Dan Hemesath's Blog

The reasons people use drugs are fourfold:  1. Pyschological:  Lack of self-esteem and lack of purpose or role.  2. Social: lack of friends and family support. 3.  Spiritual: Lack of heroes or role models. 4. Physical: poverty and all that poverty entails.

This chapter deals with  #1 which is dealing with self esteem and a finding a meaningful role.

I. Meeting psychological needs through building self-esteem and through positive addictions

A. Building self-esteem:  Students of behavior tell us that the most fruitful way of building self-esteem is through greater amounts of unconditional love of parents for their child during the first five years of that child’s life. The child who receives this love is most fortunate. He or she will be able to deal with and bounce back from almost any situation imaginable. In my opinion the best and the most cost-effective method of drug abuse prevention in the world is the mother or father spending time with and giving full attention to their baby. This starts with fathers being there and helping out in the delivery room when their babies are born; parents watching TV with their children and explaining it to them — nothing magic — nothing complicated — just taking the time to be there.

That doesn’t mean that those of us who didn’t receive this kind of love, or who didn’t get quite enough unconditional love are doomed. The good news is that there are thousands of ways to build self-esteem and help young people feel good about themselves. The bad news is that they all take time and effort, but not necessarily money. More good news is that there are already millions of people doing a good job of preventing drug abuse and helping people feel good about themselves. Unfortunately we need millions more.

There is another piece of good news. There is something relatively unused that can be done. We can meet the problem head on: namely, with acts of positive reinforcement. The ability to give positive strokes should be a skill that is so highly regarded that it should be part of the skills in the repertoire of every person who works with children.

Many people in the position of forming young minds and attitudes are masters in precisely the opposite of building self-esteem. How many parents put the kids down time after time — telling them that they are dumb or that they are weak — or that they aren’t capable of doing certain things? How many teachers are there who criticize their students especially the students who aren’t so easy to work with? How about the coaches who ignore the athletes who are late boomers? How many instructors tell students that they have no talent even before the student has had time to develop certain skills?

All of us desperately need recognition. At times it has to be recognition only of our potential. Someone makes an act of faith in the hidden riches that lie inside us and we respond with the energy of champions. Or someone tells us that for no damn good and we prove him or her right by acting like we are no damn good.

The best schools, I’ve noticed, are the ones that give the most recognition and give it the most often and for the widest variety of activities — not just boys sports. Pretty soon they will have so many people actually earning recognition that it is like compound interest. It keeps growing and growing as long as honest investments are made

Kids need to feel good about themselves. We Americans are great salespeople. If we can sell anything from jeans with holes in them to pet rocks, we should be able to sell our young people on the truth of their inner worth, on their value as sacred beings, or their potential to be happy and to make others happy.

We should rightfully make young people (all people)  feel good about themselves. They should be the focus of our drug abuse prevention efforts.

Why can’t teachers look for good things that kids do so that they can give them a pat on the back, instead of putting them down for the things they do wrong — within the bounds of reason of course.

What sounds better? Billie, you had 30 mistakes in this test or Billy you got 20 of the answers right.

Of course there is the danger that positive reinforcement may be dished out as another technique — another method of manipulating people and their behavior, which will kill the whole concept before it gets off the ground. We all know the flatterer, the glad hander, the phony fawner who makes a mockery of the sincere compliment. Our praise must come from the heart or not at all.

But it would be worse, if because of fear or because of not knowing just how, we give no praise at all.

B. To meet the need of boredom or lack of passion in our youth we suggest positive addictions

Let’s face it.  It is not just drug users who are addicts. We are all addicts. An addiction can be a wonderful thing. An addiction may be  neatness, work, security, comfort, cars,and so forth, as well as a negative addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.

Our aim shouldn’t be to stop addictions, but rather to create positive addictions in our lives — to substitute negative addictions with positive ones. Positive addictions make us feel good. They solve real needs in our lives. Drugs are taken because they are perceived to solve some need for the drug user. The drugs don’t deliver but the positive addiction does.

The happiest people are addicted to something productive — with something they love doing. For example I feel that I’m very fortunate because I love photography, and that’s how I make my living. It’s an addiction for me, but a good one.

We seem to be so afraid of even positive addictions, that we don’t always encourage them in our education system.

Example: if a kid gets his kicks out of studying and learning new things that are in the curriculum — like solving math problems, or learning about history, he’s in great shape. But let’s say this but some other kid doesn’t like those things, but gets a big kick out of creating original weird noises, or drawing pictures of monsters, or daydreaming, fantasizing plots for adventures. That kid may have some real skills, even marketable skills, but he gets clobbered in the school system.

What are some of these positive addictions? They can be a millions things, such as weightlifting, drawing cartoons, playing a musical instrument, jogging, printing photographs, computer mania, sports, dancing, reading. As long as the participant enjoys it and it doesn’t hurt oneself or others it’s all good.

Shotgun Shuba, the baseball player, practiced swinging a bat for hours every day. He wasn’t the most naturally talented ballplayer, but he developed one of the sweetest swings ever, and it paid off big dividends. Kids playing with computers develop skills that pay off in a big way. Kids playing with drawing pencils, with cameras, with charcoal, with wood — you name it — have done the same.

Over the past years, I’ve written several articles on drug abuse prevention. The articles are the product of my ten years of working in drug abuse treatment and prevention in three different California counties, along with a continued interest in the subject.

I have combined a number of these articles into  one paper which summarizes my current thoughts on the subject.  It’s a bit long for a single blog, so I’m dividing it into four chapters. I plan to post one chapter every two or three days until complete.  I want to make it available for any kind of re-publication, in whole or in part, or for use in classrooms — whatever.

I think think that it has some real value, but then I am be prejudiced. Your comments are welcome.

Chapter I The Problem

Perhaps the best, and most honest summary of the drug abuse problem was written by John Kroger in his book “Convictions”

Ironically John Kroger was a successful federal prosecutor. Up until just a couple of years ago he worked as an Assistant US Attorney.

After prosecuting several important narcotic cases, his conclusion is that the most effective way to deal with the problem of drug abuse is through treatment programs. The fact that he was a prosecutor gives his statements far more credibility than the same statements from someone whose background was drug abuse treatment or prevention.

In general, prosecutors are more interested in convicting and locking up drug dealers, but Kroger looks at the complete futility of this approach. Despite the tens of billions that have been spent yearly in an attempt, over the past 40 years, to win the war and drugs, he notes that the statistics show that we are not winning this war through our present policy.

Kroger points out how drug abuse continues to go up. The availability of drugs is greater than ever. He describes in great detail how the billions we spend to eradicate drugs at the source, primarily in Colombia, has been and continues to be a dismal failure.

Attempts to seize drugs at our borders have also been ineffective. In spite of the occasional bust, over 90% of the drugs get through. Millions of cars and trucks cross the US border from Mexico every month. If we tried to search them all, traffic will be backed up into Guatemala.

According to Kroger, law enforcement in the United States is also largely ineffective. Drug dealers are caught and sent to jail, but there is a waiting line and of new dealers to take their place. In the United States, 16 million drug users spend over $60 billion on drugs every year. (The costs to society are actually much more.)  Drug dealers are willing to take great risks to get a piece of that pie.

The only approach that makes sense is to reduce demand through treatment and prevention programs.

Doing his research, Kroger discovered that over the last 30 years the percentage of government money earmarked for prevention and treatment has gone down while money for law enforcement has gone up. Why? Political expediency based on the public misperception. Drug abuse treatment programs  prevent drug abuse  because a certain percentage of the drug abusers stop using drugs.  Not all drug abusers are cured by treatment programs, but studies have shown that every dollar spent on treatment saves taxpayers four dollars . This figure was arrived at through studies that were conducted by researchers at UCLA.

Back in the 70s we spent about 60% of our anti-drug money on treatment. Now it’s down to 33%.

After reading many  books, and after working in the field for over ten years, and following the situation for many more years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the most fruitful area to place our efforts is not waging war on drugs, but in decreasing the demand.

Every year tons of cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs are seized before reaching the consumer. Effective? The records show that less than 10% of the drugs are discovered. The drug lords lose a few kilos here, a few tons there, but, as usual, about 90% of the drugs shipped are getting through. In fact the pushers have been so successful that they can intentionally slow down the supply in order to take fewer risks and keep the prices higher.

Does this mean that we should drop efforts in curbing the supply of drugs? Probably not, but enforcement should not be the main focus of our efforts.  We will always need law enforcement, at least within our own country and on our borders but it has it has been proven over and over, that law enforcement cannot do it alone—in fact – law enforcement has never come close to stopping illegal drugs.

If a solution will occur, and I think that it will someday, prevention or decreasing demand must be an indispensable piece of the solution.  Regardless of whether drugs are decriminalized, or penalties are stiffened even more, prevention is the only real answer.

Drug abuse right now it just may be the biggest problem our society faces. We’ve been fighting the battle against drug abuse for over 70 years, and it is worse now then it has ever been.

Vincent Bugliosi’s book, “Drugs in America”, tells us about the $120 billion of illicit drugs that Americans buy annually, about the thousands upon thousands of drug-related deaths and murders, as well as the incalculable human suffering, illness, and lost productivity. To call it a great problem is an understatement because normal problems are not as serious.

Only if we can take away the demand, will the problem significantly diminish. If we look at why people need drugs and fill those needs with something constructive, we’ve prevented the problem.

What is that need? In other words why do young people use drugs?

If we can answer this question accurately, then we have at least a chance to stop young people from using illegal drugs. Any other approach and we’re back to the same dead-end ballgame — dealing with symptoms instead of the cause. Let’s get to the real causes. If we go down a list of the causes of drug abuse in each of the major areas of life, psychological, social, physical, and the spiritual it would include the following:

I .Psychological Needs

Lack of self-esteem: If we don’t esteem ourselves, we can find all kinds of ways of escaping the pain and punishing ourselves for imagined guilt.

Lack of Interest: This is the absence of passion for positive pursuits. Much of what we have to offer our young people is boring and meaningless to them.

II. Social Needs

Loneliness, isolation, and non-belonging: Kids use drugs because they desperately want to belong to a group of caring human beings. Groups of drug users form a kind of community that meets this need for young people even if the drugs themselves don’t.

Peer Pressure:   This is especially deadly for the kids without friends. If just about everyone else in the group uses drugs, there is intense pressure on non-using kids to use drugs too.

III. Physical needs

The area of physical need is something that many people don’t like to hear anything about. As Americans we don’t like to think that in this great country anyone really hurts for the basic necessities like food, basic medicine, and shelter unless it is their own fault. Yet millions of people suffer from deadly grinding poverty, in spite of all the government and private programs. No, this is not the only cause of drug abuse, but it is an important factor. Young people living in the slums, in desperate poverty, see themselves as having nothing to lose and much to gain by involvement with drugs.

IV. Spiritual needs

1. Lack of a role or function for young people in society.  Years ago, when I was a kid growing up on a farm, the boys worked shoulder to shoulder with grown men, doing everything from picking corn, plowing the ground, and milking cows to put food on the table. When our ancestors were boys 15 and 16 years old some were warriors protecting their family and country from attacks by the enemy. My grandmother married to 17 years of age and had 10 children all them welcome hands to strengthen the family. In those days young people were given important and fulfilling roles at an early age. These roles made them feel important, even though it wasn’t easy. Today with the parents work so far removed from anything in which the kids can participate, there often seems to be no meaningful role for teenagers. And when a girl produces a child before completing college, whether she’s married or not, it certainly doesn’t have the status that it used to have.

2. The lack of inspiring examples or heroes for youths to live one’s life for a cause — the spiritual inspiration that in the past, drove many young people to lives of service. Examples of the Dr. Schweitzer’s, the missionaries in many different churches, to a great extent has been replaced by the inspiration of  greed as exemplified by numerous example of self serving leaders–religious and otherwise,

There are many inspiring people in the world today–many people who are truly heroes and role models.  But the noise of the material centered, consumer society is so loud, that the voices of our modern day heroes are too seldom heard.

Perfection not required

The aim of prevention isn’t to do everything perfectly. It is to do enough things right for a kid that he or she is able to maintain his or her life above the point of surrender to harmful drugs.

New or old solution?

In looking at the solutions that I propose, people often ask whether these solutions have been tried already.

The answer is, Yes, they have been partially tried. Where seriously tried, they have worked.The point is not that this is a matter of solutions that have been tried and found wanting. It is rather that the solutions want trying.

Preventing drug abuse is a demanding task on the level of  waging a world war.  But that is no reason to say we can’t make positive progress. We can and eventually we will turn the corner. But it will take the involvement of millions of people living with a bit less greed, a bit more compassion, and a bit more understanding.

In simple language, what do we have to do? That’s what my paper is about–to be elaborated in the coming chapters

Questions that come mind at this time of my life are: Have I given up too much? Have I gone too far in pulling back on the practice of many of our Catholic traditions?  Have I kept the essentials?  Have I kept the wheat and discarded the chaff?

What are the essentials? What is the wheat?  What is the heart and soul of any valid belief system?

The person who , I think, does a good job in answering these questions, is one of my heroes and role models, Karen Armstong.  She has wrestled with these questions for most of her life, and in the process, has become respected by the leaders of all the great religions, including Islam, Judaism, Christianity,  and Buddhism.

During her life to date, Karen has dealt with health problems, including epilepsy.  For years she found herself in a vocation that provided neither undersanding nor fulfilment, as a nun in the Society of the Holy Child Jesus.

On leaving the convent, she found her voice with her studies and writing.    Her early books tell of her struggle to understand the big questions surrounding religion and life.  She has continued writing, producing a series of books on St. Paul, Mohammed, Buddha, the Crusades, A History of Myth, The English Mystics of the 14th Century, The Bible, and number of other provocative subjects.

Her conclusion in studying the various great religions of the world, is that the one common element of all these religions is compassion. Whenever a religion of movement within a relgion deviates from the central emphasis of compassion, it ceases to serve a positive purpose.

Any of the texts of the bible, or any of the sacred books, that seem to advocate violence or anything other than compassion, must interpreted in an allegoric sense.

To check out  Karen Armstrong go to the “Charter for Compassion” website: http://charterforcompassion.org/   If you can watch the short video by Karen on Feb 28, 2008 without being deeply moved, you are different from me.

Compassion is not feeling sorry for others–rather it is making the effort to understand the point of view of others.  It is  having the empathy to put ourselves in the shoes of another.  It is not being a do-gooder, giving others what we think they need, rather it is giving others respect and the opportunity to find fulfulment just as we would like to find that opportunity.

Many people see compassion as weakness.  On the contrary to be compassionate requires great strength. It requires the faith, not to do good for others, but a faith in others–a faith that sees that we can’t make it on our own, but we can make it with others.

What does this have to do with my original questions of doubts about my ceasing to be a fully practicing Catholic? Just this: One can drop many religious practices. ceremonies, rituals, and beliefs, but to be saved, to be a child of God, whatever or whoever one sees God to be, we need to hang on to compassion for others–our  love and  faith in others, along with compassion and faith in ourselves.  If religious practices help us to to do this, keep and cherish them.  If not, keep compassion. Keep the golden rule.

Related:  You are probably familiar with this little poem, but I think it’s worth reviewing anyway.

Abou Ben Adhem by Leigh Hunt

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace.

And saw within the moonlight of his room,

Making it light and like a lily in bloom

An angel writing in a book of gold:

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold.

And to the presence in the room he said,

“What writest thou?”  The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord

Answered “The names of those who love the Lord.”

“And is mine one?” said  Abou.  “Nay not so.”

Replied the angel.  Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still, and said “I pray thee, then,

“Write me as one who loves his fellow men.”

The Angel wrote and vanished.  The next night

It came again with a great awakening light.

And showed the names who love of God had blessed.

And lo Ben Adhems’s name led all the rest.