Substance Abuse Prevention Event Yesterday
I had a small event in Costa Mesa yesterday where I joined with 2 members of alcoholics anonymous, and we spoke to about 20 teenagers who are struggling with mental illness.
The other 2 speakers were quite excellent. Ricky (on the right side of the photo) has an incredible 5 years of sobriety! He has been through a multitude of struggles with drugs and alcohol (jail, loss of friends and family, etc) and come out on top due to hard work in the AA program. Brandon (in the middle of the photo) had been through similar struggles and now has 2 full years of sobriety.
Anyone who is considering getting sober should attend an AA meeting, because the people who have achieved long term sobriety have an incredible sense of happiness and joy. It’s contagious and makes everyone around them excited for sobriety. Ricky and Brandon, now in their early 30s, have experienced setback after setback, and are just now reaching some of the career milestones that most people would have met a decade earlier. Do they complain about being so far behind in life? No, of course not. They are grateful to be alive and sober, grateful to be out of jail, and they appreciate every day more than most of us who haven’t been through such tragedies.
My message to the teens remains the same as it always has been. There are huge upsides to avoiding these substances 100%. If you have family members who are addicts or a mental illness, then experimenting with drugs and alcohol is extremely risky. Life is amazing when you avoid drugs and alcohol. When you start experimenting, things get risky fast.
I discussed these 2 risk factors (family history of addiction, and mental illness) at length with the teens. Several of the teens did express that they have family members that are addicts.
The science on these risk factors has been clear for decades. Addiction is partially caused by a person’s genetics. If you have addict genetics, the only way you can be sure you won’t become an addict is to never start using.
More info here-
https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugfacts/genetics-epigenetics-addiction
https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/common-comorbidities-substance-use-disorders/part-1-connection-between-substance-use-disorders-mental-illness
