The Drugs Talk - How To Start It?

Hi all,

New here.

Have a 13 year old daugther that has gotten in with the wrong crowed. She's not involved with drugs yet, but knowing the crowd she is hanging out with, and the parents of some of those kids, it's only a matter of time. I've been looking to start the whole drugs discussion, but doing it in a relaxed kind of way. To that end, what I have done is buy a book called 'Dying to Survive' which is the story of an Irish woman who got addicted to heroin at 14 years old, and nearly lost her life because of it. She also nearly lost her arms before that, because she had been injecting so much drugs into her arm.

What' good about the book is that its got a really grizzly picture of the lady (Rachel Keogh is her name actually) and her arms before she turned her life around. The drugs had eaten away the flesh on her forearms. What I'm going to do is leave the book lying around and let it start a conversation. I'm reading it at the moment, and if I think it is suitable I might let her read it to. I think this approach is better than getting preachy about drugs, because some kids like to rebel for rebellings sake.

What I'd like to know is if there are any other books out there that someone could recommend.

Thanks in advance.

Best regards,
Anthony

Hello Anthony! It's very sad when we see that so close, isn't it? To be honest I don't know how to help you. I agree that everything must be natural but many teenagers think that's cool to hang around with friends and so on. They don't see how dangerous it is. I think the best is to tell her cases of people who had an unhappy end. The best thing is the example. She has to see hoe much it can cost her. It's a high price to pay. I remember my mum talking to me about some people around us that seem to be cool but they were never successful at all. they had so many problems and the price was too high to me.Teens like to try new things but they need to see how further they should/shouldn't go. Good luck and sorry for not having wise words.

have you read the book of Dr. Spock? I remember it is also deals with problems of adolescents....constant communication in this instance can really help..

Be careful about the sources you use, TalktoFrank for example has a lot of incorrect information.