By Connecticut Tur..., May 05 2010
Early on in my recovery process, I would never have considered myself a “preventionist." I thought young people who were drinking and drugging had to hit “bottom” before they could get healthy again.
That idea stayed with me for quite some time, until I got to participate in prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts that didn’t look like the ones I had encountered in school and in my community when I was growing up: I got to witness hundreds of at-risk youth talking openly about their drug and alcohol use through a peer support model in a public high school.
At another school, I saw parents gathering together to discuss setting healthy boundaries with their teenagers during a family education night. And I learned about the data on what worked, and some of the evidence-based models proven to provide solutions for living healthier lives and preventing young people from becoming addicted.
Now, after spending a few years of working and volunteering in this field, I would very much consider myself a preventionist, treamentist, and recoveryist (although still not much of a speller). I wish this wasn’t true, but one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to solutions from drugs and alcohol.
Yet every day, I turn on my computer and open my email to e-newsletters from all different places touting new videos and prevention messages, and what I see is what doesn’t work. Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in the 1980s, watching an egg frying in a pan in a "This is your brain on drugs” commercial – maybe with hip new music or some jazzy new graphics.
Are we really all still on this search for a holy grail that’s going to scare all young people away from ever using drugs and alcohol by telling them all the bad things that happen to addicts? Fear-based messaging typically falls short because it never seems to offer a way out. Basically, we’re still telling young people not do drugs because bad stuff is going to happen to them.
Instead, we should be attracting them to a better way of life using examples and concrete evidence that life is healthier and more fulfilling without alcohol and drugs. We can focus more of our efforts on the science behind peer influence, family influence, and community solutions, thus broadening our definition of prevention.
If you think we’ve come a long way since the old days, when we believed we would one day find the one solution that would work for everyone, just listen the next time you’re in a forum with a young recovery speaker. I bet I can guess what the first question from the audience will be: “How could you have been prevented from ever using drugs and alcohol?”
Trust me, I know that question well. I get it all the time. And when I tell my audience that there isn’t one thing or one message that would have changed everything, they’re usually let down. It’s time to stop chasing the holy ginger ale and recognize that while we definitely need to try to prevent young people from using drugs and alcohol, fear-based prevention messages alone aren’t enough. We need to go further. We need to be showing, telling, and offering youth something that is more attractive to them than drugs and alcohol are. In addition, there is a huge need for more treatment and support options for young people to recover who are already using.
[Editor's Note: ready to treat teens for substance abuse issues? Follow the link for evidence-based practices.]
Greg Williams is Co-Director of Connecticut Turning To Youth and Families (CTYF). CTYF needs your help this month [May 2010]m as they are competing to win a grant to expand peer-to-peer support models in schools. Please see their contest page, which includes a video and more information about their proposed project.
Photo: National Library of New Zealand (adapted by blog editor).
Updated: February 08 2018