LOVING TO GET HIGH SYNDROME

The University of Minnesota has done a longitudinal study of more that 20,000 teenagers, with a surprising conclusion. Teens don’t participate in risky behavior because they think that they are invincible, it’s because they feel very vulnerable, and they think that they are likely to die at a young age.

 Loving to get high is fuel for this fire, “if I’m going to die young, I may as well party to the max, for tomorrow I might be dead.”

 Please read this article, it will give you a lot to talk about with your son or daughter.

Parents, I want you to hear this message now.

 The loving to get high syndrome needs our attention. There is something going on in the lives of our kids that we need to look at. If we ignore the signs and symptoms, it will morph into something more difficult to deal with, chemical dependency.

 The hear and now that I’m using is actually a play on the words for here and now, which is a popular way to talk about where and how we should live our lives. The benefit of living in the here and now is that we are not going to be gripped by our past or overwhelmed with the future.

 When our kids are bummed about life it is usually because of stress about the past and fears and worries about their future. With the use of a MAC (Mood Altering Chemical) a young person can experience a swing from bummed to bliss. This is a way for them to return to the benefits of the here and now.

Because of this, here and now becomes a significant part of the loving to get high syndrome.

 As parents, we are probably very accustomed to accepting a life filled with worry and regret. This is just a part of our job description. But because our kid’s job is to have fun and not settle into this kind of rut, they are usually a little more creative in how they deal with this stress and worry.

 They find that they can get back to here and now by getting high. Under the influence of a MAC all of the stress of the past and the worry about the future disappears. This feeling of relief is powerful. It’s the feeling of being alive without a care in the world.

 Having consequences from getting high is also a part of the here and now. But for our kids it is a very unpleasant something that they want to avoid. It is an instant reminder that getting high is not all fun and games. This is, however, one of the most important life lessons a young person can learn (if we let them).

 All too often we swing in and fix the situation or rescue them from the pain. We take away the lesson that they would gain from this particular consequence. The more these lessons disappear, the more they will conclude that getting high is just plain fun without any real down side.  As you can see, this will perpetuate the loving to get high syndrome.

 Parents, this can actually be your message to your son or daughter, “Hear this message now!  There are consequences to getting high.”

One of the best things that we can give our kids is the Freedom to Fail. In failure they will find success; their own success. This success will be hard fought, well deserved, something that they can be proud of. But it comes from their willingness to deal with the choices and consequences connected to their use of a MAC. (Mood Altering Chemical) More accurately, this success will happen, if we, as parents, allow them to fail.

 Our son who “loves to get high” has been hugely successful in his own way and on his own terms. His first year out of high school, he was enrolled in college. We were paying for his books and tuition. He was getting up in the morning and leaving, but he wasn’t attending classes; at all. After we figured this out, we asked him get a job, pay $200 a month in rent or to move out. He moved out. We stopped paying for his car insurance and cell phone. It was time for him to learn how much it was going to cost to live on his own.

 Since that time his success has been by his own initiative. He’s now 24. He’s grown up, paid his bills, cleaned up his credit, held down a job for years and started his own business. He made all of this happen independent of us and our financial support. We gave him the freedom to fail. In this failure he has found success.

 At the time, the emotions connected to this situation were hard to deal with. It caused a lot of stress. We started asking ourselves, “are we doing the right thing? Will he survive without our help? Will he resent us for doing this?” He actually started to flourish. He’s thankful that we pushed him out of the nest.

 We need to remember, it is their life, and it will be their success when they put it all together. At the same time we will be honoring them as individuals. Freedom is usually a very important value for a young person. By allowing them to make choices, we honor their desire for freedom. The Freedom to Succeed!

I ran into a friend today who asked me how the “inbetweeners” are doing? I said, “what are you talking about?” She said, “you know, the kids who love to get high but are not yet chemically dependent.”

Inbetweeners! What a great visual.

My Random House Dictionary calls between “an intervening space and time.” This space and time can be between the ages of 10 and 20, or between the end of elementary school and college. But more importantly it is the space and time between getting high for the first time and the discovery of loving to get high. Inbetweeners fall some place between experimentation and dependency.

As parents we need to ask ourselves, “What direction is my kid’s life going in?” For the Inbetweeners they are unfortunately, heading in the direction of Chemical Dependency.