How to teach our children how to refuse drugs

To teach our children how to refuse drugs we have to tell them the truth. To get our child or teenager or young adult to listen to us, parents, and believe what we have to tell them, we have to be trusted by them. Nowadays they are bombarded by contradictory pieces of information through advertising, media and so on. So why would our child listen to us and what is more, believe us?

Firstly, secondly and thirdly, I would say without fear of error that our point is enhanced by our love. A mother's love cannot be destroyed, nor perish, nor be weary, nor bought. But this love undergoes trials that we have to face. The test of doubt and our teenagers questioning truth is not a source of tranquility. Never mind, love conquers all!

There is a secure path that has to be taken from early childhood, that is the way of example, of truth and education. This way of thinking allows us to guide them to become responsible adults.

If our children have a solid foundation they can build on it. First of all, they must trust their parents. To achieve this, we must not tell them lies. We must find out the truth about drugs before trying to talk with them about it. It is better to acknowledge our ignorance instead of reporting something that is untrue.

If our child lies to us, we show him why it is not good, we explain it and we forgive him. If he does it again, we say, he's doing it again! Then we explain it to him and we forgive him again, until he understands and he stops. If we lie to our child, he will lose his confidence in us. He will feel there is a crack in the foundations. If we are mistaken, let us admit it and fix it. But we must never lie to our children. A mother or father should be a corner stone on which their child can lean.

The philosophy of Enfance Sans Drogue is that, as Guy Gilbert says, parents are best placed to be involved with their children.

Let us teach them how to look at things by themselves and how to distinguish truth from fiction, good from bad. With our help, they must learn how to observe things and analyze them. Let us not be mistaken, there is no pill, no new molecule, no miracle treatment to replace drugs, to stop them or to help one live without them. What is worse, nowadays the fashion is to make us "enter" our child's brain to see how he reacts to drugs, why he has withdrawal symptoms, why he does not study anymore. Let us not get abused! After taking drugs the body is sick and the means to get everything back in order is: complete abstinence.

When our child recites a poem for us and says he loves us; when our child has successfully passed an exam, we do not care about knowing which part of his brain is active, nor whether his blood pressure is different when he tells us the news.

If a child takes drugs, he does not work anymore, he does not get up in the morning anymore, he steals, he lies, he is sick, he beats his mother, he does not have goodwill and ends up losing his self-esteem. That is what I see.

If he stops taking drugs, illegal or legal, he will recover his humanity, he will think with his heart. Once more he will have the urge to help, to love others, to follow through projects, be animated about doing apostolic or social activities. That is what I see.

In France and everywhere in the world, there are places where lay or religious people who have not studied medicine, save and have saved thousands of young people who were said to be schizophrenic, lost, weak, ready to commit suicide, ready to let themselves die. In those places, drugs are replaced by love. A true love, selfless and freely given. That is also what I see.

The French poet Beaudelaire, who was not a medical doctor, wrote in 1838 that cannabis was a weapon to commit suicide. We can all report that nothing has changed. When a person feels like committing suicide, the first question to ask is: what legal or illegal drugs does he take? All drugs lead to depression and suicide.

If you have children at home, you can teach them how to refuse drugs by example, truth and education. But to teach something you have to be trained. We have to be taught ourselves otherwise we lack the truth.

I have been crying, praying, fasting, shouting at God, but nobody can console me over the all too numerous once beautiful and intelligent adolescents for whom I arrived too late ...

During my seminars with 250 000 young people throughout France, I have witnessed how little they knew about drugs, even those who tried drugs and thought they knew. We have witnessed how many of them, having received our information about drugs stopped their consumption, be it regular or irregular, and began studying again. For almost all of them, it would be enough to teach them the truth about drugs and to let them go, saying to them: To you my daughter, my son, open your eyes, help those who need it, I love you and I trust you. The work is easier than you think for I have never met a drug-addict who is happy.

Marie-Christine d'Welles

How to stay free and master ourselves

A baby in his mother's arms moves us. A teenager who commits suicide is a news item for the tabloids, but a catastrophe for his parents.

Between those two moments there is often the consumption of psychotropic drugs.

Little children want to discover, to explore, to feel, to see things. When they become teenagers they go on having the urge to experiment, to imagine, to go deeper into things, to understand, to try, to feel them. This is necessarily proof of their intellectual good health and this is how they shall become free and self-determining.

The adults who surround them, primarily their parents, are responsible for their development. They must provide them with the "dos and don'ts" in order to let them live and survive in an often hostile world.

The Dos may be habits, customs, codes, regulations, conventions. They will aid us in living with others and with ourselves, by helping us to make good decisions to improve everyday life. The Don'ts? For most adults, this word has lost its primary meaning, which is to not step beyond the limits established in order to protect physical, intellectual or spiritual life.

To forbid our child to drink bleach is common sense, all parents have to implement this. If a mother is sure that something is dangerous for her child, she will find the strength to convince him to respect the "Don't". But if we let false information invade us, we become lax, hesitant, we lack the urge to fight. If drugs are forbidden from being sold and possessed, it is because they are harmful, dangerous and because they have caused damage and death. To master ourselves we have to know how to obey and we also have to know how to respect the Don'ts.

Fasting is used by those who want to use their will to master their bodies and free their spirit. Conversely, taking drugs lets a product direct your body. While allowing drugs to rapidly diminish our will and take our minds away, our bodies decay and our freedom is destroyed.

When intelligence is "enlightened" by a cannabis high, what it sees and hears is turned to its advantage, the person is infatuated with himself. Even music is transformed into a tridimensional beauty through its magic. Everything becomes a pretext to enchant the imagination, which lets one hear, see and seize what one had never dared desired. A long devilish monologue leads the person to feel overly protective. Paternal feeling mixed with a sensuality have him admiring himself. Enamored with himself, the person who used cannabis freely becomes a slave and feels himself complete only in the vapours of the drugs, which alone understand him. Finally a slave to the miserable darkness, poorer and poorer in will, he becomes richer and richer in vanity. He will seek to turn everything to his advantage and will start to despise those around him.

We, mothers, have to warn our children not to be deluded by drugs. This has always been a well known trap. It is within their reach, in the pocket of a friend or of a well loved cousin. Do not let them trust it nor taste it! May they forbid themselves to be around it.

The best education is the one given from the heart, it is reserved for parents. Not only do children need to be loved but they have to know that they are loved. It is through our concern about what they do and what they like, through our involvement in discovering with them what pleases them that a mutual confidence will establish itself. Day after day let us teach them the love that is received, that is given, that is shared, that is loved. If there is love from parents, the child will find his way. If he makes a wrong turn, he will know how to come back. Through patient education and through their example of love, parents will guide the desires of their children towards the good. They will then be able to be taught by their teachers and they will naturally search for knowledge, as any mentally healthy person does.

Marie-Christine d'Welles

Since the creation of Enfance Sans Drogue

Since the creation of Enfance Sans Drogue nearly 15 years ago, we have acquired a very good knowledge of the "terrain". Indeed, we have received many testimonies from parents and young people about the consequences of using drugs and on the motivations of teenagers to take drugs.

We can testify there is a gap between what politicians, media and "specialists" want us to believe and the reality. Hence, for example, we can firmly state that drugs touch every social background, from children of divorced parents to children of couples who do not have relationship problems, to children whose mother works outside of the home or at home, girls as well as boys, families with many children as well as families with one or two children, children who go to private schools as well as those who go to state-funded schools...

The advantage of Enfance Sans Drogue is that we all have in common love for young people. We only want their happiness and their well-being. We are totally free to help them because they are not in any case, or for any one of us, a "client"

We know the reasons why our children are liable to take drugs – naturally, we talk here about youth who have usual "problems" for their age, which is a majority, and not about youth who are unwell.

Thus we can fight efficiently, for it is a question of making a decision. If each parent, mother or father, takes the decision to fight efficiently against the consumption of drugs for his children, he will fulfill his educative task in this field.
The State will also have to take its responsibility, which we asked Dominique de Villepin, French First Minister, to do in an open letter in December, 2005. Today we have to warn our children about many things. The obvious advantage with drugs is that after a few hours training, everyone is capable of doing an effective prevention with their children. It really is worth it! Good information greatly reduces the risk of a teenager taking drugs. If a child is properly informed before he confronts the product, he will be in a stronger position to refuse.

What are these reasons?

The trivializing of products: some say that cannabis is a "soft" drug... Some adults, some spheres, not to speak of some parents, are wonderful at spreading this kind of nonsense.
Lies of the media: they take part in this misinformation and perpetuate it. The emphasis is more on the culture of the "party" or "recreational" joint, on how it is consumed (alone or in groups), rather than on saying that the product is inherently dangerous, be it consumed alone, in a group, by a minor or an adult.
Parents lack objective and scientific information on the products. Can we name an official organization that currently speaks truthfully about these products? As long as our children are not informed in a scientific way, they are an easy prey for disinformation.
A teenager is naturally influenced by others. We all know a teenager is not an adult. He wants to be like everyone else. Nowadays he is frequently offered drugs, he is attracted by the group's attitude, it is so much easier to go along with the group. Look at your children: they always want to dress like their friends. They will want to show their navel or their boxers... This is a fashion phenomenon. They want to imitate other youth and be different from adults. It is the same thing for drugs –unfortunately with different consequences.
Why do you accept a pre-dinner drink or a glass of wine when you are invited to a friend's house for dinner? Is it to get away from your problems? Most of the time, it is only because it is nice to drink some good wine with a good meal. At the beginning, a young person takes some cannabis, which is a gateway to other drugs, for the same reason: to have fun, to get high, to have a laugh. Then he will go further, he will take some to feel better, he will not be able to live without it and will look forward to being stoned.
Are youth who take drugs (initially to have fun) ill? NO, drugs are fashionable: they are "cool", nice, "not up tight", young, trendy...

Your children will refuse drugs because:
You will teach them that drugs are a lethal trap
You will give them truthful arguments on the decay and destruction caused by these products that they will be able to observe themselves.

Unfortunately, even being trained and having correctly informed our children, we cannot be 100% sure that they will refuse drugs. A minority will be tempted by it, but we will have given every opportunity to our child and will not have abandoned to others the indispensable education needed by our children to survive in today's society.
One last thing: we have to stay completely truthful. Only accuracy and truth shall arm our children against the poisons of the body and mind.

Sophie Pélissié du Rausas

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is not a vainglorious title that attracts esteem from others. It does not show itself in loud boastful celebrations of the ambitious. Unlike the elite values bought through privileges, relationships, publicity, lies, twists and embezzlements, it is a quiet and personal feeling.

Those who take drugs know this and the drug-addict even more so. They have lost their self-esteem.

Those close to them, their relatives and friends often feel guilty as they realize this. They try to help them see themselves in a better way in by being there, by talking to them, by being kind or listening to them. But most of time if not always nothing changes and the drug user sinks lower and lower. The more he takes drugs the more he cuts himself off from others. If he goes on he will sever his relationship with himself and choose the only exit that will occur to him in his delirium, i.e. to put an end to his life. He will commit suicide.

In responding to the calls of drugs, the drug user has entered the vicious circle of satisfying most of his passions. Used to following his impulses, he does not make the distinction between good and evil, for himself or for others. In losing his honesty, he has also lost steadfastness, goodwill, respect and he has found an inner void. He tries to fill this void by taking drugs, more and more drugs, but always fails to satisfy his need. He only succeeds briefly in forgetting this need through artificial means, he is left more and more empty, more and more lonely. His life has become an everlasting lie. "I was unable to concentrate on anything, I wasn't able to get my homework done", Enzo told me. "I was living in disorder and dirt without seeing it. I didn't respect myself anymore. Nor did I respect others." Having lost the desire, the ability to work, and his morals, his self-respect, he could not find in himself the love to give to others.

Each time a person hurts another, commits some evil, this evil gradually becomes less important and the person ends up not seeing it at all. This is it, the person gets used to it and good and evil no longer mean anything. Love is everywhere in the beauty of creation that surrounds us, in everyone's heart, but if I have lost my self-esteem I cannot see it anymore. Love is in everyone but love is then stifled.

If I lose sight of my self-esteem, it is not because of the way others see me, but because of the evil I have done. It is because I have put lies in the place of truth; sex instead of love; drugs instead of intelligence, steadfastness and goodwill; stealing instead of honesty, that I have become blind. This blindness easily leads to violence and hatred.

To regain one's self-esteem, there is one solution: to put a STOP to one's evil actions and behavior.

1) To stop what is bad: lying about oneself and about others, stealing, beating one's mother, taking drugs, being evil to oneself and to others, etc

2) To do good: telling the truth, not stealing, even small things, loving one's parents, working, not taking drugs, etc

In making a commitment to myself and keeping to it, everything will get in order. I have to decide to change my life and no one can prevent me from doing that now. And above all do not keep dwelling on my bad actions from the past. Let me erase everything and give me the possibility to change. Everyone is capable of this. By the way, who has never needed to do so?

We can all get back to the moral dignity of our acts, to quote Shakespeare:

This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

Thus respect, patience and joy will come back to me and my heart, full of love, will find its way to others. To carry oneself with self-esteem makes one free and joyful. This is a law of nature: "Self-esteem is found within".

Marie-Christine d'Welles

With drugs, every healthy person becomes unwell

Everyone who has been a victim of drugs thought drugs couldn't touch them. But because the drugs market is targeted at them, most of the information that surrounds them is false. This misinformation comes from people who sell drugs or who use them and promote them either to justify their behavior or for financial gain.

Drugs confuse people. They cause blackouts, loss of memory, periods of emptiness. A drug user becomes slower; moves, thinks and reacts less quickly. Drugs take a person out of reality and make him or her commit mistakes, which can be very serious in certain situations. They make someone perceive and feel things that are not really there. A person may experience feelings, which have nothing to do with what is actually happening. He may react to situations or risks that do not exist and not react at all when faced with real danger, danger which he may not even have perceived.

Just as drugs numb the nervous system, in the long term they will block any sensation, any feeling. The person acts as if he does not care about anything or anyone around him. He does not feel concerned about anything. He becomes irresponsible for himself and for others. In the beginning, for the most part the person is not conscious of these changes, even when his friends try to talk to him about it. Some young people can give examples of friends who are already in this state having consumed cannabis only once, by pipe or bong.

Drugs burn vitamins and minerals, which are as necessary to the body as food or water. If you do not have the necessary vitamins or minerals in the body, the biochemical reactions cannot happen. The body's immune system will quickly be destroyed. Your body will no longer be able to fight infections and other diseases. If you try to take drugs to feel better, each time the drugs will burn more vitamins and your state will worsen.

I meet with many high school pupils. Those who take drugs have difficulties getting up in the morning. That is not surprising! If they stop using drugs everything will get back to normal... they will become attentive and perform well again.

Beware! Most drugs stay in the body for years, stored in body fat. While exerting oneself, for example walking, doing sport, or in cases of fear or surprise, a small amount of fat is burnt and a some of drugs are released into the body's circulation. This phenomenon makes one want to take drugs again and reactivates the effects of the drug. Young people are victims of drugs in all countries of the world. The most tolerant countries are the most affected. This current deplorable tolerance to street drugs has occurred after generalizing the use of psychiatric drugs in all industrialized countries.

The solution suggested by "specialists" is ... drugs, of course! More drugs and drugs to "heal" disorders made by drugs.

My aim is to tell the truth. Youth is the wealth of a country. I have never met a happy drug-addict. In drugs I have only seen unhappiness and physical or social decay. Those who dare defend drugs can only be enemies of youth. Only people who love money more than mankind can let them within the reach of our children.

By refusing to see your children, your friends, your sisters, your brothers fall into the hidden trap of drugs, we shall win the fight.

Marie-Christine de Welles

Drugs and hyperactivity

In France, 50% of youth aged 15 to 19 regularly consume psychotropic drugs, such as cannabis, poppers, tranquillizers, amphetamines, antidepressants, benzodiazepines, cocaine and so on. It is the highest level of consumption in Europe and the percentage of suicide amongst those aged 14 to 24 is the highest in the world! We can say that this is a real scam, collaborated by and with the connivance of, to a greater or lesser extent, health professionals and many parents.

Our children are ill because they take drugs and we are told that they take drugs because they are ill.

If they started to take drugs, it is because they have been lied to in making them believe that they could or they should take them in order to be happy. Take the drugs away from them and you will see they are well. There are times that are more difficult than others and it is normal to have problems to resolve in one's life. Overcoming these difficulties through will power allows on to grow stronger and to gain self-esteem. That which leads to success is the strength of one's will and tenacity. There is no success without effort. There is no success without love. Psychotropic drugs, be they legal or illegal, lead to depression and suicide, they destroy the immune system and the moral conscience, they annihilate reflexes, cautiousness and memory. What parent would dare to give such poisons to their child? Millions!

When we are told of an epidemic of depression and suicide, of a new rise in diseases, of an increase in criminality and violence, of an escalation of road accidents, of illiteracy, it is the influence nationwide of psychotropic drugs on the body and mind of which they speak.

If you are sad if you lose a dear friend, if you are disappointed or angry that you have failed at an exam, if have you difficulties in falling asleep, if you are worried because you have been looking for a job for sometime, you will be prescribed psychotropic drugs.

These prescriptions have become incredibly widespread in France whereas psychiatric drugs hardly heal anything but all have destructive properties and terrible side effects. Those drugs are prescribed perfectly legally. If your child dies because of them or commits suicide, it will be called an "acting out", not saying of course that he was under the influence of drugs. Anger, fear, pain, mourning, drug-addiction rehabilitation, smoking, fatigue, recovery, malnutrition: all are helped by these miracle pills, and always the same ones from the cradle to the grave. It is unbelievable, but I see young people taking the same drug, the same molecules prescribed by their doctor or their psychiatrist for problems as different as those related to skin, to fatigue, to mourning, to bad results in school, to being highly gifted, to illegal drug consumption, to lack of interest, to lack of patience, to anorexia and so on. Indeed all of us are liable to be "healed". An article in the Washington Post commented thus on the avalanche of mental pathologies: "The art of psychiatry consists of finding new problems to match with existing medicine."

Worry? I do because I have seen over the years all these French children put on that famous obedience pill, with disastrous consequences on their health. I want to talk about Ritalin, a powerful amphetamine. Who is it aimed at? Have a look at the description below of the famous attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity, which allows 7 million American children aged 6 to 17 to be given this terrible amphetamine with the permission of their parents. And how many children in other countries?

If your child has matched at least 8 of these criteria for more than 6 months, he will be considered hyperactive:

Fidgets with his hands or feet, or squirms in his seat. Has difficulty in remaining seated. Is easily distracted by outside stimuli. Has difficulty waiting for his turn while playing or in group situations. Answers questions before they are finished. Has difficulty in following instructions that are given to him. Has difficulty in keeping his attention on something. Switches between activities without finishing them. Has difficulty in playing quietly. Is overly talkative. Often interrupts others. Seems not to listen to what he is told. Often forgets his things. Is often involved in dangerous activities without being aware of their consequences.

According to this description, all my children would have been diagnosed with hyperactivity. This "trouble" has allowed many psychiatrists, now on trial in the USA, to put more and more children on this harrowing drug and on antidepressants. We have to stay vigilant and protect our children. We have to teach them from the very beginning to refuse drugs in any form. Enfance Sans Drogue relies on your responsibility and your love to not allow anyone to give drugs to your children.

There are many solutions to easy the journey that may be difficult and is often transitory. But we have to stay true to what we have learned and think instead about natural medicines.

Marie-Christine d'Welles