WIY – I have not interviewed every OTD person out there, or everyone who stayed on the derech. Yes, drugs can pull a wringer on your brain, with permanent affects. Certainly any recklessness in tznius – for boys and girls – will have long lasting affects. That is not to say that people who have not experimented with drugs don’t have their own battles to fight. What about all the underage drinking that is accepted in so many Yeshivos, even by the “good boys”?
It’s a very confusing world out there, and it scares me that so many adults don’t seem to have gotten solid grounding in hashkafa. These are the people bring up the OTD kids!
So my 9 days tefila is for the time of the geulah when the Navi says “V’heishiv lev avos al bonim v’lev bonim al avosam”.