Successful case studies of just such people are provided plus advice on working through addictions, recovering a positive view of life, and dealing with the relapses that addicts often encounter. For the audience Kettelhack has delineated and the many addicted people considering becoming un-addicted, this book is helpful. Adolescent drug abuse and chemical dependency can happen to any teenager, whatever their drug education, economic level, neighborhood, school, or church attendance. It can happen whether parents are married or divorced and regardless of how much they know about effective parenting. Adolescents are aware of potential dangers when they use drugs or binge on alcohol, but they think they are invincible and will escape the dangers.
Parents are often the last to know about their children's involvement with alcohol or drugs.
Chemical abusers do whatever they can to conceal their use. Families can rationalize the behaviors, particularly in adolescence, as being caused by something other than chemicals. Very few who actually recover from substance addictions do it by attending meetings, entering treatment centers, or getting counseling. The vast majority who look into Alcoholics Anonymous reject it out of hand because of its apparent religiosity and inbred social traditions. As they leave, they are warned that they will inevitably fail to remain abstinent and discover that, even if they abstain from alcohol and drugs, their lives will is hollow and barren without the saving grace of the 12-step experience.