Walking the Walk by Averie McGraw & Mallory Swope staff writer & editor-in-chief
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Defining the dangers of addiction through a firsthand account of the direct effects of the disease
industry, no substance kills more per year than ddiction is a disease that has been ravagthese three. For young brains, substance abuse ing communities near and far unrelentlessly for can mean stunted development that will never years now, taking its toll on people of all social be completed even if sobriety is achieved. For statuses and backgrounds. Whether it be a teenmany years now, vaping has become an addicager exposed to hard drugs for the first time at a tion extremely prevalent to Central’s community high school party or an opiate prescription that of young, developing teenagers. Students sneak led to a dependency, addiction lies dangerously off to the bathrooms or remote parts of campus, at the tips of everyone’s fingers. When people concealing their addiction just as they conceal get their hands on drugs and alcohol, they often their paraphernalia. These teenagers are laying feel instant gratification. All of the problems in the world simply don’t matter anymore as they float the groundwork for addiction to set in very early in life, and their disease will only grow more seaway from the perception of the user, but little does this person realize vere with time. “This disease took me as For these students, the environthose problems are only low as I could possibly go.” mental factors they are surrounded temporarily gone and will be waiting for them by often create an idea in their heads that their addiction makes them more as soon as they return to sobriety. It’s this freeing feeling that often convinces people that the popular or relatable. Like any other disease, addiction can be caused by several different things, dangers of addiction don’t apply to them. These people, however, are wildly incorrect. but it is primarily caused by genetics and environment. Children who have parents or other family Unlike most diseases, addiction creates pleasure members who have suffered from addiction are in the human body versus pain. In some cases, substance users can even be under the assumpmore likely to become addicted to a substance at some point in their life, but even just being tion that they are able to perform better under the influence. Because of this, they crave their near substances can be enough to initiate addiction for teenagers. For David Cantrell, genetics preferred substance more and can’t let go of the high. According to the National Institute on Drug predisposed him to the dangers of heroin and Abuse, tobacco, alcohol, and opioids are a fatal alcohol and caused the formation of an incessant addiction at only 13 years old. Growing up in a trinity; throughout the entire drug and alcohol 20 // BGQ // October 2021
