Drugs. Journal 5 from Matt Stock

          I was thinking about what to write with so many themes in these chapters. I chose to write about Ishmaels struggles with the treatment. It is hard for an adult to overcome the challenges that Ishmael is facing only as a child. Ishmael wishes he could take back the part of his life where he was a child soldier. I feel like Ishmael is a hero for facing the challenge. I wish he never had to go through the pain but he does start to overcome it in later chapters. It makes me admire him.

     In chapter 16 Ishmael is still undergoing treatment after being a child soldier for two years. Ishmael has many struggles at this time. One of those main struggles is having with draws from different drugs and killing other people. Ishmael’s life for two years was being fed pills and being told to kill people. Before he killed people he looked at them in their eyes and then killed them. Withdraws is not the only thing Ishmael is dealing with he also has PTSD. Ishmael has nightmares where is wakes up yelling. Ishmael tells us in this chapter that he has migranes a lot. This is a symptom of PTSD along with the nightmares. Ishmael did cocain and took pills everyday on the frontlines. He has a lot of craving for the drugs. It makes me so mad to think about these adult leaders giving kids drugs.

            We can relate this in today’s world by looking at our own home town’s drug problem. It’s pretty bad when your local Kroger’s sells Narcan over the counter. Narcan is the drug that I carry on my ambulance that reverses overdoses. At one time Ohio State Patrol had to patrol Marion city because there wasn’t enough cops to deal with all the drug abuse going on. These are a few ways that drug abuse effects our world just like its effects Ishmaels world.

This is a chart explaining withdraws.