What I Learned About Alcohol and Drug Addiction in High School
When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I enrolled into a substance abuse class. At that age, I did not understand that alcohol abuse in truth was a sub category of drug abuse. While taking this class and learning more about drug and alcohol abuse and particularly about alcohol side effects, 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 a lot about alcohol treatment and the diverse alcohol rehab facilities that are regularly available to people who engage in abusive drinking.
Dangerous Outcomes That are Associated With Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse
Some of the damaging outcomes correlated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class undeniably startled me. The ruined lives and many serious issues experienced by most alcohol dependent people 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 damage and devastation that alcohol addicted individuals almost always go through.
Ponder upon this for a moment. What fifteen-year-old individual wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What young person wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that ingesting alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What adolescent wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related issues before he or she becomes an adult?
What youth wants to go through alcohol withdrawals when he or she tries to stop drinking? Why would an individual engage in drinking to such an extent that it would cause problems in every area of his or her life? Drinking later in life after a person 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 revolves around irresponsible drinking?
These issues were so important that I talked about some of them in class during the school year. What was totally astonishing to me was the number of students who basically didn’t care about the detrimental effects of abusive drinking that I talked about. It was almost as if they couldn’t be troubled with the truth and how these outcomes can shatter their lives. For the first time in my life I started to figure out a saying that my grandfather used to emphasize all through my teen and pre-teen years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
It’s Important, Beneficial, and Liberating to Remove Yourself From the Unhealthy and Destructive Results of Drug and Alcohol Abuse
And even at my young age, I also started to realize how liberating, beneficial, and important it is in life to keep yourself from the destructive and unhealthy end results of drug and alcohol abuse.
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