Fighting Addiction by Providing Tools for Making Better Decisions
In the last year, 1 in 8 children...
Based on data from National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, about 1 in 8 children (8.7 million) aged 17 or younger lived in households with at least one parent who was significantly impaired by recurrent use of alcohol or other drugs (or both) in the past year.
Your donation to decisions.org provides schools, churches, and other non-profit organizations with valuable resources to address this heart-rending problem. Our unique WingMan books for children help them learn to make positive choices and to deal with many of the challenges associated with one or more addicts in their families.
Along with the books themselves, your donation provides children’s coloring books to promote interactive learning as well as structured curriculum for teachers and educators.
CEO Hayes Thomas on the mission and purpose of the WingMan Book Program.
Fosters from Addict Homes
Building Awareness for Children
Over 25 years ago we started counseling addicts who had been incarcerated due to their addiction-related crimes. We soon discovered there was an entire new class of victims being created through this terrible disease of addiction: they are our children.
Left out of the picture, not understanding why, how, what, where or when they might ever see their parents again, while being thrust into the turbulence of growing up in a totally dysfunctional world.
They need direction … They need help!
We realize that children are being exposed to additive substances at younger ages every year. Our goal is to prevent addiction by creating awareness and crafting stories and images that are fun as well as informative. If we can save a single child from destroying his or her life, we will consider our efforts a success.
The WingMan Book Program is dedicated to educating children of all ages about the hazards of addiction and addictive behavior.
On a personal level, the costs of addiction are steep. Losing relationships, financial stability, personal freedoms, loss of custody of children, overdose and even death can be common outcomes for many. The societal costs of substance abuse are great at over $532 billion a year. This estimate includes costs from disease, premature death, lost productivity, theft, violence, law enforcement, prosecution, incarceration, and probation.
Helping People Make Better Life Choices
Every person’s life is built around thousands of factors that relate to how that individual is raised and taught various lessons about life. However, among the choices we cannot control is to whom and where we are born. Yet, history has proven that even those brought up in poor neighborhoods and disadvantaged circumstances can be highly successful in their lifetimes.
By a child learning the meaning of “yes” and “no,” many patterns of the baby’s learning systems are imprinted into that child’s psyche. He or she begins to learn that certain decisions to act can bring a reward or cause a punishment. In the simplest of terms, this is the ability to judge what is right or wrong.
Yet, the circumstances of each person’s birth and upbringing are just the starting point for structuring that newborn’s life and moving forward with “building” that person. Life decisions are usually built upon rational decision making after retrospection and deep thought.
Most young people quickly learn that their impulsive decisions often backfire and cause them embarrassment, disappointment and personal pain. If correcting or avoiding acting on impulsive behavior is not kept in check, the rational decision-making process for that person can fail, leading to addictive behaviors and bad decisions
