In 2011, what wrongs (big or small) did you attempt to right? How did you help make the world a better place? Why did you do it?
So, here's the thing I don't talk much about: what, exactly, I do. Most of you know that I provide substance-abuse prevention. If you're anything like I still am, the phrase "substance abuse prevention" makes you think of lectures, directives, and scare tactics. The lectures made us curious, the directives made us rebellious, and the scare tactics made us mistrustful. That sort of prevention has been proven to be...not the most useful. In time, I expect it to be proven worse than useless.
I teach, I don't lecture. I issue no directives of any sort. Instead of using scare tactics, I talk about my own experiences to highlight the concerns of adolescent substance abuse. As prevention specialists, we focus in on their brain development as the thing that needs protecting above all else. We know now that a brain exposed to addictive substances before it's fully matured (somewhere in the mid-20s) is multiple times more vulnerable to addiction than a brain that remains unexposed until maturity. Genetic predisposition remains the chief risk factor for addiction; age of first use is a close second. We teach these factors, so that kids will have an accurate method of assessing risks and determining which risks they'll take.
This is the wrong I attempt to right: our children are woefully misinformed about the true risks of alcohol and other drug use in their youth. No, not every teenager who has a beer every now and then is going to wind up in rehab; not every teenager who smokes a bowl is going to wind up the pothead I was at 22. But we have to gauge the risk by looking from the other direction, too: nearly every addict I've ever treated, ever known, began using drugs in adolescence. The exceptions to this rule are nearly statistically insignificant.
We talk about how that happens. I describe the process of becoming addicted from multiple perspectives: psychological, neurochemical, sociological. I have a series of discussions with the kids - relying heavily on their input, their opinions and questions. At the end of the week, I hope I've guided them to - if not a new understanding, then at least a new ability to ask the right questions.
We have done our children a disservice by normalizing teen substance abuse. By providing accurate information, by illustrating that information with my experiences, by putting a human face on addiction and personalizing the disease, I'm helping to put that sad disservice to rights.
...Okay, "disservice" is not fair. What we know about brain development, what we know about addiction, and what we know about the true addictive potential of certain drugs (I'm looking at you, THC) is extremely recent information. The best research is decades old, and the history of human substance use predates the written record; we've got an uphill struggle if the goal is to change what it means to be a teenager who uses a drug. That's an educational process that takes place at the generational level: we educate this generation better, they educate their kids better, and so on. It's a big job, but I'm doing my part.
If I can get one kid every week to look askance at what she's been told, the rumors she believes, I've done my job. Someday, I'll go into greater depth about how the social norms perspective aids our educational process; for now, I'll just say that sending teenagers out into the world with a better idea of how to cope with it is my job, and I know that makes the world a better place.
What I do is complicated, on more than one level - I'm a substance abuse prevention specialist who never says "Don't do drugs." I leave it to the kids to make their own decisions, but only after I'm comfortable that they're dedicated to making an informed decision and understand how important the decision is.
Why I do it is not complicated at all. For one, I wish someone had been there to do the same for me. I don't know that it would have stopped me from drinking, but I believe I would have recognized the signs of addiction far earlier than I did. (Since, y'know, I didn't recognize them until I was already in rehab.) Second, I've seen the ravages of addiction on too many lives - my own, in some ways, least of all. I believe with my whole heart that the best place to start trying to mitigate that damage is in the perceptions of children who have yet to consume an addictive substance.
I could write about my job every day for a week and not fully explain what I do and what it means to me. The privilege is often overwhelming; the responsibility never is.
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