LIFELONG STRUGGLE FOR THOSE BORN ADDICTED

JACKSONVILLE -- Her children have grown up and have had children of their
own. Yet Ethel Faulk's worries didn't stop when she hugged her youngest
goodbye, and sent her off into the world.

They seemed to begin all over again with her sister's conception of her
niece-to-be -- a would-be celebration if it wasn't a conception by a mother
addicted to cocaine and alcohol, bearing a baby that would yearn for those
same drugs.

Now Faulk's worries are not about the baby, but about the young woman that
baby has become.

"I feel that it is terrible because it's more than one life that's being
destroyed," says Faulk who lives in Jacksonville. "If a woman wants to have
a baby she should care enough about the baby -- the life inside her -- to
change. When my sister told me that she was pregnant, I went to her and
begged her to have an abortion. But she wouldn't have one because she
thought it would change her life (for the better)."

Her sister's mistake would lead to many more, and a life for her child that
she never anticipated.

"(My niece) was sexually abused as a baby," Faulk says. "A woman molested
her and the state was going to take her away and I came and got her. I was
in and out of her life at that time. But both parents were drug addicts.
... Her mother would take her with her while she was turning tricks. You
see these movies where people will give their babies up in exchange for
drugs. That's not fake, it's true and it's sad, and she still remembers that."

Deb Young, a certified clinical addictions specialist at the Family
Recovery Center in Greensboro, said accounts like Faulk's are very real and
all too common among addicts.

"A cocaine-addicted mother has the added disadvantage of using a drug that
actually interferes with the physiology of maternal instinct," said Young.
"No other drug has this kind of impact on what is very natural to most
women: the strong desire to bond with and care for a child. It is maternal
instinct that allows a mother to put aside her own physical and emotional
needs for the sake of her children.

"Cocaine-addicted mothers have an extremely diminished capacity to put
their children first," said Young.

Now at the age of 19, Faulk's niece is beginning to emerge from the
physical and mental difficulties she's grappled with since birth.

"She recognizes that something is wrong and that's why she goes to
counseling," Faulk says. "In school she was always getting in trouble,
getting suspended or kicked off the bus. She didn't start calming down
until 10th or 11th grade. That's when she started counseling. She worked
really hard to graduate and I'm really proud of her."

Graduating can be difficult for anyone, but especially for a child born
addicted to drugs.

"One thing that I did notice was her learning ability," Faulk says. "She
graduated from high school with a reading level of 2.6. As a baby, she
cried for hours. Her learning ability was slow. She repeated kindergarten
because she wasn't retaining information. She repeated kindergarten and
first grade until they started pushing her through. I went to the principal
and I went to the director of the school board. I had her report card, and
she was failing everything. I said, 'why are you promoting her when she has
F's in everything?' He said she was too big to be held back.

"They were pushing her through classes in the third grade, giving her
homework and she couldn't even read it. It was in the third grade that I
started seeking help for her and getting her in a mental education program."

Young said some school systems are doing a better job of identifying
children like Faulk's niece and providing them with the help they need.
"There are, however, professionals who continue to moralize addictive
disease and see it as 'hopeless,"' said Young. "Kids who pick up on these
attitudes towards addiction take it home with them and it just reinforces
their own sense of hopelessness."

Faulk knows that at some point she will have to allow her niece to leave
the nest and stand on her own.

"My daughter says I need to step back a little and let her go. I don't know
if it will ever be a time to turn her loose," Faulk says. "Maybe I need to,
but I don't want to because I'm afraid for her. I'm very afraid for her. I
don't want her to go out and try something and fail because her self-esteem
is so low. I don't want it to drop any lower."

Faulk believes she has plenty of reasons to be concerned about her niece's
self-esteem.

"I took her down to Coastal Psychiatric Clinic and they diagnosed her as
schizophrenic," Faulk says. "The majority of my sister's last 25 to 30
years were committed to drugs, beginning when she was in college. She had
her daughter, and I feel like those drugs killed part of (my niece's)
brain. I don't know, that's just the way I feel. She has an imaginary
friend named John. She tells him about everything and they talk about all
kinds of serious issues. She will talk to John just like I'm talking to
you. She don't socialize. She don't have no girlfriends; she has real low
self-esteem, and it's sad."

But Young believes that these signs do not necessarily mean that a
drug-dependent child will be cursed in adulthood.

"These kids have some of the same attachment issues as their moms in the
very early stages of development," Young says. "The hope lies in the
mother's capacity for recovery and her level of motivation to stay clean
and sober. Addicted babies are not 'ruined,' nor are they 'damaged goods.'
When there is early identification and intervention, there is tremendous
potential for a healthier life than they were given in the womb."

Her niece now leads a much different life than she did 18 years ago, and
for her part, Faulk believes her niece has benefited from the special care
and attention given to her. Faulk says love kept her committed to her niece
and she doesn't view her years as a surrogate mother to have been a sacrifice.

"In order for me to put up with and go through the things I have, I have to
love Christ," she says. "It wasn't really no sacrifice for me. I was just
glad to be there for her. It was as normal as any child who has a problem.
I had a lot of sleepless nights, crying a lot, when I didn't know where she
was at."

Faulk hopes her niece will use the things she has taught her to go far in life.

"I hope that she can go to college and pick up a trade without having to
depend on the state to give her money," Faulk says. "If she listens to what
I tell her, she'll be fine. I've already raised two successful kids of my
own. I learned that when you put something into your kids, they'll get
something out of it. I hope she will do that, and I believe she can do
anything anyone else can. It will just take her a little longer."

No matter how long it takes, Faulk says she will be right beside her niece.
And, despite everything that has happened, Faulk says she will also be
right beside her sister.

"Quite naturally, we've distanced ourselves from each other," she says.
"But I still love her, and I talk to her all the time. But drugs can change
a person, even now that she's clean."