All Hoods On Deck!

"It doesn't just affect the family's  in the ghetto bruh! Trust me!"

One of the most tragic things that can ever happen to a parent is to have to bury a child. The old timers always say that they’re supposed to leave this earth first not the other way around. Unfortunately, the drug game has claimed the lives of more young people in this country than we care to count. What’s crazy to me is that most folks think that drug problems are relegated to the ghetto and that it’s only an urban poor folk’s issue. Unfortunately, drugs are an equal opportunity employer. It doesn’t matter what color you are or how much money your family has or not. If you’re willing to inhale, inject, snort, drink, swallow or eat it, you’ll get hooked all the same.

Unfortunately, Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid understands that more than anyone right now. His oldest son Garrett, who has battled addiction in the past, was found dead at the Eagles training camp on Sunday morning. While there was no initial evidence of drug use at the scene I would find it odd that no evidence existed because of his past. I’m from the G bruh I’ve seen it all and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. 

 In 2007 Garrett was arrested after a high speed chase where another person was injured. When the police searched the ride they found heroin and more than 200 pills and even on the day of his sentencing he was caught trying to sneak pills into the jail.

My condolences go out to Andy Reid and his family because this problem isn’t just a urban ghetto problem. It can and will affect all comers. As a drug rep in the pharmaceutical industry I travel all over the state of Indiana visiting both endocrinologists and internal medicine physician’s offices because I sell insulin for Type 2 Diabetes. My territory takes me from the heart of the ghetto to rural Indiana to the suburbs. What I always find interesting when I’m waiting in the lobbies to speak to my physicians is that Big Momma’s/Nana’s and Madea’s are raising grandchildren in all three environments bruh. Let me give it to you where everybody can understand me, “It ain’t just happening in the ghetto son! It’s everywhere!”

They’re smoking crack in the ghetto using methamphetamines in the rural joints and playing with prescription drugs and powder cocaine in the suburbs. They’re training on weed in all three neighborhoods. See folks just don’t start on crack, meth and cocaine. They start on weed until that isn’t enough. Then they graduate to the other stuff and Andy Reid’s son was no different during the course of his short 29 years.

I just hope that coach Reid doesn’t blame himself for the tragic loss of his son. I see so many parents blaming themselves because their child got hooked on drugs. Let’s keep it real or all the way 100, whichever comes 1^st! Unless you took your kid to the dope house or trained him or her on how to get high. It’s not your fault momma or daddy. Sometimes kids are going to do whatever they want to do regardless of how much their parents nurture and give them all the opportunity in the world.

All you can do as a parent is pray that they make good decisions when they leave your house in the morning. Teach them right from wrong and how to think and pray for the best. So I stand next to Andy Reid and all of the parents that have lost children and other family members to drug abuse because it could have been any one of us in that situation bruh. In the words of the old English evangelical preacher and martyr John Bradford (1510-1555), “There but the grace of God, go I.”   R.I.P. Garrett Reid

Holla At Ya Boy!

Jay Graves

Get @ me on Twitter: @jaygravesreport

This is all my opinion. I’ve got no proof that Garrett was doing drugs at the time of his death or that the effects of drugs even caused his death.