Being Different

I was in a special group AA meeting the other day. This one reserved for young teens caught for underage drinking and drug use. Actually, the session uses the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting template but the kids are considered addicts, mostly to drugs rather than alcohol.

Of course alcohol can be considered a co-addictive substance, but underage use is still underage and both parents and the courts deal with it the same way. Rehab programs abound. The one I’m connected with is private but nonethesame its patients/clients are remanded to the program by parental decree or a judge’s decision.

Most of the youngsters do not view themselves as alcoholics, just social drinkers with connections to the drug scene. Some of these young people were apprehended as drug dealers, and not by a mere transaction or two. The other evening a 15 year old told me he had been using drugs since 11 and selling them soon after. He had built quite a business; his success had led to his arrest, and rehab as a minor.

Two of the patient clients realized their problem and asked their parents for help. That was a good decision. It led to a collaborative treatment program and successful sobriety from drugs and alcohol. These two young men got it. Now it is up to them and the program to imprint a lifestyle that avoids drugs and alcohol to keep them free. Even now they feel the freedom from addiction and that has them feeling good.

We older folk understand the ups and downs of life will challenge their serenity and sobriety will be threatened. A lifestyle routine will hopefully hold them steady. That is why the program encourages sober people to continue in the program for the rest of their life. Helping others become sober and remain so actually benefits the participant by keeping them sober as well.

We can only hope they work the program so the program works for them. Otherwise….

I had taken a long break from this teen program, several months in fact. Lately I’ve been invited back to fill in for adult leaders who were planning vacation breaks. I accepted the invitation and now they have asked me to remain as a regular. I think I will do this.

My absence from their program has been a missing element in my life. I am struck by the need of these young people to gain control over their lives. It is a responsibility thing, for them and for me. How can I turn my back on them when they are seeking help? And if I don’t do this how can I assume someone else will? That’s the crux of the volunteer challenge. Always!

I’d rather be a participant and know what is being done. Hopefully the work will make a difference in their lives. I know it will make a difference in mine.

At the last meeting there were three youth. Two were their voluntarily as I mentioned. The other was there because of consequences if he were not there. Incarceration in a youth detention center was the alternative. He chose freedom, living at home and commuting to the program. However, it was clear he was putting in his time and nothing more.

Occasional reddening of his face and neck proved to me we were getting through. Difficult personal work was going on in his mind. I’m hoping this will make a break through and he will come willingly to the task of rehabilitation. This is not his first time in such a program. Because of that his stay with us this time around may not work; on the other hand it just might work. It is the hope of the latter that fuels our work.

Just to be clear about the stakes, if a young person succumbs to addiction, his life will spin out of control. His health will be lost and death will beckon well before its normal time. Also, financial disaster, unemployment and trouble with social institutions and the judicial system are sure to follow. Altogether it is an expensive matter and represents a horrible waste of potential for our nation. Surely we want to avoid this, for his sake and ours.

In my mind I continually ask the question ‘why?’  Why have these young people been snagged into this pointless lifestyle?

The answers are many but I think focus on one prime point: developing from child to adult is a challenge to the fragile ego. Asserting one’s value as a person yet doubting it deeply, these young people grasp a crutch that envelopes them. The downward spiral soon appears. With hope we can rescue them so they can live a life of independence, sobriety and freedom.

Not a bad goal. We just have to be realistic and know that not all will make it.

Pity, that.

June 26, 2014