2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: A gay man's view on Hillary's Nancy Reagan/AIDS comments [View all]Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Different methodologies work for different people dealing with addiction, be they Rational Recovery, SMART/REBT based approaches, secular sober alternatives to 12 step groups, etc.
One size - in addiction treatment- does absolutely not fit all.
That said, yes, "just say no" was designed for kids, as is "abstinence only"- i think the messaging is not just oversimplified, but wrong and fundamentally detrimental. When you lie to kids about something like marijuana- telling them it will kill them or make their testicles fall off, as some DARE programs have been known to do, etc- they are far less likely to listen to the very real dangers of something like meth.
When you tell kids "the only moral approach to sexuality is to wait until you are married", at best you are setting them up for teen pregnancies or marrying the first person they have sex with, which- for most of us- wouldnt have been a good plan.