Local News
Holly Pond trying to save students from addiction
By Tiffany GreenIf Karen Rowell can reach just one student, she will be satisfied.
As a part of National Red Ribbon Week, Rowell, the guidance counselor at Holly Pond High School, invited Cay Stamps, nurse with Bradford Health Systems, to the school to speak about addiction.
“Some of you are going to tune this out because you are going to do what you are going to do, but if I can help one of you, then I have accomplished something,” Rowell told the Holly Pond students.
After 30 years of working with youth, Rowell has seen first hand the consequences of drugs and alcohol.
“You don’t realize how drugs and addiction will affect you,” she said to the class of 11th and 12th graders.
Rowell believes if she can reach youth sooner, before they even get started on something that may be addictive, it is worth it.
“My job as a counselor is to help students,” Rowell said. “I want you to apply this information and use it to better your future.”
Stamps explained to the students how someone can become an addict.
“Addiction is a disease of the whole because it effects every thing about a person, every part of our beings,” Stamps said. “When someone has an addiction, there is an actual change in the brain.”
Stamps explained that is takes at least six months for the brain to go back to normal.
“We are finding more and more that there is a pattern of addiction,” she said. “There is also evidence of a genetic predisposition.”
Stamps discussed the many factors that can contribute to addiction.
“I have a family history of alcoholism, but I am not an addict,” she said. “This is 100 percent guarantee that there is a risk you could become addicted if you use, and there is 100 percent guarantee you will not become addicted if you do not use.”
Rowell wants to warn the teens before they go to college and are in settings where drugs and alcohol are prevalent, how to say no.
“I think they need to understand that a lot of things will be exposed to them because they will be in vulnerable situations,” Rowell said. “I just needed them to hear this information. And hopefully they will use it.”
Red Ribbon Week is the nation’s oldest and largest drug prevention program, reaching millions of American’s during the last week of October every year. By wearing red ribbons and participating in community anti-drug events, young people pledge to live a drug-free life and to pay tribute to DEA special agent Enriqué “Kiki” Camarena.
In 1985, Camarena was on the trail of one of Mexico’s biggest marijuana and cocaine traffickers when he was kidnapped, brutally tortured and murdered by the Mexican drug traffickers. His tragic death opened the eyes of many Americans to the dangers of drugs and the international scope of the drug trade.
* Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 220.
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