Posted by Tony Bylsma on September 16, 2011 under How to Help a Drug Addict | 
I had a sobering experience in a classroom this week. A young high school student came up to me and said her father was addicted to crystal meth and sometimes crack cocaine. What she told me was not easy to listen to but I knew it was true by her mannerisms and by her tears.
At 17, she’s the oldest of four children; the youngest is five. Her mother works two jobs and she herself works after school in order to help pay the rent and feed the family. No health care, no car, barely covering the basics in order to survive. Her mother insists she stay in school and graduate, I agreed wholeheartedly.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on March 13, 2011 under How to Help a Drug Addict |
Reason one: The Drug Abuser Is Now in a New Group
Who don’t drug addicts listen? Druggies tend to pay most attention to the thoughts and feelings of their drugged peer group. As a young (new) drug abuser works to fit into his or her new group, they are learning how to behave all over again. There are conflicts with the new beliefs and codes of conduct of the new group and the ways of the existing group, i.e. the family. What is expected of them in the new group is in complete opposition to the expectations of the existing group.
Some new drug users solve this dilemma by donning two personalities, one for the family and one for the druggie group. Keeping these two avatars separate can be a real juggling act, especially when it involves significant changes in appearance.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on March 2, 2011 under Drug Abuse Prevention Education |
The US Drug Enforcement Administration today exercised its emergency scheduling authority to control five psychoactive ingredients used to make Spice and K-2 and a variety of other “fake pot” products currently being sold in various areas of the country.
This changes existing statutes of these drugs to schedule 1 under the US Controlled Substances Act. Schedule 1 is the most restrictive level of control and is reserved for “substances with a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use for treatment in the United States and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision.”
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on April 22, 2010 under How to Help a Drug Addict |
I have spoken to so many people who need drug addiction treatment that I should be able to answer this question right off the top of my head.
But, while I have seen many hundreds of addicts coming in and receiving help, I have also seen and spoken to many thousands of others who needed to come to detox rehab but didn’t. The reasons they gave for not admitting themselves were so many and so varied that it is nearly impossible to nail one down as the most common, or the most valid.
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Posted by Tony Bylsma on April 16, 2010 under How to Help a Drug Addict |
I spoke to a kid this week at the request of his mother. He was a great looking boy and seemed alert and was definitely willing to speak to me.
His mother told me that he was out of control and had been busted at his school for possession of eight ecstasy pills. This was a kid on ecstasy.
If I hadn’t dealt with so many addicts, I would have had a hard time believing that this was an addicted teen. He had turned 15 years old the week-end before I arrived, and was alert and willing to talk to me.
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I had a sobering experience in a classroom this week. A young high school student came up to me and said her father was addicted to crystal meth and sometimes crack cocaine. What she told me was not easy to listen to but I knew it was true by her mannerisms and by her tears.
