Support prevention coalitions in your community, get involve, seek information and educate yourself on the effects and harms of alcohol and drug abuse, open the lines of communication with your children.
You are the teacher with the strongest influence because of the special parent-child bond. You spend more time with your child than any single teacher. Much of what you teach is...
This Sunday is Mother's Day and I will be putting roses on my young son's grave instead of him bringing me roses. The repeat drunk driving offender that killed my son was 30 years old and had been drinking alcohol since he was 14 years old. I will always wonder if the drunk driver could have read this "Draw the Line," would it have helped? I think so, and will continue to support this...
As an addictions counselor, I of course applaud all the efforts to bring honesty and attention to the abuse of alcohol in this country, in this state, in my town, into any home. The children do as they see; not as they hear. As a past board member of Citizens Against Substance Abuse in Flagstaff, I've heard the Coconino County Sheriff and the Flagstaff Police Chief state more than once that...
22 years ago when I returned to teaching after Detox-Rehab, I was determined to use my reinstated sober honesty and AA knowledge to guide high schoolers, when necessary, in the sneaky pitfalls of alcoholism.
In those early 12 step days, I wasn’t qualified to sponsor or counsel, but hoped I could steer them down appropriate avenues of awareness and professional help.
I never...
Is the party scene as great as people talk it up to be? For me it was, or at least I thought it was. On weekends, you could find me partying, just kicking back having fun. In May 2007, I took the greatest risk I had ever taken. The weekend of May 25th my mom went out of town and left my older sister in charge, who incidentally decided to spend the night at her boyfriend's house leaving all...
I have two boys ages 13 and 15. Their father, my ex-husband, and most of his family were and are alcoholics. We divorced when they were 1 and 4. It was difficult for them to understand why their father was not a part of their lives as much as they would have liked. He would tell them he had to work a lot, and that he could not see them because of work. I did the best I could not to sugar-coat...
A 16-year-old Sahuarita High School student and three friends decided to take a risk, and as a result the lives of many people were shattered.
The group snuck off campus to go eat after taking an assessment test. Although the high school, like most others in this era, had a closed-campus policy, the girls decided to flirt with rebellion. Unfortunately, the driver was killed and all...
It’s hard to put all the words together to describe the feeling you get when the phone rings you out of deep sleep at 5 in the morning. Calls that come then are never good news, and this one didn’t disappoint that predilection.
“Hey, Mom… can I talk to you a minute…?”
“Huh, what? Sure, son. What’s up?”
Now fully awake, I realize this isn’t going to be a “normal” phone call...
My 17 (soon-to-be-18) year-old niece jubilantly informed me this month that one of her roommates in college is 21 years old. I took the bait and asked why this would be such an important issue to her. Because, she stated, she can legally buy alcohol. Why should this matter, I retorted, when you won’t be drinking it anyway, and then I launched into my litany of reasons not to engage in drinking...
I was born and raised in a very non-traditional part of the country for Mexican-Americans—Kansas. But it was home and there were others who looked like me and were surviving in similarly poor conditions. The street in front of our house was dirt, just like our yard, except for the occasional patch of crabgrass.
In a two-bedroom house for a family of six with two girls and two boys, we...