Everything has a
price…sometimes the price is too high--you can't afford it.
As you are looking at the
dresses tonight, adding up limo rental or gas for your beater car, flowers, the
dance tickets, dinner---I want you to think of your future beyond high school. It is going to be over soon, less than 4
years, but some of the mistakes you make during these years will affect you the
rest of your life-or end your life too soon.
If I were a wealthy philanthropist
with $ to burn, I would pay teenagers to be sober. Every 2 weeks you pass a clean pee test, my
dream sobriety program would put $ in an account for you so that by the time
you graduate you have enough for a brand new car--that freedom that you crave,
and need to grow up, be independent…
My son Max was amazing-he
didn't do homework, but he took tests well, horrible grades, but made it to
graduation and into a good university, but after his freshman year, he blew it
all away.
We all have secrets. Maybe he started earlier, but when Max was a senior
in high school I was cleaning his bedroom, throwing out the garbage when I
smelled that sick-sweet smell of pot in his garbage can. I poked around, found a homemade bong, found
a bag stash of marijuana in his desk drawer.
To give him the benefit of the doubt, I asked him, calmly, if he was
holding it for a friend.
He had been taking long
showers with the fan on, trying to disguise what he was doing. What should be the consequences when you are
caught? Jail time/community service? You know it is against the law. Smoking and drinking for minors is protecting
you, but the laws against using drugs, it's not just about being old enough to
do them. Do you ever wonder why? What is the big deal?
I have watched the life of a
smart, funny, talented young man with a future waste away to a hunched, sad,
husk of himself from drug use. He caved
into peer pressure and said yes to pot, and then it was easier to say yes to
alcohol. He picked up cigarette smoking
from an AA meeting. And all the hopes
and dreams for his future were blown away.
Instead of trying to figure out what to major in, he was trying to get a
job and keep a job; we didn't trust him to drive our car, changed the locks on
the house because he was stealing grocery money for drugs. We kicked him out of our home because he had
younger siblings and was using in front of them. He got kicked out of aunt & uncles home,
grandparents after he blew chances over and over to stop.
I know your life isn't
perfect, everyone has something they are dealing with, and it is hard, but
please, look for help. Stay sober, and
don't use drugs and alcohol to escape dealing with reality.
Drugs wasted my son's
life. I miss him. You would be missed, because you are loved
and valued. Whatever mistakes you have
made, however much trouble you think you are in, please ask for help. I promise you it can get better. I care about your safety, your happiness and
success, and invite you to choose right now to say NO when someone asks you to
party with them. Do it for Max, do it
for your future. Be sober.
People ask all the time if DEFIANCE really is his middle name--and yes, it is. We gave him that name with the prayer that he
would defy the bad stuff in the world and that he would stand up for what is
real and true. If you remember nothing
else from what we say tonight, know that you can show DEFIANCE of the complacency and acceptance of drugs. Drugs hurt you. They hurt my son. Again, I invite you to be sober.
