As a young person, you often have to make a lot of decisions in your life, including those surrounding drugs and alcohol. By coming to this site, you're taking an important first step and getting informed!

If you're looking to make that decision that alcohol and drugs are not your “thing”, here are some tips that may help you. 

• Choose your friends wisely; hang with friends who make healthy decisions.
• Join a sports team or take up a hobby that you enjoy.
• Make a list of adults you can trust and talk to about alcohol and other drugs.

Looking to get involved in your community?

Doing so is a great way to be a leader among your peers in making positive decisions. It's also a great way to meet other youth!

• Assist your school or community with organizing after school activities for youth.
• Give back to the community by assisting with a cigarette bud cleanup or many other creative activities.
• Get educated on prevention of substance abuse and become a peer educator. Get involved with Students Preventing and Informing on Drugs and Alcohol (SPIDA).

Concerned about a friend or sibling?

Sometimes you may be the first person to know if a friend or sibling has a problem with drugs or alcohol and not know exactly what to do or how to help them. A great website that can help you decide what to do is: http://www.freevibe.com/stepup/index.asp
 
Additional resources

http://www.freevibe.com. This website includes basic drug facts and includes a place for you to share your own story and hear the stories of other youth.

http://www.abovetheinfluence.com/ This interactive website contains games, quizzes, and drug information. It also contains tips for dealing with pressure.

www.utakeitback.org  This website will connect you to Take It Back - a national youth-directed movement to reduce alcohol problems. Take It Back will arm you with the research, the training, the inspiration to take back your safety, your dignity, your culture, your good health and your future.  

I loved cocaine. And I loved alcohol – probably more than anything else in my life.  But in the end, after trying to kill myself with them, I realized that I really didn’t want to die for them.