Family Care & Fentanyl
- Dec 28, 2022
- 4 min read
December 28, 22
In my Mother's home, I grew up with what I consider, normal teenaged freedom. Friends came over. We went over to friends homes. Back then, it was safer to ride our bikes on the next block while Mom was home, to meet up and play with kids from the other streets near our house. We knew however, when she was not home, to stay on our own block. As we became teenagers, we were not at home as often as we were as younger kids. In those pockets of unsupervised time, we could have gotten into anything we wanted to. Perhaps some of us did. There were clear and present fears for parents when I was a teenager. Teen pregnancy, getting into a car crash and dying, drugs, kidnapping, not sex traficking; but never was fentanyl a conversation and fatal reality in the 90's and early 2000's, as it is today. All I knew of were teens smoking weed and trying ecstasy. I am sure there were other drugs they experimented with, but regardless of the experimentations, I never heard of any of my peers taking a pill and dying from fentanyl poisoning. Saying that drugs were "safer" when I was a kid, would be an oxymoron, but, no one had yet discovered the ease of getting, and the affordability of fentanyl.
Fast forwarding several years later; not only is the drug fentanyl cheaper, the access to it is right at the fingertips of our children. They can find sellers through snap chat, Instagram, Twitter and as many other platforms that are out there. Kids are not searching for the fatal drug fentanyl, per se.....they are looking for drugs such as Percocet, Oxycodone, Ecstacy, and what they are receiving from these sellers, is fentanyl. A supplier is not going to make that known to their buyer. As parents we have to be very candid about why we say "No", you cannot do something, or hang out with certain people or go to certain homes and places. Be very clear and let them see why your no is no. We cannot simply say; "NO, because I said so!" Why? Why can I not just go to anyone's home? Why can I not just get into any friends car? Why can I not stay out past a certain hour? They may not even care to hear the answers....but they need to hear the answers anyways. We are so conditioned to believe that BAD will not happen in our own homes and families. We see it on the news, how a teen was killed by a drunk driver, a mother was murdered by her tinder date and never made it back home to her kids, a kid takes what they think is an upper or downer......and ingested fentanyl, and died from one pill. We think these tragedies will not happen in our homes. The last part has become the most frequent news that I have been coming across lately. This can happen in any home.
A lot of these kids and young adults have never been addicts and had no desire to become addicts. One choice they made however, costs them their lives. I feel it is important to express with much conviction, that if you are willing to experiment with drugs, and taking pills from friends, even if you think it is a Tylenol, buying drugs online...you are gambling with your life. It only takes one time, one pill....even a half of one, to be laced with the deadly poison, fentanyl, to die. It only takes about 2 tiny salt sized pieces of fentanyl, to wake up into eternity. Having this conversation with our children is just as important as the conversations about dating and sex. If not more.
The reason why we say no, and lay down rules, is so that you can live past your teens and 20's. Our "NO's" are not to deprive you from freedom......as long as you have earned that freedom by doing the right things and showing wisdom and responsibility. Our No's are designed to be a safety boundary that should not be crossed, and if so at your own risk...even peril. Teaching wisdom when they are younger, will help guide them as they age. Showing them, what they are NOT missing out on, will also help them when needing to make the right decisions. The video at the end of my blog post, is a part of that visual they need to see, along with having discussions.
I wanted to say more on this topic, and I will down the line, but I wanted to share a video of a Mother telling her son's story. She lost him in 2022 at the young age of 14, from fentanyl poisoning. She shared the actual footage of the moment she walked into her son's room and found him dead.
Proverbs 22:6
“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Warning: this video contains graphic yet very real and actual footage of the realities of fentanyl poisoning. This happens every day. The victims continue to get younger.
Raven
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