The teenage years are years of growth and exploration finding one’s self and qualities. Venturing out into the world; experiencing new things, and engaging in new activities.
The world is filled with joyful adventures and yes, also filled with demons from the dark side. Teens are faced with choices on a daily basis. They do not make bad choices, but they make choices out of lack of experience and lack of education.
Most young people don’t set out in their early years to be drug addicts or alcoholics. I sure know when I was growing up I didn’t want to be either of those kinds of people. Somewhere along the path though, out of all those experiments as I liked to call them, I found myself caged and chained to a heavy and tormenting burden. It was the imprisonment of my very existence to a powerful force called “addiction” to heavy drugs and alcohol.
Ninety-five per cent of all teens are subjected to drug and alcohol before they are seniors in high school. The peer pressures can sometimes be overwhelming, not wanting to be the outcast or being alienated from certain groups.
For most youth partying is a way of life, waiting for Friday and spring/summer break to enjoy the sun and carefree life that teenage years offer. But when does the fun stop? When is the line crossed when fun becomes addiction? When the demons take hold. You catch yourself slipping into darkness deeper and deeper, when you realize everything is gone. Everybody you used to hang out with is gone, and it’s just you and the demons.
It’s not about the popularity anymore or about who has the coolest car, or who has the hottest date. Now every thought and action is consumed by the focus on your next fix. Feelings of low self-worth and hopelessness, depression, anger, frustration take over every cell of your body.
When nothing else matters and no one seems to understand, just know there are many people suffering from this self-destructive one-way street to the golden gates.
I’m 25 and I have been on this one-way road. As a community we can educate and bring awareness of the dangers that hide in the lie about getting high to youth and also adults.
Together we can fight these demons that lie silent and dormant in all of us waiting for an unfortunate event to occur, to unleash its destructive and life wrecking power.
Tibor Bencsik
Nelson