CLEAR SKIES AHEAD

Gary began experimenting with drugs at the age of 12. He moved on to heroin
and his addiction nearly tore his family apart. They found the help they
needed, but are there adequate support networks for relatives of drug
users? In the wake of alarming evidence of a teenage heroin epidemic,
ANGELA NEUSTATTER INVESTIGATES

Gary Bell, a handsome young man in dark shades, stylishly oiled hair and
single earring sits at the kitchen table beside his mother, Pauline, whose
neat short bob and loose shirt and trousers, underline the generational
gap. Gary is remembering how close he got to wrecking his relationship with
Pauline and his father, Jim, during the years he spent as a drug addict,
doing everything he could to hide his addiction from his parents.

It began when he was a 12-year-old schoolboy and he and his mates sniffed
gas. Then came pot, amphetamines, cocaine and finally heroin. Pauline
listens and the memory seared in her mind is of the day she could take no
more, when she told him to get out and that he couldn't live at home any
longer. "At that time I hated him. I hated what he was doing to himself and
I hated what he was doing to us as a family," she says.

Gary, 28, looks at her sombrely: "That was devastating. I hadn't thought
about the effect of my behaviour on Mum and Dad. I'd become self-obsessed,
and all I could think about was getting money to feed my habit and that
meant stealing, cheating, deceiving. I knew my relationship with Mum and
Dad had gone down but I wasn't capable of doing anything to change things."

It is the scenario that almost anyone who is a parent must at some time
imagine and dread, particularly following yesterday's headlines about a new
teenage heroin epidemic facing Britain. According to this latest study, a
third of the teenagers now experimenting with heroin are under 16, with
those aged 14 to 25 most at risk. Government statistics show that one in 12
12-year-olds and two in five 16-year-olds have tried a drug at least once
and that the average age for first use is getting younger. They put the
number of heroin addicts - generally believed to be a substantial
underestimate - at up to 200,000.

Drug abuse hits every kind of family and every type of child, says Anne
Marshall, director of Adfam National, which runs a helpline for families
and friends of drug users. But while statistics may give a picture of how
serious young drug abuse is, they do not tell us anything about the impact
on families. A 1995 Government report, Forgotten Families, which surveyed
103 drug agencies, found there is very little specific help available for
parents, siblings and relatives of users. Half of the calls to the Adfam
helpline are from parents.

"Parents often struggle on their own and the information they get may be
from the media and over-sensational," says Marshall. "They tend to feel
angry, betrayed and terribly guilty, feeling they have not been a good
enough parent, which they shouldn't. They also often feel ashamed and so
they don't turn to their usual networks for support." The calls they get
are most often about cannabis - because parents know there is a lot about
and fear their children may use it as a starter drug - or heroin, where
families are having to deal with addiction. Siblings, often trying to
protect a user, also use the helpline frequently.

Pauline knows well the anguish of having a user in their family. "Jim and I
watched Gary deteriorate. He was grey, he lost a tremendous amount of
weight and it was clear he was in pain a lot of the time. Jim and I
suspected something but we had no proof and when we tried asking Gary if he
was using drugs he would say, 'Do you think I'd be so bloody stupid?'"

The need for help - something more structured and personal than a telephone
helpline - was recognised by the team running Clouds House, which opened in
East Knoyle, Wiltshire, in 1982 as a residential treatment centre providing
detox and rehabilitation for addicts. Director Pippa Clark explains:

"When family members came to visit a child on detox we saw how desperate
they were. Everything becomes focused on the behaviour of the user and
trying do something for them. This means there is no space for anyone
else's emotional needs to be met." So in 1986, alongside the six-week
rehabilitation programme for users, a four-day intensive family programme
was set up where family members or 'significant others' would come together
and attend lectures designed to explore what goes on in the family of an
addict, and how their own needs get suppressed. There is group therapy and
individual counselling.

Clark continues: "We help people see that they cannot force the user to
change but they can change their attitude towards them, they can stop
putting up with the addict's behaviour and realise that he or she will only
change when they feel the full force of the consequences of their
addiction." Earlier this year an independent evaluation measured levels of
distress when family members arrived, when they finished the programme and
several months later. They found that anxiety and depression fell
considerably and there was a rise in self-esteem.

Pauline went to Clouds after Gary had completed the 12-step rehab programme
there and is convinced it has made it possible for her and Jim to get
through the difficult months Gary has had staying clean since he came out
in January.

"I had to look at why Gary might have wanted drugs and that was painful.
But we also learned not to feel guilty, that we have to see our children
make their own decisions." She smiles across at Gary, who says: "The
programme has brought Mum and me closer but I know she and Dad would never
put up with the way I was before, now."

It is mothers who are most often closely involved with an addict in the
family - just six per cent of the calls to Adfam are from men. Certainly it
was Anne, divorced from her son's father, who eventually 'shopped' her son
Nick to the police after he stole a treasured piece of jewellery and sold
it. He began taking drugs at public school and was expelled for doing so
from which time he got deeper into drug life, getting cocaine from the
addict father of a friend. He moved on to heroin which he was using every
day. He was contemplating suicide.

One day he went home and broke down in front of Anne. She remembers: "I
felt quite calm. I sent him to the doctor thinking that would sort things
out and that he just had to find some will power. I didn't realise how
incapable Nick was of stopping. In fact, while he was living at home he was
stealing things from the house and selling them to score and telling me
lies. I could see things were out of control and I became more and more
depressed.

"It was then that I approached a helpline, which helped me see that I had
to stand up to Nick instead of giving him money for 'food' and paying his
fines when he got into trouble with the police." When he faked a robbery at
the house she called the police and Nick was arrested. She says: "I felt
certain it was the end of my relationship with Nick and that felt terrible.
But I had been helped to feel strong enough to use tough love. Nick went to
prison and the amazing thing is that he withdrew there and afterwards went
to Narcotics Anonymous and got help himself. We have both moved forward and
we have a good relationship now." It would be nice to believe that all such
stories have happy endings. Maureen and Bob are still hoping theirs will be
similarly happy.

"We had trouble with Debbie from secondary school when she began to hang
around with a group of children who smoked," says Maureen. "She became very
hostile to us, started going to rave parties and staying out very late. We
set rules for the house, saying no drugs allowed, but she ignored us and we
had terrible rows. We also knew things were missing.

"Bob blamed me because she was out of control and I blamed him. It was
dreadful. Finally it got so bad we decided we must tell her to leave.
Telling her was dreadful. We were both in tears and she just stormed off.
We haven't seen her since. We don't know where she is and we have been
helped by Families Anonymous who have a programme on the lines of
Alcoholics Anonymous."

In some instances, says Pippa Clark, there may be steps parents can take to
keep their child from drug misuse. "There are certainly things that happen
within families that may influence whether kids take drugs and it is
important that parents understand and look at this." But there are also
circumstances that families cannot control and, in the end, the best thing
they may be able to do is to care for themselves. That way, they may be in
a better position to help the addict.

Adfam National: 0171-928 8900

Families Anonymous: 0171-498 4680

Narcotics Anonymous helpline: 0171-730 0009

Clouds House, East Knoyle, Wiltshire: 01747 830733.