Friday Ramblings….
Three things
One:
I get quite a few of these but I thought I would share this from one of the kids I worked with awhile ago.
“5 years ago today I said I hated sober saturdays because they were boring.. Well today I have to say, I love being sober and not feeling the need to go out and party. Id rather stay in and hang out with my friends and family being sober, going out and doing other things that don’t involve alcohol and drugs. And of course hanging out my doggies.”
It is very interesting how entrenched the belief becomes that we can’t have fun, that life is boring unless we are chemically altered. People get stuck there very easily and it is almost incomprehensible to imagine life sober. That thinking makes it very difficult for people to approach recovery if a problem develops.
Two:
I had sent out an email to all the teachers awhile ago talking about enabling behaviors.
Many teachers will ignore signs of substance use issues with kids because they “don’t want them to get into trouble” The email must have worked because I have had a lot more teachers indicating that they have concerns and would I “have a chat” with their student.
I always am able to do that without involving the teacher and those discussions with the teens have helped either to realize there wasn’t a problem and the teen feels that someone actually cares about them, for the kids who were using it helped to start to address things.
Good work people!!
Three:
I was listening to a news piece this morning about medical marijuana in the workplace.
Unfortunately it wasn't titled "impaired at work".
Although if you look at the latest research on medical marijuana it is becoming increasingly clear that the vast majority of medicinal value in marijuana comes from the cannabinoid cannabidinol (CBD) which does not get you high.
So, theoretically marijuana at work could be acceptable. Again, unfortunately the majority of "medical" marijuana has high THC (which is an impairing drug) and very low levels of CBD.
I can't think of a lot of jobs where its ok to be impaired.
Be careful out there.
