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Recently, a panel of teens, parents and experts in the field of substance abuse treatment met with entertainment writers to discuss the unique challenges faced by youth undergoing treatment for drug addiction. The roundtable, the thirteenth in a series of roundtable discussions sponsored by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, focused on the importance of family intervention and involvement in a child's recovery process.
Donna Leinwand, a reporter for USA Today and an expert on teens and drug use, moderated the event. In addition to Ms. Leinwand, panelists included:
- Mitchell S. Rosenthal, M.D.: Founder and President of Phoenix House. Dr. Rosenthal was among the first to recognize the vital role families play in arresting drug abuse.
- Vincent Casolaro, CSW, CASAC, MAC: Founding Clinical Director of Inter-Care Limited. Mr. Casolaro has worked with chemically dependent individuals and codependent families since 1975. He specializes in corporate, executive and family interventions.
- Ed, Cindy and Lela: Parents of children in recovery from substance abuse, they all struggled to find appropriate help for their child's addiction.
- Chris: A younger sibling of a teen who went through drug treatment.
- Jen, Mark, and Tom**: Teens who went through drug treatment.
The following quotes are a sampling of excerpts from their conversation.
Intervention:
Casolaro: The myth is that addiction affects the poorest segment of our society. Doctors don't seem to realize how big a problem it is. Among ages 12 to 17, the most common disorder is drug use [but] doctors don't test for it. They test for every other disease, but they don't test for drugs. Professionals need to realize that it's a serious problem. So what you need to know is that drugs are "equal opportunity." You don't have to hit rock bottom before you seek help. Most people who do drugs end up in jails, in institutions or dead, and the people around them don't know they need help.
Ed: We had to face up to the fact that our son needed drug treatment. It's hard. You feel like you've failed. You think about what other people must think. There are just so many emotions and issues.
Cindy: We had been through so many things with [our kids]. We had to do something. We tried everything, and we couldn't understand why it was still happening. We never knew anyone who had this experience. So finally we had to make a decision. You get to the point where you can't control your kids anymore, and we realized that we just needed help.
Lela: We didn't understand or know how to get help. We tried to get help from schools, but nobody gave us good advice. We found out about Phoenix House through a chance meeting with a friend. Up until that point, we had several therapists who said, "I would worry about a child who wasn't experimenting with drugs" or "she'll grow out of it." My daughter was going to Exeter and she was excelling in school, but it became clear to us that she really did have a problem that needed to be addressed.
Teens in treatment:
Dr. Rosenthal: How do kids get into treatment? Not because they wake up one day and they are ashamed that they are addicted to drugs. They come in because someone is coercing them or encouraging them to get into treatment. Once they are there, they realize that it isn't a question of detoxification. It's about beginning to connect the dots and understanding the feelings that lead to drug taking. The treatment enables them to get to know themselves, to control themselves and to go forward and become effective members of society. It's a way to help someone grow and mature.
Mark: I went to a couple of different places before I went to Daytop [a residential treatment center]. [At those other places,] I knew I was only going to be there for a short time, so I didn't take them seriously. I would do what I needed to do, but not really change. I like that at Daytop they focus on the rest of your life, like your family or your situation. The way they see it, is that if everything around you is working, you are not going to be doing drugs - but you have to help it work. They definitely placed the responsibility on me. They don't do the work for you. It forced me to grow up. I started to face things. It's hard, but that's what works.
Jen: By the time I got to Caron [a 28-day residential treatment program], I was facing two felony charges. I was expelled from school twice. I was in prison on Easter. I felt like it didn't matter anymore. I didn't care at all. It was just the drug and me. I felt hopeless. I thought that unhappiness was a state of being. By then, anything was better than the way I felt. When I got into treatment, I realized how much help I needed. It was not just about putting down the drug. Treatment was a spiritual and emotional process.
Tom: To be honest, I didn't know my parents would send me away. I thought they were joking, but the next day I was in treatment. I was pretty resentful. That's why I didn't call them much while I was there. I was more mad than ashamed. But after I was there for a couple of months, I really started to change.
Marijuana and treatment:
Dr. Rosenthal: It is troublesome that people think that marijuana is benign. If you look at the numbers of adolescents in treatment at Phoenix House, 60 percent of them are in there primarily for use of marijuana. That doesn't mean that all kids who use marijuana are going to become addicts, but marijuana is a very destabilizing drug. People enter treatment for marijuana because they have enormous problems with it. Marijuana should not be taken lightly.
The importance of family involvement:
Casolaro: Most families don't know that sometimes addicts need the most help from them. When people come into the office, they are surprised that drug use doesn't just affect one person. Drug treatment involves entire families. The family is the most important change agent we know.
Mark: I know there are people in my treatment center who didn't have families around to help with their treatment, but I could never have done it without my parents. I was very angry and frustrated with my parents at first, but in the end, I realized why I was there.
The financial cost of drug treatment:
Lela: We had an insurance carrier who covered the costs, but we had to pay upfront. It took about eight months of a lot of phone calls and letters to get the money to the center, but we did it. It does take an amazing resolve to work through all the paperwork.
Cindy: We are middle-class people, and it was really hard financially. We were in a tough place. We called our insurance company, and they weren't much help. They said, "We'll give you three days detox." That wasn't going to work. It's very costly to put our child through treatment. Daytop has a sliding payment scale, but it was still $14,000. That's our mortgage.
Life after treatment:
Mark: When I first came home, my friends expected that I would go back to my old ways. But after a while, time passed, and I was still staying away from drugs. Eventually, I just grew apart from those friends. Our friendship wasn't that deep. It was all about getting drugs or getting high. Once I stopped using, they just didn't call me any more.
Ed: You have to learn to trust your kid again. We were like bloodhounds. "What are you doing? Where are you going?" It was exhausting. You can't always be looking over their shoulder.
Cindy: I also think that we were being put to the test. Now that our son was back, I felt we had to apply what we learned and try out all of our new parenting skills. You ask, "Are we going to fail? Is he going to relapse because of us?"
Ed: When we first started to have problems with our son, we really weren't working together on helping each other. We were working against each other. Cindy would say one thing and I would say another. We weren't consistent. We learned from Daytop that we needed to work together.
Dr. Rosenthal: Drug treatment is for life. It's about changing your whole lifestyle. A person can be in treatment one month or 15, but he or she is a patient for the rest of their life.
** Names have been changed.
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