You Can Have a Beautiful Life but Isolation Will Not Take You There

BRAIN IN CRISIS

One of the painfully sobering thoughts in the addiction world is that many people start experimenting with alcohol and drugs early. It is a known fact that using the powerful drugs that exist today has a devastating impact on the brains of young people. Most people do not understand or realize that the human brain is not fully developed until around age 25, here is a non-technical explanation of this. Coupled with what we know about how drugs “Hijack” the brain, see “Inside the Brain of My Addicted Loved One” to learn more about this, we can understand why addiction is eating our kids alive.

THE EARLIER WE START THE BETTER

After I began understanding Lauren’s journey to addiction, I realized that we have to help kids very early in life to cope with the severe stresses and pressures in life. A common response to this idea is “Suck it up, I did just fine”. You may have done fine, but you did not live in a world as they do, and if you did drugs, you did not use the super drugs, including pot, that exist today. Everyone is different.

ONE WAY WE CAN DO THAT

I am excited to say that in my community we recently, in partnership with our town’s LPC (Local Prevention Counsel) and the school system we present a forum for 9^th graders to inform young people and educate parents about the dangers of alcohol and drug use. It was a great presentation, I believe it helped families and young people.

The forum consisted of a variety of groups, A Police officer, the Chief of Medicine from a local hospital, a Psychologist, A mother helping her son navigate a long-term addiction, and two young people in long-term successful recovery, they both started using drugs at fourteen years old. For this post, I have included the video portion of the mom and two young people sharing their stories, its 20 minutes long but very informative. When it is available I will share the entire forum.

THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE BUT NOT EASY

The words and terms we heard over and over during the forum are: “Cooperation”, “Without judgment”, “Work with them”, “Isolated”, “Lost connections”, “Dropping more and more”.

In the simplest of terms, it can all be summed up in the “word “CONNECTION”. The problem is both the addicted person and the person loving them run from it. One for fear, the other for pain, or maybe both.

A MINDSET SHIFT

My daughter “LaLa”, (Laurens’s favorite nickname), once asked me to watch a video called “Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong” by Johann Hari. She also asked if I would read his book, “Chasing the Scream”. The last night I spoke with her I told her I was grateful for her asking me to watch the video and read the book. It helped me understand more the battle of people, like my daughter, who as she once said “Are caught up in this crap”. Another book I would recommend from Hari is called “Lost Connections”.

Perhaps you can not watch the video now but please invest the time. I think you will find these stories powerful and helpful.

This week’s featured image is by Brooke Shaden called “Beautiful Life”. Wherever you are today your life can be beautiful but isolation will not bring you there.