It's Not an Issue Until It's Your Child

My Secret Life

A True Story to Engage and Supervise Your Child or Student
Written By: Adam Simon — EB Intervention Team

Addiction was not a very important conversation in my family until it was about me. No one would have ever believed that I would end up looking at a seven year prison sentence at 22 years old from where I came from. I had a wonderful life.

I often hear that addicts have something really wrong in their lives or something missing that causes a life of ruin to take place. We hear many uninformed well meaning people share that the breakdown of the family unit, godlessness, or childhood trauma is to blame for the plight of the addict. They could not have helped it, we often hear. I share my story to poke holes in those narratives of addiction. I have not seen an entity in our society that is more egalitarian than addiction. It is no respecter of race, color, language, gender or socio economic background. It will consume and destroy the lives of those it afflicts. It is a rapacious creditor to all those who are involved with the one afflicted.

My parents are some of the most incredible Christians I have ever met. They have been engaged in a loving marriage for over 42 years. Many of our family friends have a sort of jesting jealousy towards the love affair and relationship they have. They raised us in a faithful home where love and forgiveness were the keystones of my childhood. Our parents read us the bible and prayed with us daily. We were a family that ate meals together at a round wooden table with our assigned seats every dinner throughout my childhood. My sister and I were loved fully and often overfed, as I like to say. We won the ovarian lottery. My family was often referred to as The Cleavers. We were raised in a small one red light town in Tennessee, where my family was well known and of the top 2% of wealth in our area. We seemingly had a life that would create a safeguard from the darkness of the world. Not you, right?

I was 12 years old the first time I grabbed my first bottle of alcohol and started my journey towards drug addiction and alcoholism. Within six months of my first drink I had gotten drunk alone and begun to smoke weed, inhale synthetic and designer drugs, and found pharmaceutical means of self medicating. At 16 it was cocaine and by 18 I had found methamphetamine. I was arrested the first time in a 3rd world country when I was 17 and had participated in a myriad of local, state, federal and international felonious acts as a result of my drug addiction. During this period, I still excelled in academics, athletics and frequented church and church events. I was able to recover quickly and utilize very small amounts of time and money to engage and to grow my addiction.

Addiction is often not a relevant issue in many communities until it's your child or someone you love. It often only takes a certain family to highlight the nature of addiction. It's important to understand that in many communities kids like me will start their journey this year. However, there is hope in this process. We can and we do recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Our engagement and supervision in our kids lives are of the utmost value.

3 Simple Steps to Engage and Supervise Your Child or Student

1. There are many different applications and services available. A few top rated apps are called Bark, Qustudio, and WebWatcher. Your kids will revolt at the mention of this application, however it is vital for you to understand about their life online. It will give you a more accurate picture of where they are.
2. Take a look at all of their friends and the places they frequent. A real strict assessment of the places and people in your kids life is paramount. You need to know the influences in their lives. It's very important to not dismiss family. Family often lends itself to the most access available for your kids.
3. Schedule regular time to be with each of your kids. This time should not be family time. Spend time individually with each one of your kids on a regular basis. So often I counsel kids to reach out and sit down with their parents and share openly and honestly, and they don't know how to do that. It must become a necessity in your lives. Sit down, ask your child how they are doing and then just listen.

To read and learn more from the EB Intervention Team, click here.

Do you or someone else you love suffer from drug or alcohol addiction? Do you need support?

Please Contact Us:
Info@EBIntervention.org
https://ebintervention.org/
(615) 482-1831