Drug Overdose

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Lon, a young man at a small college, overdosed on drugs and had to be rushed to the local hospital where he recovered. Lon and his brother both attended the school and neither had previous disciplinary violations. The college administration did not want to ignore this serious incident so they convened a family group conference. Lon readily admitted the stupidity of what he did. He said that taking drugs was not typical behavior for him.

Two key "victims" in this offense were the campus security officer and the school nurse who were both responsible for responding to the emergency. The officer told the youth how disturbed he had felt to find someone in such a life-threatening situation, and the school nurse shared how frightened she was that Lon might die. Lon was very moved by their sincere concern for his well-being, and recognized that he had put them through an ordeal. He agreed to avoid such behavior in the future and, as part of the outcome, committed himself to a defined amount of community service work.

At the close of the conference Lon thanked everyone, including the conference facilitator, for addressing the incident with a conference. He said that by having a chance to talk with everyone, he felt less embarrassed. He had feared that he would spend the next couple of years on campus seeing people who had been involved and feeling that they would look at him as a "druggie" because of what he did. Although he had been very nervous about the conference, he felt much better now that he had attended.

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