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Teenage Guidance

Way To Live Life

Chapter: 10 Final Words

Chapter: 10

Final Words

                                        I think after reading previous chapters, you may have learnt many things about addiction. And I hope you will never get involved in this type of bad things.

                                        After reading chapter 9 you may think that nothing will happen even if one becomes addicted because there is solution. But this is just another wrong thing that can pop into your teenage brain. Do you think it is right to avoid caring of our health thinking that there are medicines and methods to cure diseases?  Certainly, it isn’t.

                                     According to past trend and past record, one thing you should be clear is that only few people are able to recover completely for whole life after going to rehabilitation center whereas many relapses later in life even after being recovered at rehabilitation center. And some addict people aren’t able to get rid of addiction even after many tries. Don’t forget that, by being addicted you have to lose many things in life and many such things can’t be again regained later.

                                        But my dear friends who are addict at this present time don’t lose your hope. Just remember one thing that,”You won’t lose the fight unless you stop fighting.”  So, even if you have failed for several times don’t be sad but keep on trying and trying.

                                       Nick Vujicic, a motivational speaker once said, “If I fail to do what I want for 100 times and if I give up at the end due to disappointment and numerous failures. Then I will never be able to do it for my whole life. But if I try again and again then someday I will be able to do what I want.” Think like this and stay positive towards life.

                                           One wrong thing that occurs in our society is that, the parents try to hide their children’s addiction towards drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. They regard their reputation bigger than their children. And again they do another wrong thing, i.e. they make their children to marry thinking that the marital relation will bring them in right path. But this will only make problem more severe. This is like making an innocent person to ride over a mad horse. This will not only damage the life of their children but also damage the life of another person who marries with their children. In this type of condition major victim are girls who marry the addicted boys. So, girls themselves should be aware during their marriage. If you are a girl, then you should not expect or believe that your future husband will change after marriage, even though he promises and do commitment with you to change. Such types of commitments and promises won’t last longer against addiction. So, make your future husband or partner to change and leave addictive behaviour before marriage or before establishing any serious relationship. Think yourself, if he can’t get rid of addiction before marriage, then how can you expect or believe that he will get rid of it after marriage.

                                       One of the teachers of my locality once said, “I don’t care, even if my children don’t study but they shouldn’t be druggists, alcoholic or smokers. What is the benefit or worth of studying and getting high grades if they die prematurely due to addiction and if they are unable to apply whatever they have learnt?” Isn’t his view true? You’re all property, qualification, social status and relation can easily fade away if you become addicted. You won’t be able to live fully.

                                    What my suggestion is, never ever try such addictive substances even for the first time. Don’t overestimate yourself and don’t underestimate such addictive substances. Be addiction free and enjoy your life fully and happily. We are here to enjoy and live our life fully and happily with dignity not to live with sadness, sorrow and self hatred   

                                 

                                      

                   

 

Chapter: 9 Solution To Addiction

Chapter: 9

Solution To Addiction

                                        Many addicted people also want to get rid of addiction frequently. So, they try to stay away from addictive substance and also manage to remain clean for some moments (few hours to few days). But the craving for addictive substance becomes so strong that they fail to get rid of it. This is the truth.

                                     This chapter is especially dedicated to those people who are addicted. But non addicted people can also learn many things from it. In this chapter I am going to guide you about how to get rid of addiction.

                                         There is a saying: “It’s never late to bring positive change in life.”

                               So, no matter how much old you are if you are able to get rid of addiction, certainly your life will be better and greater than it is now.

                               First of all, you have to be honest and realize your faults and problems. Then tell your parents or spouse that you are addicted and tell them that you really want to change and you need their help to make that change. Don’t forget to apologise with them about all your bad deeds and faults which have hurt them. There is a saying: “The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You don’t blame them on your mother, the ecology or the president. You realize that you controls your destiny.”  -Albert Ellis    

                                       After hearing your these kinds of words your parents or spouse or best friend will be certainly happy to help you as they loves you very much. Don’t ignore this above mentioned step because you really need help of others to fight against addiction. During the youth period many thinks that they can fight with addiction alone. But reality is that you can’t fight against addiction alone because it is very hard to do so and if you can do that alone then, you won’t have to be addicted.

                                       Next step is to take help of rehabilitation center. If you have money and if you can afford, then the best and efficient way to get rid of addiction is by going to rehabilitation center. There are counsellor, experienced people and discipline enforcer in rehabilitation centre who will help you to get rid of addiction effectively.

                                    But all people won’t be so much fortunate to afford the bills of rehabilitation center. If you are, one of them, then don’t worry, nothing is impossible in this world. Whatever your mind can think, you can achieve it in real world but you should be patience, honest and persistent.

                                      Always remember that, it’s you who have to be ready and interested at first, to bring change in your life. Then only other can help and guide you. Below I have mentioned some steps which are important even if you go to rehabilitation center. Because you won’t stay there forever, someday you might come out and may again become victim of addiction. So, to maintain sobriety from addictive materials even after coming out of rehabilitation center, these tips will certainly help you:

i.                             Change the environment

                        Remove all the things from your house or room that are linked with your addiction as much as possible to unreachable place so that you don’t get in contact with those things even if you want to, when cravings increases. And, if you are strong addict of smoking, alcohol or drugs then don’t try to stop suddenly because if you do so it may cause more problems. So that asks your parents to give such substances by slowly reducing the dose each time.

                                  “Slow change is better than no change.” So don’t try to stop it suddenly if you are highly addicted. Try to make small or even very small change but give continuity to it.

ii.                         Switch to non-addicted friends

                           If you give continuity to get in contact with your addicted friends even after starting this method, then your chances to get rid of addiction highly decreases. So, limit the contact with such friends to ‘Hi’, ‘Hello’ and ‘Bye’ unless it is very necessary. If you can, then cut off the contact with those locations where availability and use of addictive substances is more like party, pub, disco, bar etc.

                              Surround yourself with good friends and positive people. If no any good friends are available then read books or do other good entertaining tasks.

iii.                      Beat your craving

                         Even after having     strong desire to get rid of addiction, sometimes craving for that substance will increase so much that you forget all your commitments and promises. You may even start to lie to other for getting that substance. Thoughts like “I will just try this (addictive substance) only for today and from tomorrow I will not even think about it” can pop into your mind. This is the hardest time, when trying to get rid of addiction. And in this kind of condition, if you give a try to that substance, after the ending of craving you will feel regret and distressed over such kind of act. Thus, you try to indulge more in that substance. After using too much amount of that substance you will again make promise and commitments with yourself, to avoid such addictive substances for forever. When tomorrow or next day comes, cravings again increases and same thought, which is mentioned in the top of this paragraph inside inverted commas, again comes into your mind. In this way, you will become unable to get rid of addiction. And at last you will end up becoming hopeless and sad about getting rid of addiction.

                                  If you are one of the above mentioned type of person who has failed a lot then acknowledge this quote”In life failure is just one type of learning method. So try to learn from failure and avoid that mistake again.” So, don’t get sad from your failure but try to learn from it. If one method fails then try another or different method.

                                        Generally, a craving session lasts for about 3-5 minutes. So look at the clock and count-down the time during the craving session. In a day there can be several craving session each of 3-5 minutes. Try to relax and divert your mind during such craving session.

                                      You can also make your parents aware about this kind of cravings and thoughts which can come during craving. Tell them to avoid any kind of excuses during the craving session and tell them to provide you good supervision during such session.

                                      Remember that, during the craving session, not you but your craving speaks and controls you more. And the more you are able or become successful to avoid such cravings, the more you will get stronger and confident to fight against addiction.

iv.                      Find out the root cause

                              Everything has its own root cause. So, there is/are also root cause/s for your craving. For example, when you feel lonely you’re craving or desire to use drug may increases. If so, then surround yourself with positive friend, people or relative. Your craving to use addictive substance can also increase, when you feel stressed or hopeless. If so then try to manage stress and stay hopeful. If you can, then even try to find the deeper cause of stress, like deeper cause of stress can be breakup with your partner or failure in something. After finding root cause try to solve such cause once and for all.

                             In this way, try to find the root cause of your craving and try to solve it once and for all or try to reduce the conditions or situations which causes cravings, as much as you can.

v.                         Replace bad habit good one

                          Only trying to cut off the addictive substances or addictive behaviour is not enough. You should try to replace addiction of addictive substances by good habits or good work. This not only helps you to utilize your saved time properly but also helps you to learn new thing and stay encouraged. For this you can get involved in anything which is good and which you enjoy the most like painting, learning or listening music, reading various kinds of book etc.

vi.                      Be motivated

                            If you are addict person then you may have lost many things like your health, family, career or money due to addictive behaviour. And memory of such pains and losses of past won’t let you live happily even if you get rid of addictive behaviour or substances. So that there is chances you may feel regret and become hopeless in future or at present due to effect of bad activity of past. And to avoid such kinds of stress and past memory you may again get involved in such addictive substances.

                             So, you should be motivated to face and manage such situations or memory and to increase your self-confidence and self-belief. To do so, you can read self help books, inspirational books, motivating videos or movies, novels, biography of famous people and books related to struggle of life. This kind of things can help you to remain hopeful, realize your value, manage your stress and helps you to be stronger mentally.

vii.                  Give autosuggestion

                                 Autosuggestion sounds simple but it is more powerful than we can imagine. Auto suggestion can create a huge impact over your sub-conscious mind and can help you to increase your efficiency and confidence. Generally, your autosuggestion should look like this “I am becoming less and less addicted day by day. I am winning over my craving daily. I am becoming physically and mentally stronger to control my addiction …..” In this way you can give autosuggestion to yourself in your own way. But while giving autosuggestion try to repeat only positive thing and say what you want to be in future not what you are at present. If you say these kinds of positives thought by looking yourself in mirror then it will be more better.

                                Now let’s see how autosuggestion works, if you give autosuggestion by saying I have already become.. or I am becoming.., then your sub-conscious mind starts to work like it had already happened. Thus, this will reinforces and helps those imagined thought to happen in real life more easily and effectively.

                                    Although, autosuggestion is boring, but the more you repeat giving autosuggestion to yourself the more benefit you will get and the more quickly you will recover from addiction. So, try to autosuggest to yourself at least once a day but if you can, then autosuggest to yourself as much time as you can.

viii.               Overcome sleeplessness

                             Sleep is vital for all aspect of our life. But many addicts faces the problem of sleeplessness while trying to get rid of addictive substances. For this try to do simple meditation by just lying in your bed until you sleep or listen to the song you like most, especially a calming song.

                                   In the beginning it will be very hard and boring to sleep but with few times of practice everything will be easy and automatic.

ix.                      Relapse: How to deal with it

                                   To get more information about relapse look at the chapter named “Cultivate New Habit” of this book.

                                   

                                   Finally these are some of the steps that can help you to get rid of addiction of not only drugs, smoking or alcohol but also helps to get rid of various types of addiction like addiction of watching TV, playing video games, social networking etc if you are able to modify these above mentioned steps by little bit according to type of your addiction. Try to get rid of addiction slowly and continuously. Don’t hope for instant result be patience and persistent.

                                    Always remember sooner you start to get rid of addiction sooner you will be recovered. These kinds of addiction cannot be treated by hiding or torturing the addict. If you do so then not only addict but you and your family also have to face more complex situation which may lead to deep negative effects. Addiction can only be treated through proper and precise planning, effort and patience. So, if you are addict or if someone is addict in your family, then start to recover from today to prevent further loss, pain and complexity of problem.           

Chapter: 8 Drug Addiction

Chapter: 8

Drug Addiction

                                      This is a last type of addiction (but not least), mentioned in this book. Because on the basis of consequences it can be regarded as the most dangerous type of addiction. It not only destroys your life, relationships but also destroys your property and can even make you criminal by more chance than other addiction.

                                   Some names of illegal drugs with their nick name are:

·                             Heroin (“H”, “Smack”)

·                             Cocaine (“Coke”, “Crack”)

·                             Methamphetamine

·                             Crack Cocaine

·                             LSD: Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (“trips”, “acid”, “microdots”)

·                             Ectasy (“E”, “XTC”, “eccy”)

·                             Opium

·                             Marijuana (“G”)

·                             Psilocybin Mushroom

·                             PCP: Phenocyelidine (“angel dust”)

                                       These are just some name of the illegal drugs.

                                      But nowadays use of legal drugs and medicinal drugs is also increasing. Many drug addicts and general people believe that legal and medicinal drugs are not harmful. But it is wrong belief.

                                Do you know that many drugs which are termed as illegal at present were used in past as prescription medicine. But people in past, used such drugs in wrong way and started to get addict. That’s why they were made illegal. So, prescription drugs (medicine) are also harmful if used in wrong way or used without prescription. Prescription drugs also holds equal risk of making you addict as illegal drugs and can also harm you. To make you easier to find whether your friends are using prescriptive drugs or not, some street names and nicknames of prescriptive drugs are:- Pilz, Xanax :(Z-bar, Brick, Benzos), Valium:(Blues), Sedatives and Tranquilizers:(Chill Pills, French Fries, Tranqs), Ritalin(Rid, Vitamin R, Jif, R-ball, Rittys, Rits), Aderall:(Beans, Black Beauties, Christmas Trees, Double Trouble), Vicodin, Oxycontin, Cotton, Percocet, Painkillers, Vike, Watson-387, Percs, Morph, Kicker, Tuss, Big Boys, Cotton OC etc. Nowadays glue-sniffing, a kind of addictive substance which can harm you, is also being used.

                                 There are various causes of drug addiction. But in this article I am going to describe about how you can become a drug addict. Let’s see it: Whenever you take a drug for the first time you will probably feel the affect very strongly because you have very low tolerance. Due to intense satisfaction you want to try it again and again and become addict to drug. Overtime due to its continuous use your tolerance level increases. Due to this you won’t feel desired satisfaction by the same amount of dose you used at initial stage. So you should need to use higher dose or stronger types of drugs to get desired and original satisfaction. After sometime, again your tolerance level will increases. So you should again use higher dose or stronger drugs to get desired pleasure. This type of cycle continues unless you get proper help.

                               At that time most part of your brain will be occupied by drugs. You only think about drugs and way to get money to buy drugs. You will be unable to decide what is wrong and what is right. You only realize that you need drug and must have it anyway. You will sell everything around you, you will murder, lie, smuggle, get involve in crime and do whatever you can do to just manage money to buy drugs.

                                    You will forget about your family, relationship, friendship and responsibility. Drug addiction will destroy your career, health and social status. You will bear high risk of various kinds of communicable diseases and STDs like HIV-AIDS, Hepatitis etc.

                                   Some of the problems, which can be brought by drug addiction are:

i.                             Family and relationship problems.

ii.                         Problems at work and school.

iii.                      Accidents.

iv.                      Legal problems.

v.                         Financial problems.

vi.                      Health problems.

vii.                  Sexual problems ( can make a addict sterile and can reduces his/her interest in sex)

                                                

                          Above mentioned facts are just a smaller one but if it happens in real life then it will be much more painful, miserable and heart-breaking. I think now you may have been clear about how drug addiction can make you criminal from a normal person and how miserably it can kill you prematurely.

                            Another wrong belief which people hold about drug addiction is that they regard drug addiction as a personal problem but in fact it is a social problem. If you and your family lives in a place where drug addiction prevails then you and your family members are at high risk of being drug addict. Indirectly, you and your family members can also be victim of problems and crimes resulted by drug addiction.

                            So, instead of regarding drug addiction as other’s problem we should try to solve it as our own problem.

                           Always remember that, in life many kinds of scars can be healed with the passage of time but scars resulted by drug addiction will not easily heal. Even if you get recovered from drug addiction it will be very hard to forget the pain and misery of past which will lead you to depression and regret for rest of the life.   

                             So, think 100 times, even 1000 times about your career, life and family (who have a great hope in you) before taking drugs. And don’t do drugs.                                        

Chapter: 6 Smoking

Chapter: 6

Smoking

                                    At present many younger youth especially teenager are getting involved in smoking day by day. So there is chance you may also smoke in future or you may have already smoked. In this chapter I am going to make you aware about smoking. I don’t know, what you think about cigarette but it is a fact that cigarette is a poison which will lead you to the path of death when you use it.

                                      Most of the people start smoking in their teenage year. It is due to various reasons which I am going to describe later in another chapter. Only very-very few people start smoking in their adult age. But you may see many adult smoking cigarettes. This might confuse you but truth is most of those adult had started smoking in their teenage year. As we know smoking is a one type of addictive behavior which is hard to leave.

                                      Let’s see how smoking can make you addict, cigarette has many harmful chemicals, one of them is nicotine. When the smokes of cigarette enter your body, nicotine also enters and mixes in the bloodstream. Due to the influence of nicotine, brain releases more amount of dopamine. This increases your desire to repeat the smoking behaviour more and more and this can make you addict. So, adult who smokes generally starts smoking cigarette in their teenage year and becomes unable to get rid of smoking due to its addiction and to prevent withdrawal sickness.

                                           Do you know that (about more than 50%) most of the adult smokers regret about why they started smoking in their teenage year. Even though they try to leave smoking habit, they fail to do so.

                                       You should understand that smoking won’t make you look cool, talent, adult, powerful nor respectful person. But it is true that it will destroy your life and happiness. Smoking works like a slow poison which not only shortens your life but also gives you various problems as a gift.

                                         Some of the major fact and consequences of smoking are:

1.            On average if you smoke for one minute then it will reduce your life span by one minute. To smoke a cigarette, it takes 3-5 or more minutes and if you become chain smoker you may smoke about 40 cigarettes in a day. Now, you can imagine about the amount of time and money you will lose by smoking.

2.            Smoking can discolour your nails, fingers and teeth. It can make your mouth, moustaches and cloth to stink. But you will be unable to notice this type of bad things and bad odour. Thus it will repel other people from you.

3.             You start to appear old by your look as wrinkles and rough skins appears prematurely

4.            Your teeth, eyes, gums, and lips get affected and can get infection.

5.            If you smoke then you will bear 10-22 times more risk of cancer than non smoker.

6.            Do you know four out of five causes of oral cancer and esophageal cancer is smoking?

7.            Smoking increases the risk of kidney cancer, bladder cancer, pancreatic cancer, stomach cancer, cervical cancer and leukemia.

8.            A 2007 report states that about 4.9 million people in the world dies every year due to smoking.

                                        These are just some consequences of smoking. There are many other consequences which are not mentioned here.

                                          At last remember that once you start smoking it will be very hard to leave and it makes you an addict person. So it is better to prevent than to regret for whole life. So don’t smoke even for first time. 

Chapter: 5 Alcoholism

Chapter: 5

Alcoholism

                              Alcoholism is a broad term for problems related with alcohol and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled use of alcoholic beverages up to that level in which drunkard’s health, personal relationships, and social life get affected.

                               Progression in behaviour of alcoholic can be separated into four different stages, which are:

i.                            First stage                                                      

                               When a person is   introduced to alcohol he/she enjoys the happy feeling it produces.

  ii.      Second stage

                                 Person starts to think that consumption of alcohol has no effect because in the initial stage he/she only experiences pleasure and do not generally experiences negative symptoms. So, drunkard wills again drinks to feel the intense pleasure experienced in the first stage.

  iii.    Third stage

                            Due to prolong consumption of alcohol physical changes occurs and tolerance level increases but it won’t be noticeable to drunkard or others. Due to increase in tolerance, person needs to increase the volume of alcohol consumption to experience original pleasure. At this same stage physical and social consequences starts to appear i.e. hangovers, family problems, work problems etc. But also drunkard continues to drink excessively ignoring the problems and consequences.

iv.                    Fourth stage

                                  At this stage a drunkard becomes physically dependent on alcohol and many such addict drunkards will keep on drinking alcohol to avoid withdrawal sickness, just to feel normal and to forget about tensions and problems for a while. At last, due to long term drinking of alcohol various organs gets damaged and even causes premature death.

                             These are the four stages which shows how alcoholic person progress.

                              Consuming alcohol causes severe types of physical, psychological, mental, social and economic problems. It can cause cancer of various digestive organs, affects liver, causes heart problems etc. It also causes depression, anxiety, hallucination, sleeping disorder, irritability, etc. Alcoholism destroys family life, causes unnecessary quarrels, economic problems and also causes economic losses. Sometimes too much consumption of alcohol in a same day can also cause instant death of the person.

                                 But it is also true that alcohol (especially of high quality) is beneficial if taken in moderate amount. But once you start to drink alcohol regularly, it becomes a habit and leads to addiction, with the passage of time. Over time tolerance increases, then you have to drink more alcohol willingly or unwillingly, to get desired effect. So, best thing you can do is avoid drinking alcohol even for one time.

                            Let’s look at the some wrong belief that people holds about addiction:

i.                            Many people use alcohol as a way to reduce stress and to get feeling of relaxation for a while. But the real problem won’t be solved by drinking alcohol nor will it provide long term satisfaction. So, instead of using alcohol to reduce stress, you can find out the root cause of stress and solve it once and for all.

ii.                       People also think that they need to consume alcohol to increase and intensify their social circle. Because in movie they see alcoholic people partying and enjoying, even in real life we can also see people having high reputation and high economy drinking alcohol with their group and many more. Always remember that, you don’t have to drink alcohol to be accepted to your loved one or your peer. So, if your friends ask or force you to drink alcohol in order to get entry in their groups then leave such friends and try to be away from them. A good friend always respects your opinion and helps you to be better not to be worse.

iii.                   When we ask some people then they say that, they needs to drink alcohol in order to get sleep at night and they also says that, they feels restless while sleeping if they don’t drink alcohol. But real truth is that, although alcohol helps to get sleep easily but such sleep will be of low quality. Even they sleep for 8 hours they feel like they haven’t slept fully. Because alcohol disturbs the quality of their sleep. Best method which you can use to fall in sleep is do simple meditation by just lying in bed and focus on your breathing. Don’t try to have pills as far as possible, for getting sleep because pills can also disturbs your health condition over a long time and even can make you addict to it.

iv.                    Clinically it is proven that alcohol helps to solve some health issues if taken in moderate amount. But with the passage of time, drinking of alcohol becomes a habit and can even make you addict. At that point you have to face large amount of health issues. You may have seen and realized how family life, career and social status of alcoholic are destroyed. So, it is not wise to drink alcohol in order to improve health condition.

                              In market there are many healthy juices and healthy food are available to feed you. So, why to choose alcohol for drinking? There is no reason to drink alcohol. You won’t die nor will your career and social life get destroyed by not drinking alcohol. So, avoid alcohol and enjoy your life.