how to tell if your kid is gonna be a junkie

[and how to keep their grubby little hands off your money if they already are]

Luckily for you, there are some telltale signs that your child may be heading for a future as a junkie. But, you may be able to steer them back on course if you read this article.

Here are some things to watch for:

Does your kid find a song, and seemingly obsess over it? Listening to it over and over and over until one day they move on obsessing over the next track? Your kid might be a future junkie.

Is your kid going in for surgery, where general anesthesia is required? What about going in to have their wisdom teeth removed? You’re going to want to slap their recovery nurse a twenty and ask about the rate with which they recovered from whatever anesthesia or sedation they received. A future junkie is gonna pop right back up after surgery, or at least recover far quicker than the average person. This is because their body has a different response to chemicals than the average person does. Ask the nurse if they were doing S-turns on the way to the recovery room, or if they were walking a straight line. Straight-liners are cause for concern.

Does your child obsessively eat, say, one kind of cereal? Like, only that cereal, and perhaps even multiple times a day? Well, I hate to break it to you, but….might be a future junkie. How about other foods? You are looking for signs of early dependence and or obsession.

What is your child like when they go to bed at night? Do they sleep soundly? Or are they tossing and turning, constantly getting up, needing comfort or company? Do you walk into their room to find them with the covers on the floor and them contorted in some yoga position, perhaps their feet pointed straight up, resting on the wall? Sound sleepers tend to be alright. If you’ve got a tossing turner, a rough sleeper, or just an all-around night-time pain in the ass, this is not going to go away. Eventually, they are going to look for something to help soothe them into sleep. Junkie warning.

How motivated is your child? Are they driven by self-propulsion? Or because you’ve got them by their wrist and are dragging them through each homework assignment, and every college application? You might just have a junkie on your hands if it is the latter.

Is your child skinning cats? Nope, not a junkie. This is serial killer territory. Drown that f*cking toddler in the Nile river before he kills others. This way at least they find the darkness in the same holy waters that Moses once allegedly created wicked wakes down in his basket.

Do your kid’s pockets have holes in them when it comes to money? Does money disappear without any visible retail coming home with them? Well, yes, this is a bad sign. If this is happening, your kid may already be a junkie.

If this is the case, let’s talk through some common sense solutions which can help you keep their filthy little fingers off your money:

First off, your purse no longer lives in the kitchen. It lives under your pillow. It lives under your mattress. It lives within your eyesight, at all times. You currently have a beautiful little snake as a son or daughter, and they will slither their way into your finances if you don’t stop them.

Do they know your PIN? Change that sh*t. Do they know where you keep your checkbook? Flush that sh*t. Do you have jewelry in the house? Time to take out a safe deposit box at the bank. Give them money under no circumstances. Your money is to be allocated to treatment, and treatment alone. Anything else, it’s tough titties to little Tommy.

This may sound harsh, but it has a purpose. They will reach their bottom sooner without your money. They will find their way into the deliverance which can only be found inside a jail cell more quickly. They will find a God of their understanding, sooner.

A God of their understanding, not yours. No matter our race, religion, or creed — we are all one, and likewise all of our different deities are all one. So chill the f*ck out if your son or daughter wants to follow Buddha into enlightenment, or follow Allah to those seventy-two virgins. Just try not to be jealous, and let them enjoy their spiritual journey. It is all fluid and will change as the years change them.

Now, that I have you all sufficiently freaked the f*ck out, let me tell you why having a junkie for a son or daughter is not the worst thing in the world. A famous AA member named Father Dowling once wrote a book called “The Underprivileged Nonalcoholic.” That’s what you non-junkies, and non-alcoholics are: under-privileged. Because many with normal well adjusted lives will never receive the gifts of desperation. The strength that can only be found in our weakest moments. There is a reason why I respect sober alcoholics and junkies above all others; not because of our shared past, but because they are some of the strongest people I know.

These are the people who know dependency. But yet they have had the gift of transference. Switching their dependency on a substance to a power greater than themselves. They are the freest people I know. They are the best people I know, and some of the most successful as well.

Because they f*cked around and walked into a hell that they required help to find their way out of. If I do not have any problems, why would I ever seek God? And asking for help in this life is one of the keys to happiness. We just were not meant to do life solo. So dependence upon others is a strength, not a weakness.

Still dont want them to become a junkie? Well, maybe check your own levels of happiness and then compare them with the AA hop heads and tracked-up junkies that you see pouring out of your church basements after a meeting, as you sit there rigid and perfectly presentable, silently hating on your fellow congregants because their tree is dropping leaves on your lawn or because they push a nicer whip than you do.

I think it is important here to differentiate substance abuse and addiction, albeit in a rather reductive manner. Substance abuse is not necessarily the worst thing in the world. If you have ever drank to the point of getting drunk you are guilty of having been a substance abuser, technically. So, please do not feel the need to harsh the mellow of your kid that occasionally smokes pot. Let him or her kick back and enjoy the bounty of groceries in your fridge. It won’t kill you, or them. But, keep an eye on them. If this is an every night thing, it is a problem. If it is a Friday/Saturday night thing, you can probably take out your iron and smooth out those panties that I’ve caused you to bunch up in your furiously white-knuckled hands.

Now, earlier in this article, I said that you may be able to steer your warning-sign-riddled child away from the junkie lifestyle. Unfortunately, I was lying to you. I just needed to get you to this point so you could hopefully see some of the flowers which spring forth from the pile of horse sh*t that is addiction. Truthfully, the best thing you can do for someone struggling through a life of addiction is to stay by their side through the process. Hold boundaries, yes, but stay by their side just the same, constantly reminding them that they are loved and are not alone.

It is not all honey and roses for every addict, unfortunately. Many of those flowers which spring from addiction are fertilized by the decomposing, overdosed corpses of your loved ones as they give their bodies nutrients back to the soil from whence they came. This is harsh, but it is the truth.

So, if you know your loved one is on a substance which could end up killing them — say you find some small blue pills with an M in a box and a 30 on its reverse, your kid ain’t just on oxy — these are pressies, and he’s on fentanyl. So, in a circumstance such as this, you should do what you can to push your loved one into treatment before they kill themselves.

Many people will tell you that you need to wait until a person is ready to change, but a person on a substance is incapable of seeing their problem and is incapable of seeing that they are capable of change. We have lost way too many people to overdose while families sat silently waiting for them to be ready to change. Give them the gift of detox, so that they can maybe then make some positive decisions for themselves without a sponge soaked full of fentanyl for a brain.

Overall, just chill the f*ck out. Things tend to unfold just as they should. But keep those eyes, ears, and noses peeled. Remember; febreeze isn’t cologne. Clothes don’t reek of dryer sheets unless they are wiped all over to cover up another scent. Clear eyes aren’t for dry eyes, they are for stoned eyes. So stay vigilant, but keep a cool head.