Category Archives: Alcohol and Other Drugs

With all of the recent youth deaths due to drugs and alcohol, the question of “What is the problem?” seems to be coming up a lot. Then, inevitably that question leads into the next question of, “What is the solution to this problem?” One of the things I have heard and read about in regarding our question of “What is the problem?”, is that it was just a bad batch of drugs, and that is the reason for the deaths. Their “Solution” is to tell people to be careful and not buy drugs for a while, or to have parents warn their sons and daughters. Another that I have heard is that people need to be more careful, and if they are going to do those kinds of things, they need to know what they are doing.. Is there even a solution to that problem?!

There are a lot of problems that are contributing factors to the base problem we have, not only as a community, but as a country. As a community our problems with the excessive access to alcohol that we allow to be provided. As for our country, the media plays a huge role in to way alcohol and drugs are portrayed, which contributes greatly to the base problem. Lastly the problem for both our country and community is the lack of education. The fact that alcohol is a drug too, and addiction is hereditary needs to be taught to our youth.

So I’m sure you are asking by now, “What IS the REAL problem?”. Our problem is not a bad batch of drugs, it is not our youth being naive, it is not the policies that we have on alcohol and drugs, and it is not the lack of education that we provide on alcohol and drugs. Although these are all contributors which NEED to be addressed, none of them are the REAL problem. When we get down to brass tacks, and the true core, the REAL problem lies in the addiction and dependence that some people in our community and country are consumed by. Because of an addiction, people are willing to put their lives at risk, naively trusting that whoever cooked these drugs knew what they were doing. Because of the lack of education on addictions and the hereditary factors of addictions, people with high risk for dependence choose to drink or do drugs, but some of this education is only good BEFORE someone starts to drink or do drugs. The true problem is the one in our laps right now… our addictions and dependence on drugs and alcohol.

Now that we know the REAL problem, the next question is, “What is our solution?” I believe that we need to find a way to reach out and help these people with their addictions. Although I do believe this is the answer, I also know that you can only help the people that WANT to get help, because everyone has their own path in life.

Some of the things we as a community and more specifically a campus can do, is provide ways for people that WANT help to get the support they need. There is already a group on campus called “Been There Done That”, which is a support group for students wanting to give sobriety a shot. This is a great resource for students, but we need to do more! Some campuses around the country are already doing some amazing things for their recovery communities on their campus, and I believe that our campus could really benefit from some of the same things, such as what Rutgers University is doing!

Here is a link to a recovery community that Rutgers University has established and is getting amazing results from!

Rutgers Recovery Housing

I think our campus as a whole needs to take a hard look at the REAL reasons for our REAL problems. We need to work together to address these issues with addictions and look for some solutions that work. If we try one solution, and it doesn’t work we need to try again, and then try again, because our issues with addictions will never go away, but we as a campus and community need to find ways to combat them!

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