.
......... we did drugs ......... the group ...... we did drugs.
I announced during the day that the discussion would be about drugs ..... and about twenty five came and you can't have a small group discussion without a small group. The experts say that a group does not conduct a process unless it is between 6 and 8 ............ well ..... I know Jesus had twelve ....... but he was Jesus!
It was more like trying to chair a Union meeting about underpay!
I decided to handle it by asking as many as possible to say about their first drug taken, their age and - the big question - why? (Only two in the room had not taken illegal drugs and one was me! ....... so I didn't go there!)
As usual, opinions started to flow and I struggled at first to get people to talk about self.
Opinions without feelings is going no-where.
There was some powerful self revelation amongst the noise and shouting and loud loud talking at the same time.
Crack had been used in abundance and a range of the hard core stuff. Outstanding was the peer pressure and people around them, this the main factor in starting.
All had started with a spliff.
"I was empty inside and yearned to be be filled" was said by a person who had spent years sleeping on the street from early teenage years - now clear eyed, off the chemicals and working!!
I cannot remember, never mind click the keys about all this, because it came fast and definitely furious.
At the end, the majority said that the stuff had done harm to them.
Most believed that it is possible to step away from it.
Most felt that they were despised for what they had done.
A small number were proud because they only smoked a spliff.
REFLECTION; At the end there were a few still human frames around as others dispersed. There was a disturbance deep in their souls, communicated to me, that what THEY had said - had soaked deep. Their values came to the surface. Without anyone telling them, a lecture - or drug education, they had impacted themselves by level five-ing to a group - a powerful - so - powerful - experience. They were reflecting on themselves. The words, the experience of it all. It was experiential - a word that always appears in my prep notes under the heading of OBJECTIVES.
I believe ................................................ I just believe ...............
lovetoloveyoubabybhp
"Community is a safe place precisely because no one is attempting to heal or convert you, to fix you, to change you. Instead, the members accept you as you are. You are free to be you. And being so free, you are free to discard defences, masks, disguises: free to seek your own psychological and spiritual health."
M. Scott Peck
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