I can remember as though it were yesterday. I was sitting in my fifth grade class when my teacher introduced the police officer who would be doing the DARE program with our class. He said many things that did not stick with me, but there was one thing he said that did. When he started telling us that about five of us in the whole class would end up using drugs I felt like laughing at him. How could that be possible? No one I knew would ever grow up to do drugs, we were all too smart…or so I thought.
Today I often think back to that day when the police officer was telling us those kinds of statistics involving people in my fifth grade class. I never in a million years thought he would be right, and he wasn’t. Unfortunately, a lot more people ended up trying drugs than he predicted. Although I have not kept in touch with many people from my fifth grade class, I know them well enough to say that more people have tried drugs than I could even begin to fathom when I was younger.
It is funny to think back to when such a statistic was almost offensive to me. Who did this officer think he was coming into my fifth grade class telling us some of our fellow students would end up doing drugs? Drug use and addiction is so much worse than he made it seem.
Today, it is very challenging for me to think of people who have not done drugs, let alone people who are not drug addicts.
Recently, I was informed that most of the people from my past are addicted to heroin. It was hard to process the fact that so many people were drug addicts, but what made it even harder was that it was heroin they were addicted to. Heroin is one drug that I have always been deathly afraid of. I have educated myself and I know how addictive it can be. Why would these people I know even take the chance of trying it, didn’t they know what would happen?
So many people blame their drug addiction on boredom. Why would people look to drugs for a cure to boredom, when substances have the potential of completely derailing your life? This is such a weird thing to attribute drug addiction to. If you are bored go hiking, boating, skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing or anything like that. We are all lucky enough to have mountains in Utah, why not use these beautiful resources to entertain yourself and see how beautiful life can really be?
According to drugabuse.gov, “In 2009, 605,000 Americans age 12 and older had abused heroin at least once in the year prior to being surveyed.” The website also went on to describe the long-term effects of heroin use, “Addiction, infectious diseases, for example, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B and C, collapsed veins, bacterial infections, abscesses, infection of heart lining and valves, and arthritis and other rheumatologic problems.”
After learning all this, it is simply not a valid excuse to say your drug problem stems from your boredom. Choosing between the side effects listed above and boredom, I choose boredom.