Community Corner

Students Learn How to Achieve a Natural High

Psychologist speaks at high schools about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.

Laugh at a joke. Take up long-distance running. Love someone — a boyfriend, girlfriend, mother, or grandfather. Do anything. Just don’t take drugs.

Matt Bellace spoke to Wayne high school students Tuesday about the need for children to experience a natural high. The same type of chemical reaction that comes from smoking marijuana or snorting cocaine can be achieved by running for 45 minutes, loving someone, or laughing. Drugs rob students of their innocence and cause them to make unwise decisions, Bellace said.

“You’ll never hear anyone say anything intelligent after: ‘Man, I was so wasted last night’,” Bellace said.

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Bellace spoke at Wayne Hills, Wayne Valley, and DePaul Catholic high schools. Bellace is a clinical neurological psychologist and motivational speaker who travels the country and speaks to students.

Parents must be at the forefront of the anti-drug effort, Bellace said.

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“One of the most important things that can be done to prevent kids from even thinking about using drugs, recreational or otherwise, and from abusing alcohol is to talk with them,” Bellace said. “ We have to improve how we communicate with our children."

Parents, Bellace said, often see drinking at a young age as a rite of passage into adulthood, since most kids start experimenting with alcohol and other recreational drugs when they are 16 years old.

“When they become sophomores in high school, that’s when it starts,” Bellace said. “Junior year, which is historically the most difficult academic year in high school, is when students start using drugs as a form of escape from the pressures of life.”

But drugs do more than affect a child’s physical development, they affect their ability to psychologically mature, to learn how to make good decisions.

“Parents must show their children that they are capable of making wise decisions,” Bellace said. “If children see that they don’t abuse drugs, prescription or otherwise, in any form and that they drink alcohol responsibly their children should pick up on that as being normal.”

There are four steps to achieving a drug-free life Bellace said.

  • Lean on healthy people for support.
  • Express yourself in a healthy way.
  • Achieve natural highs.
  • Don't be afraid to take a stand.

A few students at DePaul thanked Bellace for coming.

“It was a very relatable presentation,” said Caitlin Castillo, a sophomore. “Drugs and alcohol abuse, it is an issue that students need to talk about with their parents and with each other and he made it easy for us to think about how that can best be done.”


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