Preventing Addiction
Striking at the Root

To tackle addiction, you must strike at the root. It’s usually one of the following six things:
1. You feel insecure and desperately want to belong
2. Your friends are doing it and you feel pressured by them
3. You are trying to hide pain from the past, like a death in the family, a divorce, or being abused

4. You feel confined and want to rebel
5. You want to escape from your current problems
6. You’re bored or curious
If you are feeling one of these six things think of something more satisfying and enduring to make you feel better – not drugs or alcohol!

- Exercise
- Sports
- Music
- Service
- Hobbies
- Family
- Faith

1. Know the Facts – Make choices based on facts
2. Know Yourself – To have the strength to say no you need to have something more important to say yes to.
3. Know the Situation – Don’t put yourself in situations where you may not be strong enough to resist.

1. Be Direct – Say no straight up, and don’t apologize
2. Use Humor – “No, thanks, I like my brain cells.”
3. Blame it on your parents – say you have strict parents
4. Suggest an alternative – sometimes your friends just need a better idea
5. Get up and go – trust your instincts and just leave

- To finish out our unit on Addictions, I’d like you to read on your own that last addiction in the 6 decisions book.
- Sean Covey calls this The Drug of the 21 st Century.
Please read from the bottom of page 256 to 261.
- I will answer any questions you may have after you read this section.
If you get done early (before the others in the class) our next decision will be self worth, you can take a peek at that if you like…

For today’s journal entry reflect on all that we have learned about addictions. You had Const. Legere talk about drug use, we learned the three brutal realities of addictions, and we watched
Through a Blue Lens and Tears for April as well as read from our textbook about addictions…
What do you think about your choices surrounding addictions such as smoking, drugs, and alcohol? Have you made choices you regret? What choices are you going to make in the future? How are you going to stay addiction free? What is the most important thing you took from this unit on addictions? What did you learn? Anything we missed?

• Groups of four
• Deal out the pink cards until they are gone
• Deal out the blue cards, make sure that each person has different numbers then their pink cards
• Have the person with the pink card #1 read it to the group
• The person with the blue card #1 then responds
(read your card and then give your response or ask your group to help you think of how to respond)
• Continue on in the same way with #2 till are the cards are read