lauren 340

Growing up in a household with someone who struggled with substance abuse, I wanted to become as educated as possible about addiction and how these problems begin in the first place. As I researched more about addiction, substance abuse has become an urgent and devastating issue for our youth. From 2016 to 2020, drug use has risen 61% among 8th graders. As of 2024, 1 in 10 young adults has an alcohol use disorder and 1 in 7 young adults has a substance use disorder. Here at LA Youth Recovery , we recognize that addiction is becoming a pressing issue amongst young people that requires an urgent solution and attention. Our mission at LA Youth Recovery is to support and empower young people who are fighting substance abuse and help them reclaim their lives. Addiction doesn’t exist solely in isolation, it often coexists with underlying mental health issues, socioeconomic challenges, or trauma. LA Youth Recovery takes a holistic approach to recovery by addressing the root causes of addictio...

Jacqueline Novogratz in the Blue Sweater had dreams and passions of making the world a better place one step at a time. Leaving her stable position as an international banker at Chase, Novogratz’s true passion was solving the gap between the poor and rich. While she initially had dreams of working in Brazil, she ended up with an opportunity in Africa, where she had unexpected and surprising outcomes. As I continued to read her story, I realized that she had to overcome a lot of biases and challenges to make her presence known in Africa. A lot of the women there did not know she was there with good intentions and thus, she initially had trouble with initiation. Her plans were not followed strictly and she had to adapt to her surroundings. I believe that her sacrifice to leave a stable job to come and do something that was risky, but followed her passion, is inspiring and something I aspire to do someday.   As I read this quote, I think about how others sometimes must speak up...

For this extra credit assignment, I chose Anna Rothschild’s article Five surprising moments in vaccine history. Anna Rothschild is a former Washington Post journalist who specializes in science and health topics. She was also the current producer for the YouTube channel Gross Science which created animations about biology for kids and museums, and Anna’s Science Magic Show Hooray which answered scientific questions from the public. This article explains the history of vaccines in three videos, with each answering questions or myths that many have about how vaccines work and are made.   Summaries The first video explained how vaccines actually work and debunk public myths about vaccinations. While some anti-vaxxers might believe that vaccines actually make you sick, vaccines can give you a very mild form of the disease for the body to build up antibodies. In the 1700s, this was called variolation, where doctors would purposefully inject the patient with the disease with a thr...

I've honestly been feeling kinda lazy lately and feel a little unmotivated doing school work and studying. I've been kinda stressed about getting a job and worrying about my future and to be honest I still have no idea where I'm going to end up nor what I am going to be doing five years from now. I guess from me being stuck in a rut, I've kind of explored some new hobbies and things to do in my free time to try and get my mind back in a motivated and healthy headspace.  So for starters, I keep hearing that working out or exercising daily can have immense benefits to mental health. As I said before, I am pretty lazy so over the past couple of years I've been pretty bad at going to the gym or working out. The gym for me is pretty scary for me and I get a lot of anxiety stepping into a gym mostly because I don't know what I'm doing. But over the past couple of months, I have gone quite a few times and it's actually not as terrifying as I made it out to be. ...