It’s all very well educating a person young or old about drugs and what they do to the body and mind but that is only half the job.
It is an entirely different matter when the person finds themselves in a position of being offered or tempted to accept or take the substance.
There is a huge desire to conform to the crowd or group think.
A person has to have a very strong conviction of their beliefs or you could say “their reality” to stand up against a group.
There was an experiment done not that long ago on this where they set up a situation with 8 people. Seven of the group were in on the deal and were primed on how to act and what to say. Only one was not in the know.
They all went into a room in which there was a table with a drawing on a sheet of paper with a set of lines of different lengths drawn on the paper together as a group. Further over on its own was another line drawn exactly the same length as the middle line on the other group of 3 lines.
Do you follow me? Three lines together 1,2,3, each one a good bit longer than the other. Another line by itself nearby exactly the same length as the middle line of the group of three.
The group is told to say which line of the group is the same length as the line by its own. Even though it is very obvious which are the two matching lines the stooges engage the dummy and discuss this for a while and finally the stooges agree amongst themselves that the line on its own is same as the longest line.
The subject not knowing he is being set up and believing that all the others are independent like himself goes along with the other 7 and says that the line on its own is the same as the longest line even though he can well see and knows that this is not correct.
We are looking here at the power of group agreement and the desire to stay in agreement and conform to what a person believes the group hold as their reality.
My point is that this is the pressure the person is under when confronted with a group offer to get started on drugs or alcohol, (or any other activity really, good or bad). He will be told all manner of lies and “reasons” why he should get involved and this hammers against his better knowledge, training, judgement and even experience.
It takes a person of considerable strength of character to hold out against a group especially when they are school friends, buddies, workmates, or where there is a romantic interest or the desire to be liked or to make an impression.
The ability to stand and keep to one’s values, sometimes alone, against a group is a very desirable and rare quality well worth expending the effort to acquire. This quality comes under the heading of integrity.
Remember, someone has lead and convinced the group to agree that drugs or alcohol are cool or may have even fed them the false idea that these poisons actually make things better.
One choice you have is to take that person’s position, give the group the real truth and do it in a better and more convincing way than he did and turn the group around and do them all a favour which funnily enough will have a dramatic character building affect on you.
If you find that too daunting then there is always the choice of leaving that group and looking for and finding another group that has similar values to your own.
There will always be another group that has similar values to your own if you go looking hard enough. This is a better solution than compromising yourself, lowering your standards and sinking with the crowd.
Narconon Drug Education addresses this aspect of drug education.
