Game Over: A Youth Substance Abuse Manual

Introduction

It’s out. Your secret. Everyone knows, your friends, your parents, your brothers and sisters, your teachers, your classmates, your significant other. They all know you have a problem. You’ve tried to mask it behind quick restroom encounters with visine, behind your lies, your “chilled” attitude and your cracked smile. But now, everyone sees it. Your secret is in plain sight. Like the heat rising from hot asphalt we can see the abuse you have done to your body. The abuse grips like finger tips to sparked matches and you tried to blow it out, only the harder you blew the quicker it burned and the quicker the light in your life began to get darker. If there was ever a time you thought you had this locked away… the game is over.
No longer can you assume “they don’t know.” No longer can you mask your innocence with perfumes and cologne. It is time to get up out of the darkness. Put that shame down and walk into a new sunrise. You weren’t given into defeat; you merely postponed your victory. These words are sent to capture you back from within, to sweep you towards a better place. You might have thought you can quit at anytime but you can’t dig your way out of a young addicts hole. Today is the day you give it up for good. But you must first get up, admit your mistakes and come to terms with the fact that…
The game is over.

Game Over is to be read one day at a time. No more and no less. Each lesson is to be reflected upon, practiced and shared. Congratulations on choosing to end the game on your substance abuse!
-Author

Table of Contents

Day 7
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Isaiah 64:6

It was whole new ball game, sophomore year at a four-year university. I thought to myself, “I have made it”. Thinking back to one year prior to my acceptance at San Diego State University. I found myself sitting in a leather recliner talking with my boy Abby about going to college. “It was a distant dream”, I told him. He urged me and pushed me to complete the online application saying, “What do you have to loose, Mark, man?” As a child my mother would drive past the large campus on the hill that overlooked the valley. There was nothing but tall buildings and bright lights, I would look up out my window and image what it would be like to be on the campus of a university reaching for a higher education. At age 21 I was a “C average” student who had yet to dedicate his all towards the achievable. I was a community college veteran, a fourth year community college freshman. But I had major dreams. Eventually, I would receive that acceptance letter and eventually I would call San Diego State my campus.
My dreams turned to nightmares as I began my first semester without books, without determination and without a clue about studying. It was sensory overload; there was fun, girls, pajamas in class, and non-stop parties. I began to loose my faith because of the lust of my flesh and the pride of life. I would pre-drink only to get drunker and drunker at the various parties sometimes two or three parties in one night. I eventually started drinking to cope with the shortcomings of my academics. I had bad grades because I drank and I drank because I had bad grades. Instead of taking care of myself and pulling myself out of my whole, I only dug deeper and deeper. Eventually, classmates and schoolmates began to ask me if I was walking around campus drunk during the middle of day. My reputation for parting overtook my ambition for success. I was addicted to alcohol.

Stages of Alcohol Addiction
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) has categorized three stages of alcohol addiction, they are:
1. Preoccupation or Anticipation
2. Binge Drinking or Intoxication
3. Withdrawal or Negative Affect

These are characterized, respectively, everywhere by constant cravings and preoccupation with obtaining the substance; using more of the substance than necessary to experience the intoxicating effects; and experiencing tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, and decreased motivation for normal life activities.

Much like me some of you are going through intense cravings to get “faded” or cravings for the need to “loosen up” with a drink. Much of this starts subtly but can lead to much worse complications with your body, your life, and your children’s lives. This chain can be stopped by exposing the root of your usage, take a moment to reflect, share or write;

1. The first time I drank was…. (share your story) I still do it to this day because…
2. Getting drunk helps me to…
3. The overall issue is that I struggle with is…. (acceptance, confidence, shame, guilt, embarrassment, anger) drinking takes that away which allows me to….

Take a moment to pray and forgive yourself for drinking to mask what is really happening. Ask God to come in and deal with your issue listed above. Give it to Him let Him know it is to large for you to hold on to.

Day 14
“Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and to insight, “You are my relative.”
Proverbs 7:2-4

Journaling is an insight into your mind; it’s a journey less traveled and a destination less seen. Through this journey you are able to see the path you are walking in, the path you have chosen, and the path you have yet to take. If your life could be picked up and read this journey would have your entire autobiography and then some! Your task is to write your goals down for each day or week. Plan to write the events of the day, the emotions you are experiencing, and the feelings you are undergoing. This is not a book of pointless memories rather; it is a book of clues to your identity. Your children should be able to pick up and read your journal and understand what it was like to walk in your shoes. “A journal is a place where we can give expression to the fountain of our heart, where we can unreservedly poor out our passion before the Lord.” – Donald A. Whitney. Take a moment to review the different ways to journal then fill in the template below for today.

Ways to Journal

1. Devotional 5. Insights 9. Stories
2. Inspirational Quotes 6. Poems 10. Chapters
3. Prayers 7. Letters 11. Hour by Hour
4. Word Webs 8. Freestyles 12. Experiences

Game Over Journal Template
Day, Month, Year

Today’s Scripture

Today’s Affirmation

My thoughts