Once their children have recovered, parents report:

“I don’t feel I have to worry about him anymore.”
“It’s great to have my own child back again.”
“She’s better than she’s ever been.”
“It was like a death and now he has a second chance.”
“As much as my son changed, I’ve changed more.”

These parents were all optimistic, yet the scorecard of achievement for treatment programs is mixed. Some studies that have looked at results show that the longer treatment lasts, the better the chance of success. There is also the grim reality, according to Dr. Ingrid Lantner, a pioneer in the field who looked at the studies as well as her own cases, that “no matter what kind of treatment is given, the success rate is about 50 percent.” It’s important to understand, though, that statistics have nothing to do with individuals, and your child has as good a chance of being among those who recover as among those who don’t. Hope is a powerful medicine that should not be discounted.

What seems like success to one parent may seem like a compromise to another. Sometimes you have to settle for less than the dream. Looking back after seven years, one mother in a parents’ group said, “I used to think that if my kid stopped, then life would go on as if nothing had happened. But my definition of success has changed. I’m not going to have a son who graduates from college. If I’m very lucky, I’ll have a son who won’t ever be what he might have been, but he’ll be healthy.” She adds, “There was a long period of reconciliation to get here—it’s really hard to give up your dreams for your child even if they’re not the child’s dream.”

Sometimes the goal of a drug-free life is not achieved, yet the youngster is able to live a better life. The daughter of divorced parents was so alienated in the family that she are alone in her room and had her own Christmas tree there. She hardly spoke to her mother and chose to spend most of her time with her father. She was on LSD, Quaaludes, and marijuana when she saw a therapist because she couldn’t recover from a “bad trip.” She was fifteen years old. After outpatient treatment, she finished high school, got into college, then dropped out. She is now nineteen, working, and, says her therapist, “comparatively drug-free. She uses a little pot.”

The same therapist encouraged a girl who had been using marijuana as medication for depression to “use me instead of pot.” Here, too, treatment results were mixed but encouraging. The sixteen-year-old, who asked for treatment herself, went from being “the most depressed child the school had ever seen” and someone who associated wit ha delinquent gang to someone who traveled with an “artsy” crowd. With the help of tutoring, her grades went up and her self-concept shifted from “I’m stupid and delinquent” to “I’m creative and different.” Her drug use dropped dramatically. The therapist suggested that her parents think of her as “an eccentric relative,” and everyone is now comfortable with her new image. As she matures, chances are much better than they might have been that she will go on to be completely drug-free.