Stopping Drug Abuse in Your Home Through a Low-Cost Educational Drug Facts Program
Loving parents, grandparents, and other family members, friends: The road to drug addiction is fraught with unhappiness, failure, lack of motivation, damage to body and mind, and even to a life of crime, violence, personal misery, and irresponsibility.
And believe this when you read it: Your child is walking the fine line every day between a happy, fun-filled, responsible life and a life of drug-abuse and total misery.
You think your child is safe at school or at a social gathering while you are working hard to bring home the paycheck.
Would that were true, we'd have no problems.
But that is not the case.
Consider these sample facts about the damaging effects of drug abuse: Alcohol is a drug that uses up vitamins your body needs.
That's why you feel tired and sick and have a "hangover," after a night of drinking.
Another drug is ecstasy, which does serious, long-term damage to the nervous system.
The drug causes brain damage and even "holes" in the brain.
The damage is permanent unless treated.
Ecstasy is a hallucinogen that acts on the mind to cause people to see or feel things that aren't there.
Hallucinogens are among the most dangerous drugs out there.
They cause pictures in the mind to get mixed up, so that the users can't separate fact from reality.
This results in permanent feelings of sadness, fear, or other feelings that have nothing to do with the present-life of the user.
There is not enough space here to document the damages of such other drugs as cocaine, heroin, LSD, crystal meth, and PCP.
Suffice it to point out that more than 100,000 young people in the U.
S.
enter treatment programs for dependence on marijuana and other drugs each year.
And more than 2 million have a dependence problem.
It's human nature to think, "But my child would never do that.
After all, he or she has not been raised that way.
" Unfortunately, that is nowhere near the truth and really is denial.
Innocent parents and grandparents don't have a clue what to look for to determine if their loved one is using drugs.
They don't know that their child is, perhaps, finding new friends, or becoming withdrawn, depressed, hostile and almost violent.
Or the child is not studying as well as previously and has no core interests.
Realize also that the thought that "there's no drug problem in my small community.
" Believe it when you hear that the drug problem is present everywhere.
The greedy, self-serving druggies are pushing their damaging wares any place they feel will produce business and big profits.
They're ruthless.
But the real issue what can you do about it? How can you fit in an educational program that doesn't take a lot of work or a long time and doesn't cost a fortune.
It's easier than you think--and your effort will bring immediate results.
You can have drug-fact booklets in your home for your child to read or for you to use when you sit down with your child to go over the facts.
You can use such materials to role-play situations with your young and innocent child so that they are ready to say no when the druggie comes a-calling.
That's important--very important.
From the child's viewpoint, its usually better to place educational messages before him or her and let them read about it themselves rather than listen to a big lecture from mom or dad.
But the literature has to be there to be seen.
Unfortunately, most parents or grandparents "are fiddling while Rome burns.
" They're acting as though all is well and that drug abuse is not part of the lives of their children.
Then one day, they wake up to the reality that their child has been caught taking drugs.
By the time parents realize what is happening, it is often too late.
So it's important to arm yourself with the proper drug facts by having them handy whenever they are needed as reference material.
And believe this when you read it: Your child is walking the fine line every day between a happy, fun-filled, responsible life and a life of drug-abuse and total misery.
You think your child is safe at school or at a social gathering while you are working hard to bring home the paycheck.
Would that were true, we'd have no problems.
But that is not the case.
Consider these sample facts about the damaging effects of drug abuse: Alcohol is a drug that uses up vitamins your body needs.
That's why you feel tired and sick and have a "hangover," after a night of drinking.
Another drug is ecstasy, which does serious, long-term damage to the nervous system.
The drug causes brain damage and even "holes" in the brain.
The damage is permanent unless treated.
Ecstasy is a hallucinogen that acts on the mind to cause people to see or feel things that aren't there.
Hallucinogens are among the most dangerous drugs out there.
They cause pictures in the mind to get mixed up, so that the users can't separate fact from reality.
This results in permanent feelings of sadness, fear, or other feelings that have nothing to do with the present-life of the user.
There is not enough space here to document the damages of such other drugs as cocaine, heroin, LSD, crystal meth, and PCP.
Suffice it to point out that more than 100,000 young people in the U.
S.
enter treatment programs for dependence on marijuana and other drugs each year.
And more than 2 million have a dependence problem.
It's human nature to think, "But my child would never do that.
After all, he or she has not been raised that way.
" Unfortunately, that is nowhere near the truth and really is denial.
Innocent parents and grandparents don't have a clue what to look for to determine if their loved one is using drugs.
They don't know that their child is, perhaps, finding new friends, or becoming withdrawn, depressed, hostile and almost violent.
Or the child is not studying as well as previously and has no core interests.
Realize also that the thought that "there's no drug problem in my small community.
" Believe it when you hear that the drug problem is present everywhere.
The greedy, self-serving druggies are pushing their damaging wares any place they feel will produce business and big profits.
They're ruthless.
But the real issue what can you do about it? How can you fit in an educational program that doesn't take a lot of work or a long time and doesn't cost a fortune.
It's easier than you think--and your effort will bring immediate results.
You can have drug-fact booklets in your home for your child to read or for you to use when you sit down with your child to go over the facts.
You can use such materials to role-play situations with your young and innocent child so that they are ready to say no when the druggie comes a-calling.
That's important--very important.
From the child's viewpoint, its usually better to place educational messages before him or her and let them read about it themselves rather than listen to a big lecture from mom or dad.
But the literature has to be there to be seen.
Unfortunately, most parents or grandparents "are fiddling while Rome burns.
" They're acting as though all is well and that drug abuse is not part of the lives of their children.
Then one day, they wake up to the reality that their child has been caught taking drugs.
By the time parents realize what is happening, it is often too late.
So it's important to arm yourself with the proper drug facts by having them handy whenever they are needed as reference material.