Alex, 15, gets bad grades and tries to understand his mom’s mood swings.
Elizabeth, 13, is being raised by her grandmother because her parents and other relatives fight so often. She finds solace with friends who could best be described as bad influences.
Ben, 14, is on probation for assault and battery. He sometimes smokes marijuana but says he’s not into drugs. And he’s tried to kill himself.
Two months ago, Alex, Elizabeth and Ben didn’t know one another. But they had one important thing in common: Their parents are substance abusers. Now they sit in a room with a counselor at Eastfield Ming Quong in Campbell, Calif., talking about the sadness, anger and chaos in their lives. Deeply affected by their parents’ chemical dependency, the teens have gone through phases of acting out, low self-esteem and social withdrawal. Forced to grow up too fast, they have developed protective shells and an attitude.
Take Ben, who says he got into trouble when he tried to break up a fight at school. After explaining his side of the story — “I didn’t start the fight, I wasn’t even fighting myself” — he admits to a counselor that he does occasionally smoke pot, but he doesn’t consider it addiction or abuse.
“I don’t do any of the hard stuff,” Ben says.
But experts say that children like Ben who have been raised in families with parents hooked on drugs or alcohol are likely to get hooked themselves sooner or later. Often, it’s a pattern perpetuated by grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles who are or have been addicted as well.
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“There is a very strong correlation between kids using drugs and their parents using drugs,” says Rosalinda Rodriguez, coordinator for the Substance Abuse Prevention program at Alum Rock Counseling Center in San Jose, Calif., which treats adolescents who have been caught using or selling drugs. “Kids often start (experimenting with drugs) to better understand what their parents are doing.”
Generational substance addiction has become widespread enough that counselors say they now specifically ask about family usage to determine a pattern and intervene before the problem is passed down to the youngest family members.
“In the last few years, it’s come to the forefront,” says Bob Porter, who heads the mental health division of Santa Clara County’s Children’s Shelter, where many kids wind up when parents have been arrested for drug infractions.
“There are a significant number of kids who come to us because they are dealing with parents who have substance-abuse problems,” adds Robert Garner, director of the county’s department of Alcohol and Drug Services. Those numbers, though, are not officially kept, he says, because “it’s not a stand-alone issue and overlaps into many areas.”
Experts estimate that 60 to 75 percent of the teens and young adults who abuse drugs and alcohol have parents who also are abusers.
“When kids see a parent use substances to cope with life’s challenges, it is a model for the child to follow,” says Anastasia Horn, clinical director of the Children’s Place in Redwood City, Calif. The center treats children between 4 and 13 years old.
The teens who come to the Eastfield Ming Quong “Kids Are Special” sessions are usually sent there by the county or by teachers, probation officers, relatives and others who intervened when they saw the kids slipping into a lifestyle that had them marching down the same path as their parents, says Lolita Garcia, a counselor and a family specialist with the program.
“It’s really crucial — critical even — to get kids into a program where they get support and are with other children going through what they are,” says Garcia. “They need to understand the terminology of co-dependency and that their situation is not their fault. Kids tend to isolate themselves, and that’s when they turn to drugs.”
Teens who have lived through a childhood marred by parental substance abuse sometimes end up in places such as the Bill Wilson Center, a counseling center and shelter in Santa Clara for runaways and homeless youths. Of the 320 young people who stayed at the shelter last year, almost 75 percent came from homes with parents who had substance abuse problems, says Sparky Harlan, the center’s director.
“We don’t know if it’s increasing because shelters are just now getting around to asking upfront, `Do you have a mom or dad who abuses drugs?’ And we didn’t specifically ask before,” she explains. “What we see too often is that the kids’ problems come about because a family member is disrupting the home.”
Statistically, experts say, the children of parents who abuse drugs are at a higher risk to do the same. It could be the environment they’re raised in, but there is also strong genetic evidence that addiction is a biological trait.