5.2.2 Substance Abuse


Because of a variety of feelings from inferiority to, many of the forgotten half will try to find an escape in drugs or alcohol.

Let me tell you another story about a grant that I directed for about three years. This is a grant that was designed to deal with drug prevention. The population that we decided to pick had to do with kids in the fifth and sixth grade whose older siblings had been in trouble with the law had had a substance abuse problem and had one parent or more with a substance abuse problem.

We had a three-year program in Chesapeake where we worked with the probation office to provide help for these little kids. We would go and tutor them in the schools, we would get ODU athletes to take them to games and we got local businesses to give them special attention and provide support for them. The program really worked.

So why did the program stop? The money ran out, and in general people are not very consistent in terms of seeing things through. Here was a population of kids who everyone agreed was at tremendous risk, and that the kind of support that they were getting really could potentially make a difference in their lives. Now we are not even following them anymore.

Now let's go back and look at substance abuse specifically. One of the real big problems here is that society itself sends mixed messages. When we put signs around schools saying "drug free zone" aren't we advertising the fact that our society isn't taking the laws about drugs seriously outside school limits? Also, many parents participate in things that we are trying to stop our kids from doing. Codependence also becomes a major factor in dealing with substance abuse. Codependence is where a person with a relative or a friend who is having a substance abuse problem often
supports their problem unconsciously or consciously instead of helping the cure. It makes you part of the problem. Teachers have to worry about not becoming codependent with their students in terms of propping up situations that really shouldn't be propped up. We need to have huge efforts in terms of prevention of substance abuse and those efforts are going to be costly.

What is a major factor in dealing with substance abuse? Define it.
Mr. Simon teaches government to an at-risk group of students in his assigned high school. Since he is also a coach for the basketball team, Mr. Simon is very popular among this group of students. One of them, Nick, has started acting verystrangely lately. He rarely comes to class, and when he is there, falls asleep or cannot concentrate. He also slurs his words constantly, and Mr. Simon knows that he has been drinking. Nick is also a player on the team that Mr. Simon coaches. How should Mr. Simon deal with this problem that he has noticed?