My son, the junkie

At first we tried to argue Seth out of his behavior. It was too costly a rebellion, we pleaded. The stakes were too high. Or was it more than rebellion? Was he self-medicating for depression, trying to find a remedy for his insomnia? When reasoning didn't work, when our empathy was pushed aside, we tried setting ever stricter limits on his behavior. If he couldn't be talked out of using, maybe we could establish enough control over what he did and who he saw to end his drug use that way. We searched out help. In addition to community service he performed as a result of the court case, Seth went to counseling and attended occasional AA meetings, and the whole family participated in therapy sessions. Our daughter, 12, and our younger son, 9, didn't say much, but our presence there, all together, made me hopeful. We were doing something and we were doing it together.

But Seth was not drawn in. He went through the motions of getting help but never seemed to feel the problem was as serious as we thought it was. He continued to use drugs and to lie about it. The worst was when he blamed us for his drug use, saying the inflexibility of our rules had forced him into experimentation. Though the therapist didn't buy into this -- "Did they hold your head back and force the pills down your throat?" -- the question of responsibility haunted us. Had we been too strict, or too lenient? Not present enough, or too involved? Was there a time when something we could have done differently might have changed the course of his life?

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"You can't go through my drawers!" Seth hisses, the skin on his cheekbones flushing.

"I can go through your drawers if that's where you're hiding drugs," I say.

He is taller than I am, and stronger. He stands in front of the door, blocking my way out.

"I'm going to my room," I say. "There is nothing more to discuss right now."

"Oh. Yes. There. Is."

His voice, low and even, sounds like a parody of menace, a gangster in some third-rate movie. But it's not a parody, and I feel the threat.

Now we're fighting over whether I can walk away from danger. Trying not to cry, I ask him to let me by.

As I retreat to my room, he kicks the radiator. "If I can't keep drugs in my room," he cries, "can I keep them in the car?"

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Although Seth was bright enough, and manipulative enough, to function quite well, occasionally the world caught up with him: Friends became distant, he lost his position on the school paper. When he won a scholarship to travel to Tunisia for a summer, we told him he couldn't go unless he stayed completely out of trouble. When he was sent home from the newspaper drunk, we made him call and decline the scholarship. But he finished high school a semester early and was accepted early decision into Harvard. College seemed to offer the hope of a fresh start, a place where he would have new friends and challenges. Maybe this would be what he needed, we told ourselves, to get back on track.

When he was living away from home, we tried to believe his drug use was under control. College, though, brought its own pressures, as well as the opportunities afforded by less parental supervision. By Thanksgiving of his sophomore year, he told us he was entering an inpatient treatment program for drug abuse. I wish we had been more surprised.

We brought Seth to the hospital and stayed with him while he filled out the intake forms, in triplicate. We stayed while they unzipped and emptied every compartment in his blue backpack, checking for drugs, and we stayed while the intern took his medical history. We left as he launched into a laundry list of drugs he'd taken.

The night outside was clear and cold, a perfect fall night, the sky opening out to display a fanfare of stars. We had answered the doctors' questions, and now we would go home and celebrate with our families, gathered for the holiday. Before we got to the car, we stopped on a hill above the parking lot. We held each other and cried.

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Seth wants to wear his cowboy outfit to the first day of kindergarten. "The cowboy clothes are for dress-up," I explain. "You're supposed to wear your own clothes to school."

But he is adamant, won't take off the plaid flannel shirt, the fringed chaps, the wide-brimmed hat. I don't want him to be late for the first day of school.

"OK," I say, "but just today," and he gets up from the floor where he has been staging his strike and starts to buckle on his holster with the two plastic guns.

"No," I say. "You can't take the holster."

"But I need it," he says. "I've never been to school before."

Next Page: Wouldn't you be anxious if you were using heroin?

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