Counseling helps parents struggling with pain

It is the nightmare every parent dreads. The suspicion, the discovery, the denials. And finally the truth:

Your child is doing drugs. Perhaps smoking marijuana. Snorting cocaine. Popping LSD onto the tongue. Inhaling line after line of methamphetamines.

Doing stuff that leaves him stoned. Or crazy. Or up all night. And the next night. And the night after that.

So you get help. For your child. And for yourself.

On any given weeknight, you'll find parents gathered at various treatment centers around town. Often, they'll meet with their kids, then split into separate discussion groups. Parents only.

There are no secrets here - and little danger of shock. After all, everyone here is shuffling through the same purgatory. And groping for answers.

Tonight, 10 parents and one grandfather form the parents' group at PACT/Providence, which offers outpatient drug abuse counseling to teens and their parents.

Leading the discussion is counselor Wendy Pipentacos, who asks what puzzles them the most:

``At what point did your kids change? How does it happen?''

``I know when it happened with Ernesto,'' says his mother, Mary. ``At 11, he got drunk. He liked it. Then he got into marijuana.''

``With Samuel, it was his freshman year,'' says his mother, Janet. ``He couldn't do the work. He started failing. He changed friends.''

``When I lost him was middle school,'' says John, a newcomer to the group.

``I started getting phone calls. He was leaving campus, jumping the fence, smoking pot. At first I couldn't believe it. I confronted him. He denied it. I believed him.''

But the deceit and the drugging continued.

What hurts this father the most is that his son has a promising future.

``Ever since he was little, teachers and coaches have told me to stay with him. He could go to college.''

Last semester, Daniel, John's son, played football on his high school's freshman squad. There was even talk that he was good enough to play varsity next fall.

``When he's doing sports, he does real well,'' says John. ``But when sports are over, he falls over the edge.''

By Christmas, Daniel had toppled again. A school psychologist got him to admit that it was pot - and that he wanted help. John, whose insurance covers counseling, enrolled him in the PACT program.

Just days before he entered the program, Daniel was suspended for 10 days from school for smoking marijuana.

John carries the guilt.

``I blame myself,'' he says. ``When I was younger, I used pot. My kids saw it. I thought they wouldn't do it if they saw me do it. But they did.''

John no longer smokes pot. And he is determined that drugs won't snare Daniel.

Two weeks earlier, John quit one of two jobs he was pulling down to spend more time at home.

``I'm not going to let him fail,'' he says, softly.

``Perfect child'' tumbles

``My daughter was the perfect child,'' says Kim, a single mom. ``She was perfect till she hit puberty. Then it was strap on your seat belt and hang on.''

For two months, Kim and her daughter, Sherri, 15, have been coming to The Mark, Youth and Family Care Campus, which offers substance-abuse counseling to youth and their families.

``My daughter did not want to come here. She resented it. But she had no choice. She was facing domestic-violence charges,'' says Kim, who filed the charges in January, not long after Sherri had agreed to seek help.

``She was screaming, throwing stuff around. I think it was because she was coming off the drugs,'' says Kim, who hauls out a litany of drug abuse that began at 13: marijuana, alcohol, crystal meth, Ecstacy, crack cocaine, acid.

Besides the drugs, Sherri was running away, often for weeks at a time.

It was worse when she came home, says Kim, reeling off the curse words that she says her daughter regularly threw at her.

It was also hard on Sherri's younger brother. ``He used to say, `Why did she have to come home?' '' says Kim. ``I felt the same.''

Last January, Sherri ran away again. ``I got a phone call in the middle of the night,'' says Kim. The call was from a counselor at the Pathway Drug Abuse Program.

``He told me my daughter had talked to him. He told me, `She wants to get sober. She wants help.' ''

The next day, Kim and Sherri met with the counselor. Both agreed to go through the program at Pathway. A week later, Sherri became so violent at home that Kim had her arrested.

``She spent two or three days at juvenile hall, and I took three days off to fight for insurance coverage,'' says Kim. ``My work did cover substance abuse, but they were not contracted with anyone. Everyone was passing the buck.''

Finally, Kim got the coverage, and the two started at The Mark, in addition to their counseling at Pathway.

Today, Sherri is enrolled at Genesis High School, a charter school that recently opened for recovering teen addicts. ``Her last two drug tests have come back clean,'' says Kim. ``I'm pleased.''

And her daughter has cleaned up her vocabulary. ``We can talk now,'' says Kim. ``But it's still only about the superficial issues.''

Warning signs

The warning signs were all there. ``She started ditching school, started failing. She got a harder look with her hair and makeup. And she was wearing gang colors.''

But it wasn't until Sandra went home sick from work that she realized how far her daughter had fallen.

``I went by the school. She wasn't there. They told me she hadn't been there in 12 days. I had no idea.''

Sandra started looking. ``I was going up and down the alleys. I even talked to the gas man checking meters.''

Then she saw her daughter and called her name. ``She bolted from me. That's when I realized I had no control. It scared me badly.''

A divorcée who has since remarried, Sandra sent Lee home to her father in New Mexico. ``Four months later, she called me, begging to come home.''

It was not a happy homecoming.

``She was still doing drugs, still with the gangs, still ditching, still getting all F's,'' says Sandra.

``At one point, I quit my job for two months just to sit on her. I was like the warden. But when I went to sleep at night, she'd sneak out.''

Despite her dismal school record, Lee was socially passed to the ninth grade, says Sandra.

The hard look got even harder. She started stealing from home.

Then Lee began stealing on the outside. ``Within three months, she caught four charges from TPD (Tucson Police Department),'' says Sandra.

``I've never had a traffic ticket. And all of a sudden I have to go to court and deal with probation. It was a level I never knew.''

By January of '97, Sandra had had it with Lee. ``I called her father. She went to live with him for 11 months.''

But unbeknown to Sandra, Lee was using crystal meth - supplied, says Sandra, by relatives in New Mexico.

After Lee got in a fight with those same relatives, Sandra picked her up last November. Her weight had plummeted from 140 pounds to 92. ``She was basically dying,'' says Sandra.

Sandra, who has insurance, called Palo Verde Psychiatric Hospital, which referred her to The Mark.

Mother and daughter started the program on Dec. 17. ``At first, I was hesitant,'' says Sandra. ``But my daughter loves it.''

Things were steadily improving - up until the last week in February. ``My daughter went off the deep end,'' says Sandra. ``She met an old friend. Now we're back to square one.''

Still, Sandra has faith.

``I think she's doing marijuana again, but not crystal meth. That's the one thing I can hold onto. I think she can come back.''

She also has some advice for other parents out there entrapped in the same nightmare:

``You have to give your children unconditional love. Because no matter how bad they mess up, they need to know they can come to you and say, `I need your help.' ''