A child's drug problem often tears their family asunder

JAKARTA (JP): Mornings are painful reminders. It is the time when Lili, not her real name, used to see off her three children to school.

Evenings are the same. Photographs of a healthy, smiling Romi (not his real name), 16, makes her feel no better. Every morning, she visits her son at Medika Ananda, a hospital on Jl. Raya Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta.

Some mornings, he whispers in her ear, asking for the drugs she confiscated from him when he was at Suryalaya, Tasikmalaya in West Java, where he was undergoing spiritual strengthening in place of medical treatment for drug addiction.

"It was just getting worse. The midnight religious baths were not helping. I didn't know what else to do," Lili, 44, said.

"I took his drugs and promised to give them back if he accompanied me to Jakarta. He did."

Lili was one of the 200 parents who attended a seminar on narcotics here last month.

She said her son would even shoot up heroin in front of her. "God knows why he did it in front of me, he used to heat the putauw (low-grade heroin) on tin foil, then inject it," Lili told The Jakarta Post.

"He is 16 you know. When he was high, (he) would walk buck naked in front of me. Now, he scratches boils on his face until they bleed, bloodies his fingers and licks them."

Another parent, Santi, also seemed emotionally broken. She said her first husband died after seven months of marriage, and she later married a military man who had seven children from a previous marriage.

"I was busy raising them for 11 years, I forgot my own four. The girls grew up fine, but the boy...," revealed Santi, not her real name.

"He has sold at least three cars, my jewelry and up until now, four cell phones have been stolen," Santi said about her 18-year- old son who is heavily into drugs.

"I sold off some property as well for his medication. He is OK now but I am scared to death of his getting back into it."

Sari (not her real name), a public figure whose child is undergoing therapeutic counseling at the Pengasih center, Malaysia, braved the forum and shared her experience of parenting such a child.

"The best counseling drug addicts can get is from ex-addicts, which is why I sent my 18 year old to Pengasih," she said.

"Ex-drug-abusers-turned-counselors know best what our children are going through."

She said that young addicts were to be dealt with using "tough love."

"Promising them drugs and actually giving them after listening to their pleas is no help. You've got to be tough," she said.

An expert on drug abuse with 20 years experience, Syarif Hamid, explained that parents, with the best of intentions, sometimes put off acting.

"I have known kids, with the strongest of wills, vowing never to touch drugs again, and then changing their minds in as little as 15 minutes," Syarif said.

"Parents should not provide the drugs, however much the child may plead, promise or beg."

Then again, drug abusers have been known to do more. Take Fadilan, a drug-abuser-turned-counselor.

"At one point, I almost killed my mother because she did not want to give me money to buy drugs," Fadilan said.

"My mom called the police herself and had me jailed. It was the best thing she could have done."

After 10 years of drug abuse, Fadilan turned to therapeutic treatment. Today, he has spent seven years counseling drug users.

"I have stayed off drugs for nine years now. It's a day-to-day thing (getting on with life). Taking drugs sometimes still crosses my mind."

Sari mentioned that not blaming oneself and accepting the child's problem were paramount.

"The child should know one thing; you are not the enemy. You are the parent and you are there to help, no matter what the consequences," she said.

In the case of mother Suryani, however, she blamed God. The mother of three said that she just could not believe God would "do this to her".

"When I was pregnant with my son, I told God to give me a child that would make me proud. How this boy came out of me, I don't know," Suryani, not her real name, said. Due to his drug problems, her son was expelled from Bandung's University of Parahyangan.

"First, he asked for more pocket money than usual... then his siblings told me of his problem. I did not believe them," she said.

"The time came when he came up to me and told me himself that he was taking drugs. I did not believe him. He injected himself in front of me. Then I believed."

Syarif said that blaming God or a child who was going through a serious problem was wrong.

"How can you help if you condemn him? Don't condemn. Provide him with immediate medical help." (ylt)