Recent years show a substance abuse epidemic so widespread that media reports are still alarming.
More people are using dangerous hard drugs like crack, speed, and heroin, and at a younger age. Like thousands of others, my daughter Laurie's lifetime anxiety made her more vulnerable to chemical dependence. People with a history of major depression or anxiety disorder seem to have double the risk of the average population for chemical dependency. Chemical abuse rates causing non-functioning and trouble are more than fifty percent in young chronically ill mental patients. It involves a severe inability to function, suggesting that the disturbance is not only in the relationship between the person and society, and that the difficulties are not temporary or passing.