Not too long ago, I read a book called, "The Explosive Child", by Dr. Ross W. Greene. This is a man who has spent 38 years of clinical work with kids. The primary message of the book is to work with kids who present challenging behavior, not by punishing them, but by collaborating with them to solve the problems that give rise to the challenging behavior in the first place.

Dr. Greene correctly points out that challenging behavior in kids is evidence of lagging skills. When kids act out, they are demonstrating that they lack the skills to respond to the demands of their environment. Dr. Greene has shown with years of clinical practice and published studies, that teaching kids the skills they need resolves challenging behavior.

By now you're wondering what this has to do with the drug trade. Well, Dr. Greene has also noticed a tendency for the mental health profession to diagnose kids. The problem with this, is that a diagnosis often leads to a lack of understanding for the kids - the diagnosis is the label and even the "identity", and often drugs are prescribed to resolve the challenging behavior. It's a subtle form of shaming for the kids and for adults caught in the same trap.

Mental health professionals who are aware of this distinction will diagnose as a last resort and instead, look at the skills that kids and adults have, and shore them up before prescribing drugs. At this point it is even fair to say that adults who use drugs lack the skills to respond to the demands of the environment they are in. Drug use is a way of "giving up" because drug users lack the skills to do better.

I might go farther and say that the war on drugs is about shame. Rather than focusing on shaming people for taking drugs, law enforcement needs to lean much more on treatment and rehabilitation than incarceration. A treatment program done right will teach the skills needed to resolve depression, anxiety and interpersonal conflict.

In sum, the moment we begin to have compassion for the people who are suffering, just as your friend is, we no longer need to diagnose and prescribe. We can simply work with them to give them the skills they need to cope with the demands of their environment.