Since the Surgeon General first issued the warning on the sides of cigarette packages, the government, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and every medical doctor and health professional have been warning people about the dangers of smoking. Further, we have restricted or completely disallowed smoking in public buildings, buses, airplanes and dozens of other places, letting people know that even second-hand smoke is a danger. Apparently educating people is not the answer or if it is, we are educating them in the wrong manner. There is probably no one outside the tobacco industry that believes that smoking is not injurious to a person’s health. Further, almost everyone, if asked, would say that smoking is directly related to lung cancer and heart disease. Why then do people smoke? Or more importantly, why is the educational program a failure?
It may be that there are two plausible reasons. The first is that most people live by the “I am an exception” school of thought. They believe that somehow they will be lucky and that they will not get cancer or heart disease. They believe that serious diseases like that happen to “other people” and not to them. This is the same reason people go to Las Vegas or Atlantic City or play the state lottery. The odds are against them but they think they will be lucky and beat the odds. People need to realize that there are universal laws like “cause and effect” and “reap what you sow.” You cannot abuse your body in any way and not expect to reap the effects. They may not occur today or tomorrow but they will surely occur at some point. The effects may not be evident right away but they are there.
The second reason that people ignore their health is that they have the mistaken impression that medicine has or will inevitably have an answer to their problem so they abuse their bodies. If they overindulge in eating, they take an antacid. If they drink too much alcohol, they take an aspirin. If they over-exercise their muscles, they rub on an analgesic. If an organ or body part is sick, they have it cut out. Until people are educated that “remedies” are not equivalent to health, and though they may offer temporary relief they do not add to health, they will never obtain true health. In fact, like the problem they are treating, these “remedies” will actually detract from the highest potential level of health.
Some people use upper cervical care the same way. They abuse their bodies and no matter how often or how much we tell them to get checked, they ignore us and their care until they are hurting. Then they come in, some practically crawl into the office for help. Once the upper neck is corrected, the body often has the ability to heal itself although sometimes it does not, but either way our frustration is the same. How many times do we have to tell people before the message gets through to them? Upper cervical care is not a treatment for acute medical crises, nor is meant to be. It is not the way an upper cervical doctor practices. Upper cervical care is an approach to maintaining one’s well-being by removing interference at the the level of the upper neck (brainstem). Period. That is what we do. That is all we do. I suppose some people may simply never get that. No matter how many times we write it and/or say it. What else can we do?
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