Awareness
Twice this week I have had kids start crying in class.
I’d been talking about how substance abuse affects those who love us.
I showed a clip out of “Basketball Diaries” where the mom is sitting on the floor calling the police, she has the phone in one hand and money for her addicted son in the other hand.
Torn apart.
If we can help people become aware of what they are doing to themselves and to others, particularly in the early stages of a developing addiction, we can often turn things around.
If we can help people get past stereotypes of what addiction looks like we can often help people change what they are thinking and that will generally allow them to change what they are doing. Getting past the stereotypes is the problem. If we have the standard image of someone who has lost everything then it becomes difficult to look at ourselves, if we haven’t lost everything, and recognize that a problem exists. It is really easy to say “its not that bad”.
I would really recommend using some of the screening tests to look at where you are at.
If you use alcohol try www.checkyourdrinking.net it gives a really good analyisis of where your drinking is at..
If you use a drug other than alcohol try this one
http://self-renewal.com/tests_drugs.htm
Be Careful out there.
