. A breakup in social relationships is also detrimental to the parties concerned because they feel inadequate.

It is important to understand that decisions are crucial in shaping an individual’s identity, and their perception of the world. In order to make a decision, you must weigh the pros and cons of different options. People must make decisions that will affect their future. Understanding how the mind works can help people make better decisions.

Drug addicts should not be sent to prison because that does not enhance their ability to regulate impulses. In rehabilitation programs, the focus should be on the brain’s functioning because it will allow drug addicts who are unable to control their impulses.

Bibliography

No, this is not correct. The two terms are not interchangeable. A “Works Cited” page is a list of the sources that a writer has used in their research and has cited in their paper. A “Bibliography” is a list of sources that a writer has used in their research, but it does not necessarily mean they were cited in the paper.

Baldwin, James. Sonny’s Blues. Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2009. Eagleman, David. The Brain: Your Story Vintage, 2015.