DEALING WITH THEIR DRUG-ADDICTED KIDS UNITES PARENTS

They Find The Strength To Get On With Their Own Lives

The parents in this room on this day are mostly ordinary middle-class
people from all over the Edmonton area.

They talk about homes that did not lack for anything, other children
with promising futures and their own lives, which have been hell.

About two thirds raise their hand when facilitator Maralyn Benay asks
how many of their drug-addicted kids have caused property damage to
their house.

There's a similar response when the question is how many have
threatened physical violence to their parents, or threatened to harm
themselves.

Horror stories of addict kids are told by many of the 25 people
gathered in the meeting room in the basement of Sherwood Park's
Strathcona County Hall.

This mutual support group, called Parents Empowering Parents, has
been a godsend to these people, most of whom have grappled for years
with the legal, social and emotional problems that come about when
the ones they love most are into heavy drug use.

The group helps them survive with the realization that they are not
alone, and gives them tools to staunch the flow of guilt and self-blame.

As Benay, a family support worker, points out, they're finding
strength in numbers, the same kind of strength their kids might be
seeking by joining a gang.

PEP has also been key in pushing for another acronym, PCHAD, which
stands for the Protection of Children Abusing Drugs, a controversial
piece of legislation that came into effect July 1.

The legislation allows parents to seek a court order to get their
children taken into custody for five days for detox and assessment.

Like most parents, I've had trying moments with my kids. But the
parents in this group aren't dealing with teens who take an
occasional toke or drink on the weekend.

The kids in these homes lead lives that totally revolve around drugs:
They drop out of school, work for dealers and commit crimes of
property and violence.

These kids put their parents through an emotional wringer, begging
for their help one day and abusing them the next.

As one stepdad says of his stepson, "The only time he's straight is
when he is locked up."

With sadness, bitterness and a touch of sarcasm, one mother, Audrey,
describes her 18-year-old son who is just out of the Edmonton Remand
Centre after awaiting trial there for three months on drug charges
and possession of a weapon.

He made lots of promises when he was locked up. But when his dad
finally bailed him out, the boy was back to his old ways, drinking
all day and staying out all night.

Another woman tells me at the break how her son took off with a
23-year-old female crack addict when he was 14. He lost his innocence
as he travelled across the country with the woman, living a life of
petty crime, and came back with a serious addiction.

All of these parents care deeply for their children. They wouldn't be
part of this group, which attracts up to 75 to meetings, if they didn't.

But they learn that they have to set firm limits for the sake of
themselves and the rest of the family, even if it means kicking their
kid out of the house and on to the street.

"There's nothing worse than putting your 16-year-old's stuff at the
front door. You know she's headed for Vancouver; she could be fresh
meat. But she had crossed the line," says the girl's mother.

Tina Dow, the other facilitator, talks about co-dependence, where a
parent allows their child to get away with a lot of abuse because of
fear of conflict and feels an almost biological need to bail out
their child, even if the child doesn't deserve it.

"Just because you gave birth to this child or played a part in the
birth of the child, do the rules go out the window," she asks.

Success, Dow says, is achieved not by trying to get your kid off
drugs, but by having the ability not to think about your kid's drug
problems 24-7, and by getting on with your life.

There's a lot of criticism in the room about the new legislation,
which these parents think doesn't go far enough.

They say five days isn't enough even for detox (some experts say it
takes a month for crystal meth) and they don't like the idea that the
kids can appeal the order, which was put into the act to comply with
the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"The politicians are not the ones living with their drug-addicted
children," one woman says.

So far, a total of 14 kids have gone through PCHAD.

Donna went to court, convinced a judge of her daughter's problem and
the girl was brought to a safe house in Calgary. (One is opening in Edmonton)

The girl successfully appealed the order, and after a couple of days
her mom was told to come and get her.

But Dow says the effort wasn't a failure. The girl found out what her
mother's bottom line was, and that's important.

The PEP meeting ends with the mantra: "It's not all about me. It's
their problem; it's not my problem."

It's all about survival, and it's difficult to survive this journey alone.

PEP, which started two years ago and has chapters in Red Deer and
Parkland County, wants to expand into Edmonton.

For more information about the group, go to the website at www.pepsociety.ca