I am a professional speaker/ educator on the subject of addiction for schools and communities. Following the guidelines of the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition of the disease of addiction, my talks are designed to educate students with the truth around the disease of addiction.
In my presentation, I incorporate my personal journey of addiction and how it affected my life, my experience of active addiction, as well as my remission of 40 years from my disease. The presentation will show that most of us are not immune to the disease of addiction. I share how to recognise our own symptoms of behavioural changes often in relation to a compulsive obsessive nature. The main question that I pose to the students is “why”? What causes such a void in our gut that we need to fill it with gaming, social media, and drugs, in order to cope and escape from certain experiences and circumstances in our lives? What has affected our ability to cope normally and why do we turn to a quick fix to escape?
I also discuss how to recognise when habits are becoming more than a habit and becoming a need that we no longer can control. This is the dormant disease of addiction becoming active. I explain the rout of what activates the disease and what are the alternative choices we can make. I explain the value of communication to our parents, teachers, mentors or someone we trust. That our internal silent pain is not exclusive to just you. We all have silent internal pain, we just don’t talk about it. We fear what others might think should we share how we are feeling.
I have two presentations, one for the students and another for their parents. The presentation to the parents covers the same explanation of addiction as given to the students. I explain the WHO acknowledgement of addiction being a mental health disease and how to recognise the behavioural changes in their children that might indicate an obsessive compulsive disorder that is becoming a problem and how to handle such a situation. I explain that most parents unintentionally become enablers to their child’s compulsive needs, in the way they try to help which in turn become an addiction in itself by rescuing. Both presentations show ways to deal with addiction, how to recognise it and how to get help.
Finally both presentations are interactive, educational, fun, and life changing. I recommend that if you are considering the student presentation “The Sleeping Tiger” that you would also have the parent presentation “The Tiger in the room” the same day, or the following morning to encourage an open communication between students and parents about what they have heard and equip them to be able to approach the subject of addiction and address it together.
