Think of a world where substance abuse controls every aspect of a person's humanity. This type of society is shown in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. It is difficult to imagine a world completely different from the one we know. One who is inhuman. Every person in this new society is conditioned to have their life revolve around the miracle drug "soma". Lenina Crowne is a main character who displays substance abuse in this novel. Bernard Marx is the novel's protagonist and is romantically involved with Lenina throughout the story until the two take a trip to Malpais, the wilderness, where Lenina meets John. John is the son of a Linda left behind during her journey into that wild land many years before. She became pregnant and then her father abandoned her and she was left in Malpais. Lenina is infatuated with John because he is very handsome, and begins to pursue him but soon finds that he is unable to handle new world things such as using soma. Using soma to cope with all the upset. He says it is like “a Christianity without tears” (238). Whenever something unpleasant happens, the controller says, "there's always soma to give you a vacation from the facts" (237-8). In our society, anyone can tell you that life is hard and that bad things will happen. The reason people turn to drugs, alcohol, and in this case, soma abuse is because many people want to take the easy way out instead of dealing with their problems. This contributes to the loss of humanity because it eliminates the ability to feel bad feelings. Part of being human is having emotions and this miracle drug eliminates the problems that many people learn from throughout their lives. Humans make mistakes but then use the situation and memory to learn, think for themselves, and change their actions the next time a critical situation arises.