By Brian Sandjong 

On April 25, 2023, Oakmont hosted Certified Prevention Consultant Ty Sells as a guest speaker. He has a BA in Communication from Ohio State University and is a director speaker of services of Youth to Youth International in Columbus, Ohio. He came to talk to us students about life choices and how drugs and substances will affect us mentally and physically in a negative way. But in a different way. 

Mr. Sells started his presentation not like a lot of speakers-he was upbeat. You could hear in his voice that he was not trying to scold or scare us not to use drugs and alcohol but to help us become the best version of ourselves. He started with why he was here which was trying to be an advocate for teens and prevent drug and substance use.     

Next, Mr. Sells showed a quote on his PowerPoint which said. “The quality of your life, health, work, and relationship is determined by the quality of your mental health…not the other way around.” He elaborated on that; he explained that mental health was a key part of when it comes to people taking these substances. 

When people take substances they take them because many reasons some could be due to change, a plan that doesn’t go right, or even when you see things that you want happening to others, but it won’t happen to you. All of these life stressors are some of the reasons people do these substances. 

What does it mean to feel normal?

One of the big things Mr. Sells believed is why people do these substances and get addicted is to feel normal or to help them feel better about themselves. When it came to addiction, Mr.Sells had a chart to show us the steps.

First, it is the beginning of use. At this stage, it makes the person feel better and when they take this and keep taking this the effects start to lessen, and now they need to get more and more which brings them to the second stage, when they start to lose friends and stop doing the activities just so they can get enough. 

They will keep going and going until the only way they can feel normal is when they use this substance; that is when they become ‘Dependent’ on the substance which develops into addiction.

When asking Mr. Sells in an interview about how the effects of external and internal stress cause the average teen to use these substances his perspective was interesting. He thought both have a factor in a teen, but they are different for different people. Some might have more internal stress than others and vice versa. 

When asked about how to combat addiction he stated that people should look for other things other than substances to make them feel better. Like when we are sick, find different alternatives to substances and chemicals to put in our bodies. 

He shared an example with his daughter: She would have very bad migraines. When she would get them, instead of getting medicine right away, Mr. Sells would tell her to try things that would better get rid of the migraine like drinking water or taking a nap. If this didn’t work, he would, of course, give her medicine. 

Mr. Sells is not anti-medicine, but he wanted to teach his daughter not to have the reflex to take chemicals to make her pain go away but to find natural ways to deal with her pain. This is what he wanted to show in his presentation, if we find different alternatives then chemicals to deal with stress like exercise, napping, reading, listening to music, etc. it can be healthier and help our physique and mental health. 

Mr. Sells also talked about the use of marijuana and all the ways that we might think it is safe to use but is not. For example, many people believe marijuana is safer than the typical cigar or vape. It is ‘natural’ from the earth, so must be safe for you to use – whci many believe. But Mr. Sells shed new light on this myth. 

Mr. Sells says that the ingredients that are found in cigarettes and E-cigarettes (vapes) are processed and made in factories but the base of all of the chemicals are found in plants. So, this shows that sometimes just because it comes from the ground and is not processed doesn’t mean it’s safer for you or is a better alternative than E-cigarettes and regular cigars.   

Mr. Sells Presention in a Nutshell

Overall, Mr.Sells’ presentation was informational and enthusiastic it showed the dangers of substance use and dove deep into marijuana usage. He did this all while not trying to ‘scare us’, like most presenters have done in the past. But he showed us how to be better versions of ourselves. The presentation also showed us how and gave us some options on how to properly deal with are stress without the intake of chemicals. 

When asking SADD the group that organized the presentation about how Mr. Sells did. Mr. Timothy Caouette, adviser of SADD said, “I really appreciated that Ty moved away from typical scare tactics while trying to deliver his and our message of safe behavior. We wanted to take a different approach this year with the pre-prom assembly and Ty succeeded in that.” 

Caitlin Cormier (a member of SADD) shared, “Ty Sells did an incredible job this year and we were so lucky and grateful that he was able to speak for us! He took a different than typical approach and didn’t try to use any “scare tactics”, instead focused on mental health, which we appreciated. Madison Reed, another SADD member also shares. “I think Ty brought attention to a serious issue and problem within teens while keeping it light-hearted and knowing his audience.  

Ty Sells was funny, friendly, informative, and honest. He was able to show us the dangers of substance use while keeping it fun and not boring.  Special thanks to SADD without them, the presentation would have never happened. Also,  thanks to Luk, Inc. who worked with SADD to make this possible