This is topic that has been on my mind for a while now….and it started with a message I recieved several years back from a former student. The story starts in the early 2000’s, back when DARE was a thing in schools. If DARE was before your time, the gist of it was that one week a year called Red Ribbon Week, the local police departments would come into the schools and give the DARE presentation about how to “Just Say No’ to drugs. All the kids would make a committment to “Just Say No’, and they would learn about…
Crackhead Uncle John…and stories of addiction
Addiction carries such a heavy stigma, yet the affects of addiction reach far and wide. The Surgeon General estimates that one in seven people are directly affected by addiction, with only one in 10 seeking treatment. This means that more than 50% of the population is directly related to an addict. I am one of those 50%. This problem of addiction isn’t new or news. Years ago, when I was a classroom teacher, I started seeing the affects of addiction in my classroom: Parents in active addiction, care givers in active addiction, and children being raised by grandparents because their…