Thieving Scrappers!!! (Updated)

I work at a residential drug treatment home, our residents are all boys 14-18 sent to us by the juvinile justice system. I've watched as residents have gone through our program and it just breaks my heart to see so many lives so messed up by drugs and alcohol. Some things that I've learned are 1. the treatment is only successful if the individual wants to change. 2. addicts don't think like normal people. 3. addicts are masters of manipulation and they are only interested in getting high, regardless of the price.



I've worked with some "good kids" and some who will be dead or in prison for life before they are 20. Two kids stand out, one played the game went through the treatment graduated the program, got his GED while in the program he went to court was released from the program and 6 hours later was in the hospital for an OD, and then was sent to another program, if he screws up in the program he's in now he'll be in the adult justice system. The second kid who I got to know had been in the system since he had been 11, he's now 14, has been a heavy user of just about every drug known. He told me that he had been charged with 46 felonies, I checked, amazingly he hadn't lied, he will never be anything other than a hard core criminal. He has no useful skills, he has no education, and no desire to get out of the gang lifestyle. He told me that he doesn't expect to live past 25. While these two individuals are towards the more extreme end to the spectrum this is what I deal with on a daily basis.

Scrapping helps out on several levels, learning valuable skills, helping make ends meet and getting to break things to let off a little (or sometimes a lot) of steam.