Life Stressors and Lack of Coping Strategies: Many men’s and women’s lives are filled with real or perceived stressors that appear to build up with no end in sight. Some individuals have difficulty tolerating stress due to never having learned adequate coping strategies. Even for individuals who have coping skills to rely upon, when experiencing numerous, uncontrollable stressors over a period of time, the sense that they have no ability to alter the occurrence of these stressful life circumstances leads to a state of helplessness. Some of these individuals begin taking amphetamines to escape from the world for a while, and upon discovering how better things appear to be and how much more tolerable stress seems, continue taking the substance until an addiction develops