Inside the National Guard armory, state and federal investigators studied the burned out
church bus where the 27 died.
This is where each body was removed and where they identified the remains.
They were identified through dental records, through medical records, through personal
effects, through clothing, families indicating what type of clothing that some of the victims
had.
One by one, the bodies left the armory.
To finish the journey, they started Saturday night.
There were eight males, 19 females, 25 were white, two black, 24 children, and three adults.
Behind me is where they've been taking the bodies.
What happened, as you know, is that the bus with the bodies inside was moved here.
It's here that Dr. George Nichols and his assistants have been one by one trying to
identify the various victims.
He tells me that it looks like the victims in the bus at the time of the accident were
trying to get to the back of the bus, but they were overcome by smoke.
It was after that that the bus caught fire and their bodies were badly charred.
That's why one by one he is trying to go and identify each of the bodies.
That's why it's been difficult for the parents.
They haven't been able to come here.
In fact, earlier today, just an hour up the road is where families met and waited for
word.
Military vans carried many of the victims' families to a holiday inn in Carrollton.
Here they met with chaplains and ministers.
It's also here that a choked up Kentucky medical examiner pleaded with the parents not to view
their children's remains.
The picture that they want to keep of their children is not what is in that room, but
what is in their wallet and in their minds.
The victims' families stayed at the holiday inn for about two hours.
Their parents wept and hugged parents of other victims and just talked.
From the church to the community, the reaction is much the same, shock and disbelief.
Tonight, Jackie Hayes talks with teenagers and parents in Radcliffe about this tragedy
and she talks with one young man who is tonight credited with saving many lives.
Then everybody started screaming and hollering and trying to climb out the bus as fast as
they could.
Jamie Hardesty is a soft-spoken 10th grader at Meade County High and tonight he is a hero.
I pulled a bunch of people out the doors, then I went down the side of the bus, busting
windows hoping the people that were in the front of the bus could get out, but they couldn't.
Dale Ketron almost went along on the trip but decided to play soccer instead.
So I went to my game and I played and I fell down and twisted my ankle and then there I
was thinking about why should I have went to Kings Island, I would have been a lot safer
and I wouldn't have been in pain.
But then when I come back and hear about this, that really made me feel tragic.
Classmates of some of the victims from North Hardin High heard today's tragic news as they
waited to go on buses to Kings Island, it was to be a special band trip, that trip was
cancelled, the buses left empty.
I walked in and the entire band was sitting there crying so I knew there was no way we
could go through with it.
As signs went up around town, more kids heard about today's tragedy.
These soccer players from North Hardin were in shock.
I can't believe it's happening, you know?
I mean like four people just right around where I live died.
It is every parent's worst nightmare.
A midnight phone call brings mothers and fathers to the Radcliffe First Assembly of God to
wait and wonder.
It is 4 a.m.
They know some of their sons and daughters have died, they do not know who.
With the sunrise comes answers, slow answers.
Some of the survivors are released from the hospital.
They return to open arms.
I thank God for kids' faces because that's the first thing my children started doing
is, oh God no mama, not Bobby, not Dale, not Kristy, not Amy, not any of these, they named
them off and half of those are gone.
One halt is shaken, but all right.
When they had said boom, you can just hear the people cry, you can hear them, it was
like they said boom and people just started crying and I was trying to get out the door
and I had people set a dead person on me and I was trying to get out and I had my eyes
are closed and I stopped breathing and then I had said Jesus.
It was to be just a peaceful ride home from Kings Island Amusement Park.
The kids and their chaperones had just had a terrific day.
Now on the way home some were already reminiscing, others were sleeping, but no one dreamed that
they'd crossed paths with a truck going the wrong way.
The bus was loaded with nearly 70 members of a church youth group and was heading home
to Radcliffe, Kentucky.
But about 40 miles outside of Louisville it slammed into a pickup truck driving north
in the southbound lanes.
The bus just started going in the smoke and blew up.
The explosion was caused by a ruptured fuel tank spewing gasoline back into the bus.
There was some kind of mist of gas or something just followed it just right straight up to
the middle of the bus.
Would-be rescuers who happened upon the wreck found an inferno and panic-stricken teenagers
trying to escape it.
Bad panic as far as people on the bus, it was all piled in there around the door.
You had to pull them out from underneath each other.
You could see the kids jumping out of the rear end of the bus while it was on fire and
there was a few guys that were trying to break in the windows and get the kids out and they
were all just coming running towards us screaming.
More than 30 people were taken to a half dozen hospitals, some by helicopter, others overland
and nearly a dozen remain in critical condition.
The injuries run the gamut.
Work crews finally loaded the school bus onto a flatbed truck.
More than 20 badly burned bodies were still inside.
The truck was taken to a temporary morgue set up at a nearby National Guard armory and
the grisly task of identification was begun.
Every 22 minutes someone dies in an alcohol-related crash in the U.S. right now and every 60 seconds
someone is injured in an alcohol-related crash.
Did you know that two in every five Americans will be injured or maimed in an alcohol-related
crash?
Over four million teenage alcoholics in our country right now.
Something's got to be said about teenage alcohol abuse and the addiction phenomenon that grips
so many campuses and so many teens across our land.
We're going to Dallas together to Reunion Arena where I'm addressing 22,000 kids that
jammed Reunion for a special message entitled, It's Killing Our Kids, Teenage Alcohol Abuse
and the Addiction Phenomenon.
Please God, I'm only 17.
Please God, I'm only 17.
The day I died was an ordinary school day.
How I wish I'd taken the bus, but I was too cool for the bus.
I remember how I wheedled the car out of mom.
For the favor I pleaded, all the kids drive.
When the 250 bell rang, I threw all my books into the locker.
I was free until tomorrow morning at 8.40.
I ran to the parking lot, excited about the thought of being free and driving a car.
Free.
It doesn't matter how the accident happened.
I was goofing off, going too fast, taking crazy chances.
But I was free.
The last thing I remember was passing an old lady who seemed to be going awfully slow.
I heard a deafening crash and felt a terrible jolt.
Glass and steel flew everywhere.
My whole body seemed to be turning inside out.
I heard myself scream.
Suddenly I awakened.
It was very quiet.
A man was standing over me, then I saw a doctor.
I was saturated with blood.
Pieces of jagged glass were sticking out all over.
Strange that I couldn't feel anything.
Hey, don't pull that sheet over my head.
I can't be dead.
I'm only 17.
I have a date tonight.
I'm supposed to laugh and have a wonderful life.
I can't be dead yet.
I'm only 17.
Later I was placed in a drawer.
My folks had to identify me.
Why did they have to see me like this?
Dad suddenly looked like an old man.
He looked at me and said to the man in charge, yes, he is my son.
The funeral was a weird experience.
I saw all my relatives and friends walk toward the casket.
They passed by one by one and looked at me with the saddest eyes I'd ever seen.
Some of my buddies were even crying.
A few girls touched my hand and sobbed and walked away.
Please, somebody wake me up.
Get me out of here.
I can't bear to see my mom and dad so broken up.
My grandparents are so wracked with grief they can hardly stand up.
My brothers and sisters are like zombies.
In a daze, everybody.
Nobody can believe this has happened.
And I can't believe it either.
Please don't bury me.
I'm not dead.
I have a lot of living to do.
I want to laugh and I want to run again.
I want to sing and dance.
Please don't pull that sheet over my head.
I can't be dead.
I'm only 17.
I'm only 17.
How could I tonight begin to describe the tragedy that is affecting more Texas and United
States teenagers, killing more every year than anything else?
For instance, the other day, John Dezick was on the telephone with me.
He was the football star at Trinity High School.
And I said to him, John, what did it feel like?
Because on his 18th birthday, he got into a car and his best friend Eric Frim got into
the passenger seat.
And they were sailing down the road and they were drinking and having fun.
And John said, Jerry, I was drunk.
The car slammed into a tree on Mockingbird Valley Road.
And Eric, his best friend, was killed instantly.
Two days later, when John Dezick left the hospital, he asked his mother to take him
to the funeral so that he could see his best friend's body.
Then according to Mrs. Dezick, who testified at the trial, when John walked up to the casket,
he took his state football championship ring off his finger and he put it on the hand of
Eric Frim, his best friend.
Just another teen, only 17.
Nothing will ever happen to me.
That was the comment that Kevin Tunnel, 17, made when he left to party, teenager, and
he was drinking.
And according to the report, he went to his Chrysler station wagon, he was drunk, he was
sailing down the road, and 18-year-old Susan Tunnel had just left home.
She was coming down the other road or the other side.
She was a good kid looking forward to college and Kevin Tunnel's Chrysler station wagon
piled straight into her Volkswagen bug.
And do you know, the sad fact was her body was so mangled they couldn't even get her
body out of the bug without first pronouncing her dead.
To settle a civil suit, Kevin Tunnel agreed to an unusual penalty.
He would send one dollar every week to Mr. and Mrs. Herzog, Susan's parents, just a
dollar, and he would send the dollar every Friday for 18 years.
Kevin Tunnel later told a judge, you get to the point where you just snap and say it hurts
too much, and how could I begin tonight to describe the tragedy that I've been investigating
for several days?
And I have a call in to Larry Mahoney.
He is in the penitentiary in Kentucky.
Now here we are and there are many buses I noticed on the parking lot.
You know that Larry Mahoney was drunk when he got into his tow to pick up, and there
was a youth group called Life that had just left Kings Island Amusement Park, and they
were headed home.
Larry Mahoney was so drunk he was driving down Interstate 71 on the wrong side of the
highway.
His Toyota pick up tore into the bus just at the point of the gas tank.
It set the bus on fire.
There were 63 people on board and 27 teenagers were incinerated to death.
Three parents perished.
The statistics today are really kind of chilling.
Did you know that every day Americans drink more than 15 million gallons of beer?
Now that's enough beer to equal 28 million six-packs every day.
That's enough beer cans to fill Texas Stadium 30 feet high.
And when you look at teenagers, every city I go to and almost every school, kids come
up to me and say, Jerry, not everybody does pot hair, not everybody does acid, and certainly
not everybody does coke, but everybody in my school drinks.
And they tell us that every day Americans consume enough hard liquor to equal 1.2 million
gallons of liquor.
That's enough to get 26 million Americans thoroughly drunk.
And the CDC or the Centers for Disease Control said that this year over 100,000 Americans
will die because of alcohol-related tragedies.
And I'm talking to some of you here tonight who have a mom and a dad.
And some of you, like our cameraman, said tonight, he said he interviewed some of you
and a few kids started crying.
And they said to him, man, my dad's doing drugs or my mom's an alcoholic.
And if I asked tonight in a crowd like this, how many of you have a mom or a dad that's
an alcoholic?
Raise your hand.
Many would.
And do you know who would have to raise his hand to?
I would, because my mother's an alcoholic.
And one of the reasons I got into drugs, I think, was because in my home there was a
very real addiction personality.
My brother got into heroin at 16, and by the age of 14, I was doing drugs and getting wasted
with my friends.
And I was doing what a lot of kids do.
Mom, tell us what it was like being an alcoholic.
Well, Jerry, you think it's fun, but it's not.
You hate every day of it, but you're compelled to drink.
You want that taste.
I enjoyed drinking.
I liked the taste of it.
So that's the reason I drank all the time.
When I became a Christian, I was a teenager.
You and dad came to hear me give my testimony three days after I accepted Christ.
I think at that point, you tried to say no to alcohol.
Do you remember when that was?
That morning, sure, when you turned to Christ, tried to quit, and what happened?
Well, shortly after you became a Christian, John and I, my husband and I, your dad and
I, went to church and made a profession of faith.
And I thought then that it would be so easy to quit drinking.
But it wasn't, because I wasn't willing to give it up.
I wanted to continue drinking, but I also wanted to be a Christian.
For a period of time, you did quit.
Yes.
And then what started it again?
Just getting back into the habit.
Now why do kids drink?
And even tonight in this gathering of kids who we would say are Christian kids, many
here tonight drink.
Why?
One Atlantine said the other day, it's cool in my school to come in on Monday morning
and tell everybody how drunk you got on Saturday night.
It's like showing how strong you are.
Did you see Texas Monthly Magazine this month?
They said that by the time a teenager gets in his 12th grade year, 90% of Americans teens
have tried alcohol.
And incidentally, Pride researchers have made clear that Texas students in grades 6 through
12 use more alcohol and more cocaine on the average than students from the same age group
nationwide.
Why?
Well, it's there.
Everybody's doing it.
And secondly, I'm convinced a lot of teenagers drink because society cheers them on.
Gene Kilburn said that when you turn 18, not only have you graduated from high school,
but Dr. Kilburn, serving on the National Board of Alcoholism, said you have already seen
100,000 beer commercials.
And if you go to a movie or watch television, almost everybody has a drink, and it's described
as glamorous.
And we're almost preconditioned to try the drink, to do it.
Everybody's doing it.
And that's what the kids said the other day.
Children of alcoholics have a four-time greater risk of becoming alcoholics than teens that
are here in Reunion Arena tonight who have parents that are not alcoholics.
They're telling us right now there's over 28 million teens that are children of alcoholics.
And yes, society cheers a teenager on, but the funerals still get conducted.
And do you know why I think a lot of kids drink?
Because a lot of kids, even that go to our churches, fail to see alcohol as a dangerous,
lethal liquid drug.
President Bush said the other day to Mickey Satoff, she's the president of MAD that's
located over here in Hearst, she said, even President Bush said, we must teach our children
that alcohol is a drug and that irresponsible drug use is wrong.
And do you know, teen, when you drink a bottle of beer or any drink that is known as alcoholic,
you are drinking a drug?
You say, Jerry, that's not popular, but it's the truth.
Alcohol as a drug works like an anesthetic on your brain.
It releases your inhibitions.
It impairs your judgment.
And we get lots of letters from kids across America because we speak in the public schools.
And I got this letter from a girl the other day and she said, when we went and partied,
we would get high or get drunk.
And she said, you know what happened right after we all got stoned or drunk?
We would start having sex.
And those girls that didn't have sex, every party would get a little bit closer.
If a guy got one move on a girl, the next party he would take up where he left off.
She said, Jerry, I learned that sex wasn't love after my mother and my father wouldn't
show me love.
And after doing alcohol, I was empty.
According to her letter, she said she came home one day and went into her parents' master
bedroom and on into the master bathroom and she walked in and there in the wastebasket
was a Kleenex where her mother had removed the lipstick from her lips and it left the
indelible mark of her mother's upper and lower lip on the Kleenex.
And she had, of course, thrown the Kleenex away.
Do you know what this girl told me in her letter?
She said, when I saw that Kleenex with my mother's lip marks on it, it occurred to me
just how much I wanted my mom to show me love.
And she said, I reached down and grabbed the Kleenex out of the wastebasket and I carried
it to school with me every day.
And she said, when I got to the loneliest points of the day, knowing that drugs and
alcohol had no answers, I'd take that Kleenex out of my pocket and unfold it and I would
press the lip marks of my mother against my cheek.
Yes, alcohol is a drug, teen.
And I know if you're going to be cool on the theological scene today, you don't talk like
that, but it is.
And then a lot of kids drink simply because they're in a stage of rebellion or it's available.
How many places in Dallas tonight could we go and get a bottle if we wanted to?
But one kid said, I'm empty and I try to fill it any way I can.
I'm hollow.
And the suicide note I read the other day of a teen that I stood over that had taken
a Smith and Weston pistol and squeezed the trigger and tragically penetrated his skull
with a bullet.
His suicide note said, I am empty and teens are looking for something to fill it.
Now tonight I want to tell you about a man who partied harder and better than anyone
had ever partied.
I want you to think tonight back to your school campus and think about the guy that you may
know tonight that's a real partier.
I don't think anybody could compare to this man.
Did you know the Bible tells us that he had a great beginning?
He started out right, but his life is a haunting memory that just because you start right doesn't
mean that you'll finish right.
He finished wrong.
The Bible says in the beginning he was the ruler of a great nation.
His father was David, his mother was Bathsheba, and he inherited the nation of Israel at a
time when Israel was at its very peak.
But the Bible records a disappointing diary.
And maybe you've never read the book.
It's a book called Ecclesiastes and you say, well, what's that, Jerry?
When Solomon got away from God toward the end of his life, he decided to write all of
the things he tried to fill his emptiness with.
By the way, did you know that Ecclesiastes is not only a dramatic autobiography of Solomon
away from God, but it's a book that's often quoted by atheists.
And Voltaire was a classic example.
He would quote the book of Ecclesiastes to try to get people to not believe in God.
But Voltaire failed to see that it was a novel.
It was Solomon saying, this is what I tried.
And I want to tell you something, and listen carefully.
To 19, everyone in a sense kind of stands at a fork in the road.
And you can try many different things to find meaning and purpose and peace in life.
And I know because I tried.
There was a point that I had a bottle of Valium in my hand ready to kill myself because after
trying it all, I was empty and I had my father's light blue bathrobe on.
What did he try, Jerry?
In Genesis 1, 13 says Solomon tried to find fulfillment through earthly wisdom.
He studied all the philosophies of the world.
And when he got to the end of studying them, he said, it's vanity.
And then he tried in all of the possessions that he had.
The other day we were in Las Vegas at the American Booksellers Convention, and I walked
right near a big place that was preparing for Donald Trump.
He flew into town on that 727, if you saw the picture of it in time the other day.
I'll tell you, Donald Trump's plane is really cool.
But did you see the report the other day?
How much money does he have?
And you know, Solomon got to the point that Bible scholars tell us that just to run his
temple every day took $250,000 a day.
In Ecclesiastes 2, 10 he said, in whatsoever mine eyes desired, I kept not from them.
J. Vernon McGee said that they literally went up to Mount Hermon to get snow, and they brought
it down to Solomon's temple so that he could have cold drinks during the summertime.
Here's a man that tried to find fulfillment by having men and women singers in Ecclesiastes
2, 8.
I got me men's singers and women's singers, and he had people sing to him all day long.
And when he got done with the last chorus, he said, it's empty.
And then he tried to find fulfillment through sex.
This week, and I hope every one of you will go out and get it, Newsweek has a front cover
feature special edition on American teens.
And do you know what Newsweek said?
One in every two teenagers is saying yes to sex by the age of 16.
And they reported that many girls by the age of 18 have had so many sexual partners that
some cannot count how many different guys they've had sex with.
You know what Solomon did to try to find fulfillment teen?
He got a thousand different women and had sex with a thousand.
Any of you guys here tonight ever had a thousand girls?
And when he got to the end of all his women, 1 Kings chapter 11, 4 says, for it came to
pass when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart away from God and turned his heart
to other gods.
But the Bible carefully records that Solomon tried to find fulfillment through drinking.
Ecclesiastes through 3 says, I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine.
He was drinking.
He got drunk in the temple.
This was God's place.
And can you see him there?
The king of Israel drunk, given over to a drug.
This is the same Solomon that said in Proverbs 20 verse 1, wine is a mocker, strong drink
is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
You say, I didn't know the Bible talked about drinking.
In Proverbs 23, 29 for instance it says, who hath woe, who hath sorrows, who hath contentions,
who hath babblings.
Listen to this.
Who hath wounds without a cause?
Who hath redness of eyes?
They that tarry long at the wine, they that go seek mixed wine.
Look not upon the wine when it's red, when it moveth itself in the cup, when it giveth
its color.
Why?
Fermentation.
And here's the thought.
Why?
At last it biteth like a serpent, it stingeth like a gnatter.
I was in Odessa the other day and a friend of mine got me a big rattlesnake that was taxidermied
and it was ready to strike.
And I'm from Kansas, we don't have many rattlers.
You know, Kansas where Dorothy and Toto is, that's where I live.
And I got this guy to sell me this snake.
I flew home with a big box.
And I got a little boy named Jeremy and I went in and said, Jeremy, look what I've
got.
And I opened the box and pulled out a rattler.
He thought it was alive and he almost died.
Let me tell you.
But that's the picture that God gives of alcohol.
Did you hear Solomon?
At last it biteth like a serpent, it stings like a gnatter, and thine heart shall utter
perverse things.
Now the Bible says a lot about drinking.
The word wine is found in the Bible over 200 times, but it's translated from many different
words.
And we've got some verses in the Bible that talk about fermented wine and some that talk
about unfermented wine.
But I must say, in the Old and New Testament, did you know that wine is used as kind of
a symbol of God's judgment and wrath?
And the Bible also says that rulers were forbidden to drink intoxicating wine in Proverbs 31,
4, and 5.
And beverage alcohol is set forth in the Bible is kind of pictured of that as an enemy, attacking
its users, stealing from them joy and peace and leaving them empty.
And there are many examples of it, after the flood Noah got drunk, and you remember what
he did?
He got drunk and then he stripped naked.
And you remember the picture?
His sons walked backwards to Noah with a garment in their hand to cover his nakedness because
they didn't want to humiliate their father.
Daniel was an abstainer, but the Bible gives us the picture of Belshazzar, the king of
Babylon.
He was having a great party and all of a sudden a finger was seen writing on the wall.
And do you remember what the finger said?
You've been weighed in the balances and you're found wanting.
And the prophet of God stood there and said, you're going to die tonight.
In the Bible, wine can mean fermented and unfermented.
And unfermented wine or grape juice has God's blessing.
But how it breaks my heart when I go speak in public schools to freaks, and primarily
on Friday night, that's all we have in our rallies is kids who don't know anything about
Jesus.
And I look out sometimes and I see Christian kids that have no rapport with the kids that
are lost.
And you know why, team?
There's no difference in their life.
Do your friends want Jesus Christ because of what they see in you?
Because of the commitment that you have to Christ, that you're willing to stand?
The other night at the Superdome in New Orleans, I looked up and saw the name Pistol Pete Maravich.
And I thought about several times that Pete gave his testimony in different youth meetings
we had.
And you know the thing about Pete, he was so committed to Jesus Christ.
I'm calling on you tonight to make a commitment of your life, to say with your life, God,
I will commit all.
Because at the end of Solomon trying it all, he stopped and he said, I'm empty.
But he closes his disappointing diary with a call to young people.
And here it is, rejoice, O young man, in thy youth.
And let thine heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine
heart in the sight of thine eyes.
But listen, but know thou that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.
And the verse that's been quoted by so many people is Ecclesiastes 12.1, remember now
therefore thy creator in the days of thy youth.
Why Jireh?
Because according to Ecclesiastes 12, 13, and 14, some day, and let me just give it
to you exactly and listen very carefully, for God shall bring every work into judgment
with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.
Here's Solomon saying, if you're young, come to God now.
I've tried it all and I'm empty.
Now what about you tonight?
Have you come to Jesus Christ tonight?
Secondly, I'm calling upon us as Texas Southern Baptist young people to take the lead.
I'm going to challenge every one of you tonight to say with your commitment to Jesus Christ,
I will never, I will never drink and drive.
Why?
Let me tell you why.
Just close your eyes right now.
Don't bow your head, just close your eyes.
And I want it to get very quiet.
I want you to picture this scene that I'm going to describe in your mind and then I'm
going to ask you for a decision.
But I want it so quiet we could hear a pin drop.
Line aboard that bus at Kings Island, the church youth group was on their way back to
Radcliffe, Kentucky.
The 66 people got on board the bus and they had no idea.
The teens that sat on the bus that the very selection of their seat would determine if
they would live or be burnt to death in the flame.
Larry Fair, whose daughter Shannon was killed, now knows the details of Shannon's last moments
of life.
They understand that the inside of the burning bus grew so hot that it was far hotter than
a kitchen oven turned up as hot as possible.
They also know that the toxicity of the smoke was like billowing clouds in the bus.
Now picture it in your mind.
They have worked with the architects that are the different people that have created
these type of buses and they actually now speculate that they know the exact aisles
where the flame leaped through the floor.
And some of those involve bristle when they hear the word accident.
One of them is Lee Williams.
His wife and two daughters were incinerated on the bus.
Larry and Becky Conyers lost one son, but one son survived.
Picture Joshua.
He is a kid about 16 and seated next to him is Aaron.
Can you see him on the bus in the seat?
Joshua died.
14-year-old Aaron was burnt on 45 percent of his body.
In the hospital two days after he awoke from a semi-coma, a nurse gave surviving Aaron
a pencil and he scribbled on the paper, Josh dead?
And his parents nodded yes.
A hospital nurse began to cry.
While every eye is closed, I want to know tonight before I leave this platform how many
Texas teenagers will say, Jerry, with God as my witness tonight, I will never, never
drink and drive.
If you are really serious about that, I want you just to stand to your feet quietly, quietly,
quietly.
Don't stand because somebody next to you does, please, I beg you.
Because I'm going to stop and look in a moment.
I will never drink and drive.
While heads are bowed, one teen that died was a kid that they said fell asleep right
after he left Kings Island.
He was so tired.
I speculate that some of the kids who fell asleep never really woke up.
Some fell asleep and ended up in eternity.
I want you to be seated for just a moment.
While every head is bowed and while every eye is closed, I'm going to call on you tonight
to make the same decision I made as a teen.
While every head is bowed, let me ask this question.
How many teenagers are there here tonight in this upper balcony and lower that would
say, Jerry, if that was me on that bus, if I were to die tonight, I am absolutely, 100
percent sure that I would go to heaven.
There is not one doubt about it.
If you know that without a doubt, would you raise your hand right now?
Only if you know it.
Now, if you have a doubt, please just leave it down.
Thank you.
Many, many hands tonight could not be raised.
Right now I want to pray for each and every teen that could not raise their hand because
I know you don't want to leave tonight uncertain.
And while every head is bowed and every eye is closed, how many teenagers all over this
arena would say, Jerry, if I had been on that bus, if that bus was my bus tonight, if I
died tonight, I am not for sure that I would go to heaven.
But I want what you found.
I want to know without a doubt that if I were to die tonight, I would go to heaven.
Pray for me.
I want to make sure I am on my way to heaven.
If that is you, just raise your hand right now.
Slip it up real high all over this place.
Just raise it now.
Slip it up high.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
How many of us?
Now, I am not asking you if you go to church or believe in God.
You say, I want to know without a doubt that if I were to die tonight, I would go to heaven.
I want to make sure I am on my way to heaven.
And I want to know God.
Pray for me.
Just slip your hand up high.
Raise it real high.
Yes.
Yes.
Now, let me ask one other equally important question.
How many here tonight would say, I have gone to church.
I thought I was a Christian.
But tonight I have some doubts.
I am just not really for sure.
And I want to eliminate the doubt and nail it down.
I need the assurance that I am really on my way to heaven.
If that is you, raise your hand too, please.
Just slip it up right now all over this building.
Yes.
I see all these hands.
How many others?
Every one of you raising your hand.
Just lift your head.
Look right this way at me.
Look right here in my eyes.
Look right here too.
If you really mean business.
Tonight I want to pray for you like someone prayed for me.
And I am going to ask you right now all over this arena, just get up out of your seat with
all of our counselors.
Make your way to the nearest island.
Just come and stand right in front of this platform.
Just get up and come right now.
Don't wait for anybody next to you.
Just get up and come right now.
Say, God, I am coming.
If you raise your hand, get up and come.
And you may be in the top balcony and it will take you longer.
So just leave your seat right now.
Make your way to the mall way, down the stairway, and come and stand all around this platform.
I want to know without a doubt that if I were to die tonight, I would go to heaven.
Just get up right now and come.
And if you brought a friend tonight and you wanted them to become a Christian, just turn
to them and say, I will go with you.
And you that are coming, just come and stand right around this platform, please.
Say, Lord, I am coming.
Come right now.
The Lord was always there, willing to help me, but I wasn't willing to let Him.
He took every desire of alcohol away from me.
Now, I know that's got to be difficult for some people because you had drank for how
many years?
Probably 15.
15 years.
So how does God take the desire away?
Jerry, all I know and I can say is that He gave me a new life.
I can't understand how God works.
But I know for anyone out there who has a husband, a wife, a child, anyone in their
family who has a drinking problem, prayer can do a miracle in their life.
Not just one prayer and thinking, I'll pray and then it will happen.
It just doesn't happen overnight.
But also the person has to be willing to let God take control of their life.
I have said to Chris since then that I feel like I have a new mom because when I'm around
you, alcohol doesn't get in the way.
And when you look at alcohol in a sense, if it's a husband or wife relationship, it becomes
the better friend.
Alcohol becomes more important than mom or dad, than listening to them.
And for some teens, alcohol is so important they're willing to fight for it, potentially
kill for it, become lethal behind the steering wheel of a car.
They're willing to literally throw their life away.
What is your life like now compared to what it was when you were abusing alcohol?
Well, I have a new life.
Every day is just wonderful.
I do have my ups and downs, problems, but I don't have to rely on alcohol to solve them.
They never solved, it never solved them before.
But anytime I have a problem now, I go to Christ and accept what the answer is because
I know that He is directing my life.
Well mom, you are a miracle and the Lord has done a work in your life.
I'm convinced as a testimony and an example of the work that He can do in so many people's
lives if they're willing to let go and let God.
And now let me share a very personal and important word with you.
Responding to young people, exhibiting signs of Satanism, drugs, and alcohol abuse, depression,
or extreme acting out is not an easy thing to do.
Far too often parents recognize there's a problem with their son or daughter in one
or more of these areas, but they do not know how to find help.
The information I'm about to share with you could literally save the life of a loved one
or friend you know who has special needs.
I'm thrilled to tell you there's an organization unparalleled in their expertise to help children
and teenagers with emotional and behavioral problems.
This company's name is Century Healthcare.
Now you might ask, Jerry, what is Century Healthcare?
Century Healthcare is a nationally recognized mental health care organization that specializes
only in services specifically designed for children, teenagers, and their families.
Century pioneered unique counseling services which include outpatient counseling, in the
home intervention and therapy, partial and day treatment, transitional living programs,
residential treatment, and hospital care only as needed.
Century has been providing unique services exclusively for youth and their families since
1971 and currently operates over 55 programs in facilities across the United States.
Anyone who spends time with young people is aware that problems related to emotional issues
have escalated dramatically in recent years.
Problems do not fall into categories of normal and abnormal.
However a child with serious emotional problems often acts out in confusing behaviors.
The following signs should be used as a point of comparison along with your instinct about
what is typical behavior for a youngster.
You may make a judgment based on oppositional behavior, a refusal to follow rules, running
away or sneaking out of the house, a change in friends and often an unwillingness to bring
new friends to the house, deterioration of school work, suicidal thoughts, behavior or
suicidal threats, sudden cheerfulness or persistent sadness, drug and alcohol abuse, change in
eating patterns or sleeping patterns, low self-esteem, a fear of failure, feeling of
unloved or unlovable.
If your son or daughter or someone you know is exhibiting one or more of these signs,
I want to encourage you to call our toll free hotline number 1-800-SAVEATEEN.
Now that's 1-800-782-8336.
We're trained counselors that we endorse associated with the Century Health Care program are available
to answer your questions, provide you with over the phone counseling, written information
for you to study at home on children and teenagers and mental health problems and assist in locating
and providing transportation for an evaluation or admission or they can direct you to an
appropriate intervention or counseling service in your area.
All Century Health Care facilities and programs are licensed by local departments of health
and are accredited by the highest governing body observing the practice of hospital organizations.
The Joint Commission of Accreditation of Health Care Organizations.
If you'd like more information about Century Health Care and its facilities and programs,
you can also get this from the 1-800-SAVEATEEN hotline.
If you're concerned about your son or daughter or a friend or a special person you know,
I want to encourage you, I want to urge you, call this number and let Century Health Care
counselors and agents assist you.
Again, the number is 1-800-SAVEATEEN.
And if you'd like more information on other books, video or audio tapes available from
our organization, simply write us, Jerry Johnston Association, the address is on the screen
along with our telephone number.
Thank you and God bless you.
Let's welcome Jerry Johnston.
Jerry Johnston, young, dynamic, knowledgeable, captivating and powerful.
Jerry Johnston presents life in the truest sense of the word.
Doctors nationwide are hearing him, overflow crowds in Dallas, San Diego, Chicago, Miami
and Atlanta all pointed Jerry's ability to communicate on the issues.
To this crowd in Kansas City's municipal auditorium, Jerry Johnston is addressing 12,000 individuals
with his highly acclaimed message, life.
A message that is getting through.
In each City Jerry visits, network affiliate media eagerly cover his activity.
He has appeared on American and Canadian national television.
Jerry Johnston has been featured on Superstation WTBS.
Jerry's appearance on Cleveland's CBS affiliate in the words of the news director elicited
the greatest response of all our interviews this year.
Newspapers praise his message.
The Dallas Morning News reports, Johnston holds an audience spellbound.
Detroit Free Press, Jerry Johnston knows what he's talking about.
The Miami Herald wrote, Jerry Johnston is one in a million who defies all presidents
and traditions.
Mayor's of numerous cities decree special proclamations when Jerry Johnston visits their
area.
Mayor Don Owens of Ohio, I urge all to listen to the important message Jerry Johnston presents.
Mayor Gene Roberts of Tennessee, I encourage all citizens to support the work of Jerry
Johnston.
And Mayor Samuel Ferraro of Pennsylvania said, Jerry Johnston's valuable message helps save
lives.
President Ronald Reagan recently said, one of the most promising signs that America is
awakening to the harm of substance abuse is the activity of organizations like Jerry Johnston's.
Yes, his message is getting through.
He is the host of his own television program, Capture America with Jerry Johnston.
He is the subject of a regional prime time television special.
He is currently authoring America's Second Greatest Killer.
Without hesitation, Jerry Johnston is in high gear as a positive influence for all.
Jerry travels 200,000 miles yearly addressing the nation in civic clubs, schools, media
appearances, and citywide auditoriums.
Some weeks, he speaks 30 different times, presenting one of his most popular exposés,
Life, which is a 30 minute lecture on substance abuse and suicide.
Recently he spoke to 3,000 students.
Jerry's in action.
Let's listen in.
Jerry Johnson has appeared in 1,800 schools, has talked to more than 2 million students.
He's appeared on national radio and television.
President Ronald Reagan and hundreds of educators from Alaska to Florida have endorsed the Life
Assembly program.
Would you help me welcome Jerry Johnson?
Thank you.
It's good to be here today.
I'll tell you, this is a tremendous school to come and give this lecture to and we're
glad to be here today.
Of all that we are in this week, this was our choice to be here today.
So I want you to know that out of 25 schools.
That's as a lot.
I travel across America and lecture on a very important topic.
Jay was 16 years of age when his parents found him in the home.
When they found him, he was in the bedroom, dead on the floor.
There was a bullet in his head.
He had committed suicide.
Laying next to his dead body was the gun he had used to kill himself with and his suicide
note.
And 16 year old Jay, prior to killing himself, sat down and wrote these words on a piece
of paper.
His mom and dad found him in the bedroom.
They picked up the suicide note and they read it and it simply read like this.
Dear world, I don't want to get my hair cut.
I don't want to tend kids.
I don't want to see teen at school Monday.
I don't want to do my biology assignment or English or history or anything.
I don't want to be sad or lonely or depressed anymore.
I don't want to eat.
I don't want to drink, talk, breathe, sleep, move, feel, live or think anymore.
Tina, it's not your fault.
Mom and dad, it's not your fault.
I'm not free.
I feel ill.
I'm sad I'm lonely.
One last request.
All my worldly possessions go to Debbie as a wedding present.
And after he wrote that note, he picked up a gun, pointed it to his head.
He did what 14 to 18 teenagers do every day in America right now.
And of course, the number two teenage killer is suicide.
And as you said here today, the statistics are a little bizarre.
Every day, 14 to 18 teenagers successfully kill themselves in our country.
But every day, nearly 400 teenagers make the suicide attempt.
Last year, over 6,500 young people ended up committing suicide.
And nearly a half a million teenagers last year made the suicide attempt.
And so we see a problem that has continued to grow.
In the last three decades, suicide has quadrupled in the teenage community.
And when you think about it, suicide is not the fear of death, it's the fear of life.
And we see clearly that before a teenager gets out of high school, they make a lot of
serious important decisions that affect their entire life.
I know when I go out drinking or if I go somewhere, I don't really sit around and think, oh,
I could really get in trouble doing this or I could hurt somebody.
We started one year in the state of Alaska.
And in 12 months, we visited 104 cities across the country.
I don't think I'll ever forget the day when during a long tour on a Wednesday, we stopped
in the city of Longview, Texas.
And I got up and I spoke before the entire student body and had no idea that out in the
audience was a girl listening to me by the name of Christy.
She listened to the assembly on Wednesday, a cocaine user.
Thursday afternoon, Christy found out that she was pregnant.
So late Thursday, she consumed 25 tablets, a five milligram volume.
Had not her grandmother found her late Thursday night, she would have been dead.
And Friday night, I was speaking.
We got a telephone call, Christy's mother on the other end of the line.
She said something like this, my daughter's Christy, she was in the assembly on Wednesday.
She has a lot of problems.
Would you please come and talk to her?
When I got to the hospital, I had no idea who it was or what it was.
I stepped off the elevator, approached the nurse's desk and out of sheer assumption,
I said, is it an OD?
She said yes.
And then I got down the corridor and I got to Christy's room and laying there on the
bed was a 15 year old girl that had an expression written on her face.
What is life all about?
I thought I'm just a nuisance in this world.
Why would anybody care if I was here or gone?
They wouldn't even really know if I was around anymore and they probably wouldn't miss me.
Why should I be here just to take up space?
I pulled up a chair next to her bed and we started talking.
I said, Christy, tell me about your story.
And she told me a story that I've heard hundreds and hundreds of times.
Jerry, I never planned to get into drugs.
When I was in junior high, a few of my friends came up to me, they had a few joints or reefers.
They said, hey man, let's have fun.
And we started hitting on joints at Friday night parties.
And then we started getting blown before school, after school, during school, all the time.
The freaks and everything, they dress to say, hey, you know, I do drugs.
And then everybody else, they kind of just, you know, it's hush-hush.
Nobody talks about it.
A year later, I became a burnout.
And one year ago, someone introduced me to cocaine.
She said, I've been doing coke for one year now.
The day after your assembly, when I found out that I was pregnant, I said to myself,
I don't have anything to live for.
And needless to say, I sat there and talked to her for quite some time.
Before I got ready to leave, I stood up.
I looked at her.
I said, Christy, you're not going to go out and try this again, are you?
Referring to suicide.
And she looked back at me and she said, I don't know, I don't know.
And Christy got her start into drugs, through a drug called marijuana.
Now let's face it, the two biggest problems on every public school campus today, one of
them is drugs.
And we have a tendency in America to emphasize the dirty, nasty drugs.
But a high school student came up to me after one of our recent lectures.
She said, Jerry, my boyfriend says that drug users are losers.
And she says, the people that do drugs, the druggies, they're losers.
But I watch my boyfriend and every day, my boyfriend drinks.
He says the drug users are losers, but my boyfriend, I fear, is an alcoholic.
How old is your brother?
He's six, he's going on 17th of September.
Is he an alcoholic?
Very badly.
He's a drug heavy.
Why did he get into drugs?
Because his friends.
You know, it's amazing to me, but the number one teenage killer is not connected with drugs.
It's not connected with suicide.
It is connected with the greatest problem of the American society right now.
And of course, that is alcohol.
And with 10 to 15 million adult alcoholics, you understand that we have an epidemic of
alcoholism in the teenage community.
Now when I was in Atlanta, Georgia, we were in one of the big high schools in Atlanta.
The first string basketball star walked up to me right after the assembly.
He walked up to me and grabbed my arm, huge, tall guy, hand wrapped around my arm.
He started pulling me behind the partition area, and I very obediently followed him behind
the partition area.
He got me back there and I was staring up at his face.
I didn't know what he was going to do.
And he looked at me and all of a sudden, and I knew he felt awkward and embarrassed, tears
started to swell up in his eyes.
He looked at me and he said, Jerry, I'm an alcoholic.
I said, what do you mean?
He said, well, every Friday and Saturday night, the macho thing here at school was to go out
and get drunk.
And we went out every Friday and Saturday night.
We had the tall boy contest right on down.
But I began to notice when my friends could put the bottle down, I couldn't.
Now here is a young man in Atlanta, Georgia.
In a few months, they'll call his name.
He will get up out of his seat.
He will walk across the stage platform and he will receive a diploma.
And when he goes and sits back down, he will sit back down realizing that he is a graduating
teenage alcoholic.
3.3 million teenage alcoholics and the number keeps growing.
But I want to tell you, the worst horror film that could ever be created is centered around
the number one teenage killer, and that is drinking while driving.
Do you realize right now that there have been many teenagers who ended up having a blast
on Friday night and then made the mistake of getting in an automobile and intoxicating?
When I was in Abilene, Texas, a girl walked up to me and I could tell the way she was
walking she had been in an automobile accident.
She had gone through therapy.
She said, Jerry, would you sit down?
And I sat down on the front row and she said, you know, I'll be honest with you, we used
to laugh at straight speakers like you here at Abilene High.
But she said, did you notice?
The kids weren't laughing today.
And she said the reason they weren't laughing is because of something that happened just
a few months ago.
One of the young men here at school had a double-seater pickup.
Everybody knew him as a drinker.
And one day he said to me and, of course, to my best friend Candy and just a few others
to jump into his pickup.
Candy and I were best friends.
She said we used to get teased here at school because we never went anywhere without each
other and we were always together.
And we enjoyed each other's company so much so that we basically everywhere together.
And she said I jumped in the front seat, Candy in the back, some other teenagers jumped in.
The guy had been drinking like he had, of course, many, many different days.
He got behind the wheel.
He started tearing down the road as if there was no tomorrow.
She said while we were driving, I looked and turned and in the back seat they had Candy's
arm outstretched and they were hitting up dope in her vein.
I turned in the back seat.
I said, Candy, what are you doing?
And then I noticed the guy driving lost control.
And you know the story, the pickup went down the embankment.
Every one of those teenagers' bodies were laid on a different stretcher.
By the time they got to the hospital, the stretcher that had Candy's body laying on
it, by the time that stretcher hit the doors of the emergency room, Candy was dead.
Your story that you were talking about with getting started at school really touched with
me because my problem started on the smoking patio in high school.
Started with just smoking cigarettes and trying to be cool with the rest of the crowd and
it turned out into a more heavy addiction to drug and alcohol.
I've been in sobriety for a year now.
You said really touched with me as far as the freaks and the jocks and all that.
It's just the way it is.
This young lady continued her story.
I now walk the halls of Abilene High School and I walk them alone.
And because of alcohol, her best friend is dead.
And then when you think about it, drugs.
Now I go to schools, of course, throughout the continental U.S.
Two weeks ago I was in San Diego, California.
The young man came up to me and said, come on, there's nothing wrong with pot.
You can't get addicted to it.
It won't burn your brain out.
But teenager, there is no way in the world I could agree with that.
I was in the Bay Area of San Francisco in a junior high.
A faculty member walked up to me and with a desperate look on her face, she said, hey,
are you going to go speak to the elementary kids here in the Bay Area?
I said, no, we hadn't planned on it.
She said, you know, you need to.
We have experienced pot smokers in the fifth and sixth grade.
They need your message.
And you know what is amazing, the beginning age of drug abusers right now in America.
Do you know what the ages kids are turning on?
Eleven, twelve and thirteen.
How old were you when you got turned on?
I was about twelve.
Who turned you on?
Myself.
Really?
Yeah.
Just because I thought, well, you know, my dad's done it.
You know, it wasn't like I had a friend saying, you know, here, do this.
Everybody does it.
Do this.
It was like I said, well, it's my decision.
All right?
I want to do it.
I'm going to try it.
You know, most policies try it.
If you like it, do it twice, you know.
And the beginning age of abusers is eleven to thirteen years of age.
And what they're turning on to something called marijuana.
And boy, we've heard there's nothing wrong with pot.
Several of the cigarette companies in the United States have already registered with
the U.S. Patent Office name brand for marijuana cigarettes.
And one of the most sophisticated lobbyist groups in Washington, D.C.
And we were there six weeks ago.
And they lobby, of course, their name is N-O-R-M-L.
Their name is pronounced normal.
And they are lobbying for the legalization of marijuana in the United States.
And he jumped out of the bleachers.
And at Cincinnati, Ohio's high school, he semi-circled me with his drug user friends.
He said, come on, man.
Sigmund Freud was a cocaine user.
You certainly don't believe that there's anything wrong with pot, do you?
And yet I thought it was interesting.
In Berkeley, California, a spot that is, of course, influences great thinking on the West
Coast.
A professor 10 years ago at Berkeley came out, Dr. Harvey Poulson.
He said, let's legalize marijuana.
And when he said that, the AP, the UPI took his words nationwide.
And then 10 years later, the same professor at Berkeley that said legalize pot 10 years
later said in an article entitled, Our Most Dangerous Drug, he said, I made a mistake.
Ten years ago, I said legalize marijuana.
And after counseling hundreds of students here at Berkeley, I have seen firsthand that
marijuana is our most dangerous drug.
Now why would marijuana be the most dangerous?
You know, Poulson said, marijuana is progressive in nature.
I got a friend who's on drugs real bad with rush and mushrooms and stuff.
And every time I say something to him, he won't listen.
He asks me if I want some and I tell him no.
And like he won't pressure me to, he'll just say that I'm chicken to take it and stuff.
But he just goes ahead and takes it.
Is there drugs here at your school?
Yeah.
And I go to the high schools and use the term burnout.
And it seems like everybody knows what I'm talking about.
When I was at Whitmer High School in Toledo, a few thousand students in that one high school,
I got up and used the term burnout.
A whole section of the student body started laughing.
And after the assembly, I was talking with some of the drug users and this guy, this
young man walked by, looked like he was lost in space, you know?
I said to one of the drug users, Hey, what's that guy's name?
They said, Oh, Jerry, that guy's name's burnout, man.
We just renamed him.
He kind of floats down the hall here.
And you know, let's face it, every teenager in the high school campus today, and some
of course in other age levels know what burnout is, is it relates to marijuana.
Somebody starts smoking pot after a period of time, they don't achieve the initial high.
And the high is the aim of every drug user.
And there have been thousands of teenage users who initially started smoking marijuana.
But because of this variety, thrill, high motivation, they began to experiment with
other drugs.
When I was 14 years old, I had found out I was pregnant.
And at the time I had been real heavy in drugs.
I went through drug rehabilitation and I had attempted suicide four times.
And on my last attempt, I went into comatose.
And at that time, there was no more meaning in life.
And it just seemed to end.
My parents had put me in a mental institution.
I was in Augusta, Georgia at Butler High School.
16 year old junior walked up to me.
And she walked up and she said, hey, Jerry, do you know Dr. Such and Such gave a big long
name of some doctor?
I said, I sure don't.
She said, she's one of the biggest drug counselors here in Augusta.
And she's my mother.
And then she looked at me and said, I'm a cocaine user.
And she said, if my mother knew it, she'd have a heart attack.
And then she got very serious and paused.
And she said, you know, you talked about marijuana being progressive, leading on to other drugs.
I smoked pot for 12 months.
I smoked hash for six months.
I've been snorting coke for six months.
And she said, in the back of my mind, I have this lingering feeling.
When and where is it all going to end?
Poulsen said marijuana causes a motivational syndrome.
That's a big $10 word.
But when you get on the high school campus, the word, the phrase that is so much more
familiar is the phrase, let's go waste ourselves.
And have you noticed those getting wasted regularly?
Someone said that when somebody gets in pot, there's a new mental frame reference of I
don't care.
We were in Fayetteville High School in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and a young man came up, his father,
the professor at University of Arkansas.
Never forget his name, D-A-V-E-D, Dave.
He walked up to me after the assembly.
He said, you know, Jerry, I got into drugs.
And he said, when I got into drugs, he said, I adopted an attitude.
He was called I don't care.
At first, I didn't care about this school, my grades, my future.
Then he said, finally, I didn't even care about my parents.
I didn't care about my parents.
And then he said, thirdly, I didn't even care about myself.
I've wasted all my life.
I've done the same thing.
I mean, I don't care about my grades anymore.
I don't care about my family anymore.
I just don't care about myself.
I just don't care.
Is that what drugs do to you?
I do the drugs to get away from the problems.
I do them to lose everything, you know, just get away from it.
And I guess it depresses me more.
I never really thought about it, you know.
I thought the drugs got behind.
They got me away from everything, and I'd be all right for a while.
And that's why I got high before I came up here today.
You know, I'm constantly asked as I travel across America,
what do you think is the number one promoter of drug abuse,
alcohol abuse, and this rising suicide epidemic?
I don't just speak to young people in mass meetings like this.
But after assemblies, we've had teenagers come up, every assembly almost.
These kids come up in the drug scene who sit down and say,
hey man, I need to talk.
Just the other day in a high school, a young 12th grader came up,
and he wasn't a wimp.
He leaned up against the wall, started weeping.
He said, last night I almost committed suicide.
He said, I listened to the assembly, I've got to talk.
And you know, one of the biggest problems we have today
is the average teenager today cannot talk to those closest to them
about the real issues, and I'm talking about mom and dad.
I just can't take it anymore, you know.
Everybody's trying to be perfect around here,
and I feel like I'm a loser.
I can't do anything, because everybody else can,
and I'm not getting the grades that everybody else is,
or I'm not doing what everybody thinks I'm supposed to be doing.
And it just finally got to me, so my parents are gone.
And I just couldn't handle it anymore, so I just overdosed.
I have young people all the time tell me,
I can't talk to my mom and dad during.
You know how one girl said it after an assembly?
It might seem funny, but it's the truth.
She said, hey man, I can't talk to my mom and dad about sex
or drugs or liquor without them turning red, gasping,
and then falling on the floor unconscious.
And what she said is so true.
How does the average guy learn about sex?
Is it mom and dad, or is it Ward, Cleaver, and June?
In the family room, breaking the little story to be there,
while he's drooling on his clean t-shirt?
Or is it some guy over here in the locker room,
telling some super exciting story,
and all the other guys are standing around having
cardiac arrest with their tongues hanging out,
panting like a bunch of dogs that haven't
had water for several days?
Last year, I was invited to come speak
to the suicide capital of America, the Plano Texas School
System in Plano, Texas, as a bedroom community of Dallas.
And I admired their bravery to have me come speak
because they led the nation.
They registered 11 suicides.
When I got to Plano East Senior High,
I used this word suicide, and it got deadly quiet.
My name is Spencer Brown.
I'm 17 years old.
And in my lifetime, I've buried 10 people to suicide.
One of those was my father, but nine of them were my friends.
And they weren't just acquaintances that I'd known.
They were friends.
I spent so much time trying to figure out why it happened.
And I think that for all the pain and all the grief
that I've felt for these people, I still
can't even come up with an answer.
It's still a big zero.
And there's no reason that any of that
should have happened because they weren't people
with nothing to live for.
They had things to live for.
They had talent and ability, and they
could have made the world a better place.
And they just didn't have time.
Suicide has no meaning.
And I've been there.
I tried to kill myself twice.
And as I look back on that, I realize
that there's no reason that I have a meaning
and I have a purpose, and that everybody does.
And after the assembly, young people
came up to me, some of them whose friends
had killed himself.
And you know what they said to me?
Jerry, we knew those teenagers that committed suicide.
The thing about every one of them,
they didn't have anybody they could talk to.
No one to talk to?
Yes.
No one to talk to.
No, no one.
It's my only family.
How do you feel now?
Alone.
I want to tell you a true story.
I hope you'll listen very carefully, a story every one
of you can identify with.
A young man that went to a public school,
his school had 1,500 students.
And they had two big dominant student groups.
They had the jocks and they had the freaks.
And the jocks were the drinkers and the freaks
were the drug users.
It was the typical story.
The freaks had a place called Across the Street.
Very simply, it was right across the street.
It's where they met every morning.
First it was smoking cigarettes.
And then, of course, they'd always
meet there before the dance or the party.
You know, a lot of schools I go to have these places.
And he ended up, of course, the freaks
realized a new kid in school.
They befriended him.
They said, hey, man, we got a place called Across the Street.
Why don't you come on over there?
And sure enough, this teenager was like every teenager
in this gymnasium.
He wanted to have a friend.
He went across the street and started
hanging around with the freaks.
And they inducted him.
And he, too, became known as a freak.
And then he became one of the worst discipline cases
in the school.
He got kicked out of his math class.
He got kicked out of his science class.
He got kicked out of the third class and then a fourth class.
And then he got kicked out of study hall.
However you do that.
The end of the year, he'd been kicked out
of five of his seven classes.
So the end of the year, he was seated in the principal's
office five hours a day.
They called his parents in.
And they pointed the finger right at his parents' son.
And they said, hey, we can't control him.
We can't have him here.
He's a bad influence on fellow students.
They shipped him over the next year to a brand new school.
And he was walking down the hall of the second floor
the very first day.
And on the way down the second floor hall,
a young man on the end of the floor,
his name was Bill.
And Bill saw him coming.
And Bill stopped him.
He said, hey, man, do you live in Wycliffe?
He said, yes.
He said, you know, I live right down the road from you.
Let's walk home from school together tonight.
And this young man said, OK.
They met when the bell rang at the end of the day.
They started walking home from school.
And on the way home from school, Bill
went through a residential area, went up to one home.
This teenager followed him, went to the front door,
and knocked on the door.
A girl came to the front door.
Bill handed her several dollars.
And she went to the back of the house.
She came back and handed Bill several reefers.
They went through a wooded area.
Bill whipped out one of these joints.
He started hitting on it.
This teenager didn't even know what he was doing.
And then he turned to him and he said, hey, man,
have you ever been blown?
He said, Bill, I'm straight.
And then Bill started putting the pressure on.
He said, come on.
Everybody's doing it.
We all do it at school.
Well, I get high with my parents myself.
And he put the pressure on that every teenager knows.
It's called peer pressure.
And when somebody's going with the flow,
and you don't want to be alone, do you?
And he said no to Bill the first day.
He managed to say no to Bill the second day.
The third day, Bill went over to his house, got him.
They went across the golf course.
Bill bought a dime bag from a girl across the golf
course in a home.
Then he took him and put him behind some bushes,
put a little pipe together, stuck a screen in it.
They started to fill it up.
Bill started hitting on the pipe.
And then he put the pipe in front of his face.
He said, now come on.
And three days later, that young man made a sad choice.
He said yes to drugs.
And then he started doing dope all the time,
before school, after school, during school.
They went to school and turned their friends on.
They'd meet early before the bus came, get blown,
go to speech class high as a kite.
And then Friday and Saturday nights,
how could they ever forget the parties?
And you know teenagers all over the country
know what the Friday and Saturday night parties are like.
They'd go to homes where parents were gone,
black lights, strobe lights.
Kids would sit around in circles.
They would take a roach clip, put a joint on it.
Everybody would hit on the joint,
get several roach clips rolling around the circle.
Girls would bring brownies.
They'd bake hash in.
They would cut them up and distribute them.
Everybody'd eat a brownie, a little longer, lasting high.
Other kids brought liquor.
And to make a long story short, this young man
bounced from one party to another to another,
doing what his friends said was the way to have fun.
And finally one night, he was at a party, got blown,
got the munchies, ate a bunch of unbaked breakfast rolls,
and then went out of the party, blown,
didn't know what he was doing.
They stuffed him in a little four-seater Volkswagen bug.
And the guy started driving.
He said, I'm sick.
And they said, well, just sit back.
And then he vomited all over the little four-seater beetle bug.
And there's not a lot of room for that
in a four-seater beetle bug.
They slammed on the brakes.
They opened the door.
They threw him out.
This young man came to the door that night of his home.
His naive mom and dad didn't even know what was going on.
They suspected, but they weren't for sure.
And he couldn't talk to his parents.
A few days later, he started complaining
of a digestive problem.
He was admitted to a local hospital
first with what they diagnosed as bleeding ulcers.
He stayed in there several days.
His friends came to see him.
They said, man, you've got to come back out.
You've got to have fun.
But laying there on that hospital bed,
he began to evaluate, where's my life going?
And that young man was checked out of the first hospital.
He came back home.
Through a local doctor, he obtained
pharmaceutical donors.
He mixed them together.
And he stayed on them 24 hours a day for a period of weeks.
And needless to say, a few weeks later,
he was in a drug-induced depression.
And finally, one day, he picked up the telephone
and thinking there was no one there.
He called his dad at his office.
His dad was a businessman and traveled all over the country
and was a busy man.
And he interrupted his dad at his office long enough.
He said, hello, dad.
I want to tell you something.
I don't want to live anymore.
I want to kill myself.
His father all of a sudden woke up and said, son, hold on.
Hold on.
We'll do something.
He said, dad, there's nothing to do.
That young man ended up in the emergency ward later that day.
He stayed in the hospital for several days.
And this time, he had one of the city's specialists
and four interns working on him.
They ran him through all types of tests imaginable.
And when he was finally checked out of that second hospital,
he was checked out at 68 pounds of weight, on a liquid diet,
a typical teenage burnout.
He came home.
It took 11 weeks to recuperate at home.
His friends calling, come on.
We've got to have fun.
And he had the pressures of going back to the drug scene
or what was he going to do?
And still had suicidal thoughts.
11 weeks later, some kids nearby came to his dad.
They said, hey, we want your son to go down to a camp with us.
And his father said, go on down there.
They sent him down there.
11 weeks later, it's a last resort.
He sat on the very back row.
And the last night, a girl two rows from the front,
noticed on the back row was a teenager
with long blonde hair and blue jeans and a t-shirt.
She turned to one of her friends.
She said, you know, I'm going to go to the back
and invite him to set up with us.
And she got up out of her seat.
She walked all the way to the back.
She got right in front of him, and she took her hand.
And she stuck it straight in front of his face.
And she said, hey, hey, Jerry.
Jerry, I want you to come up and sit with me.
You say, was that you?
That's right.
You mean that was your story?
Yes.
You know why I got into drugs?
Because I couldn't say no to a kid named Bill.
When I met Bill that first day, I was like you, teenager.
I wanted to have fun.
I wanted to be accepted.
Bill said to me, and you know, I thought
you hit on a joint like you did a cigarette.
I didn't know anything.
First time we got blown, Bill was showing me
how to hit on a reefer.
He said to me, all we'll ever do is marijuana.
All we'll ever do is marijuana.
Last I heard, Bill was a burnout.
Can I tell you about some of my friends retrospectively?
Bill, a burnout, Valley, a little girl
that went to parties and got used and abused.
She got sucked in the drug scene.
She became a drinker.
Before, of course, Valley was passed around at the parties.
I want to tell you something.
I don't know where Valley is today,
but I'll tell every girl in this building,
no guy loves anything he does not respect.
One young man ended up, and of course,
there's so many different reasons why teenagers
commit suicide.
But one young man got involved in the drug scene
and decided that he was going to kill himself.
His name was Craig Dexter Gardner.
He attended Evergreen High School in Salt Lake City,
Utah.
And when Dexter got in the drug scene,
he realized he had made a big mistake.
And so Dexter decided there's nothing to live for.
Dexter did something unique.
He sat down one day, and he put a tape recorder on a table,
and he made a final word to his mom.
Oh, some people have dubbed it a suicide recording,
because Dexter Gardner, before he shot himself in the head,
left for his mom a cassette tape.
It comprised the way he was thinking.
Now, of course, not all suicides are drug related.
And you can imagine some of the reasons
why teenagers commit suicide.
Around here, I'm considered to be like, you know,
top of my class, all that crap.
And a lot of people around here don't really understand,
you know, that people who are considered
to be real smart, things like that, have problems too.
Because I know me personally.
I don't know that a lot, but I've tried suicide twice.
Some of them, they watch their mom and dad fight.
They realize that their home is not a home.
It's a house with independent agents.
And they see the fighting in the home.
And they say, our family has so much turmoil.
Some of them, they get bad grades.
And their mom and dad are trying to push them to succeed,
to become successful.
And they look at their bad grades,
and they look at their different goals and values.
And they say to themselves, I don't want to go like this.
I don't want to meet your expectations.
How many of you here have felt at one time
or another in your life that suicide might be a solution?
And don't be bashful about it,
because I'll admit that I have more than one occasion.
So how many of you have?
One and a half.
The majority of you have.
And I think the longer you live,
I think probably everyone, or just about everyone does.
Some of them, maybe in the case of Dexter,
get involved in the drug scene.
And maybe as Dexter sat there and went to his stash,
maybe as he took the pipe and filled it up full of pot
and started hitting on it,
or maybe as he began to weigh some hash
to sell it to a friend,
or to line up the coke to snort another row,
or maybe as he took a hit of acid
while he was looking at that stash,
he thought to himself, these drugs have no answers,
and coming down is true.
Or maybe, of course, one of the big reasons,
a teenager who sits in a bedroom all alone.
They think about life, they think about the emptiness
they sense inside.
And some teenagers, like many who have told me,
I've sat by myself and I thought,
there's nothing to live for, I don't have any meaning.
But Craig Dexter Gardner ended up killing himself.
I've got this tape here today and I'm gonna play it for you.
Before we turn this tape on, I want you to realize,
what you're about to hear is a young man
who got involved in the drug scene and said,
I have no hope.
He was making this tape to his mother.
I'm gonna ask while it plays that you listen
very, very carefully.
And while it plays, please don't say a word.
And then when this brief recording is over,
I'm gonna highlight to you what Dexter said.
Listen to Dexter Gardner talking to his mom on a tape.
Well,
God, this whole mind is gone.
Can't think.
Can't think.
Can't think, can't think, can't think.
Well,
that all I have to say is the reason I'm doing this.
Well, actually the real reason is that I really don't know.
There's so many things that I don't know.
I'm not sure of.
A lot of things that I can't face.
And I'll tell you one thing.
You're gonna get messed up, boy, on that stuff.
You might hear it sooner or later, Mom,
but your little boy has turned into a LSD addict.
I'm sorry, Mom.
It's bad news.
It really is.
I didn't think it was when I was first taking it,
but it's been getting pretty stoned lately
and you just don't know what's real and what isn't real.
You really don't.
All I can say is I had to find out myself.
This stuff, I don't know.
Just don't know if you do the right things
or the wrong things.
It's hard to distinguish between right and wrong.
It's hard to distinguish between real and unreal.
I really don't.
I really don't know.
I really don't know what to say, actually.
I had enough problems of my own,
but life sometimes seems so long to wait.
I really don't have,
all I'm actually doing is existing.
I have thought it over many times
and there really isn't nothing to live for.
I don't think there is.
Wow, my words twisted up here.
I can't hardly talk sometimes.
I could actually sit here and jabber on and jabber on
about all my troubles, but I'm not going to
because I just don't feel like it.
Everybody has troubles, you know.
So I won't talk anymore about my problems.
All I have to say is,
I'm not going to give no sentimental speech here
if you know what I mean.
So I think I'll just close with a blank statement.
Maybe kind of an idiotic statement,
but a lot of things are crazy.
So I'll close with a statement that,
as is Dexter Gardner speaking,
I am signing off.
Dexter took a gun and he killed himself.
He was making this tape to his mother.
Well, mom, about all I have to say is,
the reason I'm doing this,
the real reason is I really don't know.
There's a lot of things I don't know.
There's a lot of things that are crazy.
I don't know.
There's a lot of things that are crazy.
You might have heard it sooner or later, mom.
Your little boy has turned into an LSD addict.
I'm sorry, mom.
I didn't think it was bad news
when I first started taking it,
but I've been getting pretty blown lately
and it's hard to keep my mind bent.
It's hard to distinguish between right and wrong,
between real and unreal,
and all I'm actually doing is a conditioning process.
I've thought it over,
and there really isn't anything to live for.
I don't think there is.
I'm not going to give a sentimental speech.
This is Dexter Gardner speaking.
I'm signing off.
Dexter is dead today and we cannot help him.
You that are into drugs or alcohol today,
I want you to stop and ask yourself a question.
Is my life better today?
Is it richer today?
Does it have more meaning today
after having taken drugs than it did before?
And you that are contemplating suicide
and have thoughts of suicide in your mind,
and it may be totally unrelated to drugs,
and there are many suicides that are,
maybe you sense a pressure in your life.
It's so important for you right now to talk to someone.
That could be a counselor at your school
or a teacher or someone that's near you.
I hope you will,
because right now is the most important time
for every one of you students to stop and think.
And while you can, to put the brakes on
and to evaluate the direction of your life
and the things you're doing,
ask yourself, is it worth it?
I hope you'll think.
Thank you very much.
Applause
Well, that's life.
And because every life is so very valuable,
it's critically important for you to know the signs of someone
that is considering suicide.
After having spoken to hundreds of thousands of people
and counseled personally with many individuals
that had either contemplated suicide
or had made the attempt,
I began to notice that there were specific signs
that existed in the life of someone
that was considering suicide.
This list, by all means, is not complete.
And yet, here are some of the frequent signs.
Please take special note of them,
because you could help someone near you
that maybe is considering suicide.
Sign number one, sleeping disturbances.
An individual whose sleeping patterns begin to change.
And then sign number two, a change in eating patterns.
This could be noticed by a sudden loss or gain of weight.
Sign number three, mood changes.
An individual that is crying one moment and laughing the next.
Sign number four, a withdrawal from family, friends,
or any other prior interest.
Now, that could include sports, a job, activity at school,
or even interest in school itself.
Sign number five, a dramatic change in personality.
This would be noticed by a formerly introverted person
becoming gregarious or outgoing,
or an extroverted person becoming silent, withdrawn,
developing a loner complex.
I don't want to talk to anybody.
Sign number six, the use of drugs or alcohol,
which only mask a person's true feelings
and his problems that he's experiencing.
Sign number seven, the giving away of prized possessions.
Please notice that this indicates
that the end possibly is near.
Sign number eight, a suicidal threat
or any comment regarding the desire to die.
Now, it is a myth that people who talk about suicide don't do it.
In fact, an estimated 75% of those
who actually committed suicide gave the warning
and it wasn't given heed to.
You can help someone.
Now, if these signs are in your life or you know of someone,
here's what you can do.
Get them to seek help from a trained counselor.
The local mental health agency that has personnel available.
They have expertise and they can help you.
The crisis centers that are available by a local telephone call.
No one has to know about this problem
if you don't want them to know.
You can seek help from the clergy,
the law enforcement personnel, even maybe from a friend.
That could be the first step to maybe getting help
from other individuals later.
Thank you.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.