What I Learned About Alcoholism and Drug Addiction in High School

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What I Learned About Alcoholism and Drug Addiction in High School

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

When I was in the tenth grade in high school, I took a drug abuse class. At that time, I did not understand that alcohol abuse in reality 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 all through the world. I also learned quite a bit about alcohol rehabilitation and the different alcohol rehab clinics that are typically available to individuals who engage in abusive drinking.

Injurious End Results That are Correlated With Alcohol Addiction and Alcohol Abuse

Some of the dangerous outcomes correlated with alcoholism and alcohol abuse that I learned about in this class absolutely frightened me. The ruined lives and abundant serious issues experienced by most alcohol addicted people made me feel like I never wanted to drink alcohol when I became old enough. Stated differently, I did not want to face the wreckage and destruction that alcohol dependent individuals almost always go through.

Think about this for a moment. What fifteen-year-old individual wants to face premature death due to his or her drinking behavior? What teenager wants to become so out-of-control regarding his or her drinking that ingesting alcohol becomes the object of one’s life? What teen wants to go to one of the local alcoholic rehabilitation centers to deal with alcohol-related issues before he or she becomes twenty-one?

What young person wants to encounter alcohol withdrawals when he or she tries to quit 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 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 revolves around excessive drinking?

These issues were so important that I talked about some of them in class throughout the school year. What was completely incredible to me was the number of students who simply didn’t care about the detrimental outcomes of hazardous drinking that I discussed. It was almost as if they couldn’t be bothered with the facts 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 younger years: you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.

It’s Liberating, Beneficial, and Important to Remove Yourself From the Debilitating and Unhealthy Effects of Drug and Alcohol Abuse

And even at my young age, I also began to realize how liberating, important, and beneficial it is in life to remove yourself from the unhealthy and debilitating outcomes of alcohol and drug abuse.

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