Drug Addiction

“Can’t nobody - not a doctor, not a detox - can’t nobody say it’s over until I say it’s over,” she responds belligerently. “It’s my addiction, my desire … and I say when it’s over.” There is the truth of the matter. The addict says when their addiction is over. Adolescents coping with addiction can be sent through program after program. They can successfully graduate from boarding schools for troubled teens, they can get through vigorous boot camps, but, if they have not gained the power to say no to their desire, addiction will always be a monkey on their back. Or, as in the article excerpted below, it can be a monkey on the backs of the addict’s loved ones. “There’s been a monkey on my back - this burden, my mother’s drug addiction.”

Cont...

R&B star Mario has struggled with his mother’s addiction since he was a teen. Hopefully the MTV special he has produced that tells their story will impact the teens who view it. The price addiction extracts from the addict and those that love them is something that teens have a hard time conceptualizing. They are focused on the here and now, hardly imagining that this week-ends’ “high” could, ultimately, not only play havoc with their lives, but also with the lives of the children that they might one day have. “the film’s dramatic power derives from the tension of whether and how Mario is going to get his mother into treatment. One dark-night-of-the-soul sequence shows Mario surfing the Web in the wee hours trying to find information on addiction after he finds his mother using again. There are plenty of poignant and gripping moments.” (source) By Ann Walker