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This is a quarterly feature: a story about story, something to inspire us to share a tale of human goodness. If you’ve signed up for the SC network, you’ll receive an announcement every time this story changes, and previous stories will be archived on the site.
September 2008
This is a story about a boy who nearly lost his way, and when he found it again, devised an amazing plan for sharing what he learned.
In the fall of 2006, Billy Martin (not his real name) was deep into the addiction cycle using meth-amphetamines. Meth is a scourge of a drug, easy to make—though at great environmental and health risk to the makers. It is an epidemic, particularly in rural areas where meth labs can be set up and hidden in a trailer in the woods, an old farmhouse or barn, or even concocted in a van driving from one school to another. It is also a drug that works powerfully on receptors in the brain and can cause physical addiction with one experimental use. Billy was addicted, and his parents were frantic to help him. Eventually they were able to place him in a residential treatment center where he spent half of his junior year of high school getting an education in recovery, vulnerability, and statistics about the death rates for teens involved in drug and alcohol abuse.
In the fall of 2007, Billy returned to his local high school ready to move on with his life. One of the requirements for graduation is an act of public service. Here’s what Billy designed:
The statistic that burned in his brain was that 40 teenagers a day die in the US in drug and alcohol accidents. He knew that none of his friends—kids who drank—sometimes drank too much—kids who experimented with street drugs, kids who got into cars and played chicken on the back roads—no one believed they could possibly become one of those 40 teens a day. They’d listened to all the “just say no” seminars, seen the videos, had the local police department appear at assembly: and they went about doing what they felt compelled to do—sure they could get away with it all.
So Billy recruited 40 fellow students to participate in a “sociology experiment” with a vow to carry out his plan. On a rainy Wednesday, a sheriff’s deputy showed up on campus. Every few minutes she would knock on the door of a classroom and pull one participant after another out of their routine. Each participant was led to a vacant room, dressed in a black tee-shirt with white letters that read, “I just died—one of 40 today.” Their faces were painted like skulls and they were invited to sit in silence and to write their parents a good-bye letter.
At the end of the school day these 40 students lined up in silent testimony at the edge of the school parking lot. No one spoke—they were there as ghosts.
The next school day began with an assembly. Billy told the story of his own addiction and what had given him the idea for this intervention. Then several of the volunteers spoke about what it had been like to realize their lives were over. Several read portions of their goodbye letters.
Students, teachers, parents, were tremendously moved… story got them to a deeper realization of their actions.
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