A white carnation, drugs, and Chris Herren (Part 1)

For every year of my twenty+ years of teaching, I have worked with students who were either struggling with drug abuse or addicted to drugs*.  I also have supported many students who have shared about a family member(s) who was addicted to drugs.   I have visited students in rehabs, hospitals, jails, and funeral homes. And I know I'm not alone in this epidemic--as many of my colleagues have cried too many times over the physical and/or emotional loss of a student to drugs.

Teaching a student who is involved with drugs is extremely heartbreaking and challenging to say the least. However, as a colleague many years ago reminded me:  Teachers teach everyone:  future presidents, CEOs, lawyers, doctors, plumbers, nurses, gas station attendants as well as future thieves, murderers and sociopaths.  We teach students who are in "good" health and we teach students who have cancer, diabetes, and addiction.  Yes, addiction is a disease just like cancer and diabetes are.  And just as I am loving, compassionate, and empathetic to my students with cancer and diabetes, so am I with my students who have an addiction.  I emphasize this point because still in 2017 the stigma around addiction and mental health is prevalent.  Addiction is not a moral choice; it is a disease.  As Chris Herren, co-author of his memoir Basketball Junkie says, "It's the only illness that I know of that you wait for people to get as sick as possible before you pick them up to help them."

Here are a few abridged stories I want to share:

Early on in my career, on Valentine's Day the student council was selling carnations as a fundraiser.  I remember receiving a beautiful white carnation with the card signed by Mike.  Receiving a carnation from a student was like hitting the jackpot, especially as a rookie teacher.  It was a sign that I had "made it"--had been accepted and approved of by a student.  Because let's face it:  the teenage population can either approve or reject you in a matter of seconds.  I asked a couple of students whose name was Mike if they had sent me the carnation.  They said they had not.  It was then that I asked a student named Mikie who was a student in an adjacent classroom if he had sent me the flower.  Bingo! He smiled and his eyes lit up as I said thank you and it meant so much to me.  He said I was such a nice person because I said hi to everyone and he wanted to thank me.  (Yes, I did say hi to everyone because when you are a rookie teacher you often feel invisible, taken advantage of, and often inept.  So you say hi to anyone with the hope of being noticed.  And of course, I say hi because I want other students and teachers to know that I see them as well.) And this was the kind of young person Mike was:  sensitive, caring, fun, funny, and smart.  Mike was an adorable teenager with eyes that truly were windows to his soul.  His grin was contagious as I would watch others instantly smile when they were around him.  He was goofy and immature like most adolescents.  He didn't always apply himself in classes, although he was very intelligent.  He was athletic and interested in sports. And Mikie was addicted to drugs.

And to echo what Chris Herren said earlier...a lot of times we as educators see early signs of potential addiction, but don't always respond.  And I know the same goes for families and society.  Drugs are so ingrained and normalized in our society--almost every day I hear a comment from colleagues, "I need a drink." Or "Can't wait til Friday to start drinking." I hear many adults and students argue that it's fine to smoke pot recreationally.  I hear people say, "Teenagers will experiment with harder drugs, but they'll be fine."  Well you know what?  In my experience, a lot of students haven't been fine.  I do acknowledge that there are people who can "socially" engage in drinking and smoking to an extent.  But I've never heard a student-let along an adult-after a weekend of partying say, "Wow, I developed so many wonderful intimate friendships while drinking/smoking." Instead I get a lot of tears from break-ups, random hook-ups, arrests, and hangovers.  Of course there are the few students who say what an awesome time they had a party, even though they can't remember what they did.  And to that I say, how sad.   And yes, as educators we are mandated reporters when we know a student is hurting himself/herself.  And often we do report, but again, with addiction, it becomes a slippery slope of:  well "how bad" is the student's drug abuse?  Does the family know?  Do they need to be hospitalized or are there are options?  It isn't as black or white as one thinks. Yet when cancer is detected in stage 1, no one says let's wait til stage 4 to help the person.   We do constantly refer students for therapy, but unfortunately there still exists a stigma around mental health.

And so Mikie became one of those students for a while--over time he developed what my colleague Judy calls "sad eyes." And I felt like I could see his brain cells dying from drug use. He would tell me he was fine when I questioned him about my concerns for his health, but I knew he was lying.  As the author Glennon Doyle Melton of the memoir Love Warrior says in her TED Talk "Lessons from the Mental Hospital", "We don't start out as insensitive liars, we are born sensitive truth-tellers." And Mikie had started out as a sensitive truth-teller and slowly was becoming a liar to himself and his loved ones about his addiction.  I was in constant contact with his mother who was beside herself worried about him.  I remember getting the dreaded call from his mom one morning that Mike had overdosed, but was alive.  I remember breathing a sigh of relief that he had survived.  I remember crying because I was petrified he was going to die.  I felt out of control and wished I could say the right thing to make him stop, but as we know when someone has a disease, no matter how much you love them, they still have the disease.

Fortunately, while in high school, Mikie did get clean, but it was hell for him to say the least.  Because imagine how difficult is it to stay sober and clean, when your friends are still using?  During my prep. periods, Mikie and I would go outside and play catch.  It was a way to give Mike a breather from the pressures of inside the school and we could talk and laugh--and I could see Mike's eyes return to lighting up.  Thankfully, Mikie graduated from high school.  And although he has continued to battle on and off his disease, he is in a much better place today.  I am grateful that I was able to reach out to him and his mom and ask if I could use his first name for this blog.  He wholeheartedly agreed.  For if one person who reads this blog realizes that addiction is a disease and that there is more we can do as a society to proactively educate all of us on:   the genetics of addiction, the messages we send in our every day speech about drugs, and the importance of embracing sensitive truth-tellers--then Mikie's battle is not in vain.

***

Recently a former student came back from college and said he needed to apologize to me.  I asked, Why?  I didn't remember us getting into any altercations.  He said he distinctively remembered having a debate with me during his senior year in our Psychology in Literature course.  I had contended that medicine appropriately prescribed by a doctor was one way to treat mental illness.  This student said a person needed to fix his mental illness on his own.  Yet, ironically he didn't see getting high off marijuana regularly as a form of self-medicating.  Apparently at the time, I suggested we agree to disagree even though sound research sided with me.  Well this particular student decided to self-medicate with pot in college to the point that he craved it as a coping mechanism to deal with an underlying and undiagnosed mental illness.  Through a series of unfortunate events, he was eventually hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar disorder.  The good news is that he is now on medication and in therapy.  His message was that for some people, pot is a deadly drug.  I appreciated him visiting me and sharing such personal insights.  I also know as an educator, I can present the research, but it is through lived experience that we often really learn.

***

Lastly, I have had students share about parents and siblings who were active in the disease of addiction and how having a family member with the disease of addiction impacts the whole family system.  I have seen families have their electricity shut off because a parent is using her paycheck for drugs versus her family's bills.  I have seen family members go to jail for multiple drunk driving offenses.  I have been to funerals of family members who overdosed or died of a heart attack due to drug abuse.  And I see what it does to a student's life--often the student becomes a manchild or a womanchild--take on  way more responsibilities than a young person should.  They do a good job of covering up for their family member by wearing a fake smile on their face and saying they are fine.  As the caregivers, our students often then neglect their own self-care.  They misplace blame, guilt, anger, and sadness on themselves for what they are really feeling towards their loved one with the addiction.  We try to encourage our students to seek out Alateen (http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/for-alateen), other support groups, and therapy.

***

I would posit that we have all been affected by the disease of addiction.  We need to continue to openly and honestly have the hard conversations about addiction in order to further destigmatize the disease.  There is no cure for addiction; however, there are treatments.  And education is the key to researching those treatments.

I also want to encourage one another to connect instead of isolate when we are in mental pain.  I want us to realize we are good enough the way we are.  I want us to teach each other that all of life is meant to be felt: the pain and the joy.  I want us to acknowledge that our goal isn't to be happy all the time because that isn't what life is about, so we don't need to constantly look for a high.  Glennon Doyle Melton says wouldn't it be better if we were sensitive truth-tellers togther "in the bright, big, messy world"--and I wholeheartedly agree.

*I am including alcohol as a drug. As we know it is a drug; however, I still here people discern alcohol from drugs.

Some resources to check out:

http://www.theherrenproject.org/

TED Talk "Lessons from the Mental Hospital" by Glennon Doyle Melton https://youtu.be/NHHPNMIK-fY

http://thpprojectpurple.org

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-apes/201512/your-eyes-really-are-the-window-your-soul