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JACS LIBRARY - ARTICLES
What's Wrong With Our Children
What's Wrong With Us
by Rabbi James Stone Goodman
The Columbia University Program on alcohol and drug abuse reported in May of
this year that fifteen to twenty per cent of our children are alcoholic by the
time they go to College. The National Household Survey on Drug Abuse reported
this month that illicit drug use is up for the first time in thirteen years.
Marijuana and LSD are easily available in our high schools. When our kids go to
College, drinking and drugs are plentiful and financed by the naive good
intentions of their parents, often thousands of miles away. The luckier ones of
the fifteen to twenty percent of our children run into problems with the Law.
The criminal justice system is quickly becoming the primary avenue through which
young people are finding help, because they have to.
After they finish with College or after College finishes with them, many young
people come home to resume their lives. They may have a few car accidents, come
home drunk late at night, sleep until noon, their parents may become alarmed and
they call me. I get many such calls. I get more such calls all the time because
the standards of proper College behavior continue to decline, drinking and drugs
are standard on the social scene, our children continue to run into problems
until one day they get in over their heads, they hurt someone, they hurt
themselves, they do something stupid and the police are involved.
Young people are smoking pot again, they are drinking beer all night long at
campus parties, they are taking LSD again, though there is no psychedelic
culture as there was on campus when their parents were taking drugs to the tunes
of the Grateful Dead, the Rolling Stones and the Doors. These are not the doors
of perception our children are exploring, this is what our children call
"partying." This is the proud generation of the party.
It is not enough, of course, to point our fingers at them, their generation, and
mock it for its shallowness. Parents all over the country are wondering why
their children are choosing drugs and booze when their own culture has so much
more to offer. That's what we have to ask ourselves: what are we creating in the
suburbs of our cities that is such a proud model of enlightened civilization?
What is the legacy we are leaving? Where is the better world each generation
wants to leave its children? There is a war for America's soul in place in the
country now, we feel it in the politics, in the struggles on both the national
and international scene, and we also see it in the boredom on the faces of our
sons and daughters who spend their free time hanging at the Mall.
Slicha, the St. Louis Information Committee and Hotline on Addiction, began
thirteen years ago to help Jews overcome the shame barrier and recover from the
problems associated with drug and alcohol abuse. We teach people spiritual
responses to the challenges of addiction. All addiction is, in some sense, a
spiritual problem. We teach that drug and alcohol addiction is not about drugs
and alcohol, but about personalities who become attached to drugs and alcohol.
People drink and take drugs into an emptiness and it is into that emptiness that
Slicha does its work.
Drug and alcohol abuse is also a social problem. It is a problem on all levels,
for all of us. It is an inside problem, it is also a law enforcement problem, a
health care problem, a cultural problem a spiritual problem a community problem.
Addiction is a commentary on a culture. When addiction rises in a society, it is
a sign of serious social disease as well as individual disease. The problems
associated with addiction call for a total response. The first step is to
realize that it is not a "their" problem, it is always an
"our" problem.
It is neither fair nor is it accurate to treat drug addiction, alcoholism,
eating disorders, gambling addiction, as their problem. It is neither fair nor
accurate to throw up our hands in bewilderment and impotence when someone we
love has a problem with drugs or alcohol or eating or gambling or sex. It is
neither fair nor accurate to think that the solution to the problem will come
from the schools or from the home or from the government or from the
professionals. It will have to come from all of the above. It is
neither fair nor accurate, it is not a "their" problem at all. It is
our problem.
Rabbi James Stone Goodman is the director of Slicha. Slicha offers support
services for those recovering from addictions as well as help for those still
suffering. Slicha is currently meeting every Monday night at 7:00 pm at
Congregation Neve Shalom, which is located in the Church of the Open Word, 1040
Dautel, in Creve Coeur. For more information, you may call 863-4366.
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