Wednesday, April 27, 2011

The time DARE convinced me my mother was a drug dealer

Did I ever tell you the story of the time that D.A.R.E. convinced me that my mother was a drug dealer? No. Well here's the story.

DARE stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education. It is a program that was founded in 1983 to help keep elementary and middle school kids off drugs.As you can see, the mascot is Darrin the hip lion thing, whose job it is to tell kids to say no to drugs and alcohol. He also convinced me for many years that my mother was a drug dealer.

Would you like some Meth with that bacon?


During my early childhood we lived in a small town in the southwest. It was super small and had a problem with drugs and alcohol abuse, so they started to implement prevention programs as early as first grade. The problem was so bad the school had dedicated an entire week to drug prevention education. It was called red ribbon week.

Red ribbon week was awesome. We skipped some regular classes, were told to wear red shirts and red ribbons in our hair, and at the end of the week the whole school had a parade where all of the classes marched around the block shouting slogans about being drug free.During all of the programs we were told to just say no to drugs and alcohol. We were told drugs were bad and if you did drugs you wouldn't go to college.
Parades!

Now, I had never seen my parents, or any other adult drunk, and I had no idea what illegal drugs were. I had, however, just recently been diagnosed with ADD and had been prescribed perfectly legal drugs for it.

No one told me there was a difference between legal drugs that the doctor gives you so you can focus on math and drugs that creepy men in vans give you so can feel high.

I heard adults say that all drugs were bad, that if you started to take drugs you would end up homeless and toothless and that anyone who offered you drugs was a bad person. If an adult offered you drugs, then you should tell your parents or call the police.
They would take you away

Do you know who offered me drugs every morning, along with making me breakfast?

The Matriarch. 

My mother was a drug dealer. She wanted me to end up homeless. She wanted me to end up toothless. She wanted me to end up in prison.

She. Was. A. Bad. Person.
Bad Person

According to the curriculum, I was supposed to tell my parents that someone had offered me drugs. But I couldn’t do that, The Matriarch was my parent, and telling Capt. Dr. Daddy seemed like snitching. Besides, he had seen my mother take the pills out of the little orange bottle and hand me them at the breakfast table. He was in cahoots with her. 

What was I supposed to do? Should I take the pills every morning and risk end up being toothless/homeless? Should I pretend to take them so The Matriarch didn’t suspect I knew what she was up to? I couldn’t decide. My tiny brain was overloaded.

There was also another problem
I liked taking those pills.

They made my life easier. I could concentrate. I didn’t say as many strange, off topic or inappropriate things. I could get homework done. I had time to play.
Playing. Brought to you by Rx
I felt better about myself now that I was taking drugs. Taking them allowed me to be happy.
Was this the euphoria that all drug addicts felt before their inevitable demise into the seedy underworld of drugs, homelessness and bad dental hygiene?


Drug dealer, also gangster

Did that make me a bad person? Did I secretly want to be homeless/toothless? Was I going to become a drug dealer too?

Again, I couldn’t talk to The Matriarch, or Capt. Dr. Daddy. Because if I did, they would know that I knew that they were drug dealers.
Via Hyberole and a Half




It didn’t make any sense. 





So for many months, I did nothing. I took the drugs. I didn’t tell anyone I thought my mom was a drug dealer. The guilt was eating me up inside.

Until one day it became too much for my tiny brain to handle.

I broke down.  Teary eyed I told The Matriarch one morning that drugs were bad and that I wanted to have all of my teeth and that I didn’t want to take drugs anymore and that I didn’t want to be a drug dealer.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

She took out the orange bottle. And showed me the place where the doctor’s name was printed on the bottle.
Inanimate objects shouldn't have faces

Then she told me that doctors wrote prescriptions and that I was SUPPOSED to take these drugs. That I wasn’t going to lose my teeth. That I would probably have a house when I grew up. That she was most definitely not a drug dealer. She loved me, and that she would never do anything she didn't think was in my best interest.
still loved me, also, not a drug dealer

The moral of the story is, DARE totally failed to teach me that my mother was not a drug dealer and that drugs prescribed by your doctor are totally okay to take.In fact you should take them in order avoid annoying everyone to death.

4 comments:

  1. Lol, that was hilarious xD

    ReplyDelete
  2. OMG, my son had almost the same reaction after Red Ribbon Week at his school. He came home that Tuesday and saw me taking an Advil for a head ache. He ran up to me and slapped the whole bottle out of my hands so they went all over the floor. He then sat down on the kitchen floor and cried about how I was doing drugs and drugs were bad. LOL

    ReplyDelete
  3. It seems like DARE is missing the education part of their slogan.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If only there was an actual eductional program about drugs, with actual information.

    If erowid would have these drug education weeks, the children would actually KNOW alot more about drugs.

    ReplyDelete

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