Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your

The words of Kurt Cobain—“Drugs are a waste of time. They destroy your memory and your self-respect and everything that goes along with your self-esteem. They’re no good at all.”—are not the utterance of a moralist speaking from a lofty pulpit, but the cry of a wounded soul who knew their poison firsthand. These words fall heavy because they come not from theory, but from the battlefield of lived experience. Cobain, a voice of a generation, clothed in music both haunting and raw, understood the chains that drugs wrapped around the mind, and he warned us with a truth carved from his own pain.

To the ancients, the greatest treasures of man were not gold, nor jewels, but memory, self-respect, and esteem. For memory is the root of wisdom, self-respect the shield of dignity, and esteem the flame that gives courage to the heart. Yet drugs—false gods of fleeting ecstasy—steal these treasures silently, leaving behind an empty shell where once a soul stood tall. The high is brief, but the ruin it leaves is long. Thus Cobain’s lament is not only personal but universal: the path of drugs leads only to shadows, never to light.

History bears witness to this ruin. Consider the story of Billie Holiday, a voice as eternal as the night sky, who sang with a sorrow that pierced the soul. Her gift was celestial, yet drugs sank their claws into her life, draining her health, her freedom, and at last her very breath. Though she sang of strange fruit and dreams deferred, her own life was consumed by the false promise of relief found in narcotics. The world remembers her brilliance, but it also mourns the tragedy that drugs hastened. In her story, as in Cobain’s, the lesson is clear: these poisons devour not only the body, but the spirit.

Yet hear this: Cobain’s words are not merely a warning of destruction, but a plea for dignity. He points us toward the truth that true power lies not in escape but in endurance, not in false bliss but in the courage to face life unclouded. For though life brings pain, it also brings creation, love, and triumph. To waste it in the haze of drugs is to surrender the very chance to be fully alive, to rob oneself of the destiny written in one’s bones.

Beloved listener, remember: there is no greater wealth than your self-respect, no greater fortress than your memory. Guard them as you would guard sacred relics. If temptation whispers, do not mistake its song for freedom—it is the lullaby of chains. Stand tall, and let your strength be found not in substances that corrode, but in the clear light of discipline, art, friendship, and purpose.

What then should one do? Seek out paths that lift rather than destroy. Pour your longing into music, into work, into service. When sorrow comes, do not run to the bottle or the needle; run instead to the embrace of a friend, the stillness of prayer, the solace of nature. Fill your hours with pursuits that build rather than break. To turn from drugs is not merely to refuse destruction—it is to choose life, to affirm your worth, to declare that your soul deserves clarity and light.

So let the words of Cobain endure, not as the echo of a fallen star, but as a torch for those who walk after him. “They’re no good at all,” he said, and in those few words lies the wisdom of a life scarred and shortened. May we learn what he could not escape: that life, with all its pain and beauty, is too precious to waste. Live it fully, live it bravely, and guard your self-respect as the jewel of your existence.