Has anybody ever realized that everyone has problems? That every single person on this earth is going through some tough situation. It may not be so bad, but to the person it is. Sometimes a person just needs someone to just be there for them. For my fourth quarter English benchmark we had to choose an important topic and make a change. I chose Addiction. I realized not many people talk about it or really see it as the problem it really is. To make that change I first started with a lot of research on addiction and how a person becomes addicted and how it affects others. Then I did a survey to see how common addiction was. After getting those results I wanted to make sure the people who were affected by addiction knew that they weren’t alone.

At first, I wasn’t really sure on how I can make the change that I wanted to make. I wanted people to understand why addicts are addicts, and why it wasn’t their or the addict's fault. Knowing that there’s nobody to blame can save a lot less trouble, and can send some help to the situation. I didn’t want people to feel this stress from what I chose to do that would cause them to realize “Oh that’s me I don’t care.” I mainly didn’t want to say my opinion or phrases like “It will get better”. I wanted people to know the facts, so I took all of my research from my first and second blog post (including my survey) and made it into a brochure.

Pictures of Brochure

My brochure took a bit of time to put together, but it turned out great! I was targeting the audience that knew an addict and was affected by it, and the addicts themself. I made over 70 copies and handed them out to the students who go to Science Leadership Academy. One thing I was worried about was putting people under pressure. I was worried handing out a brochure to one specific person would make them think I was implying something. When I handed these out I made sure to go to groups of people and say, “Hey guys. do you want a brochure?” That left a lot of mystery on what it was, and if somebody really wanted to read they didn’t have to do it then and was able to save it for later. My brochure turned out to be a really good idea thankfully! I had a few students come up to me and say, “Thank you for making this. I struggle with this problem and I love what you wrote about.” That made me feel really good and helped me realized how truly important addiction is.

Picture of me handing out Brochures

I was really curious how much awareness is being raised for addiction so I decided to do some research. I ended up finding a website that gives you the 9 best charities for addiction. I personally think these charities are a great way to help with people who have an addiction. The main things these charities donate to is research on addiction, rehabs, and scientific methods to help cure addiction. Rehabs try to help people stay sober, but it is known that if you only go one time it is likely not to work compared to going 2-3 times that really helps a person to realize that it’s time to end the situation they are in. It is really great that there are charities out there to help, so donate now to help.

Overall, this has been a great experience, and I am really happy that I did it. I myself know some addicts and one has actually recently relapsed. With my new gathered information on addiction I was really able to help the person. One thing the person said was, “It was really easy to talk to you about this, and I’m really happy you understand.” Something I could have done better was my annotated bibliography because I fell a little behind on it. There is still a lot to be done on addiction. Hopefully there will be more people to help addicts, and some thing to help cure it. I have this feeling of success when I think about this project and hope all my readers enjoy reading and learning about everything I discovered. I also hope it has made an impact on everyone as much as it has on me.