DRUG ADDICTION CAN HAPPEN TO ANY CHILD

Pens without ink cartridges turned up in the daughter's car. The girl
lied, stole and lost weight. Despite the efforts of her family, she
was lost in an addiction to heroin.

"This young person could be anyone's son or daughter in any area high
school," said a Lake Country mom. The mom came forward with her
family's experience to help others recognize signs and seek help. She
requested anonymity to protect her family and to keep the promise of
anonymity so important to addiction programs and support groups for
families of addicts.

The mom urges families who think they have a member facing drug
addiction to contact Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and offers herself as
a resource. Phone numbers left with the Lake Country Reporter will be
passed on to the mom.

"I didn't know what to do," the mom said of discovering her
daughter's addiction.

"It's not like people are walking around in the community saying, 'My
son or daughter is a heroin addict.' Who was going to help me? Who
was going to help my daughter? I had no one to turn to," the mom said.

"My daughter was in high school; she was just as normal a student as
any," the mom said. Her daughter played sports, had lots of friends
and was a good student.

Even in addiction, the girl's grades remained steady, and she was
home when she was supposed to be.

She is now out of a recovery program, attending AA, working and
continuing her education.

The mom is proud of her daughter for fighting the drug use, which
started about two years ago through friends.

The girl got drugs from her friends, but also eventually wound up
using money she earned at work, from selling personal possessions and
from stealing to make her own purchases in Milwaukee.

"There was just no indication that anything was going on," the mom
said of the beginning.

Signs of trouble

One night, the teenager came home with really big pupils, and her
mother wondered, but the girl seemed coherent.

"I'm surmising it was cocaine, but I don't know," the mom said. She
knows her daughter tried marijuana, but it wasn't her drug of choice.

Soon, the mom found empty plastic pen tubes in her daughter's room
and car. She thinks they were used to smoke something.

Because teenagers like to sleep anyway, the mom didn't think much of
her daughter's lethargy at first. But it got harder to get her out of
bed, or they would be at the mall and her daughter would just about
fall asleep on her feet.

The mom found bits of copper scouring pads, something the mom had
never bought or used for cleaning. She later learned that such things
are often used for a filter in a pipe to smoke drugs such as crack cocaine.

"I started finding little bits in the laundry, in the carpet," the
mom said of the strands.

The girl was also constantly losing her driver's license, and other
people's licenses kept turning up in her car.

"I figure they were using them to chop up cocaine," the mom said.

"Eventually, we found syringes in her possession. She had graduated,
went from cocaine to heroin," the mom said. She also found metal cups
from tea light candles, used to melt heroin before using a syringe to
inject it.

"Being the child of the '80s that I am, I was still looking for Zig
Zag rolling papers and pot pipes," the mom said. "When I started to
find syringes, I didn't know what this was about. My mind didn't say,
'Your daughter is doing heroin.' "

That might seem naive.

"I've never done this, never been exposed to it," the mom said.
"People might read this and think, 'This woman is dumb,' but I think
other people would have the same experience."

The mom has no idea to this day how much her daughter used or how
much money she spent on her addiction.

Moving toward recovery

The mom tried to control the situation, searching her daughter's
things to confiscate drug items.

"What I couldn't understand was the pain of addiction," the mom said,
describing it as the craving for the chips or the cookies you
shouldn't eat multiplied by 100.

"They call it craving when they need the drug," the mom said. "It's
like when people want to have a cigarette, they will do just about
anything to have a cigarette." And if a heroin addict starts going
through withdrawal, it's a physical pain in the bones.

"My daughter tried to stop many times on her own, but the drug had a
hold on her," the mom said.

The girl even willingly tried programs at different times, taking
steps forward and steps back, but couldn't quit. The girl's recovery
has now lasted more than six months, and the family gets through one
day at a time.

Just like alcoholism, there is always a danger that someone in
recovery, even for years, can slip back into drug use.

Despite drug awareness education, "I don't think they really
understand, when they start using drugs, how bad it can get," the mom said.

While her daughter never said anything disrespectful or became
violent, the mom knows the addiction made her desperate, willing to
do anything to get the drug.

"You look at your child's face, you love your child, but inside,
they're gone," the mom said. It was just the craving for the drug
looking back. "Once they get to that point, there's nothing you can
do as a parent."

To escape drug addiction, a person has to want to. Families can
support a person who is ready to seek help.

Obstacles to seeking help include the belief that the addict is in
control, shame at the addiction, not wanting anyone to know, and
denying to others and to oneself that there is a problem.

In the case of this Lake Country family, that included repeated
denials from the daughter to her mother's inquiries, but finally, she
admitted she was powerless over the drug.

Finding help

Fortunately for the mom, someone experienced with addiction sent her
to Al-Anon, the group for families of addicts.

"I thought it was only for families affected by alcoholism," the mom
said. Alcoholics Anonymous is for anyone with an addiction. "It
didn't matter if you were addicted to chocolate cake."

Through Al-Anon, the mom met others who shared their experiences,
strength and hope. She described one person as an angel who listened,
advised and helped her find programs that could help her daughter.

"I probably didn't realize she was doing heroin until I was in
Al-Anon," the mom said. She knew her daughter was into something bad,
but she didn't know what.

Al-Anon helped her fight depression from worrying about her daughter.

"I can't say enough about Al-Anon and how that helped me," the mom said.

She praised the anonymity that allows people to speak freely, knowing
what they say at Al-Anon, AA or in a rehabilitation program will stay there.

One of the family's difficulties was finding programs.

"The schools would be wise to have this kind of information posted in
the schools. Where do you go for help when your kids are addicted?"
the mom said.

The mom said if schools gave out pamphlets on drug use and
rehabilitation programs during parent-teacher conferences, she would
have recognized the problem sooner and would have known where to go for help.

"I don't think that our community is keeping up with the challenges
our kids are facing," the mom said.

The mom described walking into one addiction resource office and the
staff members being unable to help her. The mom did eventually find
programs through Waukesha County and other services.

Where to turn

Some listings for alcohol and drug rehabilitation services can be
found in the business pages of the phone book and through the
Internet, as well as Alcoholics Anonymous of Greater Milwaukee, (414) 771-9119.

AA can put people in touch with Cocaine Anonymous, Narcotics
Anonymous and other groups.

Al-Anon Family Group of Southeast Wisconsin can be reached at (414)
257-2415 or www.alanon-wi.org

Al-Anon includes Alateen, which offers teens their own support
meetings if they have an addicted family member.

The Lake Area Club, N60 W35878 Lake Drive, Oconomowoc, offers support
for people suffering from addiction and their families and can be
reached at (262) 567-9912 or www.lakeareaclub.com. Drug prevention
begins at home

The best way for parents to recognize whether a child is using drugs
is to know the child. "Whether it's taking drugs, depression or any
other problems your kid could go through, knowing what's normal for
that child, if things change, you will know," said Officer Matt
Harper, drug recognition officer for the Hartland Police Department.

"Know your kids' personalities," Harper said. "Know their friends,
who they hang out with."

If the child's personality changes or he or she suddenly doesn't want
to hang out with his or her old group of friends, it could be a sign
something is very wrong.

Another possible sign of drug use is cash flow. If the teenager has a
part-time job, parents should look at where the money goes. Money
missing from parents' wallets or items disappearing from the house
could be going to pay for drugs. Drugs are expensive.

Unusual items in a child's possession could also be a sign.

"Is what we're seeing normal?" Harper said. A child wearing long
sleeves in hot weather could be hiding needle marks.

What would a teenager be doing with sandwich bags, cotton balls,
spoons, empty pen casings or sugar cubes wrapped in foil in their room?

Often, drugs are packaged in sandwich bags. Plastic pens with the ink
cartridges and the back end removed can be used to inhale drugs such
as cocaine or powdered methamphetamine.

Harper has encountered wrapped sugar cubes that contained LSD. Tiny
cotton balls can be used to filter impurities from liquid drugs, and
spoons can be used for dissolving pills.

A metal pen can be used as a smoking pipe.

"Meth needs to burn at a higher temperature, so they need a glass
pipe," Harper said. A glass watering tube for the stem of a flower
from a flower shop will do.

"They're pretty creative," Harper said of drug users when it comes to
finding ways to ingest drugs.

People have made marijuana bongs out of apples or turned tools in a
toolbox into pipes for smoking drugs.

Different drugs have different effects on the body. Use of some drugs
can be seen by looking at the user's eyes.

Large pupils that nearly obscure the color of the iris around them
can be a sign of cocaine use.

If the pupils shrink to a pinpoint, that's a sign of heroin use, Harper said.

If a parent suspects drug use, privacy shouldn't be a factor.

"In our society, parents want to respect their child's so-called
rights," Harper said. "The job of a parent is to be a parent, not
your child's best friend."

That means parents shouldn't be afraid to limit their child's privacy
if they suspect drug use.

"Parents have no idea today what's in their children's bedrooms. 'I
don't go in there, I don't look,' " Harper said. "I've seen kids with
locks on their door to keep their parents out."

The wrath of parents isn't the only thing drug users have to face.
There are penalties from law enforcement and the judicial system for
kids caught using or in possession of alcohol or drugs.

To learn more about what happens to good kids caught using alcohol or
drugs, attend a panel discussion by law enforcement and judicial
system experts from 7 to 8:30 p.m. April 25 in the Pewaukee High
School auditorium. The program is free and open to the public.

The panel is brought by Waukesha County's Drug Free Communities
Coalition, the Waukesha County Executive's Office, Positively
Pewaukee, Pewaukee Schools and the Village of Pewaukee Police Department.