Justin is my only child and when he was just a baby his dad and I divorced so I raised him on my own. I was cognitive of the fact that Justin carried hurt feelings about his dad not participating much in his life and I would try to reassure him by reminding

Blowing bubbles in February 1983, 3 years old.

him that his Daddy loved him very much but was just a busy man.

I tried to be both a mother and father to my son. I could put a worm on a fishing line and I played football and baseball with him in the backyard. I gave him rules and structure -- as he grew older I imposed curfews and made sure I knew all his friends. I was probably overprotective and more indulgent than I should have been at times. Still, like all of us parents, I took my role very seriously wanting him to grow up to be a fine, upstanding young man.

I was very involved in all aspects of his life: PTO president, on the school board, soccer mom, Cub Scout mom, etc. We went to church on Sundays and said our prayers at night. I adored being Justin’s mom.

I went back to work when Justin was around 14 years old. I shudder a bit when I realized that from 2:30 until 6:00 p.m. he was by himself. It is rather ironic that just when our kids hit such fragile and vulnerable ages as teens we tend to think

Easter 1981 - 1.5 years old

it is safe to go back to work.

Around this time I did notice a change in him, “Good Justin” became “Sullen Justin,” if not downright “Surly Justin.” I was concerned. He never had behavioral problems at school but he was starting to be lippy and disrespectful to me. Soon enough, his grades started to drop. I would sit around a large conference table with his teachers and counselors trying to figure out the reason for his lack of motivation.

Once I said to them, "Do you think he could be using pot or something like that?" In unison they all said, "No, not good Justin! He has discovered girls and is socializing more; this is normal behavior for he is a teenager." I felt meagerly consoled wanting desperately to trust their "educated and wise" input.

Well his grades never improved and I had this terrible uneasy feeling, a sense of foreboding. Something was wrong -- terribly wrong. And God gives us that intuition as a gift so

Looking thoughtful at age 20.

when you feel something is amiss in your home with your kid, trust this for it is. Please act on this gut instinct and investigate further.

In my way I did, I got Justin a therapist that he saw weekly to address the grades and the mood swings. Justin and I had always been extremely close but we were arguing a lot now and there was much screaming and yelling going on in my house. Frankly it was a “house of horrors” and I was beside myself with feeling powerless, distraught and hopeless. My world was crumbling as I knew it. But at this time I did not fully "get it" – I was still in denial and disbelief.

 When he was 16, Justin threatened suicide; he said he had no reason to live. By nightfall I had Justin in a psychiatric hospital, touted as one of the top ten in the country. He was there 10 days, and went through tons of evaluations, assessments, psychological and personality tests. Through the mire of paperwork I came across this: "Patient states

Stopping to smell the Roses. May 1984, 3 years old.

he has experimented with drugs... alcohol, pot, acid, PCP, ecstasy, cocaine."

I was shocked. How could I be so stupid? I spoke to the shrink about it and he said that Justin was not dependent on any of these substances, but had just tried them on occasion. The root problem was not substance abuse but major depression and he had been trying to self-medicate. The doctors put him on antidepressants and said this would help.

Years later, Justin revealed to me that while he was at this hospital his friends from home -- who were allowed to visit – would bring him heroin that he would shoot up in the bathroom every night. All those doctors that counseled him never noticed. And all those expensive, in-depth evaluations done on him were done under the influence of a drug.

I went to family meetings while he was there and saw all these good-looking kids who were in the hospital with him. Their parents, like me, were in anguish; concerned and confused as to how to

6 years old.

help their precious children. I noticed the boys were all either having truancy issues, behavioral problems, or even trouble with the law and the girls were cutters, bulimics and anorexics. The girls took their pain out on themselves and the boys on the rest of the world. I was horrified and wondered what was going wrong. Why were there so many children in such pain?

Now Justin was seeing a therapist, shrink and family counselor on a weekly basis. Soon we had our first encounter with the police. Justin got arrested for breaking into a car. Justin was put on probation and had to wear an ankle bracelet. It was at this point when things when further downhill.  I came home from work and went to put the TV on and it wasn't there. Jewelry disappeared

The soccer star in August 1986.

-- credit cards and checks too. I never considered calling the police on him for stealing from me then either; it was a family problem.
 
I was desperate and tapped my phone lines and listened to conversations that Justin had with his friends. I discovered they were all going into the city to buy heroin. It blew me away. My knees buckled and if felt like bricks crushing me in the face.

Judge Doyle, who leads our Drug Court here in Kane County, IL, calls St. Charles "Ground Zero" for the heroin outbreak that is plaguing our community. My son and all those kids on that tapped phone line were that very first group in 1997. Many of those boys are now dead from overdoses. Justin has personally known over 30 kids who have died from drugs.

I confronted Justin about what I had learned and he admitted that he was using and said he was relieved I’d found out. He shared all that he had been doing, said he tried heroin at a party in St. Charles and the first

By the pool in Miami, 1986. (6 years old)

time he was instantly addicted. His habit was up to $300 to $400 a day, and he was shooting it up with a needle. He vowed he would never use again and I believed him.

The next morning, though, Justin could not keep his promise. When addiction strikes, the whole family becomes diseased -- and I was as sick as Justin. I was desperate to fix, rescue and control. Sometimes in anger he would punch a hole in the wall and I would get out the spackle, repair that wall, sand it down, repaint it and hang the picture back up. Then, in my distorted thinking, I would feel better." It was my way of controlling a very out-of-control situation.

Denial is part of the illness and probably the one symptom that is most dangerous for all concerned. And parents are not the only ones that can fall into this deathly trap. Whole communities can – school boards, public officials, the medical community, and even our churches. Truth is the only way to overcome this epidemic.

I used

The 7-year-old fisherman.

to sleep with my wallet under my pillow and my car keys in my underwear. I took my purse with me when I went to the bathroom and carried the land line phones with me to work. It was a nightmare way to live and I was in despair.

Justin went out one night and never came home. He overdosed and almost died -- one of five life-threatening overdoses he has since had. After picking him up from the ER that first time, all they did was hand me a Narcotics Anonymous meeting brochure that I should take him to.

I put him in in-patient treatment. This rehab was in Minnesota and they said his detox was 14 days long -- one of the worst they had ever seen. This was due not only to heroin withdrawal but also from the Vicodin that his psychiatrist had prescribed to take the cravings away. From there he went to a six-month halfway house only to use again the second he got home.

From that first treatment center his dad and I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to save

A cute sailor -- August 1988, 8 years old.

our kid's life with more rehabs –twenty in all, across this nation. And still he continued to spiral down in his addiction.

Finally I got strong and pressed charges against my son and got him arrested. Because of my “tough love” he stood before Judge Doyle and got accepted into his Drug Court. He was taken off to jail and frankly I never slept so sound. He was safe and could not get a hold of any drugs. I believe that if it wasn’t for this program my son would be dead by now. Even within the Drug Court System Justin relapsed a few times. Last year he was in the Critical Care Unit fighting for his life for eight long days and then he developed a severe pneumonia that took many more hospital stays and months to heal.

Our Lives Today

Justin is now 24 years old. He has been clean and sober for seven months and doing very well in a Sober Living House in New Haven, CT.

Throughout this disaster

September 1991, 11 years old.

I began going to a support group where I met other parents just like me. We bonded in a profound ways and through this got healthier and stronger. We formed a prayer group to pray the Prodigals home and soon, “Hearts of Hope or the MOM Squad evolved from that fellowship. We established business meetings knowing that in the midst of this epidemic we could not remain silent any longer. Now we have a website, a newsletter and we speak out loudly about this plight that is trying to take down our children.

This battle is huge so I am appealing to all of you to step up. Don't live in complacency and think this could not happen to your children, because it could. It is prevalent and all our kids are at risk. If we stand united and stay committed we can overcome this evil attack and come out victorious with solid resolutions and solutions to this problem. Most importantly, we never give up hope for our children -- or the power

September 1991 - with puppy 11 years old.

of the human spirit to overcome.

They say it takes parents on average around 24 months to discover that their child is on drugs (if they are).  Once they find out this fact, the kid is so ingrained with the "using" life style, dependence and behaviors, making the cycle of addiction that much harder to halt.  Time is of the essence.

When Justin my son was 16 yrs. old, his grades went down, he was moody and sullen. I consulted his teachers, took him to a counselor, then a shrink.  None of these "experts" thought Justin was doing drugs and told me he was fine, just maybe suffering from a mild case of depression -- having normal teen-age angst. They put him on an anti-depressant. My gut was screaming that something more was going on.  I got so desperate to find out what it was that I tapped my phone lines.  In one day I heard it all and sadly got my answer. Justin was using heroin on a daily basis and had been for about a year.  The professionals

Handsome at age 15.

had no clue even after all the expensive and extensive evaluations and counseling sessions. It took my instincts to go into overdrive to help him.

Had I not taken such drastic measure, who knows how long this could have gone on? Kids are clever and can hide their behaviors well, we as parents have to be that much keener. 

I tell the parents I counsel in Hearts of Hope when they first come to the support groups to get geared up to go into battle.  You have become a Warrior on behalf of your child. And this is war. We must use all the strategies, weaponry and cunning we can muster up. 

Note: This is an ongoing, intensive effort at survival for Justin and Lea, requiring steady support and understanding.