As Narconon, a non-profit drug education and rehabilitation organization, points out, the nations new drug addicts are pre-teens. Prescriptions drugs are among the top choices these days for these future addicts although 10th grade use of Heroin has increased and marijuana is more acceptable as well, according to the January 2010 newsletter of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
These trends are more than "troubling" as the newsletter puts it. It indicates a moral breakdown and decline of those traditional values Americans once held dear. With so many young people coming into drug treatment centers one could easily point fingers at parents and a general failure of "good parenting."
However, the problem is far more complex than that. With higher tax rates and now more than a hundred types of taxes modern parents are more economically burdened than family’s decades ago. Generally, both parents now need to work to make ends meet. Mass media and TV prescription drug advertising has been allowed by Congress, lobbied heavily by multi-billion dollar drug companies to do so, making it so the modern American is constantly bombarded with drug ads at virtually every turn. Not to mention moral celebrity role models for children are few and far between these days. Morals have ceased to be taught in schools.
The Narconon program takes a different approach than pointing the finger at parents for their son or daughter's addiction. This is done by including a non-religious unbiased moral code in the program. The book The Way to Happiness, used by Narconon, discusses 21 moral precepts and has been distributed world-wide and is in use in 130 nations with over 70 million copies in distribution. The book was written by American author and Humanitarian, L. Ron Hubbard, who seeing the collapse of moral standards wrote this common sense moral code to fill the moral vacuum in our culture.
The fifth precept of The Way to Happiness is "Honor and Help Your Parents". This precept gets the student of Narconon to look at his responsibility for his relationship with his parents rather than blaming his parents for all the "terrible things they've done to him". Often the relationship between an addict and his or her parents has been strained or even broken by the addiction. Getting this precept applied in the addicts life with the understanding as to why as covered in the book, goes far to mending that relationship.
The Narconon program turns out graduates who are far more moral and as a result more successful in life. Parents and parenting are needed now more than ever in today's society. But where there has been trouble on this line between parent and child, The Way to Happiness as taught to Narconon students can go far to improving the relationship.
If you would like more information on The Way to Happiness or the Narconon program contact Narconon at 877-237-3307.
