5 Ways Teens Might Cheat on Drug Tests—and How to Catch Them

I am amazed, dumbfounded, stunned and saddened.

"addiction" is not a disease. "It is the willful use of a substance until a physical dependency is created."

Are you living in a time warp there in Mississippi ?

If we use your good ole Mississippi Logic

heart "disease" is also just a behavior:

There was at once a "choice", for example, to not exercise and/or to not eat in a healthy way. These choices could result in a lifestyle, that, over time, had physiological consequences that result into a chronic, potentially life-threatening condition.

Addiction works the same way. By the time someone fits the diagnostic category for "addiction", they are long past the point of simple choice. It's like saying a person with heart disease should choose to eat less bacon and it'll repair their health. It's a "disease" because it has numerous variables interplaying against one another and is beyond the point of simply choosing another behavior to prevent or resolve the problem.

So, other than the concept of biological predisposition to addiction (as also exists for heart disease), the point here is not about genes at all. It's about calling addiction what it is so that it can be recognized and treated in an appropriate way.

Just ask any mental health professional

Or the American Physciary Institute

Or Social Security Administration

Visit a few AA OR NA meetings

Oh well I am sure I am wasting my breath

After all they probably teach Creationism in good ole Mississippi

IT IS JUST SO SAD!!!

Albert Wood of TX 1:00PM August 12, 2008

To get the requirements, please call your state Health Department OR whatever state agency handles the licensing of

professionals. It is often the same agency of the state that

also handles the licenses of other professionals. Just as there is a State Agency which handles all the physicians and

nurses licenses, there is an agency which handles the licenses of Alcohol and Drug Counselors.

One other very good thing to do is to put yourself through treatment. I know you are clean and sober now, but if you are planning on being a counselor, you'll HAVE to know what it is like; what it consists of, etc.

Remember that the 'teaching' and counseling in this area has

LITTLE if NOTHING to do with your own private experience.When

you go to counselor school, the Ethics instructor will teach you all about keeping your story to yourself. This will seem like it's in direct opposition to 'helping' others. But as a

professional, it's NOT about you.

If you "want to get your story out" the place to NOT do that is in professional counselor. You would get justifiably fired for talking about yourself when counseling others.

Go through treatment yourself to deal with issues of Co-dependency before trying to get on the lecture circuit for talking about your own battle. Further, are you going to

AA meetings? They have speakers night every Friday night, and

I'm surprised you have not already volunteered to speack about your own experience.

Become a good listener. And learn that 'listening' is not simply 'waiting to speak'.

Good luck!!

Lynde of TX 6:01PM August 10, 2008

Follow the moeney. That's all that matters in our world. But don't allow freedom of choise! Control, conrol, control!

Jim Curtice of HI 1:57PM August 07, 2008

The previous comment makes the case for why professionally administered Drug Testing is essential. The complete inanity of their logic says it all.

G Brown of TX 1:20AM August 07, 2008