Drug Education From the Heart

Posted by Tony Bylsma on April 5, 2010 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education | Be the First to Comment

Drug education and drug detox are two sides of the same coin. We’re working to instill responsibility in the kids when we deliver drug education and prevention seminars. These will actually keep some of the kids off drugs, kids who might otherwise have done drugs. (Like I did)

But lest we be judged ourselves, let’s take a closer look at the reasons for our concern.

When talking to classes above the middle school age range, I often let them know that I became involved with the Narconon program originally because I was addicted myself.

I was in pretty bad shape and truthfully, didn’t even connect the problems I was having to the drugs I was taking.

A student asked me why I thought it was alright to go into classrooms and tell students not to smoke marijuana if I once smoked it. He said, “You used to smoke weed and now that you’re done with it you are trying to tell us not to do it. How is that fair?”

I acknowledged him by saying, “You are right. It isn’t very fair for me to tell you not to do what I did, and it does not really carry much weight for me to put myself up as a role model for youngsters to follow.”

That stopped him. He looked at me and just nodded kind of dully…”right…”

What I told him and his class was basically this:

When someone makes a mistake, and then learns from that mistake, they can often see what they did more clearly than someone who has never had any experience with that situation at all.

This does not mean a person must learn to stay out of traffic from a guy who was once hit by a truck. But it might be pretty believable to hear it from the dude in the wheelchair who did get hit. At least his message would have a certain ring of authenticity to it.

The information I purvey in schools is not data that was learned while smoking marijuana or using any drugs for that matter. The information I teach in schools comes from my education and experience as a counselor and from research done by many, many researchers in the field over the years.

I told him, truth is truth. If you could get truth from the drug dealer, his business would fail. If the people pushing drugs into society were really into getting the truth out there and enlightening their customers, they would have no customers.

“I, on the other hand, am not trying to sell you anything. I also offer you many sources of information, places to get the most recent facts about drug abuse and drug use and the effects of doing drugs on your body, your mind and your behavior. I promise to never say, ‘Don’t take drugs!’ In fact, the only thing I really want you to do is go out there and using truth, form your own opinions and make your own choices, using ALL the data and not just what you read on “www.SmokeItUp.com”.

I could see some comprehension enter the faces of a few of the more resistive students, and smiles from the ones who had actually been aware enough to be following along already. But what I did see in nearly every face was appreciation. They appreciated the opportunity to make their own choices about something important and do it themselves, with the blessing of adults.

Tony Bylsma CCDC Detox Rehab