If I had been able to foretell the future six months ago, I would have been shocked at the prediction. Circumstances and decisions made have altered my lifestyle to such an extent that it's hardly recognizable. For the past four months I have had virtually all my freedom removed, for the best of reasons: my daughter's life is in the process of being saved.

On Nov. 14th I received a call at the office from my 15-year old daughter. She had been living on the streets for five days after getting kicked out of her friend's home where she had lived for several weeks. She called not to plead with me to let her come home, but to demand that I get the police off her trail. After close to an hour, I was able to get her location and had a co-worker alert the police. They arrived five minutes before I did, and after going through paperwork at the station, I drove her to Straight, Inc., a local drug rehabilitation center.

The difference in techniques at Straight and past things we have tried is that my husband, my son and I are being forced to look at our character defects and weaknesses at the same time she is being confronted with hers. Change is scary, but if you are doing something year after year that causes yourself and others pain, you must CHANGE to stop!  My daughter is on the first phase of a five phase program similar to AA's 12-step program. This reclaiming of life will, no doubt, take a while, but it took years to get her to the hell she perceived. Drug use is a disease of the feelings -- it is chronic and it is lethal.

One of the hardest things to admit as a parent is that you have no control over your child. You have tried everything to get through to that tough little knot-head with no luck. Give up!  You can't force someone to care, or think, or be a better person, no matter how much you love them. They have to want this for themselves. You must concentrate your efforts on your own strengths and weaknesses.

If you have a child who is skipping school, sleeps constantly, complains about bright lights, snacks a lot one minute and has no appetite the next, disrupts the family with a bad attitude, forgets personal hygiene and drops old friends for new weird ones -- take the blinders off!  Put that kid (remember how sweet s/he was when s/he was little?) somewhere safe and LONG-TERM. Thirty-day treatment centers only teach them how to be better druggies, not sober and clean.

It's no disgrace to have a druggie kid. It's a damn shame to have one and not expedite recovery!  Call me if you need a shoulder . . . mine is getting stronger all the time.