MOTHER PENS MEMOIR ON LIFE WITH HEROIN ADDICT SON

Rita Lowenthal raised her family in a nice Jewish home, lived in a
nice Jewish neighborhood and belonged to a nice Jewish temple. So how
did her son become a heroin addict at age 13?

The need for an answer to that question, as well as a desire for
closure, is what inspired Lowenthal to pen "One-Way Ticket: Our Son's
Addiction to Heroin" (Beaufort Books, $14), a memoir that compiles
her experiences and correspondence with her son and his journal
entries while in and out of San Quentin State Prison.

Despite years of treatment, Josh Lowenthal never broke the heroin
addiction that eventually took his life in 1995.

"It looked like our family had all the blessings, so I wanted to
figure out what happened," Lowenthal said.

At a time when celebrity drug use and failed rehab attempts are all
too prevalent -- and even joked about -- "One-Way Ticket" illustrates
the cruel reality of drug addiction. "It is a disease, and it needs
to be treated that way," said Lowenthal, who wants to make the idea
of knowing or loving an addict less shameful.

She first noticed a shift in her son's behavior when he was 13, when
the family lived in Pittsburgh. Along with her first husband, David,
and their older son, Mark, Lowenthal quickly dismissed the change as
teenage arrogance that would be addressed after the bar mitzvah.

"In 1969, Josh was 12, crazed with excitement about The Beatles, long
hair, guitars, jazz and psychedelic paints that transformed his cute
little boy's bedroom with the cowboy bedspreads into a teenage den,"
Lowenthal said. "He was beginning to bring home different, somewhat
older friends, and he quit saying 'goodbye' in favor of 'one mind.'"

Heroin was the furthest thing from her mind.

"Josh always appreciated a thrill and was always looking for the next
excitement," she said. "He was fun to be around. We never thought it
would come to this."

After the family became aware of the problem, Josh would spend the
rest of his life in and out of recovery and rehabilitation centers.

Because he started using at such an early age, Lowenthal believes
Josh's body and mind never had the chance to fully develop
independently of heroin, thus making the path to sobriety
increasingly difficult with age.

Josh never liked many of the facilities, Lowenthal said. He went AWOL
from several institutions, many of which preached "tough love," an
idea that had little effect on Josh and a concept extremely difficult
for Lowenthal to embrace.

In a journal entry from 1985, Josh wrote about a particularly
frustrating rehab experience: "This rehab is no good. Better off in
jail if I want to be clean. I don't know if I could stand to brown
nose my way through this for months ... more concerned with table
manners than wrenching guts.... One thing is for certain, if I could
be successful in this program I wouldn't need it."

Looking for a fresh start, Lowenthal and Josh moved to Los Angeles
after her marriage ended. She found work as a professor in social
work at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR),
while Josh struggled to find a college that would accept him. But no
matter where they moved, "he was never far from drugs," Lowenthal said.

Of all the treatment facilities, both Josh and Lowenthal acknowledged
that Beit T'Shuvah was by far the most effective and encouraging.

"They know relapses will happen; they only hope the addicts will
return to the program when they do," Lowenthal said.

After frequent relapses and periods in and out San Quentin for petty
theft, Lowenthal explains that Josh was finally realizing the
futility of his addiction. While he craved a normal life, Josh was
scared by a world without drugs -- a sentiment expressed by many
addicts close to full recovery.

In an unsent letter to his brother, Mark, written just a year before
his death, Josh shows a disturbed, yet more self-aware, side while
serving time at San Quentin:

"Realistically, I expect that in approximately two-and-a-half more
years on parole, the state will probably squeeze another year out of
me. Six months out, six months in, seems nearly unavoidable.... I
imagine with hindsight that, more or less, we all reflect on -- with
misgivings -- precious time squandered as so much spare change."

Lowenthal said she sensed that Josh was extremely close to ending the
nightmare of his addiction. In a video interview with Beit T'Shuvah,
recorded one week before his death, Josh admits, "Like I said, I've
been a junkie for 25 years. I'm 38, and I'm tired, and it's over.
These are my friends.... This is the end of the story -- at least for
the moment."

She believes Josh committed suicide when he overdosed on heroin,
although no note was found.

Lowenthal is now retired from HUC-JIR, as well as from the USC School
of Social Work, where she was a charter member of the Betty Friedan
Feminist Think Tank. She worked on the 2000 ballot initiative,
Proposition 36, which changed California's law to permit substance
abuse treatment, as opposed to a jail sentence, for first- and
second-time offenders guilty of nonviolent, simple drug possession.

She currently serves on the board of the Progressive Jewish Alliance
as chair of the Drug Policy Committee of the Criminal Justice Task
Force, in addition to being a member of the Community Action
Committee of the Progressive Christians Uniting.

While Lowenthal has learned to turn her depression into political
action, she said she's still haunted by her tragic loss of Josh. For
many years while Josh was using, her only comfort was a statement
made by her son, which she said had become like a mantra for her:
"There is nothing you can do, Mom; you can't compete with heroin."