HEROIN CAN STRIKE EVEN 'NORMAL' FAMILIES

Plain Jane lives in Kouts. That's not her real name, but she's a real person.

I'll call her PJ. She's 41, works in Gary in steel sales, grew up in Crown
Point, describes herself as shy in high school and someone who married too
young. Typical suburban mom wouldn't be an inaccurate description.

She works hard and while she says she's not a particularly religious
person, she is thankful for one thing - that her son's in prison. If he
wasn't, he'd probably be dead.

Glenn is 23 and one year into a six-year prison sentence at Otter Creek
Correctional Facility in Wheelwright, Ky. He was busted on a federal charge
(he forged some checks to buy drugs), but this isn't his first time behind
bars. He's already spent five years in various jails and prisons in
Indiana. He's doing life on the installment plan.

PJ's son is a junkie. He has been for almost three years. In 1998, he and
two friends from Porter County drove to Chicago; each scored a dime bag of
heroin, drove back to Porter County and prepared their fix in the front
seat of the pickup. Glenn went first.

Before he could get the needle out of his arm, he was out. In a panic, one
friend ran and the other drove around for several minutes before calling an
ambulance from a pay phone in Kouts. By the time it arrived , Glenn was
essentially dead. He survived, but heroin's been a part of his life ever since.

PJ said she figures her son got involved with drugs when he was about 14 or
15. It was about that time he got involved with a gang.

At the time, PJ was a single mom. She worked and when Glenn got home from
school, he was alone. It depressed him and he started looking for
companionship. (PJ said Glenn is a follower, not a leader). He fell in with
a gang, which told him what he wanted to hear.

Sure, PJ says she could have spent more time at home - hindsight is a
wonderful thing, she says - but if she didn't work, no one else was going
to put food on the table and clothes on Glenn's back. Besides, she wasn't
doing anything differently than thousands of other single moms and working
families across the region.

"I was divorced when he was young," said PJ. "And he had other problems. He
was diagnosed as ADD. He struggled to trust in himself, in his own judgment."

And when she learned her son was involved with a gang and drugs?

"Anger and denial," she said. "I felt this can't be happening. We're normal
people."

And that's the message PJ is delivering today. Normal people can have
children who are addicted to drugs - even heroin.

Consider a couple of numbers: According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports,
the number of juveniles busted for illegal drugs has soared from 93,000 in
1970 to 194,600 in 1999.

Department of Justice surveys show one-third of all high school seniors say
it's easy for them to buy heroin, quite possibly at school.

"You want to deny it when you find out," said PJ.

She neither asks for nor seeks sympathy. She has learned to deal with her
son's addiction and its impact on her and the rest of her family. But she
does have a question: "Why are our kids killing themselves for a few
minutes of being high?"

It's a question she's asked Glenn, but he can't answer it, either. "I told
him a year ago when he went to prison this time that I can't stop him from
this life. But I also told him I don't need to send him money in prison to
buy his toiletries and other things. The only things I've sent him are
sweat shirts and sweat pants."

PJ has decided she's no longer going to be an enabler, no matter how much
she loves her son.

She gets one call a month from her son (it has to be collect) and she's
told him she won't pay for more.

"I recently sent a letter to my son, asking him why should I stand behind
him this time? What's going to change?

"My son was a junkie when he went into prison and he's going to be a junkie
when he gets out. I don't expect him to be different, but I hope and pray
that he is."

For a long time, PJ felt alone. But she knows there are other parents in
Northwest Indiana going through the same thing. When Mindy Self of
Chesterton died of a heroin overdose a couple of weeks ago, PJ cried even
though she never met Self or her family.

So PJ, this self-described high school wallflower, started an Internet club
on Yahoo! for parents of heroin addicts. (Go to www.yahoo.com and click on
clubs. In the search box, type "NWI Parents Against Heroin" and click search.)

You need to join to enter the chat room, but the only thing it costs is an
e-mail address. In less than two weeks, more than 500 people have visited
the site.

"I feel we are losing the battle against drugs," said PJ. "I've mumbled all
the standard answers, but with my club and talking to the newspaper, I
wanted to say what I feel in my heart."

The ache will never go away, but by talking with others, maybe the burden
will be easier to handle.