5 Ecstasy Pills at Once

Posted by Tony Bylsma on April 16, 2010 under How to Help a Drug Addict | Be the First to Comment

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.

I started by talking to the parents and the boy together. We spoke for about 30 minutes. We went over some ground rules, such as: What we say in counseling is confidential unless it is information that shows a threat to the health or immediate personal safety of some person.

Also, I am not there to convince the addict to do or not do anything. I am only attempting to convey truth about drugs and their effects. Any decisions on whether to use or not use drugs are for the addict to make. (Really, that is going to have to happen if drug addiction will ever be handled.)

Then we broke away and the parents left the living room so the boy and I could speak. We talked for a couple of hours and I was shocked a few times. I rarely get shocked anymore, but this kid did it. He told me that on the previous week-end, he had downed 5 ecstacy pills at once. He then dropped eight powerful ADHD pills. (Stimulants)

He said, “I guess  went a little overboard, didn’t I?”  I looked at him and asked how he’d felt afterward. “They had to help me get to the car and I passed out, but I was spazzing out the whole night.” We went over how close he’d been to a lethal dose of drugs, (5 ecstasy pills!), and he seemed impressed.

This kid is beyond a simple talk and as we didn’t have any empty beds in the facilities I normally refer to, I suggested a twelve-step program that has a good rep for dealing with youngsters and, very importantly, is a long-term detox rehab program that doesn’t just throw more drugs at the problem.

Not too unexpectedly, the kid went out partying a couple of weeks later and his parents are setting up the trip to rehab. But the truth is, this addicted teen is not going to ever come back 100%. There has been permanent damage to his nervous system. It is definitely possible to cure addiction in such a case, but undoing all the damage?

This is where the moral of the story should go, but quite honestly, the only thing I can get from this one is the vital importance of drug education and effective drug abuse prevention at an early age.

Tony Bylsma CCDC                                                                Detox Rehab