What I Learned About Drug Abuse and Alcoholism in High School
When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I took a drug abuse class. At that age, I did not comprehend that alcohol abuse in truth was a sub classification of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse, I read a lot about Alcoholic Anonymous, their meetings, how their programs have twelve steps, and how successful the Alcoholics Anonymous recovery program has been for people throughout the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol rehabilitation and the different alcohol rehab clinics that are habitually available to individuals who engage in heavy drinking.
Some of the harmful consequences related to alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class certainly alarmed me. The ruined lives and countless difficulties experienced by most alcoholics made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. Stated differently, I did not want to face the damage and destruction that alcohol addicted individuals almost always go through.
Think about this for a moment. What fifteen-year-old individual wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What adolescent wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that drinking alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What young person wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related issues before he or she becomes twenty-one?
What young person wants to experience alcohol withdrawal symptoms when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would a person engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause difficulties in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after an individual has a career, a family, and develops personal responsibilities makes sense. But why would an adolescent want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that centers on excessive drinking?
These issues were so important that I talked about some of them in class during the school year. What was absolutely astonishing to me was the number of students who openly didn’t care about the detrimental consequences of excessive drinking that I talked about. It was almost as if they couldn’t care less about the truth and how these effects can destroy their lives. For the first time in my life I started to comprehend something that my grandfather used to articulate all through my adolesence: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.
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Tags: alcohol abuse, alcohol rehab, alcohol rehab clinics, alcohol treatment, alcohol withdrawal symptoms, alcoholic rehabilitation centers, alcoholism, drug abuse, substance abuse
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