DRUGS AND YOUR TEEN

AuthorHouse

Contents

Preface: A Letter from Michael Lotterstein..........................xvIntroduction: What It's All About...................................xviiChapter 1: Who's Who................................................1Chapter 2: Understanding the Problem................................13Chapter 3: The Keys to Detection....................................51Chapter 4: Drugs of Abuse, Part I...................................75Chapter 5: Drugs of Abuse, Part II..................................123Chapter 6: Adolescents, Drugs, and the Internet.....................143Chapter 7: Testing..................................................191Chapter 8: Home Base................................................225Chapter 9: Resources and Workplace Testing..........................267Chapter 10: Prevention and Summary..................................277Appendix............................................................295Endnotes............................................................337Glossary............................................................339Index...............................................................345Works Cited.........................................................351Bibliography........................................................357

Chapter One

The Authors' Stories

Dr. Gianni DeVincenti Hayes's Story

I'm Gianni, and I'm a victim of a drunk driver.

When I was in college, I did something stupid. I went to a party with the fellow I had been dating for about five months. Had I not also been drinking—a guilt that took me a long time to admit—I would have known he was too drunk to drive. I got into the passenger's seat and turned around to talk to the couple in the backseat. My life changed in those few seconds. My date passed out at the wheel, hitting a telephone pole and then a school building. I went flying into the windshield at the same time as the engine came up through the floorboards, so part of me was splattered in the windshield, while half of me was pinned by the engine. Recently, I had my fifteenth facial reconstructive surgery, and there are more planned. I have many plates and wires in the right side of my face, some loss of vision and damaged mouth nerves, and I have suffered for years with aching joints and muscles.

I will never look the way God originally intended me to appear. Daily, when I wake and look in the mirror, I am reminded of that fateful day many years ago. I live a life of self-consciousness and seldom get my picture taken; I usually only do so if I can digitally fix it. As I age, I lose more bone mass in areas that received the most trauma: my face, my arm, and my hip. There is little more any surgeon can do to undo what the driver—and I—did that warm, starlit night a week before graduation. I never saw the driver again.

I wanted to do something to help parents, as well as people whose businesses could be lost as a result of employee alcohol and drug use. Hence, I started my company, American Drug Testing Consultants, to help fight our addiction problem.

Several years ago, I decided to share my story with students, to let them know that mistakes can happen and that we are all vulnerable, even when we are young and think we are immortal. I spoke to schools and MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) groups. I compensated for my scars by spending years studying, earning four degrees, and becoming an author, international speaker, and professor. In this capacity, I saw students in my classrooms stoned from drugs and reeking of alcohol; often they would nod off in class because of drug use.

Combine all this with two car accidents I witnessed where all the passengers in one car (all drunk or high) died, and another accident in which the teenage driver (also under the influence of drugs) was killed right in front of my home, and you have some insight into why I have taken on this project.

I believe our young people need to be made aware of the serious consequences of alcohol and drug use and abuse. And I believe it all starts with the parents. We must keep tomorrow's leaders drug free. Together, you and I can make this happen.

Dr. Gianni DeVincenti Hayes

Michael J. Talley's Story

I own a company called Drug Test Consultants of PA. I was part of the corporate world for most of my career. That was necessary for me to provide for my three daughters. As my girls grew into their teenage years, they all developed in different directions. The youngest was always busy, and that led me to believe she was doing well. It was not until December 23 of her senior year that the truth came out. I was called in to her high school by the guidance counselor and principal, and they told me that they had found ten packets of heroin in her locker. One of her friends had reported her to the principal. The police were notified. She was expelled from school, only five months away from graduating. When I realized that my daughter was doing drugs, I felt as if I'd been hit with a shovel. Knowing nothing of rehab/detox centers, I just went to the phone book and checked her into a local rehab center for five days of detox for heroin. This was December 24. This world of drugs and rehabilitation was new to me, and I thought she would be "cured" after five days in detox. That was eleven years ago, and it marked the start of our experiences with relapses, detox centers, rehab institutions, halfway houses, police problems, auto accidents, and, finally, a transitional house. Recently she started methadone treatments. This minimizes her drug cravings, while it levels off her highs and lows and her personality and mood swings. We finally had time to work on the real reason she had started using drugs. When a teenager uses drugs, their maturation process is delayed. If they become addicted at an early age, their priorities become distorted, and, instead of concentrating on the normal sequence of life, they only think of how to procure their next high.

I have seen several of my daughter's friends die from overdoses. These teens get their drugs in places that would scare most adults. While my daughter was in her five-day detox, I went to the place in Philadelphia where she bought her drugs: an open-air market where all kinds of people came to get their "drug of choice." The buyers ranged from young teenagers to adults in expensive cars. Drug addiction is definitely the great equalizer. All these people had been reduced to a common level due to their addiction. That was my first trip to the depths of that particular netherworld. You can't imagine my level of hate and disgust for the people who introduced my daughter to that life. Once your child enters that world, it becomes a part of your life forever. It is a constant battle for sanity and sobriety.

I started this business to try to educate parents on the signs of drug use, as well as teach them what to do if they find out their child is a user. Unfortunately, children get involved in alcohol/drug use at ages as young as eleven and twelve—even younger, in some cases. Parents need to understand that the drug world is very real, and they really need to discuss drugs and drinking with their children. Children whose parents talk to them...