Bashful Dan

“… I lost my children, I lost my family, I have gruesome scars covering 56% of my body … and I nearly lost my life”.   Shelly Oldum told her compelling story of meth addiction and survival to an overflow audience at the Sandpoint, Idaho Community Hall on Thursday, March 26, 2009.   Dr. Gary Hopkins summed the world of meth addiction as “absolute chaos”.   CC, a former Sandpoint LPO student, described growing up with parents who shared an addiction and operated a cooking show that is very different from Rachel Ray’s.   At 15, she used meth for the first time, hooked up with a 29 year old boyfriend, and was one of the lucky ones that is now able to celebrate a “quit date” of October 13, 2005.   There were poems, testimonials, and graphic slides showing the burns that Shelly wears from the house fire that started at her meth cooker while her husband and four children were sleeping.   It seemed to me that the biggest threat is the unintential use that comes from someone adding it to your drink.   The next largest threat is the party or friend that says everyone is doing it...why don’t you just try it once?   I wondered today, despite the powerful images and message from peer group speakers, how many kids in that audience will be on stage in a couple years describing today’s event and tell us that they got high later?   The only logical conclusion anyone can come to after the information, education, and peer testimony; is that you must never try meth even once.   Even once is enough to become addicted and that fierce addiction will become your best and only friend.   Ask Shelly who in one recovery program wrote a goodbye letter to her drug of choice.   A letter she can now communicate from memory.   Even after that she returned to her meth addiction.  Now she is back with her husband and four beautiful children and speaking out at schools and in community forums whenever possible.   She knows she is one of the lucky ones to battle back to a life worth living.   Sandpoint, Idaho Alternative High School young adults led the 4th Annual March Against Meth in downtown Sandpoint today.   Today there were smiles and tears.  Today there was information and education available.   The trick is; what will we all do tomorrow?   The day after tomorrow?

I would love to hear from the students in that audience that have 1) used no drugs and 2) have used drugs and 3) have used meth.   Will anything you learned, heard or witnessed today make you:  not start, just do drinking and what some of you were calling safe drugs, stop doing meth, or as my 8 year old says “whatever”.   I would love to hear from you.   You can email me at DYoung6962@aol.com and I will post for you here.  Or you can post your comment here.  You are welcome to use anonymous names.   You need to put in your email address but it will not show up on your post.  I am the only one that will have it.  

The rest of the pictures I took are on my Facebook site.  I made them public but if you want to be Facebook friends - Welcome. 

http://www.facebook.com/people/Bashful-Dan-Young/1329017492

Tags: , addicted, addiction, community, community hall, Dr. Gary Hopkins, idaho meth project, march against meth sandpoint, meth, sandpoint idaho, sandpoint march against meth, Shelly Oldum