Tackling Drugs So Kids Can Grow

For most of my life I have worked with children in many aspects
.
As a Catechist scripture teacher,as a soccer coach, a teacher of poetry
and as a Father of four children of my own .
My energy has been centred around the development of both mind and
spirit .

I strongly believe that by building up each persons character we will
have a better world and that's what keeps me going in what I do .

I know as a football coach there are always problems to work with .
Sometimes we win and sometimes we loose but we give it our best and
thats whats important .

Solving problesm is not always possible but working together as a team
I find is what really makes the difference .
Together we are one and together we get the job done .

Being a Catechist teacher is more than following guidelines in a
teachers manual .
It is about being a personal witness and leading by example rather than
teaching the text .In the end its hard to know if the message has sunk
in . I understand that we can only do so much and then God does the
rest .
That makes me happy .

There have always been issues that concern me with teaching poetry and
creative writing . Today children really need to express how they feel
and I have seen the medium of poetry provide a vehicle for that .
Creative writing and a healthy mind are the essence of good poetry
.

As a father there are many problems I have to face every day . Like
many other fathers and mothers we want to protect our kids and see they
get the best in life . We sometimes have to confront our fears before
we can defeat them . Parents today have more troubles and dangers to
face than ever before .My worst fear is drugs .

You know today we live in a world were hard drugs have become the
dictator behind most of the problems in society . Don't let anyone tell
you that this untrue . The fact that more young people are being buried
today from drug overdose than ever before is another sad fact behind
the spiralling destruction of our moral fabric in society .

For most of our young people the new synthetic form of narcotic mixed
with alcohol is a concoction I would call the death wish .
Drugs today have become easily available and are even offered free to
attract new customers into the market place .

I have met and spoken to many people who admitted in their past they
had used hash then LSD and progressed to other hallucinogenic drugs
called trips, dots, acid and then introduced to the man made narcotics
that have penetrated the and upset the chemical balance of their brain
. Its always when we realise that we are in trouble that we reach out
for help .
The reality of drug abuse is that it kills .
To tackle the problem we need to stop our kids from going down that one
way street . Life is too precious and our sanity must be protected
above all else .
Here are some comments you might be interested in reading from
people
Who were addicted to drugs but are now living free from their curse
.
I have the permission to write the following comments and I have
changed only their names for the purpose of their protection . Their
personal testimonies are true .
It is their wish and mine that someone might benefit from their
experience and by making these statements about drugs someone might
just stop using
them .

Fred -
I decided to use drugs and I realised it was up to me and nobody else
to get off them.

Mick -
At eighteen still living with my Mum and Dad I had kept my drug
addiction a secret . No one knew how bad I was except me . I am one of
the lucky few to go straight and if you are using drugs now take my
advice and get some help There is help out there .

Paul-
I was brought up a Catholic and went to church regularly . God was a
real person in my life and I feared nothing in life . I was introduced
to smoking marijuana and at first it made me feel happy . I could not
see that I was lead by an evil hand into a place of no return .
When at last I realised how evil drugs really were and how much I had
changed I started to think about getting off drugs .

Chris-
I was happily engaged to be married . I had a good job and played sport
every week .My future looked bright and I had the world at my feet .
Confident and in control was I .Then I made some new friends who
experimented with drugs . They told me how good it made them feel . I
didn't want to look like a wimp and so I started taking drugs to look
cool and that's really when my problems began . I broke off the
engagement with my girlfriend .
Then I lost my job . My personality changed and so did my circle of
friends . I had a new life a place that I now remember as being
somewhere in a nightmare existence where my life was a daily living
hell .
I ended up in a hospital and after ten years I was almost cured .
Up until a few years ago I was unable to talk to anybody about my
experiences . Now with group therapy I feel the emotional scars are
leaving .
There are some permanent I know will never heal and the sad thing I
guess is that there is no compensation for my drug related experience
.

Tim-
When a group of friends recently offered me some drugs at a party I
decided to try it . The feeling I had was so good that I wanted to have
it again .
At first I started using drugs once at the weekend then it became a
daily ritual for me . I soon discovered that the drugs I wanted were
hard to get or so I was told and then I was offered other heavier drugs
in their place .
After some time experimenting with the hallucinogenic inducing forms of
drugs I finally ended up injecting heroin . Daily drug use was now a
normal way of life for me and I was now living a life where nothing
made any sense . I was going insane and could do nothing about it . I
was admitted into a psyche centre and after a year came out in one
piece . For ten years I slowly recovered and now I feel my sanity has
returned to where it once was before I experimented with drugs all
those years ago .

Glen-
Started using hard narcotics and was enjoying the lifestyle .
As time went on I gradually lost my friends and family .
I lost weight and peace of mind .
I made some money because I started dealing in drugs .
When I lost my grip on reality I began therapy with a mental
institution
in Sydney . I had almost lost my life to drugs but thanks to some good
people who cared for me the effects from drugs have left me for good
.
I have returned to life again and hope other people will listen to my
story and never do what I did . Please keep off drugs .

Mack-
I first started using drugs when a work colleague offered them to me
.
One day he lit up a joint in his car and I went for it .
It wasn't long before I was hooked . I started making lots of contacts
and buying lots of drugs . I thought I was the man . I even tried
selling drugs to other people for a while . I made a lot of money for a
while and things were going along really well out there until the day I
nearly had an overdose .
Yea , that was the day I had shock treatment . After that I wanted off
the helter skelter roller ride and as so I went cold turkey alone
.
Suicidal I was eventually brought into a private Hospital . I was told
that I had received the last rites in my bed but for some reason I
survived .
Thank God I have bounced back to life.
I never knew I had so many relations and friends until I needed their
help .
I even discovered these new prayers and saints .Novenas to St Jude the
patron of hopeless cases and rosaries that were said with what I had
called their penitentiary indulgencies . God knows constant prayers
where being offered up on my behalf . I know they pulled me through
.

Robert-
With nothing much happening in my life I was bored and thought taking
drugs would make me popular . Sure thing I was in with the crowd for a
while and even had a new circle of people who hung out with me .
We did drugs most nights and I was cool . In the end I realised that
there was still nothing much happening in my life and wanted to stop
taking these drugs But nobody told me how hard it was going to be
.
I went through withdrawals and my crazy mind fell deep into depression
.
I had a heavy course of electric shock treatment (ECT) followed up with
a daily course of tranquillisers and sedatives . My mind had been
hijacked by prescribed drugs and I somehow had returned to a normal
life again where nothing much was happening nut that's ok .
I am trying to forget the person I once was .
That is the difficult thing at times .

John-
During the time I experimented with drugs I thought I was a God .
I imagined I was super human . I never once thought I was mad .
Eventually when I started knocking on peoples doors to do as God had
asked me to I was sent for some sessions with the local psychiatrist
who diagnosed me as being a chronic paranoiac schizophrenic and I was
sent into a mental Hospital for treatment . In fact I had become a
guinea pig for a new project called deep sleep therapy . I wasn't
actually told that there had been some deaths and suicides connected
with this new drug therapy .
When the hospital was closed down I was released into a hostile
society
Where a very fragile me found new means of coping with normal life
.
Hypnotherapy was a new method I found that helped me combat my
Stress and paranoia . The drugs that I had experimented with had
triggered a chemical reaction within my brain and I was unable cope
without medication
Of one kind or another . My psychosis was chronic and the diagnosis
from every doctor who I had seen was the same . The only thing they
could do was daily medication and weekly group therapy .
For thirteen years doctors had tried many different kinds of drugs on
me.
My weight had tripled during this time .
One day I looked in the mirror and came face to face with someone I
never wanted to see again . I was angry at what I had become but I
channelled this into a determination to defeat the effects of what
drugs had done to me .
I fell to my knees and asked for God to help me .
I began attending daily mass and praying very hard .
It suddenly came to me like a light through an old window .
As I knelt in prayer at the altar before a crucifix I said these words
,
God you created me . You know every hair on my head and have counted
every bone in my body . You know me and have carved my name in the palm
of your hand . Dear God you know my heart and my mind .
If you created me then it should be no problem to cure me . God help me
to recover . Heal my broken nerves . Cure my troubled mind . God I am
handing myself over to you completely. At that moment I could hear God
say ,
My son why did you not come to me before this . Of course I will heal
you .
From that day I never looked back .
I must tell you though I was so angry with myself because when I
thought of
All the time I had wasted going to Doctors, psychiatrists ,
Hypnotherapies , social workers, community councillors, group therapy
and all of the expense I went to getting prescribed medications that
may I add never once allowed me any solution other than sedation . In
all of the time I sought help from these sources not once did I allow
myself the simple thought of asking God
for help .
It was all so simple and yet I never saw it , and so the day
I asked for Gods help was the day I quit all prescribed drugs and gave
it over to God to have a go .
It was not an easy road however and many people have said that I should
have weaned off my medication slowly but with Gods help and in his good
time I have been able to win the battle . I am a new creation because
of him and every day I thank God for making me whole .
I have spoken to some charities and groups about my experience and I
tell everyone I owe a lot to God who pulled me through my nightmare
.
Not only do I have a new life but I have a stronger faith and want to
share all of that with other people . That's why I began to give talks
on how to beat drug addiction with faith alone I hope that by this
teaching other too may find the answer . All the Doctors and
psychiatrists who had once said I would never be able to have children
or to marry because of my psychosis and stress factor have squashed
their diagnoses of me . I have even had apologies from other doctors
who once called me an impossible case . So the truth of it is none of
them really knew how to deal with my problems and they resigned
themselves to doping me up or sedating me heavily .
Jesus my saviour took me into his hands and I was cured .
With faith and hope we can conquer anything .

These are the true stories of people I know .
I hope that their words may be able to help some person who may be
facing difficulties brought on by drugs in their life .

THE END

By Paul McCann