all and this is the edge where we will be answering many questions involving problems that may relate to your life as many of you may know marijuana is a very controversial topic that many students may encounter during their time today i visited by eric mr eric burke ivor who is a recovered addict and now currently working as an interventionist and will be discussing the negative effects of teenage marijuana usage on the educational and social life aamer we discussed earlier before the show that you first encounter marijuana when you were thirteen years old so who or how did you get introduced of the drugs my introduction to drugs  was you know more of just it was you know part of my neighborhood you know throughout my growing up process middle school you know marijuana alcohol where the you know the first things i was introduced to and it was really just  a group of friends you know that i grew up with since time i was a little little guy and you know a couple people had started it and i think it was more of me doing it really just to be part of to be part of building into the why do you think the marijuana is so appealing to teenagers today i think a lot of it has to do with you know kind of the piggyback off the part of for me was you know kids i think growing up you know one acceptance and you know in my experience of going through middle school and high school a lot of there's a lot of segregation you know within the school different groups and you know it's kind of like you know wherever you can get in you know just to feel a part of that group you kind of compromise yourself and do some of the things that you might not have done just for that acceptance of that group ok i have substance abuse among twelfth graders is down eight point three percent from one thousand nine hundred sixty two thousand and seventeen now how big of a problem do you think it is today from back then do you still view it as a major problem well i definitely personally feel like it's a problem i would love to maybe see some statistics on you know maybe the harder drugs kind of moving into the schools you know if it's taking precedence over marijuana the access of harder drugs becoming more prevalent in our communities that's the scary thing know what would you say in your personal life marijuana what would you say any negative effects it had on your social and educational life marijuana you know middle school it was very sporadic kind of like a weekend thing by the time i was a freshman in high school it was a daily occurrence i definitely believe that it had a huge impact on my athletic drive you know i was i would show up for games but i wasn't a big practice or so you know in a lot of ways i was an underachiever in athletics i started also throughout my high school career to notice that there was becoming a division between two groups of my friends i had a group on one side that did alcohol and drugs and then i had another group that were kind of like growing out of the experimental phase and you know pursuing careers and you know excelling in things and i started to you know take that turn for the worst people who began using marijuana under the age of eighteen or four times more likely to become dependent on marijuana now do you think this played a part in you absolutely absolutely how long would you say you smoked marijuana from when you started at thirteen years old until when you stopped  probably not an exact date but i would probably say i smoked marijuana up until twenty three the age of twenty three on a daily occurrence by that time harder drugs had became a bigger part of my  life so it almost you know marijuana was almost phased out you know by you know more harmful drugs was that when you were twenty three was that the first time you attempted to stop or have you been trying throughout all those years and were unable to  well i don't think there was ever you know by the way i view the word attempt an honest attempt marijuana for me really just got pushed to the backburner as more harmful substances became more important you know in my view either was more of an attempt at you know getting rid of the habits with those down the road but i really can't say that marijuana that i attempted to quit how would you if you would give any advice to parents today who have a teenage son or daughter his first marijuana what advice would you give to help confront this problem i would i would use the advice that my parents would would use you know my parents did the best they could with what they knew and i believe education today for parents on healthy boundaries making it difficult for your loved ones to engage in those behaviors holding your loved ones accountable leverage is a big deal when you're trying to help families you know get their loved ones to see the light of day that they're this is a problem so you know there's various entities out there that you know teach boundaries healthy boundaries you know from a parent to a potential addicks perspective and i would i would encourage them to start at a very early age oh did any of your friends during that time do anything to try to prevent you from something bad happening or did they really just think of it as a big deal of course you have had you know a lot of friends that are still you know thankfully you know my friends today you know a lot of my friends loved me from a distance encouraged me you know to do things differently but but yeah of course i have always had i've always had good guidance around me was always very poor at making good decisions for myself what advice would you give to any teenagers today who knew their friend may have a problem and would advise would you give to them to help them confront their friend about it communication communication you know  secrets hurt people walk through the fear of haven't confrontation with your friend it's better to have a confrontation with someone that you care about rather than not saying anything for fear they're going to get upset with you do you think that it's hard for teenagers to stop using marijuana once you become dependent on it i do i do i think there are so many factors that play into it you know not only from a peer pressure perspective to an except in perspective but you know the the addictive component you know has become such a routine such a way of life your mind is almost conformed to this reality that you can't go about your life without it and at the end of the day it's a lie but it's a very strong lie that lies in the minds of you know addicted people know students if they have a problem with marijuana usage and they know they do and they want to get help that may be they may be uncomfortable talking to their parents about it because they don't want anybody to know so what would you suggest they do with that well there's you know i mean there's with technology today there are so many platforms out there that someone could reach out to you know there's chat rooms that people can get into just to you know start a discussion there's you know there's pastor's there's twelve step  groups you know something that you know just in my experience over the past two decades i've really seen especially with my reestablishment back into the pittsburgh and west virginia communities is the stigma of the addicted person has really gotten a lot better in terms of people just feel uncomfortable just to say hey i have a problem and not being looked down debt or sh so it's going to be an individual comfort level you know but there's all different avenues you can take you know to reach out for help doesn't necessarily have to be mom and dad at first and out of all the news that you just spoke of what do you believe would be the first in most effective step to take well i think you know again if if if an individual is contemplating whether they have a problem there's all of varying degrees of of what we identify as a problem but the first the first step is to speak about it and to speak out loud about it how would you say the teenager should avoid marijuana is it mostly just peer pressure to get away from their source or whoever's there around that is using it or would you say a way for them to avoid it well but you know it's such a complex question and you know i reflect all the time you know wish i had a you know one size fits all answer for that question i would i use my personal experience from a perspective that i would have never thought that simple experimentation in middle school with marijuana would have taken me to a place of being twenty nine years old homeless evicted and and had no one else to blame but myself and my decisions i would encourage people to really take to heart because all of us in one way or another have seen addiction near and far and i would encourage people to attempt to take the attitude that it can happen to you you know this thing doesn't discriminate doesn't care about how much money you have about the clothes that you wear about your economic background your cultural background you know i've seen it happen to all different types of people so just have the attitude that you know the more you play around with it you know the more you're giving rise to the potential of it taken you places you would have never dreamed of who would you say that inspired you to completely drop drugs including  one of my first attempts and you know and i you know grew up in a good household mother father both you know still married forty years later you know put them through a lot and for whatever reason they were never able to get through to me and at age twenty five i remember being in a treatment facility and there was a man that had one leg and he was in a wheelchair and he was of indian descent that man i started getting me to think in a different light that i never thought i listened to him he's you know deceased now but that was probably the first man that inspired me that and provided me just a glimmer of hope that i could have a life without alcohol or drugs how does the school the person school react to if they find out somebody smokes marijuana well i would encourage my opinion would be instead of you know there has to be accountability in a school you know most schools i would think have a zero tolerance policy and you have to abide by that  i would also encourage schools to you know side on the air of treatment i've seen treatment work and all different various ways even if that means you know giving up a semester you know sometimes thirty sixty ninety days of treatment might be the difference in someone's future so in a short version you know i would encourage treatment rather than punishment  for most people but you know with with addiction you know a lot of times you have the drug use compounded with other behaviors and that's what makes it a little bit difficult how did your family in particular react when they first found out about marijuana usage marijuana usage i think i think the marijuana use itself  really didn't concern them as much as some of the things that followed i think i think a lot of at that time which was you know late ninety's early two thousand i think there was some some public embarrassment i think there was a level within both of my parents of really just not knowing what to do and you know they would probably say the same thing i think for years they tried to love me into recovery and the way they did that was actually hurting me so like you said before what the school was you said more of treatment than punishment would you apply that to parents as well i would i would i mean and again you're going to have all different types of circumstances you know in some circumstances are going to require you know some a can some some f accountability but i would always you know compound that with some some form of treatment and from a parent's perspective it's so hard because you just you want your loved one to have a life that's worthwhile and to and to do something good with their time on this earth and you know sometimes you know parents will you know start off with a course of treatment and they'll have an expectation you know that this is going to fix my loved one and sometimes early on you might get that that effect and sometimes early on all you've done is you've started to just plan a seed for that individual that might have future recurrences to just have in the back of their mind that when things get bad they know where to go you know where to go no earlier when i asked you a question you mentioned it can affect different people differently because everybody is different in some people become more dependent on it did you when you first started using it did you ever think in your wildest dreams that you would become dependent on it and move to other drugs no not at all i had no clue the ride it was going to take me on absolutely no clue i thought i was just being a normal teenager  ironically a lot of my peers that weren't going down that road a lot of my teachers a lot of my coaches a lot of people in my life that you know were observing me from a distance you know would tell you that it was very evident to them you know that i was you know making a turn for the worst i could not see a part of that maybe was i didn't want to see it i was at that time it might have been enjoyable but you know i was absolutely blind to where it was going to take me do you soley blame or water for leading you into other drugs no you know i blame my own my own actions you know i had to and that that's just what works for  me you know i'm a big believer of personal accountability these days and at the end of the day i i have never went throughout the course of my life without a lot with with a lack of good guidance and i've had good guidance all around me so the moment at age twenty when i took responsibility that i was where i was at because of my own actions it was the start of something new for me so did you view it as back you've mentioned that you thought it was just something normal you were just being a teenager and you just mentioned everybody it was like a neighborhood thing that it was just a normal thing did other people that you were with go down this path like you absolutely and you know i could probably count on four sets of hands you know people that are not with us today why do you think that it's so hard to quit using marijuana oh i think i really think that for a lot of us you know that i've went down that path it gets to a point where it's a spiritual dilemma  and that's going to require a spiritual solution and you know unfortunately one of the things that's very hard to produce in an individual is hope you know hope i think is the on the forgotten metric in addiction you know to be able to inspire people that your life is where it's at now and it's not good but there's an opportunity and it is possible to get on the other side of this and live a happy joyful and you know fruitful life were you worried at the time of legal troubles that could happen to you from using marijuana yeah i actually  experience you know i was you know i don't want to minimize you know my behaviors that time i did you know get quite a handful of you know misdemeanor offenses and at an early age was introduced to the system  but that's the baffling thing you know one that does not struggle with addiction you know could look at my situation from the outside in and say you're getting arrested you know i mean you're having to spend nights in jail you're having to pay fines you should stop and for someone with that mindset you know the my only thought was of self how can i get the next one how can i smoke the next joint you know how can i get the next drug and just absolutely incapable of viewing the world in any other manner but that so if legal troubles weren't enough at the time to convince you to stop what do you think was finally the breaking point where you realized that you need to get clean into your life together i mean a great great question you know i you know as i say you know the past seven years of my diction were you know much much harder substances and you know i had multiple treatment attend through the latter part of my twenty's and i worked in the carpenters union out of west virginia and you know was struggling and i landed in hopefully my last treatment center at age twenty nine in south florida and you know i had been worse off legally i had been worse off physically  i had this moment where this realization came over my life i was twenty nine years old and it was just like this thing kept playing in my brain it's like you're twenty nine years old and you get one chance at life you get one chance at life you haven't done much in the positive manner the past decade and a half you lost a college athletic scholarship two years into it you struggled in the military you somehow managed to get a degree but in addition to that you've hurt everybody you've come in contact with so that realisation coupled with the fact that i had pushed everyone that cared about me away and i was twenty one years old  lonely that scared me i didn't want to go through this world and i don't want to go through this world without having a good relationship at some point with my parents with my sister you know wanted to have a family which i do now you know i have a three year old and five year old  you know i wanted to you know be part of the solution in my community and i have an opportunity to do that now so the loneliness and you know just the the awakening that i was you know going to go through this world and and do nothing scared me so you would say it was more of a personal reflection that inspired you to stop and i wasn't really anybody else just you thinking about your life and yeah you know fortunate thing aiden is well you know people that struggle with addiction all have a different threshold for whether it's physical pain or emotional pain or spiritual pain and my breaking point many people don't understand addiction and was there anybody in your family struggled with addiction that introduced you to that or was it completely random that i can really say that anybody in my family introduced me to addiction i did have an aunt my father's sister that  a you know a product of pill mills and did overdose you know years ago you know she just we found her dead in her sleep you know i've you know had various you know my dad's brothers have had you know bouts with alcoholism and you know one of his brothers is sober now and been sober for two decades so you know a lot a lot of different debate on you know whether this is a genetic thing or you know acquired through you know bad decisions i don't have the answer i do know that his addiction has touched touched my family in a lot of different ways if you could go back to yourself before when you were thirteen years old what would you tell yourself toward for the future fantastic question i've often thought about that i  definitely tell myself that the life of the party and you know gaining acceptance from any other person is meaningless  i would definitely courage myself to follow my dreams and stay on the path of education and you know stick with the winners and that's something that i had a real hard time doing and you know something that ran my you know middle school and high school life was you know what this would have people think about me you know and the irony is what i learned almost two decades later is you know if i just do the right thing for the right reason treat people good because and be helpful you know i mean the people that matter will be around  the marijuana hold how would you back from reaching what your goals were now that you are where you are do you think that in a way it could've benefited your mindset of thinking like about what's really important well i definitely you know what i work at this way i definitely didn't grow up aspiring to get into the things that i did i will tell you that where i'm at today is my struggles in life have become my greatest asset so i can't necessarily say that everything that's happened up to this point has been bad some of the things that are in my life currently have given me an opportunity to take some of the bad things that i've done in my life and some of the consequences and turn them into just a platform to maybe affect change in one person here and there i definitely would encourage people not to take that path because unfortunately some people don't get an opportunity to turn their troubles into an asset you know they get they get buried in the ground now being an interventionist do you have people come in that reminds you of where you were when you were a kid of course of course you know i mean speaking with you know families and you know you know people affected with addiction but it's a it's a it's a big reminder you know and it's you know it's part of it's part of my healing to you know just to and reminder you know that you know you've you've made some you've made some progress you know and almost you know the past  decade but don't don't fall victim to the fact that you can't go back there with one wrong decision so i try to try to remain grateful i try to remain hopeful and you know probably the best thing that i can do with my life today is given is the giving of my time so for our final question what overall advice would you give to students today that are struggling with maybe the same problem that you had when you were a  kid i would encourage students to listen to your parents it's very cliche i would encourage students to not fall victim to the thought that it will happen to you i've seen the best people you know just ten years from some of some simple experimentation under a bridge you know it will happen to you and don't underestimate the power of addiction it's it's bigger than you well looks like that will be all the time that we have today i'd like to