Making Sense of …?

Well that’s a leading question. Increasingly I realize I do not have the answers I would like to for many questions. Sometimes I wonder if I ask too many questions. Maybe they don’t need to be asked?

Or maybe we have problems precisely because not enough of us did think about these things and arrive at questions that would help them understand the issues IF the questions were ASKED and ANSWERED!

I was with the teen addicts this past Wednesday. Five of them. One or two were missing the session. One was visibly in emotional trouble. Another was new to the group and comes from an amazing family of well educated, professional achievers. They think their son is falling off the earth. When we talked with him we thought he was amazingly calm and together. He is not falling off the planet but he is awkwardly unable to answer some key questions: why did you take up weed? What use pattern did you employ with weed? What triggers your use? And why do you ignore your parent’s plea to stop using weed? Are you planning on college? (Yes; he played football in high school and earned a scholarship at a Michigan university for football!). He realizes drug tests will keep him from both playing football and a college education so he knows he will stop using weed shortly. He is working up to it.

The other kids were of varying levels of awareness of their situation. One of the missing members of the group has major reality problems. He does not want someone telling him what to do; all we and his parents are telling him are suggestions that will work better for him. If he chooses to continue using heavy drugs he will lose the very future he thinks he is capable of. Maybe even his life will be lost to an over dose! When will he listen to us and trust the message? Maybe never?

Another resumed drug use and got caught in a drug test. His parents don’t know of his treachery in his agreement and trust with them; he worries he will have dashed the trust entirely. He is visibly scared and depressed. He kicks himself for being stupid. He is brilliant intellectually; emotionally he’s a kid yet. That’s the trouble, isn’t it?

And others around the circle had varying awareness of reality. The pulse taking shows such weak reports.

And we adults leave the group yet again wondering what good our work is with them. Before leaving one of the kids stated boldly – “We look forward to meeting with you each week; you are good and nice people. We can talk with you.”

That made us feel good to be sure. And we shared with them that we think of them often throughout the week wondering what we can do to help them. We are committed to helping them bridge their lives from drug treatment into adult life plans that will see them through thick and thin. But this help often bridges very little; sometimes a glimmer; sometimes a bold statement from one of the patients. We are encouraged to continue the work. Somehow leaving it behind is not an option. It would feel like failure. And we keep pushing that away!

What allure do drugs have with youth? Is it a play for independence from family? Is it a claim of self reliance? Or is it weakness of wanting to be accepted in a social group? We may lament the latter, but actually we all have bought homes, cars, clothes and doodads to impress others and be better than the Jones. I know we have done that. So do you. And so do the kids. They know and they act accordingly. So they do drugs.

Trouble with drugs is they cause runaway behavior with other drugs until they all become a way of life and denude the youth of their real independence.

I feel certain that our work with the teens is a metaphor for so much else that is happening in life and our social networks. AA is like this. Alcoholics who know better but still lose control from time to time to their disease and come back meekly to a group for more help.

Politicians, too, are addicted to their power and money and influence. They play games with other people’s lives and money saying it is good for us all! When obviously it is not! We are on to them but then we allow them to continue doing their charade play acting at governance.

Why else does the Illinois state legislature get away with no budget, restrict funding when tons of revenues are readily available? Because this is all for show. One political party controls the reactions of others and vice versa. And a businessman turned governor without a clue on how to govern. Business policy is not the same as public policy. Lives matter, Governor. Profits in government are not the issue. Maybe in business, but not in government. We have people to help and protect. What are you doing? Protecting whose money and taxes? Your own? Or other greedy business interests looking for more free lunches from the public trough?

Oh please. We have your number. We know what you are doing. And we are frankly sick of it.

So for the rest of us, let’s hold these clowns accountable and unseat them with people who do have talent and commitment to the common cause of the people of our state.

We worry about the teen addicts. Do you wonder why they have so little respect for their elders when all they do is turn on the TV and get an earful of nothingness and bad government?

Have we struck a nerve yet? Do we have cause and effect nailed down yet? Or is it more complicated than that. If so, why are we not working at fixing that?

So much to do. So much time wasting away. And future and opportunity and money and…

June 2, 2016