My High School Substance Abuse Class
When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I registered for a substance abuse class. At that time, I did not realize that alcohol abuse in truth was a sub division 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 individuals all over the world. I also learned a lot about alcohol rehabilitation and the various alcohol rehab clinics that are typically available to problem drinkers.
Some of the harmful results correlated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class without a doubt startled me. The ruined lives and countless problems experienced by most alcohol dependent individuals made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. In a word, I did not want to face the wreckage and ruination that alcohol dependent individuals almost always experience.
Let this sink in for a moment. What fifteen-year-old teenager 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 ingesting 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 problems before he or she becomes an adult?
What youth wants to go through alcohol withdrawal symptoms when he or she tries to quit drinking? Why would an individual 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 a young person want to sacrifice his or her education, employment, finances, and relationships for a life that focuses on abusive drinking?
These issues were so noteworthy that I talked about some of them in class throughout the school year. What was absolutely astonishing to me was the number of students who simply didn’t care about the negative consequences of hazardous drinking that I talked about. It was almost as if they couldn’t be troubled with reality and how these results can shatter their lives. For the first time in my life I started to understand something that my grandfather used to say to me all through my adolesence: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink.
