The Importance of an
Early Education on the
Dangers of Drugs
Teach your children about drug abuse and addiction early on.
That is the first line of defense against addiction. They will learn it from
somewhere, and you don’t want the TV babysitting when this lesson comes on. If
your kids are young, then they are still listening to the radio and watching
BET when you’re not around, at least. They are learning about drugs already.
The media isn’t your child’s parent; you are. Guide them
early about the dangers of addiction and abuse. If you don’t it’s becoming more
likely each day you’ll regret it. It may be uncomfortable but burying the child
before she is an adult is far more uncomfortable. That is the worst pain, I
imagine. I can see the pain lingering in the faces of parents who’ve lost a
child for whatever reason, but losing one to addiction leaves you, the protector, the role-model
wondering why you didn’t do more. I see it every day.
There is no handbook on raising a kid. There is no fault to
place on the parent, usually. It’s a disease with social and psychological
influence. That means any predisposition that may be already there, in the
child, can be offset by an executed plan of guidance. You can find ideas here and here.
A child being raised in a good family and a nice home isn’t
near enough. That’s exactly the youth that the dreaded, lethal overdose seems
to favor. I have watched many parents bury their kids, as young adults, due to
an overdose. I’ve been to the funerals. It's so twisted, this disease.
To share something personal I normally wouldn't, because I still am unable to get past this, is a close friend's death. In
another horrible drug death, one of my closest friends, Josh Kelsey, who was
too much for the world, left it while I looked on. His heart stopped while he
was lying on my lap and I was helpless. What can you do? I had no idea of
things that could have raised his odds. The ambulance arrived and got his heart
to beat, but in the short time his brain was without oxygen, he suffered
massive damage and could no longer even breathe on his own. He died on
11.01.2006, two weeks from his 23rd birthday.
It’s not a stretch to imagine most people in grips of
addiction have a similar story. People believe that they can manage these
addictive drugs. That belief is false and is known as denial. If you feed into
this belief to protect, show love & loyalty or can’t quite figure out why,
mainly because we take on denial to when defending an addict, then you are
enabling this person. You are facilitating a myriad of adverse consequences
that are coming into that loved one’s life, and your own.
You don’t want to have to deal with a full-blown addiction in
your child. It is complex, to say the least. It’s much easier to go ahead and
have that first conversation with little Billy Jr. and Mylie.
When we are young, we are confused. We are trying to balance
fitting in and being accepted with being who we really are, after we find out
who that is. Hell, I was confused until round about thirty-two. When a kid is
trying to fit in, especially a kid with social anxiety, or the opposite: narcissism,
she will do things that seem illogical. But, they are perfectly logical from
her point of view. You can probably remember when being a popular school kid
was paramount. If a kid is having trouble figuring out how to be popular, he
might look to the coolest guys he knows of for so help.
Lil Wayne is one of the coolest guys I know of, but I bet he
doesn’t even raise his kids to think that his entertainment façade is real.
Well, we don’t know all that when we are young. I can still remember this exact
situation. While struggling to be cool, I looked to the coolest guys I’d ever
heard of: Tupac Shakur and Kurt Cobain. No, I didn’t shoot myself or go get
caught in a drive by, yet. But I started doing what all the Rockstars’ and Rap
Phenom’s records talked about. Luckily, I couldn’t find hard drugs back then,
but I started smoking pot, which made my anxiety better or worse, depending on
the pot and my mood prior to. But, all in all, it didn’t do much of anything.
It was new and exciting. I felt like Tupac, damnit.
I think the music and my quest for validation had a huge
impact on my behavior. I don’t know if this is always true, but I do know that
human beings are programmable, especially young ones. I was easily influenced. This
led to an unimagined world of trouble for me in a few short months. But, it can
be worse yet. An inexperienced kid,
invincible and immortal still, will do some irrational things in the name of
popularity or validation. Add drugs into the mix and it could be, and is often disastrous.
Focused Life has three missions, along with using best
practices to bring a recovering addict safely home with all the tools and resources
to remain drug free. These missions are to carve out a place where recovering
individuals can go without the stigma and alienation they usually endure from
many parts of society, and have all of the opportunities they would had they
not suffered from addictive disorder. The second and third missions involve always
advocating in favor of the addicted and recovering as well as reaching out to
the suffering addict without limiting ourselves. Deeper in the missions (those
are the summaries), you’ll see that the best way we can think of to advocate
for addicts, reach out to them, give them opportunities, and so forth, is to
promote education so that they are never addicted in the first place.
Check out those links above, if you need ideas on how to
approach any age group, about the dangers of drugs.
Let’s hear some stories of how you parents have had success
with this. I’ve been hearing too many bad stories lately. Click below to
comment.
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