School children take drugs to meet a number of needs in their lives.
So says Sundowner resident James Starkey, an addiction counsellor, and Robindale resident Sandra Kelly, an addiction recovery and life coach.
They are responding to the media reports about an alleged drug problem at a petrol station outside Rand Park High School.
According to Starkey, about 15 per cent of high school children will become addicted to drugs or alcohol.
“It is readily available now,” he says. “Not like in the old days.”
Kelly explains that children can take drugs due to peer pressure, an absence of parental supervision, unresolved trauma, grief or shame, inability to change current circumstances, medical reasons, and for fun. “Sometimes kids don’t speak about their problems and feelings,” Kelly says.
“They self-medicate to feel better.”
Starkey says that drugs fill a “void” in you.
For someone with low self-esteem, or poor communication skills, it produces an “amazing feeling”, removing worries in life.
However, this feeling does not last long, and children may seek more drugs to sustain their euphoria.
Not everyone who takes drugs becomes addicted, but when hooked, becoming unhooked is difficult.
Kelly and Starkey agree that parents who learn that their child has taken drugs, should seek professional help.
“Parents try internalise it and tackle it on their own without the necessary tools,” Kelly says.
Instead parents should take their child to Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings, contact South African National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (Sanca), or contact a recovery coach, psychologist or addiction counsellor.
Starkey says that addiction counsellors try to tackle the root cause of the problem.
This would be challenges in the child’s life.
Details: Sandra Kelly 072 805 5297; James Starkey 074 444 1511.
