Science Daily recently posted a release in which statistics on gambling related problems are far higher than once assumed. It is estimated that six to eight million people in the United States alone suffer from some sort of problem related to gambling. This problem has the ability to impact the physical, emotional and financial health of the family.

The most common treatment models used today to address problem gambling tend to be focused on meeting the needs of gamblers. The problem is these treatments do not address the needs of couples and families whose lives may have been negatively impacted by someone else’s gambling.

In a paper published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, authors provide a detailed description of how problem gambling impacts families. These authors explain, “Our hope in writing this paper is to raise awareness about problem gambling and the importance of developing treatment programs that meet the needs of the families of problem gamblers.”

The authors noted that many of the people who access treatment for problem gambling are family members of those actually dealing with an addiction or problem. It is becoming clearer that gambling problems have a significant impact on families and can not be allowed to slip under the radar.

Marriage and family therapists are well positioned to help families cope with the impact of a gambling problem. Families are encouraged to seek this help before it is too late to reverse the trend.

Helpful resource: What It Takes to Beat a Gambling Addiction

The negative effects of problem or compulsive gambling on the family are widespread in this country. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, an estimated 2 million U.S. adults (1 percent of the population) are compulsive or pathological gamblers. Another estimated 4 to 6 million (2 to 3 percent) can be considered problem gamblers. An estimated one-third (35 percent) of adult problem gamblers have children at home under the age of 18.

Let’s examine some of the ways that gambling affects the family.

Financial

Out-of-control gambling and repeated gambling losses take a tremendous toll on the family finances. Well-meaning family members, usually the spouse of the gambler, often try to “help” the gambler by lending them money, bailing them out of financial difficulties, paying their bills, helping them to stash money to gamble, and other behaviors related to providing money to the gambler. This is classic enabling and does no good either for the gambler or his or her family.

Ultimately, the financial losses become too great. The home may be forced into foreclosure. The family may have to declare bankruptcy. When bills can’t be paid because the gambler has squandered all the money on chasing the losses, more than just money is at stake. The provider can no longer provide, and everyone suffers.

Signs of financial difficulties related to gambling include the following:

• Financial statements go missing
• Calls from creditors
• Mounting debt
• Unexplained cash advances on credit cards
• Assets disappear from the home
• Bank accounts drained
• Sudden, unexpected bills
• New loans taken out
• Money for bills used for gambling

Breakdown In Family Relationships

Trying to deal with the stress and tension brought on as a result of the gambler’s behavior jeopardizes the bond among family members. When the spouse, children, siblings and other family members can no longer trust the gambler, feel no sense of security, have no confidence in the gambler or even fear for their future, the result is a breakdown in the family relationships. Endless lies, staying out late or not coming home at all, threats, manipulation and violence or domestic abuse all contribute to the dissolution of family ties.

Shame, avoidance of friends, secrecy and trying to hide the pain further magnify the isolation the family members feel as the gambler’s behavior gets more and more out of control.

Emotional Devastation

Inevitably the spouse of the problem or compulsive gambler tries to pick up the slack. Often the spouse makes excuses to friends and other family members, including children, about the behavior and whereabouts of the gambler. The web of deceit becomes more and more intricate as the spouse tries to hold everything together, trying to maintain a semblance of normalcy despite everything falling apart.

Protecting the children is perhaps the most difficult, as children naturally look to both parents for their security and emotional support. Weighed down by the accumulating financial problems, lack of trust in the gambler, knowing that the gambler’s word means nothing, the spouse cannot help but display his or her tangle of emotions. Children and teenagers pick up on the slightest nuance in family dynamics. They know when something’s not right, when their parents now sleep in different rooms, when tension fills the air, when there’s little or no demonstration of affection, when arguments, tears and recriminations become a daily occurrence.

Anxiety, guilt, shame, depression, insomnia, behavioral problems and emotional insecurity begin to afflict all the family members that are closest to or living in the same environment as the problem or compulsive gambler. The spouse or family members may hide their feelings and refrain from saying certain things, afraid that it may trigger an explosive outburst. Children often seek to distract the attention away from the gambler by being disruptive, comedic or inordinately charming, or they react in the opposite manner and become withdrawn, quiet, and fearful. Older children may assume the role of protector of the younger siblings, or attempt to pick up the responsibilities of one or both parents. They often try to overcompensate at school, believing that if they were only better in their scholastic achievement, maybe their gambling parent would love them more and quit gambling. The emotional roller coaster continues to wreak devastation on the children’s emotional development the longer the gambler keeps gambling and does not get treatment. But, again, everyone in the gambler’s family suffers emotional consequences.

Sexual Dysfunction

With no trust in the gambler, no belief in their word, the spouse of the gambler often withdraws from the relationship in the form of sex. What sex there is may become perfunctory at best. Harboring intense feelings of anger and blame, the non-gambling spouse cannot show feelings of love. As the cycle of gambling continues with even more damaging consequences, the gambler loses all desire for sexual intimacy – his or her life is now controlled by gambling. The result for the non-gambling spouse is often complete demoralization, loss of self-esteem and confidence.

Violence

With tensions escalating at a dangerous pace, the arguments and emotional outbursts may end in violence. Spousal and/or child abuse may occur when the problem or compulsive gambler feels cornered. Both parents may vent their anger at the children, while the children may try to stick up for one parent or defuse the tensions. They may also become pawns in the never-ending squabbling. The bigger the losses, the longer the out-of-control gambling goes on, the greater the potential for serious bodily harm to family members.

Gambling And Dependency

Some problem and compulsive gamblers have more than one dependency. It is commonly accepted that individuals with one type of addiction often have others as well. This may be an addiction to alcohol, illicit drugs, pharmaceutical drugs used for nonmedical purposes, or other type of substance. Just because someone gambles, however, doesn’t mean they’re automatically going to be addicted to something else, but the patterns of behavior are already established – particularly if one or more of the gambler’s parents had a problem with alcohol, drugs and/or gambling.

There are, of course, many gamblers who do not become otherwise addicted, saying that no other activity or substance gives them the kind of euphoria, excitement or “high” that gambling does.

Children And Gambling

According to research, early exposure to gambling in the family plays a big part in whether or not children and teenagers resort to gambling themselves. Seeing a parent constantly involved in gambling, hearing about the “big wins” or losses, parental attitudes toward gambling – all have an effect on young minds. In fact, research shows that children may develop more problems related to gambling than adult gamblers. Many adolescent children report being preoccupied with anything to do with gambling well in advance of developing their own gambling problem. Adults who seek treatment for their gambling problem often say they began gambling at an early age.

It’s not difficult for children and teenagers to gamble, either. Many states permit children under 18 to gamble. Internet gambling and sports betting are easy for young people to do, and they’re all over the Web, being the most tech-savvy generation so far. According to research reported by the National Council on Problem Gambling, “a vast majority of kids have gambled before their18th birthday.”

What Can Be Done

If you are the spouse of a problem or compulsive gambler, or a family member, there are some immediate things you can do.

• Seek help – Your spouse or family member may not be ready to get treatment or counseling to address his or her issues and compulsion to gamble, but you certainly can take the initiative. You don’t need to go through this alone. There are thousands of others out there who are in the same situation. They can help you through the tough times. Join a 12-step support group such as Gam-Anon, whose members come together in weekly meetings held across the U.S. to support and help each other. Their purpose, according to the Gam-Anon website, is three-fold:

o To learn acceptance and understanding of the gambling illness
o To use the program and its problem solving as aids in rebuilding our lives
o Upon our own recovery, to give assistance to those who suffer
 

• Educate yourself – Learn as much as you can about gambling addiction and what you can do to cope with your family member’s gambling. Good resources are available at the National Council on Problem Gambling, which also operates a 24-hour confidential national helpline at 1-800-522-4700. There are also links to state problem gambling services, many of which have their own hotlines.
 

• Get professional counseling – There is individual and group counseling therapy available for families of the compulsive gambler. Whether or not the gambler decides to seek help for his or her obsession, family members can benefit from counseling. Through such counseling, the spouse and family members can learn to take better care of themselves and their financial situation, feel better about their lives, regain their self respect and become more confident in making decisions. When and if the gambler decides to get treatment, the spouse and family members become a critical part of the gambler’s recovery. Learning how to adjust to a non-gambling lifestyle, the spouse, family members and gambler in recovery can put their lives back in order. Family therapy can support this ongoing process.
 

• Ditch your guilt – You are not the cause of your spouse or family member’s gambling addiction. But you can – and should – do all you can to encourage the problem or compulsive gambler to get help. Whether or not the gambler is ready to do so should not deter you from seeking help.
 

• Maintain your love and understanding – Gambling addiction is an illness, and it can be treated successfully – if the gambler fully commits to the process. It may take some time for the gambler to come to the realization and acceptance of this need, but he or she can benefit from your continued love and understanding until such time. This does not mean enabling the gambler’s habit. It does mean that you tell the gambler that you love him, that you will always love him – but that you will not be an accomplice in furthering his or her gambling.
 

In the end, the family can recover from the negative consequences of a problem gambling. It may be difficult, but finding ways to cope with the havoc the gambler’s behavior has created is far better than trying to struggle through the quagmire alone. Think of the lives that may be saved – the emotional as well as physical – by getting help. Reach out today and stop the turmoil that out-of-control gambling has brought to your family.
 

Too often, the media relays images of today’s American father in a rather dishonorable, scornful, and offensive light, which may seem out of tune with a customarily prideful and patriotically minded nation. In the news, we hear of irresponsible dads who are absent from the picture, unwilling to support their families, and who choose to carouse in their drunken revelry instead of behaving like a good father should.

Unfortunately, this message has been so propagated in television shows, music, films, news reporting, and the court system—thanks to a prevalent national divorce rate—that it has now saturated our homes and become a common acceptance in the minds of mothers, children, and even fathers. While some men do neglect their families, all single fathers are stricken with the burden of challenging a life-long stereotype of being incapable of providing for their own children financially and emotionally.

Men are traditionally presented with the expectation of fulfilling their gender’s role: family provider, head of household, or breadwinner. In his book Divorce in Psychosocial Perspective: Theory and Research, Joseph Guttmann wrote, “Family status is the most significant social variable accounting for a disparity between the genders in adult psychopathology.” Since the dawn of the industrial era, men have been expected to be gone for long periods of time while earning money to support their families, while women stay at home to raise the children and keep up the house.

Because of this economic family structure, Guttmann wrote, women in our country have been viewed as being solely responsible for raising the children, while men are considered to be solely responsible for providing the income. In these terms, fathers must be capable of satisfying this fiscal ideal in order to live up to their male identities.

In the book Throwaway Dads: The Myths and Barriers That Keep Men from Being the Fathers They Want to Be, authors Ross Parke and Armin Brott write, “For men much more than for women, providing for their families is inextricably tied to their self-image and even to masculinity itself.” According to Guttmann, in this polar division of gender in the household, fathers are deemed as distant role models for their sons and an example of what their daughters should aspire for in a husband, and they are considered as being ethical, materialistic support for their wives.

The problem with exclusively typecasting a good father as a good provider is that the equation neglects the role that fathers serve emotionally, psychologically, and sociologically, according to Parke and Brott. Wade Horn, director of the National Fatherhood Initiative, notes that “emphasizing fatherhood in largely economic terms has helped contribute to its demise. If we want fathers to be more than just money machines, we need a culture that supports their work as teachers, coaches, nurturers, disciplinarians, and moral instructors.” Mothers and fathers alike are culturally susceptible to accepting the “breadwinner” stereotype and rigidity of gender roles, and condone the idea that any man who cannot fit the mold is considered flawed.

This haphazardly sets the father up to fail in the role of nurturing his children. Guttmann writes, “Because women more than men are involved in housework and childcare, they are viewed as being more naturally oriented toward (hence better at) an expressive role…And yet, despite endless reinforcements to the belief that parenthood is biologically based and not learned, there is no scientifically conclusive evidence to sustain the claim that fathers cannot or should not fully participate in caring for and raising children.” Despite the change in modern households where mothers are now working more and the emphasis of both parents’ participation is deemed as mutually significant, a father’s importance in child rearing is still very much forgotten.

If a man becomes seen as unable to fulfill his duty as husband and father, all odds begin to work against him, particularly in the division of family. Even though almost every state’s legislation prohibits judges from granting custodial preference based solely on gender, the legal system still demonstrates a trend of favoring women by a huge margin. Parke and Brott note that more than 82 percent of the time the mother is granted sole custody, and only 7 percent of cases resolve in joint custody. An interesting justification for excluding fathers was even taught and upheld by the Family Law Committee of the Minnesota Bar Association. Their 1971 guidelines stated:

“Except in very rare cases, the father should not have the custody of the minor children of the parties. He is usually unqualified psychologically and emotionally; nor does he have the time and care to supervise the children. A lawyer not only does an injustice to himself, but he is unfair to his client, to the state, and to society if he gives any encouragement to the father that he should have custody of his children.”

Since the mid-1960s, a movement in the U.S. government policy began to shift away from fathers. Parke and Brott explain that the federal assistance program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was set up in a way that deliberately excluded fathers: “Women, it seems, are presumed to be fit parents; men, as in so many other parenting-related areas, have to prove it.” According to the U.S. Census Bureau, out of 11.6 million single parents living with their children in 2008, 9.8 million of them are single mothers and only 16 percent of them are single fathers. The chances of a man gaining any rights to his fatherly privileges are slighted, not likely, or seen as unreasonable.

“Contrary to the image of the swinging playboy after the divorce,” writes Guttmann, “custodial and non-custodial single fathers suffer serious emotional and physical effects…single fathers undergo a great deal of stress and describe an array of feelings such as anger, sadness, resentment, and depression.”

With the media and the government encouraging the idea that women don’t need men in order to raise their children and are better off without them, fathers are left in a destitute position in the family. Men are logistically ruled out of the equation, and ultimately classified as unnecessary except as a distant provider of money, leaving them alone to battle with the rage, shame, and frustration resulting from their loss.

Masculinity, as it is characterized, has also taught men that sadness is a form of weakness and that they need to solve their problems themselves. William C. Klatte writes in his book, Live-away Dads: Staying a Part of your Children’s Lives When They Aren’t a Part of Your Home, that because of this belief, men are more likely to be depressed and not seek help, and instead think they must hide their emotions, which causes more harm.

Over time, these suppressed emotions become so obscure and bottled up that these fathers stop feeling real emotions altogether, and begin merely going through the motions of their prescribed lives. “Another rub with avoiding sadness” writes Klatte, “is that it has a way of boiling over in anger or acting itself out as alcoholism, loneliness, isolation, ulcers, headaches, conflicts at work, sleep problems, or other things worse than the sadness itself.”

Now that these single fathers have to try to raise their children from a distance and maintain some impact on their children’s lives, some fathers find the challenge to be too overwhelming, or feel that they are not good enough fathers and that their children are better off without them.

Depression among single fathers is not only common, but it helps perpetuate a vicious cycle by justifying why they are viewed as “deadbeat dads” when they rely on self-medication through alcohol or drug abuse instead of seeking professional help. Guttmann writes, “It might also be argued that the condition of being a divorced parent without custody of children (the situation of most men in this category) is psychologically more risky than being a divorced parent with custody (as are most women in this category).”

According to the Associated Press, in 2007 more men than women (about 42 percent of men and about 19 percent of women) had reported a history of either alcohol abuse or alcoholism during their lives, and these figures still do not include those who chose not to report their alcoholism.

Alcohol is usually sought to relax the individual or to help them forget about their worries, but because it is a depressant itself, it actually deepens the depression the individual may already be suffering from. Isolation, depression, and consumption increases in order to withstand higher levels of tolerance over time, and for single fathers already feeling lost and hopeless, it becomes a sneering entrapment.

Klatte writes that in the eyes of the court, it is particularly difficult to place restrictions on live-in parents because they are responsible for their children’s daily care. Yet if a live-away parent violated his or her court-ordered rules (for example, creating an unsafe environment by drinking), the access to his or her children can be restricted easily.

Even though both mothers and fathers usually pay child support on time, the courts still drastically persecute fathers in a much higher percentage rate. The mothers, their lawyers, and the legal system can easily punish a father for outstanding payments or behavior they disapprove of, and sometimes do not find mothers who withhold their children from seeing their fathers as acting offensively.

It is commonplace to keep children away from their fathers for a number of reasons—Parke and Brott note that more than six million children are being denied access to their fathers each year. Even though eliminating a child’s father from his or her world can be seen as protecting children from harm’s way, children who grow up in fatherless families have more emotional problems, do worse in school, and have higher rates in criminal activity.

Statistically, children who have good relationships with their non-custodial fathers are less likely to abuse alcohol or drugs than children who never see their non-custodial fathers. However, children who live with no contact from their biological fathers are more than twice as likely to abuse drugs or alcohol.

Whether single fathers choose alcohol abuse as their escape valve to retreat from their depressing circumstances or mothers become unwilling to cooperate with their children’s fathers, the real harm produced by this ongoing cycle of the “deadbeat dad” convention is felt by the children. If children are denied access to one of their parents, they become more susceptible to carrying on the broken-home tradition in adulthood.

The problems with the legal system and society’s viewpoints on single dads will not vanish or improve overnight; the real change begins with seeking the proper help for substance abuse through professional guidance, 12-steps programs, or medical treatment. Also, for two-household families, counseling, mutual involvement, and focus on individual responsibilities and constructivism can help maintain the health and well-being of the children involved during this vulnerable and challenging period in their lives.

Addiction invaded our home in 1991. It slithered in and sat down at our dining room table, grew large and fat, fed on our misery, laughing, mocking us with its power. It claimed Jeff when he was just a fourteen-year-old boy. I did everything I could think of to save my son, but in the end I could do nothing, not really, to extricate him or to free our family from addiction’s claws.

This is one of Libby Cataldi’s many gripping, vivid descriptions of the way her son Jeff’s addiction affected her family. In Stay Close: A Mother’s Story of Her Son’s Addiction, Cataldi chronicles her family’s descent into drug addiction and eventual rise into hope and recovery.

By revisiting journal entries from as far back as 1997 and recalling events with the help of her two sons and their father, Cataldi crafts a beautifully written, enlightening story that bares the gritty truth of addiction and the tremendous hope and love that can arise from it.

The Formative Years

Cataldi tells the story of Jeff’s life from when he was a young boy donning a Superman cape and cowboy boots, dreaming of space travel, to being in jail for possession of heroin and drug paraphernalia, dreaming of getting another fix.

“Jeff, from his earliest years, loved to imagine, to create, and I can trace his childhood through his fantasies,” Cataldi writes. “Maybe Jeff always wanted to escape reality, live somewhere else. It seemed so harmless then, during his early years.”

When Jeff started skateboarding in the fifth grade, he also started getting into trouble, mostly with cigarettes. But cigarettes soon led to alcohol and marijuana, though Cataldi didn’t know it at the time. “The truth of these years of Jeff’s early drug use is still a blur to me,” she writes. “While I was concerned about cigarettes, Jeff was smoking pot, drinking, and watching pornography.”

Then the raves started. Though Cataldi and Jeff’s father Tim initially refused to let their 15-year-old son attend these all-night parties, Jeff would concoct elaborate lies and ruses, pretending he was staying at a friend’s house or going on a weekend camping trip but actually sneaking off to raves, where drugs flowed like water. Jeff later admitted that it was during this time period when he became “enraptured with drug use and the party scene.”

At raves, Jeff was introduced to drugs like Ecstasy, ketamine, PCP, and mescaline, as well as drugs he already had access to, like crystal meth, cocaine, and LSD. “Like a basecoat of paint, everybody was on something, trying to get higher on something else,”
Jeff recalls.

On Christmas Eve during his 11th grade year, Jeff was arrested for possession of cocaine and ketamine. Cataldi soon learned that Jeff was also using crystal meth, when a concerned parent called her to inform her. With his drug use now obvious to his parents, he announced he wanted to switch to a military academy, a boarding school in Virginia. His parents agreed, assuming that he wouldn’t have access to drugs there and would be under strict supervision. However, Jeff had the weekends off, which gave him full access to raves “and a level of detachment” he wouldn’t have had living at home.

When Jeff left home for boarding school, Cataldi and her husband separated. “We were a family joined together in love, but Tim and I didn’t know how to negotiate a life together, let alone a life that included addiction,” she explains. A few months later, Jeff’s younger brother Jeremy decided to switch schools too, and would be joining his brother at military school.

Jeremy told Cataldi later, “I wanted to be with Jeff; I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. Jeff and I had an unspoken bond. I always felt safer with him. As much as I wanted to be his protector, I felt Jeff protected me.” But Jeremy did protect his brother as well, covering for Jeff when grilled about his drug use.

“Jeremy learned silence, to hold his tongue, and he suffered during those years, first from the constant tension in the house and later from his parents’ separation and Jeff’s departure, always feeling the need to divide his loyalty between his parents and his brother,” Cataldi writes.

Trouble Brewing in Boston

After Jeff graduated from the academy—despite being suspended for smoking and being involved with someone who was reportedly selling drugs on campus to students—he entered Boston University, where things only got worse. Cataldi noticed his diminished physical appearance and lack of appetite, though Jeff insisted he had just been sick with the flu.

“From periods of drug use I remembered the weight losses, muted smiles, and dwindled energy…I remembered how his vocabulary languished, as it tiny neurons of his brain’s language center were obliterated,” Cataldi writes. “During those times of drug use a kind of curtain seemed to fall between us, as if a cloak of darkness shrouded my son’s inner brightness, clouded his life’s spark, and eroded his mind’s vitality.”

As Jeff’s time at Boston Univeristy went on, he became addicted to ketamine (also known as “K”), which is an animal tranquilizer that can be injected, smoked, or snorted. At one point he was taken to the ER with almost paralyzing abdominal pain, which turned out to be a side effect of the ketamine, often called “K cramps.” But his constant use of the drug took K cramps to the extreme, requiring kidney surgery.

“K stood out against everything else at the time, and it altered feelings in the most dramatic ways,” remembers Jeff. “Like soaking my mind in watercolor paint, K animated everything around me…Whole afternoons seemed to pass in forty-five minutes and I’d hear friends talk without ever opening their mouths…Everything I saw I believed, and unlike hallucinations on acid, things on K are softer and more surreal.”

“Occasionally, though, I’d do too much, and the high would get scary…when someone overdoes it, it can stop movement and conscious thinking, a lot like being paralyzed,” Jeff explains. “When that happened…a collage of memories from all stages of life would clutter my mind, and I’d become horribly disoriented.” Jeff explains that the drug was intense, especially since he and his friends preferred to inject it.

Cataldi stayed close to Jeff after his kidney surgery, helping him recover. But one night she found him with one of his old friends, obviously high. He told her he took six Percocet because he was in pain from the surgery, but later admitted he had shot ketamine that night too.

Jeff continued to tell his mother that he was in counseling and had been drug free since taking the Percocet, but Cataldi wasn’t convinced. When he asked to come home for the summer, she told him he could only come home if he went to rehab for 28 days, as she didn’t trust him to stay sober.

Starting Rehab

Jeff completed 28 days of rehab at Father Martin’s Ashley, and Cataldi began learning about the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and started attending Al-Anon meetings. Jeff had a full-time job as an intern in a commercial real estate company and was doing well, but Cataldi became concerned that he wasn’t attending 12-step meetings regularly. In the fall, Jeff returned to college, where Jeremy would be starting his first year.

Then Cataldi received an alarming phone call from Jeff’s girlfriend, Sophie, who told Cataldi that Jeff was using ketamine again, shooting into his arms and legs. When confronted, Jeff admitted that he was using again but became defiant and defensive.

“After rehab the previous summer and back in Boston, drugs reentered the picture,” Jeff writes. “I started drinking, which opened doors to coke and pills, then K, then everything else. If you’re not working against addiction, it returns. It’s inevitable.”

The next concerned call came from Jeremy, who called his mother, begging her to stop giving Jeff money because he was using it for drugs. Cataldi said she hadn’t given him money in over a month, and Jeremy tearfully explained that he found syringes in the bathroom. “Jeff’s a mess,” he told his mom. “He gets high and can’t even move his body. He’s gonna die.”

Cataldi didn’t know what to do, as he had already been through treatment and she’d laid out consequences (she refused to give him money and wouldn’t let him stay with her). So she called Jeff and asked him point-blank about his sobriety, and Jeff ultimately agreed to enter a three-month halfway house in Florida, where he seemed to do well.

“He was learning new skills and creating a new life for himself, one based on honest work and the principles of AA,” Cataldi writes of Jeff’s time at the halfway house. “Jeff’s sponsor taught him that had to acknowledge his many mistakes, make amends, and move forward. ‘Do the Next Right Thing’ became Jeff’s motto, words that helped him redirect his life.”

Jeff left the halfway house after being there for almost nine months—even after being kicked out for two weeks for lying about attending mandatory AA meetings—and returned to Boston to complete his degree, although his counselors did not support the idea of him going back to the “people, places, and things” that could trigger his addiction. However, Jeff was determined to finish school there, which he did. He was soon hired by the PR firm for which he had interned, and he and a close friend decided to share an apartment in New York City.

New City, New Problems

But New York brought more trouble. “In those final months in Boston…I’d developed some bad habits that traveled with me to New York,” Jeff writes. “When I was alone and finishing school, I started using drugs that were less social and a little darker…Getting high was less about the party and more about feeling connected.”

Cataldi was under the impression that Jeff had been drug-free since he left the halfway house three years prior, but she was in the dark. One summer Jeff met Cataldi in Italy, where they spent two wonderful weeks together. “I remember well his smile and his gentle personality and manner…I remember his laughter, the way he would bend his head back and look into the sky, and his joy would resonate, deep with pleasure,” she recalls.

But this ideal time came to an abrupt end after Jeff left Italy, when Cataldi’s friend Ombretta told her that Jeff had confided in her that more than eight months earlier, a boy had died of a heroin overdose in Jeff’s apartment. “As I packed to leave Italy,” Cataldi writes, “the word ‘heroin’ was alive in my mind, followed by two more words: ‘death’ and ‘Jeff.’”

Back in New York, Jeff began riding a bike for a delivery service that sold high-quality pot. Cataldi knew he had a delivery job, but didn’t know what was being delivered. At this time Jeff was using heroin every day, and his life revolved around it. “My friends that weren’t carrying habits themselves were pretty unimpressed with the routine, and some even tried to intervene. I was on my way down and everybody knew it,” Jeff writes.

Soon Cataldi received yet another concerned call from a friend of Jeff’s, and Cataldi was now aware of Jeff’s heroin habit. “Hadn’t I noticed his nodding off, she asked, his eyes closing as if he were about to fall asleep? She explained, almost incredulously, as if I should have been well aware that this was the telltale sign of heroin use,” Cataldi recalls.

Struggling to Stay Clean

When Cataldi confronted Jeff, he admitted that it was all true, and that he had been using heroin almost exclusively for three years. “He explained that heroin provided him peace, a comfortable level of belonging—much like a love that a person had always been searching for, heroin was like a warm cocoon of affection,” Cataldi explains.

“He both loved and hated his addiction: He cherished the high from heroin, but abhorred its grasp on him, abhorred the consequences of his use,” she continues. “He told me that he wanted to get clean, needed detox, and had tried several times on his own, but he couldn’t stick with it.”

Cataldi helped him detox while waiting for an opening at Pathways, a nearby drug rehab center associated with a local hospital. She could never seem to get through to the admissions office, and when she did, was told that they didn’t have any open beds. After three days, they were finally seen at Pathways but were told that Jeff would only be given a bed for three days. He did well there and registered in their outpatient program, agreeing to attend AA meetings and find a sponsor. But he was soon using again.

“I was always conflicted about my use,” Jeff writes. “For as much stillness and warmth as heroin provides, the inevitable detox is hell. When you’re carrying a habit, it’s impossible to accept the drug as the source of your problems. I was convinced that life was harsh and heroin was the only thing making it bearable. Heroin was the solution, not the problem.”

But he was also trying to maintain a job and a sense of professionalism, and the bills were mounting. “Every week I told myself I was going to get clean. I’d set dates, contact methadone clinics, and buy detox meds from friends…I tried to kick once a month or so, but I rarely lasted more than forty-eight hours,” he admits.

Another Dark Chapter

The pattern continued: Jeff would detox, then relapse. Then the news came: Cataldi was diagnosed with breast cancer. She soon had a bilateral mastectomy, and both sons stayed with her during and after the surgery. “You’ve always been our mainstay, strong for Jeremy and me, but now you were in the hospital with cancer and I was terrified,” Jeff later told Cataldi.

“It’s incredibly hard for a son to know that his mother is sick and there’s nothing to do about it,” Jeff wrote—only now understanding that his mother felt the same way about him. “Although my drug use showed no regard for the family, I’ve always loved and cared deeply for everyone,” he continued. “Addicts bear a hard juxtaposition. If it weren’t for the euphoria connected to the drug, we’d never be able to handle it.”

The surgery was successful, and Cataldi was free of cancer. “My chest is raw and cut,” reads her journal, “but the hurt doesn’t rival the perpetual state of heartache for my son.” Jeff’s drug use continued, and though Cataldi felt grateful for his life each time she saw him, she also felt powerless and useless.

Cataldi’s 84-year-old father called her out on Jeff’s addiction, telling her she needed to tell him to stop. “Don’t you think, Dad, that I’ve already told him to stop, a million times over?” she responded. Jeff told her years later, “Telling an addict to stop is as effective as telling a man without legs to stand up and do cartwheels.”

Again the cycle continued, with Jeff struggling to get clean and relapsing, even going back to the halfway house in Florida, to a 60-day detox and rehab program at the state-run Drug Abuse Foundation, to an extended-care facility in Texas, and back to the Drug Abuse Foundation. During this period, Jeff entered numerous programs and regularly walked out of them, weeks and months short of the time he’d initially intended to stay. Jeff showed signs of wanting to get clean, but was never able to follow through with treatment. Then, in 2005, Jeff landed in jail for heroin possession. Cataldi and Tim decided not to bail him out, in hopes of the experience finally setting him straight.

That’s when Cataldi decided to write a book. “I want to write this book, but maybe it is just a book of a mother’s angst and tears, and crazy lives. The disease of addiction, a family disease, a disease that corrodes all of life, suffocates all its members, eliminating the ability to even see the sun,” her journal reads. “I want to quit writing, but I don’t know what else to do with my mind, my heart. My firstborn son, what will become of him? When will he learn? Will he ever learn?”

Jeff ended up posting his own bond and returning to the Florida halfway house. He was upset that his parents left him in jail, and Cataldi responded, “You’ve been jumped, beaten, hospitalized, institutionalized, arrested, and homeless. What’s it going to take for you to stop your drug use? Maybe this is it.”

Stay Close

Jeff’s case was ultimately dismissed, and he left for California, following a girl he had met at the halfway house in Florida. He ended up miserable there, constantly fighting with his girlfriend and using crystal meth and drinking. When he asked his mother for help, she offered for him to enter a program in Italy called San Patrignano, which required a three- to five-year commitment. Jeff declined, but the director stayed in contact with Cataldi, offering support and advice.

“The Italian patriarch of this office, a recovering alcoholic himself…tried to help me understand the concept behind two words: stagli vicino, stay close to him. He repeated these two words over and over again as he drove the point home to me…that Jeff needed to know that he was loved even when he was unlovable, even when he was closed away from us, and especially when he was at his sickest.” Stagli vicino, stay close, became Cataldi’s motto.

“This thinking of stagli vicino was contrary to much of the advice I had heard from other experts in the United States, who had encouraged me to ‘use tough love, let him hit his bottom, make him leave the house, don’t answer his calls, bury him in your head, have a funeral for him,’” she recalls. “These responses hadn’t worked for our family doctor, hadn’t worked for me, hadn’t worked for Jeff.” So Cataldi decided to do the opposite, to stay close. “I would not abandon him, and I would be constant,” she remembers.

Road to Recovery

After returning to a recovery ranch and attending AA meetings, Jeff finally came to a realization. “My body was eating itself from the inside out, and I felt hollow…I’ve never been so stripped by a drug before—every inch of composure was lost. That was the first turning point,” Jeff writes. “I’ve never been so grateful to be that broken.”

When he shared his story at a meeting, the leader said flatly, “Yep, some people have to die from this disease,” and then moved on to the next person. “The night I arrived and heard Harry respond to my share, I remember thinking, ‘Unreal. Has it really come to that? Is death my final option?’ It was heavy, but Harry was honest, and I needed to hear exactly that.”

Jeff continues, “I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to stop using, either. They say that addicts aren’t afraid to die, they’re afraid to live without drugs. I was there. It wasn’t until I started praying that things turned around.” At the 10 Acre Ranch, he spent his days focusing on his recovery, reading the Big Book (by the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous), praying, meditating, and writing in his journal.

Jeff agreed to see Dr. Patrick MacAfee, a psychologist and family addiction therapist, and after three meetings Cataldi realized that Jeff trusted him. “We know a lot about addiction,” Dr. McAfee said. “What we don’t know much about is how addicts learn to live in sobriety. Jeff will have to learn how to live a sober life.” Jeff learned how to put his recovery first, for the first time.

After two and a half months of living at the ranch, Jeff found an apartment in Newport Beach and enrolled in an outpatient program at Sober Living by the Sea. When Cataldi came to visit, she was shocked at Jeff’s transformation. “He was tanned and a little heavier, fuller in the face, healthy looking; his eyes were clear; his voice was strong,” she recalls.

Dr. MacAfee continued to help Jeff, explaining that addiction is the loss of self, and that recovery is a transformative process where one recovers self. “Recovery offered Jeff the freedom to rediscover his identity and, in time, a real and authentic young man would emerge,” Cataldi writes.

On July 21, 2006, at age 28, Jeff quit using for good, and he now has more than three years of sobriety. He also reentered the professional world of public relations, and has been successfully working in the field ever since. “Today, Jeff acknowledges his past and strives for a better tomorrow,” Cataldi writes. “Today, he works—works at his job, works at his recovery, and works with his God.”

Today, their family is stronger than ever. “Jeremy has begun to break his long-held silence,” Cataldi writes, adding that Jeff and Jeremy visit each other and spend time together. “No matter what happens or what the future holds,” Jeremy told his mother, “Jeff and I are brothers…Jeff will always be my heart.”

While Cataldi spent countless hours over the years trying to find the source of Jeff’s addiction, trying to figure out why one of her sons was an addict and the other wasn’t, she now spends her time learning about how to support her son in his recovery. She firmly believes that families and people who love addicts need to say close to them, to give them patience, tolerance, and love.

Cataldi will never quit believing in Jeff, she’ll never quit praying or hoping for the best. She’ll always stay close.

These are families in crisis. Over the years, the addiction has damaged not only the addict but the family and friends who have dealt with the chaos the addict has created. Addiction tends to run in families, so the addict in crisis might not be the only one dealing with drug or alcohol issues. By the time the family seeks out an interventionist patterns of co-dependency and enabling have been cemented. This means that although some family members may feel committed to the intervention, the risk for unintentional sabotage of the process is high.

“They are fragmented people,” explains Jane Mintz, a licensed addiction intervention specialist who has come to be known as a specialist in handling very complex, potentially volatile interventions. “They have different opinions. The intervention is as much about the families as it is about the affected individual. They’re in as much crisis.”

One of the goals of the intervention process is to help families understand the difference between enabling the addict and a responsible relationship.

“The addict is the master of illusion. They will look for the family member who might buckle during the intervention and try to manipulate them. For that reason, it’s critical that all family members feel like part of the greater good. You can only do that by truly assessing and understanding the family. If you don’t do that, you could unknowingly become co-dependent with the family, putting yourself and them in danger,” says Jane Mintz.

Jane has a systemized way to get families to start to align. She starts by first assessing for immediacy and risk – is someone at imminent risk for hurting themselves or other people? The next step is to give the family an opportunity to talk about the situation so she can determine if it’s an appropriate case for her to handle.

Once that occurs, Jane conducts an in-person meeting or a conference call where all the family members can ask questions and talk about their experience. This helps her start to organize the intervention as she starts to hear their personalities and understand their relationship to the addict.

Once Jane has answered their questions, the family takes the time they need to make the decision to move forward. If the family decides to move forward, they fill out a pre-intervention worksheet. Jane also explains to them the rules of engagement. This sets out the appropriate behavior in the intervention to make it effective and prevent escalation during the encounter.

Once a date is set, Jane flies out to wherever the family is located. They hold a pre-intervention meeting, something like a rehearsal.

“I don’t think you can really rehearse. You can only prepare people and come up with a strategy. Once the intervention starts, it’s like live TV – it doesn’t necessarily go the way you expect it to go,” Jane explains.

In most of Jane’s cases, the client does decide to go to treatment. Her close rate is over 98 percent.

“I personally transport the client to treatment then I case manage them while they are in an organized treatment environment and beyond. I have families that I intervened on five years ago who occasionally still call me with questions,” Jane says.

Part of that case management is keeping families together, Jane explains. “The family is now the board of directors. People are misinformed if they it’s just about the addict in crisis. When the family starts to move in a different direction the addict panics, so it’s important for family members to stay aligned throughout the process so the addict cannot divide and conquer.”

The alignment the interventionist creates especially pays off during the first 10 days of treatment.

“The addict will kick up a lot of dust the first week in treatment,” Jane explains. “They’ve been put in the wrong place. They’re not that bad. A terrible mistake has been made. If they say, ‘The food was great, not sure I liked my pillow, but I think I’m fine now so I’m coming home,’ the aligned family can respond with a unified message: we will support you in recovery, but we will not support your addiction any longer.”

Jane also has the family write a bottom-line letter. The addict is not given this letter before he or she goes into treatment.

“Everyone who participated in the intervention signs the letter. It’s a document from the family saying where they stand, not as individuals but as a group,” Jane explains. “Everybody is bound because signing this letter is very powerful for them. No one wants to break the contract.”

The bottom-line letter is placed in a sealed envelope and kept in the admissions office at the treatment center. If the addict tries to leave treatment, the letter is unsealed.

“Intervention clients are quick to forget what happened in the intervention and why people intervened in the first place, so the bottom-line letter is about helping them understand what no really means to the family, what leaving really means,” Jane says.

The alignment of the family allows each individual to work with the whole toward the goal of recovery. It is critical when hiring an interventionist to ensure her or she has the training and skills that will enable them to align the family appropriately so that the intervention has the best possible chance of success.

Definition of Family

Family, in the context here, refers to a complex structure that includes the traditional nuclear family to single-parent families, stepfamilies, foster families and multigenerational families. In essence, however, anyone who provides support and financial resources, maintains the household, and with whom there is a strong and lasting emotional bond can be considered family.

Substance Abuse Is a Family Disease

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) treatment protocol for family substance abuse considers substance abuse as a family disease – because all members of the family are affected by the abuse of one or more members.

Substance abuse creates negative changes in an individual’s moods, how they behave, their relationships with other members of the family, and their physical or emotional health.

Numerous studies show that if one person in the family abuses alcohol or drugs, the remaining family members are at an increased risk of developing substance abuse problems. The most potent risk involves the parent who is a substance abuser.

How Substance Abuse Affects Different Family Members

In the family, the individual with the alcohol abuse problem becomes increasingly isolated from the rest of the family.

Alcohol abuse by one or more parents often has a detrimental effect on children in the family. The spouse of the alcoholic typically protects the children, as well as assumes the parental duties not being fulfilled by the other parent. When both parents are alcoholics, the children are more likely to suffer.

Special issues exist with blended families or stepfamilies since alcohol abuse intensifies problems and makes integration and stability difficult or impossible.

When an adolescent is the alcohol abuser in the family, other siblings may not have their needs and concerns met. Parents are so busy dealing with the alcohol- and/or drug-abusing adolescent that they ignore or minimize the needs of their other children. Many families where an adolescent abuses alcohol also have at least one parent who is also either an alcoholic or abuses alcohol and other substances. This can lead to a very dangerous combination of physical and emotional problems.

Even among older adults who abuse alcohol and have grown children, the entire family is affected.

Extended family members who know about and witness the substance abuse can experience feelings of concern, anger, anxiety, abandonment, embarrassment and guilt. They may also choose to cut off or ignore the person abusing alcohol – to the further detriment of the family.

Problems That Occur in Family Substance Abuse

Not every family with a member who abuses alcohol or other substances has the following problems, but the likelihood and potential exist for any or all of them. Such problems include:

• Potential for domestic violence increases – The alcohol abuser cannot control his or her emotions, and behavior may easily escalate into violence, often involving children.
• Child abuse or neglect – When one or both parents abuse alcohol, the potential for child abuse or neglect dramatically increases. Even if there is no physical abuse, the children may suffer malnutrition or not have their needs met due to the incapacity of the alcoholic parents to function normally.
• Loss of job due to extended absenses, decreased productivity, poor performance. With no income coming in from the major financial provider, the family suffers. Even if the substance abuser is a non-working spouse or child, there are often serious repercussions within the family.
• Alcohol use among children – Seeing one or more parents abusing alcohol, or another member of the family, may result in other children beginning to experiment with and subsequently abuse alcohol.
• Criminal activity – Arrests for misdemeanors or felonies can further jeopardize the safety and stability of the family of alcohol abusers. DUIs, manslaughter, felonious assault, burglary and other crimes are frequently a consequence of alcohol abuse.
• Strained relationships – Increasingly isolated, the alcohol abuser distances himself from others in the family, including spouse and children. Often, the substance abuser will not permit other family members to have friends, or limits contact by any means.
• Arguments increase – An escalation in the number and intensity of arguments occurs between the substance abuser and spouse and other family members. This often leads to domestic violence.
• Interaction with medication – Taking any medication can cause negative effects, as alcohol negatively interacts with more than 150 medications. These include common instances of a person taking antihistamines for a cold or allergy, or the pain reliever acetaminophen, who also drinks alcohol.
• Pregnant women – Women who are pregnant or trying to conceive should not drink alcohol, since alcohol can cause a numbr of birth defects. The most serious potential birth defect is fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Children born with alcohol-related birth defects may have behavior and learning problems that last their entire lives. FAS children have physical abnormalities, behavior problems and mental impairment.

Long-Term Health Problems in Alcoholics

Abuse of alcohol can seriously jeopardize the health of the individual – with resulting catastrophic financial and emotional costs to the rest of the family.

• Alcohol-related liver disorders – More than 2 million Americans suffer from liver diseases caused by alcoholism. These include cirrhosis of the liver, which cannot be cured, but can be arrested if the alcoholic stops drinking.
• Heart disease – The greatest risk is among men over the age of 45 and women who are post-menopause. Alcohol abuse also increases the risks for high blood pressure, heart disease and some types of stroke.
• Cancer – Certain forms of cancer are associated with alcoholism, especially cancers of the mouth, throat, voice box and esophagus. Women have an increased risk of breat cancer. All alcoholics have an increased risk of cancer of the colon and rectum.
• Pancreatitis – Inflammation of the pancreas is a condition associated with severe abdominal pain and weight loss, and can prove fatal.

What Can Be Done?

Families with substance abuse need treatment by professionals trained to deal with family substance ause. The issues are complex, and must involve the entire family. Not only does the individual with the substance abuse problem required treatment, but other family members also need help so that the ultimate goal of achieving and maintaining abstinence is realized. Such family treatment also provides a neutral forum where families can meet and solve their problems.

Issues that surface during treatment – and which must be dealt with – include those of blame, responsibility and statements such as “Who caused this to happen?” Alcohol abuse or dependence doesn’t begin in a vacuum. But families often tend to blame an individual for causing it, even if it isn’t the person with the alcohol abuse problem. Blame doesn’t solve anything and must be dealt with before family treatment can progress.

How To Find Treatment

For help finding treatment or to obtain information, contact Al-Anon Family Group Services at (888) 4AL-ANON or visit http://www.al-anon.alateen.org. This organization provides referrals to local Al-Anon groups, support groups for spouses and significant adults in an alcoholic’s life. They also make referrals to Alateen groups, which offer support to children of alcoholics. To request information that can be mailed to you, contact (800) 714-7498.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), (2312) 870-3400 or http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org provides referrals to local AA groups and information materials on the AA program. You can also check for local AA offices in your phone book or on the Internet.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), (800) NCA-CALL, can provide phone numbers of local NCADD affiliates where you will be able to obtain information on local treatment resources and educational materials on alcoholism. Their website is http://www.ncadd.org.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, (301) 443-3860, http://www.niaaa.nih.gov, offers free publications on all aspects of alcohol abuse and alcoholism.

Despite bountiful examples serving as evidence to the contrary, the American myth that wealth equals happiness lives on in the cultural mindset. Of course, financial security can contribute to a person’s sense of comfort and peace of mind.

Most would agree that being “comfortable,” in the sense of having all basic needs met without difficulty, can foster a deep sense of contentment. However, happiness soon becomes an unattainable ideal when it gets tied up with an insatiable desire for personal possessions and luxurious living. When you always want more, you’re never satisfied, and the dissatisfied are more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol.

One of the reasons why idolizing wealth can lead to problems with substance abuse and addiction is that those with addictive personalities are likely to be enticed by the race for financial gain. Making money can be addictive in its own right, offering rewards of temporary excitement—just as drugs do—that can only be matched with bigger and better gains. Wealth addiction is actually quite common among Americans, and it isn’t too surprising considering the priority that our society places on monetary gain. People prone to addictive behavior are led into wealth addiction by the cultural environment surrounding them, and when the promises of fulfillment don’t come to fruition, attempts to cope with the dissatisfaction open the door to other addictions.

Not all wealthy people earned their money through an addictive pursuit, however. Plenty of people with no history of addiction have made significant amounts of money while maintaining a healthy value system and balanced perspective. Then, there are those who became rich through non-addictive means but still struggle with addiction. For example, in cases of inheritance, where wealthy individuals didn’t really earn their money at all, there are high rates of abuse and addiction.

In an article from www.recoveryview.com, author Tian Dayton, Ph.D. outlines the unique difficulties that children from wealthy families face regarding personal identity, substance abuse, and addiction. The author explains that, from an early age, children of wealthy families have problems with identity. Their unusually high social status leads them to feel different from others. They may feel superior to others for having the wealth, or inferior for not having earned it—either way, they feel marginalized. They identify themselves with the money instead of building a well-rounded self-image that is based on complex interpersonal relationships.

Dayton also points out that people with a great deal of wealth can easily control their circumstances, and therefore their moods. They often have a sense of entitlement, accustomed to immediately having whatever they desire. At the same time, however, they may suffer from loneliness and have poor self-esteem. All of this combines to make them prime candidates for addiction. Alcohol or drugs are used to escape the pain brought on by a warped perspective, and the rich have no trouble getting more, whenever desired.

For wealthy people who struggle with addiction, getting well requires a shift in perspective. Wholeness should be sought in choices and experiences, rather than status or belongings. With counseling, medical help, and a sincere effort to maintain a healthy inner life, any addict can find true fulfillment by overcoming their addiction and redirecting their focus to nurturing the true needs and desires of their deeper selves.

Addiction is so prevalent in today’s society that you cannot pick up a magazine or newspaper without reading about a drug-related death or another celebrity’s trip to rehab. While no one can guarantee you that your loved ones will not be impacted by addiction, studies prove the best defense one can have in fighting this war is to be armed with as much information as possible – as early as possible.

We will take a look at the most common risk factors as well as protective factors and review early signs that can predict future drug abuse. By replacing risk factors with protective factors drug use can often be avoided.
What are the earliest signs of risk that can predict later drug addiction? There is a strong biological link that exists; children with familial history of addiction are at greater risk of becoming addicts themselves. Biology is NOT the only risk factor however; there are many others that can be identified and worked on.
Researchers agree that as early as infancy and toddler-hood some risk factors are present; lack of self-control, aggressive behavior and a difficult temperament may all be indicators. You may be thinking “All kids lack self-control and can be difficult at times”. This is true; however, when these behaviors become so serious that the child’s home, school and/or social life are impacted, the risk of drug use and/or addiction is much higher.

Because kids’ earliest interactions are with family members, family dynamics can contribute to rising risk factors for later addiction. Some of these situations include:

• A parent or caregiver who abuses drugs
• A lack of attachment between caregiver and child
• Parenting that is ineffective due to lack of consistent discipline and clear boundaries
On the flip-side, risk factors are significantly decreased in homes where:
• Parents are consistently involved in children’s lives
• Strong emotional and communication bonds exist between parents and children
• Consistent discipline combined with clear boundaries are in place

The family is not the only place where risk factors are at play; as children age, the number and severity of risk factors also increase, such as:

• *Associating with peers who abuse drugs
• Acting out in the classroom setting
• Poor social skills
• Failing grades

*Associating with other kids who abuse drugs is often the most immediate risk for exposing young people to addiction as well as anti-social behavior.

Availability of drugs in the community and an overall belief that drug abuse is okay (or at least tolerated) are other risks that influence adolescents to begin using/abusing drugs. If the parents in the home display a casual or accepting attitude toward drug use, studies show children are at least 10 times more likely to use drugs themselves. Drug use cannot be treated as “do as I say, not as I do”-it simply does not work.

Risk factors are increased during stressful times; these are important for the family to be aware of and include:

• Periods of major transition; divorce, separation and remarriage
• Moving from the security of the home into a school setting

It is during the middle school years (12-15) that most kids are likely to first encounter drugs

• High school is challenging for most of us; this includes learning how to interact with many new people and new situations

High school is also often the place where drugs are more widely used and readily available. So it is a “perfect storm” of sorts; kids who feel out of place and nervous are offered drugs to help them feel cool, calm and collected – at least for a little while.

• Children moving out on their own – to college or to begin work – are at the highest risk of drug abuse.

Clearly, this data reinforces the need for early intervention in the family, at school and in the community. Parents, who early on, speak to their kids about drugs, monitor their activities and maintain open communication, are less likely to have kids who move on to drug abuse.

Schools that value and reward academic achievements, teach self-control and drug refusing skills while helping children to cope in different social situations can also greatly reduce the risk factors. Since dropping out of school is one of the biggest risk factors for young people, it is imperative that parents and schools work steadfastly to keep kids engaged in the learning process.

Communities that offer drug prevention programs are very helpful and often able to help ‘nip the problem in the bud’. Studies reveal that programs that coordinate prevention efforts across settings (through school, work, religious surroundings and the media) are the most successful.

We have all heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child”. This is perhaps nowhere more relevant than in the case of identifying risk factors and working to prevent drug use and addiction.