Posted on 05/13/2014 6:45:28 PM PDT by mgist
Hooked on heroin: High warnings By Matt Porter
Hooked on Heroin
(WBNG Binghamton) As the heroin epidemic rolls on, the drug is appearing in some unlikely places including schools and jails. Kellie Musa helped found Dreams Over Drugs, a non-profit to provide help to students understand addiction, and works with two other former addicts to warn other students of her past.
"My morals became broken, my self-confidence became broken, and all the morals my parents instilled in me were no longer strong," Musa told a class of students at Union-Endicott High School.
She had hard truths about her addiction for her old alma mater. "I would steal from my family, I would steal from my friends," Musa said. "I would use and abuse anyone that meant anything to me." Decisions that led her to jail five times.
A place where instead of getting clean, some addicts find ways to sneak in drugs.
In Broome County's correctional facility, arrests for heroin in the jails more than tripled from three in 2012 to 10 in 2013. All other drug possessions saw increases between 2012 and 2013. Broome County Sheriff David Harder said sneaking in contraband is common, but not rampant.
"Somebody might be able to get a cigarette lighter through their rectum," Harder said, "Those things go on all the time." The sheriff said the increase in arrests does not mean there's more abuse.
"You're seeing more of it on paper because the officers are being more alert," Harder said, "And taking more action against the people coming in."
President of Dreams Over Drugs, Michael John-Barton said it's important to reach children now before they start a habit. He calls children growing up now 'Generation H,' a generation flooded by temptation for heroin and other opioids.
He said there challenge is why he helped organize the group. "It came out of seeing so many kids die and seeing so many families hurt by this problem," John-Barton said.
The addicts hope their tales will leave an impression. "It could be six months down the road or a year down the road when they all of a sudden realize, 'Wow, all the stuff that guy said would happen, is happening,'" John Barton said.
A hope he can keep students after him away from addiction, and potentially, a life behind bars.
Most of those I have known who have been addicts suffered from a small vision of all that is, often not getting past themselves. They are great at rationalizing whatever they think they want, though, and the whole 'ends justify the means' bit plays right into that mindset.
It isn't hard to see the deception from outside, but like a paper room with the walls painted to look like stone, it looks inescapable from the inside. Only God can open eyes that refuse to see and empower people to tear down the boundaries they thought were real.
Those paper stones, the paper tigers, lose their power once God demonstrates how they melt before His own power.
I’ve heard it likened to an elephant that is tied to a stake with a string, and it stays there because of the memory of when it was a chain. In that way, virtues can be shanghaied by Satan and used to bluff a person into sin.
Since Hell is real, I’d rather hear about it than not hear about it. If people are driven from the faith because someone said something they didn’t like, they were never a member anyway. If someone refuses the Prevenient Grace of God because of something that was said, they would have refused it no matter what.
Salvation is not a garment to put on and take off.
Should not one be Christlike?
Audience matters. Gratuitous, proud hellmongering will make Jesus’ job more difficult. Note very carefully His audience with hellfire statements. With the privilege of having the bible comes the duty of using it carefully.
Better to pluck out one’s eye than spend forever in torment.
Jesus said that.
And to whom was he speaking? Not those who knew they were sinners needing help, but to those thinking nothing needed to be done with their sin — due to pride.
And that might as well be addressed to you. Man’s methods, man’s logic is not God’s methods and logic.
He was still talking about Hell to sinners. Don’t blame me. I didn’t write the Bible. It’s not my fault. I’m just telling you what it says.
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