The Youth Drug Scene

foreign [Music] alcohol nicotine everybody is getting stoned everybody in the entire world is getting some something or other yeah really honest they really are [Music] it used to be people thought well just the lower class or something like that it's not there at all kids that have parents that drink that want to be like their parents but still want to be cool take Reds because so they can act just like they're drunk only only they're not really drunk you know they they have the status of of being somebody that takes dope they also have the identification with their parents to where they're acting drunk you know so they act like their parents it's easy to start on drugs it's easy to stay on drugs you know and until you start realizing that there's something happening but you're not really there I find that I have to stay out of people that I know that are getting stoned and stoned on acid and people that are getting stoned on reds because when I see him on it then I know that I want to get on it too you know before you start taking drugs you should find out all about them read the newspapers and read books from school and all the books you know by the people that say that they're bad you know and that they'll you'll turn into a heroin addict or something and then go around and look at all the people that you know that take drugs and look exactly where they are you know like like look at some of the people that you know that take drugs you know if it's cool or not to uh keep taking drugs is is something you got to figure out for yourself because if your friends are taking a lot of drugs then then you feel that like you've got to take drugs because they are too you know [Music] [Applause] [Music] Mark Lindley is 20 years old for three of his teenage years he has been drug dependent this is the story of the struggle which Mark and his family have had in their personal encounter with the youth drug problem potential of Dangerous Drug taking and Drug dependency should be looked at as nowadays probably the biggest test that the American family is going to have to survive in the adolescence of its children it has become a moral problem drug taking because everyone has to wrestle they got really anyone who is to talk to teenagers about drugs has to begin with the knowledge that drugs are very very pleasurable anyone who opposes drugs must know that he's opposing a very strong adversary anyone who wants to offer something different from a drug experience must know that he has to offer something pretty powerful and real the drugs that I took I took them because I enjoyed them we took a lot of LSD and I took over 300 times dreams in my mind that I could see just as plain as if I was looking at you you know it was just beautiful and I had lots of those lots of times I had this remarkable hallucinations that were just what I wanted just exactly what I could get from drugs when I first had suspicions of Mark being on drugs I was watching him quite closely because I I knew he was around kids now that were known users and uh so that began the the long season of waiting up nights for him wondering where he was and and watching his eyes every night when he'd come in I would talk to him and get him into different positions trying to watch his eyes to see how they were we caught him and his friends uh rolling marijuana and actually visually seen seeing all this before our eyes and realizing what was going on right in our own backyard was a pretty difficult thing to to behold marijuana is one of the basic drugs that a person will take I took it before I took any other drugs when I took it I often felt that I was just you know quite tranquilized and often more relaxing than anything else a lot of the time I was felt very distorted [Music] time after time in cases that I've seen parents lack uh a real enjoyment of our appreciation of pleasure uh the word for this in Psychiatry is it and hedonic without pleasure not depressed or in pain or necessarily having a bad time but just not experiencing any particular pleasure I think that uh children see this you know they see their parents working being effective having material things and yet somehow without any particular sense of enjoyment and they project this to the whole society and say the society is stagnant and doesn't offer them anything it's a searching situation where you try to to see if there's something that that possibly we have done as parents something that maybe we brought it on maybe we did something wrong the sense of failure that that you feel and how you feel it as a mother you've failed the whole family and especially him they're they're commonly is something that takes the parent away from the home and away from a sense of of his own personal uh enjoyment or well-being most commonly this turns out to be work you know for many parents or these kids the the message seems to be that if you work hard enough and long enough you won't really have to ask yourself painful questions about whether or not uh you're enjoying anything you know one of my teenage patients coined the phrase work addiction which describes this I think the pills are one of the biggest things as far as druggers the first pill that I took were Benzedrine or Benny's whites they're stimulant they also cause talkativeness where everybody wants to talk they want to talk a lot bats or dexameil they're green and white capsules that cause the same effect I took 50 or 60 of those the first time you know in a period of four days and I was strung out for a long time on those that I took to come down I got some phenobarbital which is a barbiturate tranquilizer it's a little white tablet I took 15 of them which was at way overdosed I went to sleep at midnight on Friday night after being away for four and a half days and slept until Monday morning also there was Reds and yellows Reds are second off yellows are nembutol they're both sleeping pills and I mix them with whites the first time I took a red I took a Two Reds and some whites and I got a pretty good high on them they were one of the talkative yet tranquilized buzzing feeling that I felt like I could talk anybody into doing anything [Music] Mark's long hair was a oh it was terrible there's no other word for it it was just terrible it was a very embarrassing to have to go somewhere with him and I would have such mixed emotions I would get so mad at people's attitudes toward him when they would be so vicious toward him and and the hate would be so apparent and their faces toward him but at the same time it made me so angry at him and so ashamed you constantly are getting uh help from all your friends that they wouldn't allow anybody that looked like that in their home [Music] I got really fantastic highs on LSD I think that there was nothing that compared to it as far as ego trip the whole shot we've become just overly powerful in our minds we thought that we were ruling the whole world in our own small places these kids would always claim that they just couldn't explain the experience of being on drugs and that there was just nothing else like it and there was really nothing wrong with it it was always this that it's just a matter of time until it would be legalized this is what they were always saying more frightening I think than all kinds of scary stories is that we will know what LSD does when the present generation of LSD users comes to autopsy because they're doing experiments on themselves which as scientists we could never do to them we wouldn't permit ourselves and when we look at their brains and examine their tissues microscopically you know they'll know the outcome of these is experiments when I first took methadrine I didn't really want to use a needle guy was at our apartment and he said well I'll give it to you for free you know just just so you can try it later I found out that that's the way they get people look I didn't you know I'd heard of it but I thought that was only for heroin I didn't realize that methadone was the same way they gave it to me and like you didn't know how to do it so they showed me they did it for me tied my arm off and stuck in my arm and I I never had such a flash in my life I just all of a sudden was just overwhelmed with you know speed you know all the air goes out of your lungs and your head tingles [Music] really afraid that the police would come and get me someday you know we'd ride in a car and everybody was always stiff-necked and kind of you know there's oh there's a policeman watch out you know keep it down and everything I think we were so obvious that that was one of the many reasons we got pulled over because there were several times that they pulled us over for no reason other than we just looked like people that they should pull over and I had to eat marijuana many times because of that just because they were going to pull us over and they did well I remembered very well when Mark first came in my office written across his face was the fact that I hate everyone and everybody and you're just another person and I uh I'm going to rebel against but I don't I don't care for you or any of your Authority or whatever all of a sudden he said he was Grand probation and it was three years and he walked out of the court and didn't know what to do he wasn't really wanted to see any probation officer I had no communication with Mark from the time he was 10 or 11 12 years old along that in that period and as far as talking to him during any of this it was it was impossible for me to talk to him we couldn't talk to each other at all he just we didn't make it we couldn't get a basic understanding we were he was always watching exactly what I was doing and seeing things that you know I didn't particularly want to see he was telling me that I was going to die that I was killing myself Mark's appearance began to change tremendously his weakened condition was really apparent he couldn't work and he his eyes seemed to sink further back into his into the eye sockets I couldn't really handle myself at home I didn't didn't have anything in common with the house or with the people in it I so I wouldn't stay I go find somebody that I could feel at ease with you know and that was usually somebody with a little bit of marijuana or something to you know to ease the nothingness I talked to him and I told him Mark as long as you're alive as long as you're here you have a place in this home this is your bed and whenever you want to come into this home and sleep in this bed it'll always be here ready for you and I don't really care if you only have one second of one year to give me in this home I'm satisfied with that and I took him and I held him in my arms put my arm around him and just sort of felt like I do right now in thinking about it and uh that was it we I walked out of the room and uh I think it was probably the first time it was probably the first time I touched him in maybe two years I take methadrine one night and then LSD the next night and smoke Opium and hash and weed and DMT mixed with weed and pretty soon I began to think that my mind was going I didn't I couldn't I was super paranoid I couldn't talk to people I initially saw Mark uh in late October of 1967. he was 18 years old his visit was preceded by a couple of panicky phone calls from his family Mark himself came into the office barefooted had walked for several miles along the beach on his way here he walked from Hermosa Beach to here he appeared Dazed and Confused and somewhat pathetic and told me that while he was walking walking along the beach he'd been thinking about the possibility of suicide he never talked about suicide in terms of killing himself he talked about it in terms of dying ending you being destroyed as if he didn't want to do the ACT but he wanted to uh um he wanted death and he felt that he had nothing else left for him in life but just to lose himself in these drugs and end it trucks are fun drugs are drugs are really fun when you're having fun but after a while when you take too many drugs they don't get fun anymore you know yeah there's certain things you can't do when you're stoned you know it's harder to relate to people you're paranoid of the police you're paranoid of parents you're paranoid to your friends you just don't know what you're doing and you just lose your head I mean that's not fun that's really not fun and all the hassling to to hustle to get the dope and stuff like that that's not a kick I don't want people to believe that drugs are more fun than anything else you know or the most fun before people start taking drugs they should really look into themselves for whatever the answer is that they're looking for with drugs um and it's hard and it you might not necessarily find an answer really quickly but what you do find is going to last a lot longer than however High you get for a couple of hours or eight hours or something like that drugs must be combated with pleasurable experiences as pleasurable and much more real and meaningful and permanent and that's guilt-provoking and destructive than drug use last time I took drugs I was sure then that it was my life on the line and that I was going to lose it if I didn't stop and I really did realize that I needed God to help me and then I prayed and I said God save me I just knew that everything that I'd done was so totally wrong and that I was completely making an about face and then I began just really living again knowing that God is alive and is working in my life when he put down and I'll use his lingle he put down everything and from that moment on his life changed I saw Mark about about one month later and it was really remarkable he came in the office I expected I anticipated the same angry discontinued individual and he came to my office and the first thing he did was uh act much more adult-like he apologized the first thing he did Mr Carter I apologize for my behavior for my attitude when I was here before and it kind of it rather startled me because uh he said in a very genuine sincere way I didn't I accepted his apology uh readily really and I told him I appreciate it to you his apology and what he had to say he was complete reversal had nothing to do with what happened in the intervening time once Mark had made the break he saw very clearly that he would have to separate himself completely from his friends on drugs and he took his Bible and he had it in his hands every waking moment for weeks and weeks he didn't step foot out of the house at all without that Bible in his hands he took it to work with him and I knew that I had to just go right into something really quickly or I would slip you know go back into drugs and so I went to work and I started building houses my dad made arrangements to build some houses and so I got onto that crew and I hauled lumber for him but they let me nail which you know gave me added a sense of confidence because Holly Lumber you know you feel like oh well I'm just a laborer I'll never be anything but if you know I felt good because I could nail once in a while in fact one time he left me all day to do the work all alone which you know was something else because I don't have that much confidence in myself to work yet he did [Music] I had to completely go away from all the people the places that I was going to and enter into a new life and I knew that the life that I had to enter into was at the church foreign I was just really happy I experienced love that I didn't know about it was like a family living there everybody treated each other as either best friends or part of the family and I felt that there wasn't any put on I know that I can trust them and I can really love them and they love me I think the group experience of a meaningful kind is the most specific solution to the problem you know the problem is that most people parents and teenagers too feel very lonely nowadays many or most families live as if they were living surrounded by a mold you know the drawbridge any problems that they have they've got to puzzle out and try to solve right there with no help and the the presence of warmly interested adults you know is very valuable both for parents and for children and the reality of a group experience where there's a real feeling and real sharing is almost a specific antidote to drugs Mark has made a real contribution to our College age youth group over the past two years last year he served as co-chairman of the group and then this year he served as Vice chairman and so during both of these years he's been among the executive Council and has worked very closely in making the group a success I think that your surroundings and your environment pretty much determine the way your personality is going to be if you're in a low dark cave someplace all your life then you're going to be a cave dweller and if you live in the light then you're going to be a person that shines and that's why I like to go to church through I think it's very difficult for straight kids I mean kids who have not been involved with drugs to quite understand the needs of another teenager who have who has suffered as much as Mark had suffered and these teenagers in this church just literally enveloped Mark and walked with him and their love made it possible for him to find a place to which he belonged and to find the security that he needed and I don't know anybody that I love more than the kids in that choir I know that I can trust them and I can really love them thank you [Music] when he was taking drugs he wasn't really facing life and living but the days afterwards he had to live through depressions he had to live through Temptations disappointments disappointments particularly in himself he thought perhaps he could do things that he'd always wanted to do just because he had stopped taking drugs but it took a long time of healing I would want to maybe run and jump off a cliff if I didn't have the Lord to go to it because of some of the things that I'm involved in with people and stuff where things just seem so hopeless that without the Lord I would never want to even go on living and I even feel like I don't sometimes anyway but I always am able to turn to the Lord and I know that that's really what has helped me through many many days of emotional Hang-Ups and just plain people hanging Martin enrolled in our Torrance evening High School on February 20th 1969 he had received only 105 credits in three years of high school where normally a boy would receive approximately 180 credits during that period of time he does have to complete with us U.S history second semester in U.S government two semesters plus he is taking English with us right now is this they have all of my all of your grades in high school in the past Freddy's District after enrolling with us we have noticed real progress in mark his attendance has been good he's doing very well I can anticipate Mark graduating from the Torrance evening high school next year at age 21. I had Mark Lindley when he was a freshman at Rolling Hills High School here and we feel that no one of the coaching staff felt that Mark had great potential as an athlete as a football player he was big and strong and had good Mobility and at the end of the season we had a lot of great prospects and I'm looking forward to him in the future and we really feel that Mark could have been College materials I used to fight with my brother and we never got along in fact while I was taking drugs he didn't want to be with me or know me and treated me with an attitude of fear and I spent quite a bit of time you know since then being with him and the basic thing that's happened is we love each other and we don't have any Hangouts we're not worse enemies now my sister and I even while I was taking drugs we got along but she was afraid of me then [Music] no she treats me as an equal as her brother and she's my sister and we don't really have any trouble anymore [Music] Lynette never gave up praying for him she never gave up the fact that God was going to answer her prayers they get along really fine now they have a real good time together to be blessed with a son first was a real blessing but I think to to see mark after all of this and to see him come back was even a greater blessing and to uh to have him now to have him working with me and both my boys to have them available and to watch them in this stage of life is it's a great thing our Communications have increased it's a different relationship now he's a contractor and I'm a carpenter we talk about our business and investing in what we're doing and stuff and it is becoming really a good relationship we've had a few good talks like one time just recently I was really upset about my girlfriend and he talked to me and he told me things that I didn't know a dad would know we have fun we enjoy being with each other we crack jokes about each other laugh at each other and you know our general attitude towards each other is pretty light and I know we have our serious moments but we also have a lot of fun I think that the aspect of themselves that parents have to examine very carefully is the amount of enjoyment they have in their own lives you know do they experience anything that really represents a meaningful substitute for drugs Mark is one of the very few drug users who have put down and despite the fact that he's remained off drugs for more than two years Mark still finds life a constant struggle if I try to think of what's going to happen tomorrow or the next week and try to live it in my mind before it happens I usually end up out on a limb and sawing it off behind me is what I can describe it as if you always spend your time thinking in the future you're gonna start bumping into walls pretty soon because you know today is where you have to keep your eyes on the only thing that has really brought me through all this and to where I am today is Jesus Christ because he is life and the light and without in there is Darkness and I would prefer to live in the light thank you