Success with stress. (Unit 1: Drugs and You).(preventing narcotic abuse)

Using drugs never solves anyone's problems. Consider the following situation.

Say you've got an older friend-- Al--and he's not getting along with his dad. He feels a lot of stress and anger, so he has a beer with some buddies. It seems to make him feel more relaxed, so he has another one or two. He tries to drive home, but he backs into a neighbor's fence. Now there's a dent in his mother's car, and the neighbor's fence is history. Al attempts to sneak into his bedroom and ends up breaking a window. He's lucky he didn't hurt himself or others.

Drinking those beers didn't solve Al's problem with his dad. In fact, that problem just got much bigger. Now Al's got problems with his mother's car, his neighbor's fence, and his bedroom window. And Al is feeling a lot of stress.

What exactly is stress? The basic definition is "any change that you have to adjust to." It can be a change in your environment, transferring to a new school, or something you're thinking--such as being certain you failed an exam. Traumatic changes, such as a death in the family, parents divorcing, or being injured, cause stress. But some very happy events in life--getting married, taking a vacation, moving into a new house--also cause stress.

Using drugs can't eliminate stress from your life. One way to protect yourself from the negative effects of stress is to learn ways of handling it.

Good stress-management techniques for everyday stress include:

*exercising