April 17, 2008
Real Quote: Binge drinking can lead to violence, unprotected sex and not only car accidents but also falls and other serious physical mishaps.
From The Herald, Life Captured Every Day: A recent survey of seventh-, ninth- and 11th-graders in the Rock Hill school district produced some specific numbers. For example, by 11th grade, 62 percent of those surveyed said they had consumed alcohol. More than 35 percent of participants in all three grades said they have ridden in a car with someone who had been drinking. Read the rest of this editorial.
Real Question: Why drink? Why smoke weed? Why raid mom and dad’s RX to get high? One recent report said that teens are no longer drinking or using drugs to get high. They are using to oblivion (numbing pain, using to excess, taking risks no matter the consequences). What do you think?
Real Quote: Prescription drugs are the second-most used drugs among teens, behind marijuana. Teens are doing stimulants, barbiturates and painkillers. Many don’t realize how highly addictive and dangerous some of these pills can be — OxyContin in particular. All Things Considered, NPR Investigative Report
Real Quote: “I was sick as a dog and I was in bed and I couldn’t believe it. I was actually scared,” recalls 17-year-old Ryan, a high school senior from Tewksbury, Mass. Ryan, who asked that NPR use only his first name, is enrolled at a drug-treatment clinic at Children’s Hospital in Boston. He says he first tried OxyContin at a party when he was 16.
“There’s always someone who has it,” he says. “There’s kids selling it. I know alone, like, 10 kids selling it themselves.”
But just a week after he started using OxyContin, Ryan realized that if he didn’t get a pill every day or two, he’d start to feel sick. So he kept using it. He says he had no idea how bad he was hooked until the next time he tried to stop.
Looking back on it, Ryan says he didn’t think using OxyContin would be that dangerous because it was a prescription pill — that made it seem safe. Many different kids at his high school were playing around with it, he says: “People from every sort of group — the burnouts, athletic kids, the geniuses and, like, girls playing wicked-good softball offered scholarships to places — they would be using it.”
Real Question: Drinking is a non-option for me. I look back generations and I can see a long line of carnage from addiction in my family tree. It takes people way too early. It hurts the kids. It’s a cycle that just keeps kicking.
Just yesterday I received an e-mail from a girl who used to be in my church’s youth group. Her mom is an addict, in and out of rehab for most of this teen’s life. And yet the link she gave me to her MySpace is totally all about drinking, smoking weed, getting high. It’s like she’s looking in a distorted mirror, unable to see that one day her kids will experience what she did.
We are talking. I’m praying. I love this girl, and God loves her more. She needs people who aren’t afraid to tell the truth, who love her, who won’t give up. But at some point only she can make the move. To be aware that there are some things that can take you down, and either seek help or do what it takes to stay away from it.
Real Links: Teen Challenge USA - links to local Teen Challenge Centers
