ADDICTION NEEDS COMPASSION

by Jackie Klapak

Hi, everyone! Now that we’ve found ourselves in the deep dog-days of summer, I think it’s entirely appropriate to delve into a deep topic—a topic infinitely more important than last month’s ruminations of dieting and fake tanning.     

That topic is drug addiction. This is definitely one of those touchy subjects that everyone knows needs to be addressed, but no one ever really seems to address.     

Perhaps the topic of drugs and addiction is so fragile not only because of the very nature of the problems, but because the problems grow and spread like Bubonic Plague.     

Drugs have always been an issue—heck, Mozart was an addict, and that was in the 1700s—but it seems as if teens start experimenting earlier and earlier.       

I’ve dealt with drug addicts before—one being a close friend. From my experience, I’ve found that the worst part of it all wasn’t the fact that my friend who was like a sister to me became detached from the world, nor was it the fact that my once-gorgeous friend stopped caring about everything except when the next score would be. Although those aspects burned, nothing hurt as much as the incessant worry of what could happen to her or the realization that the drugs could take her life any day.     

I learned a whole lot about people that year, when the whole ordeal was going on. I developed a strong empathy for struggling drug addicts. Society labels them, crudely, as “low-lifes,” “junkies,” and “losers,” and although drug addicts engage in many activities that simply can’t be condoned, people can be cold and unfeeling. They don’t realize that these “junkies” once had normal, respectable lives.      

They don’t realize that even the most strung out abusers maybe once had nice families or enviable careers. The people who judge fail to realize that the drug users have bleeding remnants of once-proud souls and that the users are utter slaves to their addictions, locked away like prisoners in cells in a vicious cycle of buying, using, and barely surviving. No one chooses to be an addict or to throw his or her life in the sewer.     

 We must always keep in mind that something instigated it all, some unfortunate chain of events led up to each drug user’s personal experience.     

These people don’t need us to glare down upon them or to chastise them; they’ve already been to hell. Instead, they need our compassion, love, and encouragement.     

If you know someone who heavily uses, the best thing you can do is to be there for them through the ups and downs (literally), because there will be a lot of them.     

Aid the person in seeking professional help, and never take their actions personally. If you yourself are a user, please go to someone clean so they can help you try to turn your life around. Unless you’re dead, it’s never too late in the game to stop. (And obviously, it’s not too late if you’re currently reading this article.)    

Kids start these things younger and younger, but at whatever stage people you know (or you yourself) are at, whether they’re smoking pot, popping speed, snorting lines of coke, or shooting up... whether they’re twelve, thirty-five, or sixty-two... these people need help, and they deserve a new beginning.     

And if you’re someone who’s never tried any of the stuff, do yourself a favor and don’t touch it. When someone offers it, just run the other way... FAST!     

Remember that the term “addiction” isn’t indigenous to drugs. People can get “addicted” to anything: an activity, an idea, or even another person. No matter what the situation is, an addiction is never healthy.    

That friend of mine once said, “You can’t miss what you’ve never had.”   Makes sense, doesn’t it?  So just don’t start and you are well ahead of the game! 

THIS TEEN TURNS ON... 

On to a lighter topic, I listened to Compact Jazz: Stan Getz this month.  It was phenomenal.  Stan’s superior musicianship nearly floored me, and his improvisations and techniques performed on the saxophone exhibited much to be admired.    

This CD proved Stan Getz’s genius.  What I liked best was that every note dripped with raw emotion. Jazz developed back in the early Twentieth Century as a reaction—it was an outlet for emotion, which was quite different than the preceding styles of music that had strict “rules.” Jazz provided a stepping stone for all of the music we now know and love.     

For next month, I plan to listen to the Barenaked Ladies CD – Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits (1991-2001).  I’m not familiar with the group, though I’ve heard much about them. We’ll see how great their greatest hits are next time.      

While I have taken to trying to discover a new musical artist and album each month, and describing my thoughts about the music, I have found that it broadens my tastes and knowledge.      

That said, I would like to suggest that other teens likewise take a couple of hours a month and borrow a CD of an artist that is completely foreign to them –– something that they have never listened to –– and temporarily replace that well-worn copy of Green Day, Blink, 50 Cent or DMB that is residing in their CD player.         

If you borrow one from your parents or elder siblings, it will also open the lines of discussion between you the them.  

     Or experience culture shock while sampling a wide array of great music by listening one Sunday night from 6-9pm to the Midwest BEAT’s own Tom Lounges on his Night Rock radio show that airs on X-ROCK 103.9.    

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