Naperville Central High School's award-winning newspaper.

Central Times

Naperville Central High School's award-winning newspaper.

Central Times

Naperville Central High School's award-winning newspaper.

Central Times

Appetite for destruction: the CT investigates the effects of drug use


You’re one of those students who is proud to say you are a drug user. You have all the connections, and if you really wanted to get your hands on cocaine or heroin, you would know exactly who to go to. During drug presentations at school you think you are too cool to listen and talk to your friends the entire time, or occupy your time with thoughts of drugs.


Your addiction has grown over the past few months, and suddenly you find yourself in the dealing business, stealing from your parents to scrounge up enough cash to make the cut. Looking to make a couple bucks, you deal some heroin to a girl from your math class, thinking nothing about it– what’s the big deal?


The cops think it is a big deal when they get a 911 call in the middle of the night. The paramedics think it is a big deal when they are wheeling a body out to the ambulance. And parents think it is a big deal when they buy a casket to bury their child.


Drug prevention is a part of District 203’s education system that begins as early as fifth grade. However, whether by choice or ignorance, some students still remain naïve to the damaging and lasting effects that drugs such as cocaine and heroin can have on their body, mind and social life.


Heroin is a depressant that makes the user feel sleepy or in a dream-like trance, while cocaine over-stimulates the user’s brain.


“[Heroin] is a major painkiller, so you get a floating feeling,” said health teacher Ruth Kuzmanic. “Cocaine is a stimulant that gives you more energy, not like an energy drink- it’s really up there.”


Despite their harmful effects, some teenagers enjoy the feeling drugs give them when they are high.


“All the bad things go away,” said junior Zach Johnson* on using cocaine. “It made me think about things I don’t normally think about, which in retrospect, is good in a lot of ways.”


Junior Daniel Evans* had a similar reaction to using acid.


“Some parts were fun, and it was really across the whole emotional spectrum from either being scared all the way to being completely happy,” said Evans. “It messed around with everything you saw. If you tried to focus on something it would alter it, like I was standing staring at my door and the grain on the wood started spiraling around to the point where I couldn’t actually tell what I was looking at.”


Although some students may claim to have positive experiences, users experience withdrawal symptoms that cause substantial pain and damage to the mind and body, resulting in lasting medical problems and sometimes death.


After just one use, one can become addicted to heroin, or die.


Mia Miravete, a detox nurse at Linden Oaks at Edward Hospital, deals with ailing substance abusers every day and witnesses the brutal physical effects drugs can have. As a detox nurse, her job is to monitor the medical status and stabilize patients experiencing withdrawal.


“People on any kind of opiate drug get really, really sick,” said Miravete. “They can literally be sitting on top of the toilet throwing up with massive amounts of diarrhea at the same time, and they can’t stop.”


Heroin withdrawals can last up to four days without being medically treated.


Someone experiencing withdrawal will initially start to get anxious, then start craving the drug, said Mitravete. Then they will start to get joint and muscle pain, hot and cold flashes, along with a runny nose and watery eyes. From there, symptoms will worsen further.


“Blood pressure goes up, there’s anxiety, irritability and pacing back and forth,” said Mitravete. “Sometimes their joint pain is so bad that they will constantly be rubbing their knees.”


Then, heroin users will experience excessive nausea, vomiting and diarrhea during their period of withdrawal.


“Heroin addicts are terrified of how sick they’re going to get,” said Mitravete. “They know they’re going to get sick and that is their biggest fear.”
Unlike heroin, cocaine has more of a psychological role when it comes to withdrawal, which can include craving and dreaming about the drug.


Anyone who uses these drugs puts him or herself at risk for many consequences, such as death and infection, along with having to cope with inescapable withdrawal symptoms.


Infection is a high risk for heroin users who inject the drug into their bodies through needles.


“There is black tar heroin that you can actually smoke, kind of like cocaine,” said Kuzmanic. “But a lot of heroin is injected, so where does a teenager get a clean needle? And now you’re opening yourself up to HIV with a dirty needle.”


There is further risk with heroin, depending on where it is acquired. Because heroin is cut, or mixed, with other drugs to dilute it, death can be a very common, and likely, possibility.


“Death can absolutely be a threat, especially when you’re used to buying your heroin from a certain drug dealer and that person is no longer available to you, or they found out they can get what they cut the drug with from someone else,” said Mitravete. “Now the product they’re selling you is altered in some way and you don’t know that, so all of the sudden you don’t know what you’re taking. Every time you buy from a dealer you’re rolling the dice.”


Heroin is often cut with Xanax, Benadryl or cocaine.


“[Dealers] will cut it with whatever they can find,” Mitravete said.


Despite wreaking havoc on the body and posing a threat for death, drugs also take an immense toll on the developing mind of a teenager, even changing the way his or her brain functions.


The teenage and young adult years are a time for brain development, which can be stunted by drug use.


“What we know about the pathways in the brain is that this is also a time that pathways are being reinforced or they’re being what we call pruned, or killed off,” Amy Barth, a social worker at Central, said.


The harmful pathways from substance abuse can take the place of other pathways necessary for healthy development.


“This is why athletes get really good at what they’re doing, because they reinforce those pathways and the other ones aren’t being used as much,” said Barth. “That’s why people who work really hard at school are reinforcing those academic pathways; they’re reinforcing those behaviors that create success.”


But just like one can reinforce behaviors that create success, one can reinforce pathways that create an addiction issue, Barth said.


Addiction is difficult to cure because it can become a lifestyle.


“It’s really hard to battle because you have created a pattern for yourself and it’s not just about behavior, it’s about the way your brain is working,” said Barth. “You’re creating a dynamic that can be really difficult in the future to get back on track.”


Once an addiction is formed, there is very little that will stand in the way of a drug user and the drug.


“A lot of times by the time someone gets to the really hardcore stuff they aren’t going to school, they’re living like an adult,” said Mitravete. “Depending on how hardcore they are, they’re stealing, retail theft, prostituting themselves and they’re not going to school anymore. Their age is just a number at that point.”


Drugs can also act as a destructive force in an addict’s social life.


“They usually start withdrawing from their friends and family; it’s like [they] develop this illicit affair with the substance,” said Mitravete. “They start cutting themselves off from everyone else, and they don’t want to be around anything else or anyone else; they just want the love of their life.”


A person’s life can be destroyed by an addiction, as well as their relationship with the people around them.


“If you are using, your behavior can sometimes change, your motivation to do things can sometimes change and your ability to perform your daily life skills can sometimes change,” said Barth. “And that worries people who love you.”


Friends might also feel the effect, including the pressure to help their friend or use drugs with them.


“It’s not so easy to let a friend go, especially if you care about them,” said Barth. “And it’s not a simple thing to just say, ‘my friend is using and I don’t want to be around them anymore.’”


Sometimes teenagers will take it upon themselves to help their friend quit their addiction, but sometimes this responsibility can prove to be too much to bear.


“A lot of people get caught in trying to fix it and that’s hard,” said Barth. “It’s hard because you do love this person, but you have to protect yourself too.”


With so many drug prevention programs and the media, it is hard to be unaware of how terrible drugs truly are, but still teenagers and adults continue to use them.


Sometimes the decision to use can be due to a previous mental health issue.


“If there’s a struggle with depression, eating disorders, anxiety or ADHD, all those kinds of things can set you up to being more prone to seeking out a way to cope,” Barth said.


Mitravete boils drug use down to one main cause: pain.


“Usually, it’s some type of physical or emotional pain, but pain is a perspective,” said Barth. “There is a specific reason, it’s whatever someone feels their pain in. But when you cut away all the other stuff and get right down to it, they use it to escape the pain.”


However, some teenagers seem to use the drugs just for the experience, without considering the consequences.


“I was with one of my friends and I realized that my parents would be out of town for a while and I just decided right then and there, I didn’t plan for it,” Evans said.


Johnson also said that he first used cocaine just to try it.


Once someone becomes a frequent user or an addict, he or she may use the drug to kill a different pain: withdrawal.


“Once they start to experience withdrawal it is painful and they want to eliminate the pain,” said Kuzmanic. “So whether it means I have to go sell drugs, sell my body or steal, whatever it is, I’m going to do it.”


Some may view the choice to do drugs as selfish, as the addict is no longer thinking about anyone but themselves and how they can acquire drugs. It does not take long for addiction to take control of someone’s life.


“You have to understand that addiction is a very narcissistic illness, so it is all about them and everything else becomes secondary,” said Mitravete. “When they start to get sick they will do absolutely anything to get their drug because they know they are going to get sick, and they know it’s coming.”


Parents and school faculty know that the threat of drugs is ever-present and work to prevent teen drug abuse in the school district.


Some prevention programs at Central include Snowball, the Power of Choice campaign and education in health classes and programming sessions, which discuss substance prevention directed at parents.


Another way the district is trying to prevent drug abuse is simply by communication among social workers, counselors and other faculty, Barth said.


“We’re all talking to each other, and the police department is joining with us in our consortion too,” said Barth. “They are telling kids that we know what you’re doing, and we want you to know that your schools know what you are doing, and we are working together.”


If a student were to go to a social worker at Central with his or her addiction, the first step they would take together would be talking things through. The next important step would be getting family involved so they can make a step towards rehabilitation together.


“We do like to talk to kids and work with them about how we’re going to involve their family to support and figure this out,” said Barth. “And I’ve never had anyone argue with anything like that; if you’re coming in you really want to make a change.”


From that point, the student and his or her family are referred to a professional, who would then be able to do a formal assessment and decide the best treatment option.


Although some are concerned that drugs are appearing more on the radar in Naperville, the problem of drug abuse is not constricted to a single age group or area- it is a nation-wide problem. But due to Naperville’s location and wealthy populace, getting a hold of drugs has become a much simpler process.


“It really is a huge issue in all of the suburban areas,” said Mitravete. “And I think that it’s easier in Naperville because you do have that population where kids have access to money, but Naperville doesn’t have the corner on the market.”


Drugs are a prevalent threat throughout the entire country, and their influence cannot be limited to one age group or region. The country is linked together by a crisis that creates not only causing detrimental physical effects, a decrease in learning abilities and an increase in criminals, but also new graves due to HIV, suicide and overdose.


The pain numbed by taking drugs is nothing compared to the pain that occurs because of them- withdrawal symptoms, broken relationships and lifelong psychological damage that leaves permanent scars.

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