I read the blog below and the question it posed and felt the need to answer it:

I am greatly concerned about how drug use is affecting our communities. It worries me that young children are taking drugs and becoming addicted. how do we get our youth out of the pattern of drug addiction after they are addicted at for example, age 15?

As a First Nation educator I am working on changing the worldview of our youth for them to look into education as a viable option. instead of taking drugs for it could and probably would be a long road to get out of that to get back on the Red road

It is my experience that addicts – no matter what their age take drugs as an unhealthy way to deal with what, to avoid a long and involved listing, I shall simply call issues. Examples would be mental illness, the effects of growing up in an alcoholic household or environment, feelings, abuse etc.

Over the past several years I have been dealing with my mental health and growing up with alcoholism and it has and is a long, uncomfortable, often painful journey requiring a lot of effort and willpower.
Having been homeless and currently working at an shelter I have observed that those who go to treatment and get sober without dealing with the underlying issues they have, soon fall back into using.

Feel pain, unhappy, etc? The quick easy solution is to take a pill in our society. The reason so many fall back into addiction is that we do not provide the counselling and support they need to deal with their issues in a healthy manner and build good mental health habits.

Not just those with addiction either. As I worked to restore my mental wellness I observed that most of us have some kind of issue(s) that we should learn to deal with in a healthy way.

We forget or ignore the importance of the Spirit in our lives – at out peril.

It worries me that youth today seem to think the only way to party or have a good time is to get drunk or stoned. I am not claiming that when younger I and friends did not get drunk, merely that it was not the whole idea of partying to get high.
We seem to have, pretty much society as a whole, forgotten how to have fun without mind altering substances.

I recently read an article with which I agree that stated the only real “solution” to drug and alcohol problems is very long term and lies in raising healthy kids. Mentally healthy kids who when feeling sad, mad or upset have the tools and skills to deal with these negative emotions instead of turning to drugs for escape (temporary escape).
I went through a course at Triangle Resources a few years ago and was left wishing that the life skills and self knowledge had come to me as a youth.

My experiences with addicts, the mentally ill, my own mental illness (If I could and did catch the unhealthy mental attitudes and thought patterns of an alcoholic parent, then it follows that parents and society can pass mental unhealthiness on) and issues have convinced me that at the middle school level we need to have life skills courses. Imparting knowledge on anger, self esteem, that happiness is an inside job etc.

Not an easy task, but it is a necessary task if we want to raise a truely healthy and balanced generation – and end the human nissues that lead people to drugs as a dead end solution to their pain.