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| Feature |
Essential Interventions
Janet Allon
11/01/2004
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Alice assumed Daniel was depressed. An alert teacher proposed he was
doing drugs. A psychiatrist who met with Daniel said it was both, and
recommended that Alice have Daniel educationally tested. So Alice consulted with
Maxym, who advised that Daniel be removed from an environment that was becoming
increasingly corrosive. “Sometimes, kids from wealthy and protected backgrounds
get involved with drug culture because it seems thrilling,” Maxym says. “Before
too long, they get far enough along in the food chain that they get tangled up
with some pretty bad people.”
Alice recalls discovering that Daniel was
stealing money. “He was involved with people with guns. I was convinced I had to
get him out of the community.”
Because she knew her son would not go
willingly, she hired two escorts to take him to a wilderness program, where he
could flush the drugs from his system and begin the process of rebalancing his
life. His regimen included living outside under a tarp, making fires and working
with a psychologist and in group therapy. His mother was allowed to contact him
only through letters. When the wilderness program ended, she found another
school, this one in Texas, run by recovering alcoholics. “It’s very basic, but
academically rigorous,” explains Alice, who can visit him once each month. “It’s
not what I had in mind for my son. I wanted to send him somewhere with ivy. But
he’s a changed kid now. The last time I saw him, tears were streaming down his
face. He was saying, ‘I was so scared. I was so lost. I was completely
trapped.’”
Although she realizes that Daniel will never again live at home,
Alice feels certain that she saved his life.
Many will attest to the success
of these emotional-growth programs. It worked for Bo. Now 24 and a sound
engineer at a nightclub in New York, he freely admits that he works in an
industry where drugs are easily available. As a teenager, he would ingest any
mind- or mood-altering substance that came his way, during a phase when he
recalls wanting to “fight the system, do drugs and play my music.” Today drugs
hold no allure for him. “I hate the feeling of being out of control,” he
explains. He also realizes that if he wants to succeed in his field, he must
maintain a clear head.
Bo confesses that he was shocked when his parents sent
him away, but today he is proud that he finished the program. Without
intervention, he guesses he would be in jail. His best friend from his
drug-addled days is incarcerated. “I feel a lot more emotionally stable now,” Bo
acknowledges. “Now when I feel sad, I know that it’s OK to feel that way. It’s a
human emotion.”
Illustration by Mark Yankus.
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