PARENTS OFTEN LAST TO KNOW

The dog days of summer are particularly nasty at my house. My air
conditioning has no freon. It's been four years, and I haven't got it
replaced. With a Jacuzzi and koi pond, I use up more than my share of
energy, and the heat serves to remind me of a miracle that happened here.

The freon was sucked out by some young dope fiends, risking death by huffing
their way to oblivion.

One of the kids was mine. He'd been using drugs and alcohol for eight
months, and although I had my suspicions, it took him almost poisoning
himself on tequila before I knew for certain. Fortunately, by then he was
amenable to go speak to my friend, Marty Steckdaub, and enroll in his
chemical dependency program, and for the last four years he's been clean and
sober.

What's weird is how it got past me for so long. I've worked with addicts and
had some experience with drugs and alcohol myself, yet fear and denial kept
me from acting on what I intuitively suspected. I even went as far as
getting a prescription refill for Ritalin -- he said he had lost it, but his
"friends" had taught him how to grind it up and snort it.

Even the most savvy of parents (ex-drug addicts, especially) are shocked to
learn their kids are on drugs. How does one tell? I spoke to local drug
counselor Rocky Hill about that.

Rocky mentioned the normal indicators are a change in friends, a change in
dress, mood swings, an overall bad attitude. The eyes are also a good
indicator -- they can be red, pupils can be dilated or constricted. My
experience has been that if you think your kid is using drugs, you're
probably right.

Communication is very important, but Hill goes as far as to suggest that you
periodically test your kid for drugs. Doing so will certainly give your kid
a heads-up that you're keeping watch and also catch the problem earlier, and
time is critical. Tests are commercially available in pharmacies and
treatment centers.

So what do you do if you find out your fears are valid? Both Hill and
Steckdaub emphasize the need to seek professional help. Love will not
necessarily guide you the right way. The psycho-education involved in
treatment can be extremely eye-opening to kids and parents.

I was surprised at learning how much liquor and marijuana that was used by
my kid and his friends came from their parents. Remember that commercial
where a father finds a kid's drug stash and angrily demands, "Where did you
learn that!?" The kid responded, "From you." If kids see parents getting
drunk or high, how seriously are they going to take admonitions to
abstinence? Yet many addicts come from sober homes as well.

A lot of parents suspect that kids may be experimenting with smoking pot and
drinking, and while they don't condone it, they tacitly accept it as a rite
of passage. But the stakes can be terribly high. I have a friend whose son
is a quadriplegic as a result of partying, and the effects of using meth,
crack, heroin and Ecstasy can be lifelong.

This statement from the mother of a recovering addict says it all: "I wish I
had an answer for all this. It still breaks my heart when I think of my son,
where he is, where he has been and God only knows where he will end up."