One subject I know about

I got taken to task the other day by a well meaning but misinformed mother. I had written WFTD about the subject of parents actively trying their best to ensure that their kids run around with good kids and don’t get tangled up in the wrong crowd. I warned that drinking and drugging is generally introduced to kids via other kids and peer pressure can be unbearable.

She wrote and gave me a bunch of liberal malarkey about how kids need to experiment and try some different things on their own. In the end she said they will turn out just fine and find their way. Those unique life experiences will help shape them to be, I suppose like her.

I told her that liberal crap might work on someone else, but it does not work on me. I have seen people die, LOTS OF EM! It ain’t pretty to see someone OD, or commit suicide, go inside a prison tier, or have a head-on collision under the influence; I’ve seen all of the foregoing.

I wrote about one such incident recently in my book. It was about my roommate, I’ll call him Ryan. He was sick and tired of life. Ryan was off the charts intelligent, but a hopeless drug addict. He got busted and unbeknownst to me the cops had him ratting out his friends, (including me), which made him feel very guilty and bad about himself. If that was not enough his girlfriend dumped him.

All day long Ryan had been taking all kinds of powerful tranquilizers, then speed, then whiskey, then more downers, then more uppers including meth. He was a mess and was not very coherent. He kept babbling on about how terrible his life was and how the world sucked. Ryan went in the other room and I did not hear from him for a while.

I went looking for him and the bathroom door was locked and I could hear him moaning inside. I tried to no avail to get him to unlock the door and then I decided to kick it down. I kicked it hard and tears came to my eyes as I jammed my knee and did nothing to the door. Next I decided I would ram it down with my shoulder. I bounced off that door like a basketball and nearly broke my shoulder.

Some other people were over and they tried to help. It looks so easy on TV, but let me pre-warn you, doors are not easily broken open. Finally I found a fire extinguisher and was able to knock a hole in the door. I got it open and when I did Ryan was on the floor in a massive pool of blood five feet in diameter and inch deep. His wrists were slashed hundreds of times with flesh hanging off them and he was moaning because he ate a half a box of rat poison.

You will have to read the book to determine what happened next, but I can tell you that Ryan had confided in me that he got started taking drugs and drinking by some punk kids in his neighborhood at the age of 12 or 13. (The same age I started).

Now maybe your perfect little teenager will never do such a thing, or if they do “experiment” a little, they will not have a problem and it will be just another of life’s grand experiences that will better suit them to face the world. And then again, just maybe you will outlive your kid and learn what it is like to make funeral arrangements for a mere child. No sane parent wants to outlive their kids, I guarantee it.

Do you want to bet your kid’s lives on it? No alcoholic or drug addict I ever met set being addicted as a goal for their life; it just happened, usually starting with drinking beer and then a “gateway” drug like pot, and then escalating to pills, coke, meth, or crack. It can happen to most anyone. I have seen intelligent kids from nice families as well as those urchins from broken homes that never had much of a chance anyway all end up on the street in the same shape. Addiction has no favorites.

Alcoholism and drug addiction is not pretty. Go on line and watch someone undergoing detox and screaming in pain, watch a television special about what it is like to be in prison, or visit the graveyard and then tell me about allowing your kids their freedom to experiment on their own.

No sir, sorry, but I cannot buy into this piece of new age fantasy. I KNOW different Be involved and know who your kids run with and take action if they are in with the wrong crowd. That is my advice

Proverbs 26:4
Do not answer a fool according
to his folly,
Lest you also be like him.