After watching a BBC documentary last night entitled Born Survivors, I felt in a serious, contemplative mood. The piece focused in on two teens and an eleven year old who regularly got smashed on a weekend. These children were eventually given help by a local project called The Glacier Project. The participants must live on board a small ship in a marina, work hard all day looking after the boat and also learn how to scuba dive. The project is run by a reformed alcoholic and he insists the children give up all drinking, swearing and drugs before being allowed aboard.
I watched this programme with great interest to see if I could pinpoint the triggers that were pushing these teens into drinking.
Firstly the biggest factor that jumped out at me was that these children were bored. They had the whole weekend with nothing to do, so they hung out in parks and drunk until they were ill.
Secondly they had no focus or goals for their lives. They were children from estates and were not introduced to any hobbies or interests for further exploration. This lack of ambition was exhibited starkly by a veteran member of the Glacier Project who had never thought of scuba diving in his life. Now that he had been given the opportunity to have a go, he loved it and developed an ambition to become a professional scuba diver, which he was pursuing.
Finally there is the hot topic of peer-pressure. All these children said that their friends drunk, and that they would be teased if they refused to join in.
This left me thinking. How can we prevent teenagers, or in this case, children from falling into drink or drugs? I am not suggesting any magic cure, just some points I noticed from watching these teens themselves. I know how much confidence and purpose having a goal or an ambition gives a person. Being able to say, I am a writer, or I am working towards being a writer, is an incredible boost to one’s ego.
Sunday 1 February 2009
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