I just saw the tragic story about poor Hannah Mclaughlin who died way too young of an overdose.

I know many addicts. I know many former or should I say recovering addicts and I know functional addicts who can maintain a good life while drinking too much or overmedicating themselves so they can accomplish meeting deadlines in high pressure job positions.

Some of them choose to go to rehab and I support them of all my heart. But sometimes I hear of people who have been pressured into rehab. That is never a good idea.

Then we are talking Stalin time where people can be treated into believing a thing they don't believe in the first place.

You can only stop being an active addict with large success once you have reach rock bottom. The drive to remain sober must come from inside. It cannot be pushed upon a person.

The parents of Hannah Mclaughlin sent her to a wilderness program which most likely was SUWS. Later they sent her to a residential boarding school which based on the photos I found most likely was the now closed Aspen Ranch near Loa in Utah.

At SUWS she must have experienced a near death experience. Not so many years ago a boy died there from some kind of fever. When you are out in the woods the doctors office and hospital is not 5 minutes away.

Aspen Ranch with their use of orange jumpsuits. Detention like cells in the basement made many of the teenagers who were sent there believe that they very well could do the crime once they were released because they had done their time at the ranch.

So when poor Hannah Mclaughlin returned home it didn't take long before she was hooked on various drugs and went to jail for some time when she was arrested.

She was released but beside risking falling back into addiction she also had to fight post-traumatic stress disorder as result of her placement in the programs.

In the end her body could no longer take the stress of being an addict and she returned to God.

May she find peace where she is now.

Drugs and alcohol don't kill. What kills is the burden of the things people try to quit their addiction.

Source:

Heroin’s tragic story touches UMC (Church website)