The episode eight years ago that finally convinced Carol Journagan that only a radical intervention could save her son remains vivid in her mind: 16-year-old Bo sitting in the family’s driveway, swaying from side to side. Journagan walked out to him and asked, “What are you doing, Bo?”

“Waiting for a ride,” Bo murmured, staring blankly. He was as far gone as his mother had ever seen him, and she had seen a great deal over the previous two years.

This was the moment Journagan, a mother of two in Blue Springs, Mo., knew she needed to send Bo for treatment. Not for another two- or three-week stint in rehab—those only seemed to help him recover for his next bender, prompting the whole sickening spiral to begin again. In fact, in his last stretch in short-term rehab, he had met someone who could supply him with even harder drugs.

That night, Journagan called the Rocky Mountain Academy, a therapeutic boarding school in Idaho for troubled teens. She asked the school to send escorts for Bo. “I realized then that the problem was beyond me, and I was finally playing my ace in the hole,” she remembers. “I guess when the pain exceeds the level of denial, action takes place.”

Parents of all social classes awake in a cold sweat from these kinds of nightmares. A once-cherubic child has developed a substance abuse problem, and the family must intervene before it is too late. The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that teenage drug use has been rising consistently in the past few decades. In one recent study, 26 percent of high school seniors, 23 percent of sophomores and 13 percent of eighth-graders reported using illegal drugs in the previous month.

Prosperous parents want to give their children the best, but providing too much, too soon, too easily is one factor in developing a substance abuse problem.

Our affluent teens are at even greater risk. Having access to a large amount of disposable income increases the chances they will experiment with drugs, possibly leading to addiction. “Having money in your pocket is a predictor of drug use,” says John Hamilton, senior vice president of LMG Programs, a substance abuse network in Connecticut. Binge drinking and cocaine use are more prevalent in affluent communities, he adds, recounting a saying in addiction treatment circles: “Cocaine is God’s way of saying you have too much money.”

The typical child tries alcohol for the first time at the tender age of 11. He tries marijuana a year later. Children in affluent families are far more likely not to stop at experimentation. A 2003 study by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that teenagers who are highly stressed, frequently bored and have copious amounts of spending money are at roughly triple the risk of other teens for developing a substance abuse problem.