The Abstinence Club is planning for its first meeting where it aims to provide a safe and supportive environment where all members are welcome to converse about abstaining from drugs, alcohol and sex.
This is the first year that the school is featuring an Abstinence club within the wide variety of clubs and after-school activities that the school has to offer. Sophomore co-presidents Aava Nikakhtar, Nicole Khizder, and Kathlee Nie came together over the summer and discussed a way to establish a safe and comfortable environment to provide support and promote and encourage abstinence from any type of behavior. “It took this long for a club like this to be created because all the current and past club founders have only thought of addressing individual issues and not bad habits as a whole,” Nikakhtar said.
As of this October, the club has around 115 members and there is no limit to the number of students that want to join. The Abstinence Club is planning on having meetings on the first Wednesday of every month for the entire school year. Each meeting will be held in Room 221. According to Khidzer, the club will, “hopefully be kept alive past our senior year.”
At each meeting, the specific agenda will vary, but the goal is for members to have the opportunity to freely express their challenges and choices related to abstinence. These once-a-month meetings will also include food and treats for all members. “I ask them if they have any bad habits they would like to break, and then explain the concept of our club and how we can help them break said habit,” Nie said.
Though there are no specific events set up yet from the Abstinence club, “We plan on having awareness campaigns, fundraising events, lots of slideshows, peer support activities and definitely writing a letter to your future self,” Nikakhtar said.
According to Khidzer, the aspect that separates this club from other clubs at the school is that “We don’t have a unique, singular focus, our club’s focus is rather on promoting and supporting abstinence from various behaviors.”
As time goes on, the Abstinence Club will have to make changes to keep students engaged and wanting to come back each month, so Nie suggested, “The club will continually evolve and adapt to the needs and feedback of our members to ensure that the club can remain and become more effective over time.”
Addressing these issues in school can be a crucial effort in the fight against the large number of teen pregnancies or overdoses caused by excessive drug abuse in the United States. In 2022, the CDC put out a report stating that the birth rate among 15-19-year-olds was still 13.5 per 1,000 females. Also, from July 2019-December 2021 there were 1,808 adolescent overdoses per the CDC. These statistics are alarming for the youth and students everywhere.
