Addicted parents, addicted children
Brad and Lucy see nothing wrong with smoking marijuana and occasionally ‘chasing the dragon’ around their four-year-old son. But how much do they risk turning their only child into a junkie?
Crack baby dolls.
“Crack babies” was a term often thrown around in the media in the late-80s that referred to infants who were born to cocaine-sniffing mothers. It was discovered that these babies had great difficulty in absorbing input from their surroundings, resulting in ‘slow’ learning… even by the age of twenty-four months. They were left behind in almost all areas of child development, and frequently, had to undergo special training.
Crack babies call themselves stupid. Yet subsequent research seems to indicate that these babies were only affected in ways similar to that of other drugs consumed during pregnancy such as tobacco and alcohol. Apparently, there is little difference in the damage caused by smoking versus the damage caused by snorting coke.
The danger, then, is not really in being born to addicted parents. It’s in growing up with addicted parents.
What they don’t know will hurt them
Brad and Lucy (not their real names) are a couple with very modern ideas. They only son, Shaun, just turned four. But they are not married, civil or otherwise. Their fundamental principles on child upbringing differ considerably from conventional tradition… particularly with regards to their rules of exposure.
“As long as Shaun does not know exactly what it is we are doing, it is no different from smoking or having a beer while watching television,” says Lucy. “Besides, it’s only a little pot — what harm did that ever do?”
Of course, a young child who cannot tell right from wrong will obviously not be able to tell a cigarette from LSD. But the difference in the addictive qualities between smoking and narcotics is clear. According to Chris Sekar, Substance Abuse Counselor at Gleneagles Intan Behavioural Counselling Centre in Kuala Lumpur, cigarettes are not socially dysfunctional, but more of a health hazard. Drugs are a different kettle of fish altogether.
“Nonetheless, a large percent of drug users start off with cigarettes,” he cautions.
He’s right: there never was a drug abuser who did not start off smoking. When you don’t know what’s good for you – or don’t care – smoking can easily give way to heavier stuff, usually marijuana. After that come the pills. Then, when nothing ‘buzzes’ you anymore, comes the heroin.
The same goes with alcohol, candy and sex. Habits lead to dependency, and dependency is just another word for addiction. It does not really matter what is being consumed, but how it is consumed. A substance addiction in a household — any substance — invariably results in children who are easily addicted.
There is a fine, grey line between addiction and habit. Many people do not realise when they cross it. Shaun’s dad, Brad, does not think they have, and therefore believes that rather than setting a bad example for Shaun, they are demonstrating self-control.
“The trick is to make sure that you’re always in the driver’s seat — not the other way around,” says Brad hotly. “All you need is to make sure that you do it in moderation. One joint a day, one trip a week. No more. That’s what we are teaching Shaun.”
The trouble is, children often don’t learn the lessons we expect them to, do they? Up until age five, you tell your child your opinions and hear them echoed back to you as their own. But after that, everything you teach them is coloured by their own perception of the world. Your once-a-day rule may not be a good enough disincentive for them to try to do it twice a day… you know, just to see if they have more self-control than you.
Children synthesise instructions according to their own prejudices. But that doesn’t mean they stop learning.
Learning, always learning
Because the rituals between their families and those of their friends are so different, children of dope-consuming parents quickly learn how their home lives differ from those of their friends. An average family dinner at the home of Brad and Lucy, for instance, is often followed by what they call “a fat joint” — while his parents get stoned, Shaun plays with his Spiderman action-figure. By contrast, his best-friend’s family has dinner, settles down to watch a sitcom and has ice-cream as a nightcap.
“Children are not naïve,” warns Chris. “By the age of seven to ten, most children with dope-addicted mothers or fathers will already have a good idea that their parents are somewhat ‘different’ from their schoolmates’.”
Contrary to what Brad and Lucy think, Chris believes that the probability of Shaun growing up to become a substance abuser is significantly higher than for normal children because the social learning theory and role-modelling of his parents is so different from his friends.
“The informative years are crucial,” says Chris. “Where clear principles and boundaries are shattered, the child is exposed to confusion. Parents who use drugs indicate to the children that their parental priority is drug use.”
Children are told every day that drugs are bad by school teachers, the government and the media. Seeing their own parents take drugs will naturally confuse them.
“How do you think this would affect them?” warns Chris. “Their sense of worth and self esteem will naturally deteriorate. Drugs will provide an escape to comfortably numb the realities.”However, Lucy remains adamant that there’s nothing wrong in using marijuana or a little cocaine as a lifestyle drug.
“Sooner or later, Shaun is going to be confronted with the prospect of drugs,” she contends. “Isn’t it better that we teach him moderation now, rather than he pick it up later and possibly do it without our knowledge?”
The notion that it may be best to not teach him anything about drugs at all does not seem to occur to her.
Of course, Brad and Lucy do not actively tutor Shaun in the art of getting stoned. But then Chris thinks that Shaun may not need to actively participate in the ritual in order to accustom himself to the act anyway.
“Cigarettes, for example, are more harmful to the non-smoker because the exhaled fumes are more toxic,” explains Chris. “Conversely, ‘chasing the dragon’ (heroin) in a child’s presence in a poorly ventilated room can induce addiction.”
Theoretically, child could become so used to getting high in his living room that he starts to crave for it… even more than for his PlayStation.
But that’s not the bad news. The bad news is that it is going to be much harder for the child to quit than it is for his parents, because the way he first formed the habit means that it is very deeply ingrained and will not break easily.
“The children of these (drug consuming) parents will certainly have a harder time kicking the habit than addicts who acquire it through society,” says Chris Sekar. “Boundaries on relationships have been broken. The child would have witnessed drug abuse in its various forms. There is a lot of shame and guilt to cope with, and he has to rewrite his script and skills to live life on life’s terms. ‘Instead of giving me protection, you gave me your addiction’ is a lingering pain,” Chris explains.
Denial
Being a drug addict is no fun, as many an addict will testify. It gnaws away your pockets first, then later, your life. Bit by bit, it picks your very existence apart, until you want nothing more than to know where your next ‘hit’ is going to come from.
Brad and Lucy are not at the stage where the drugs have taken control of their lives… yet. But the same could be said about a dozen other bad habits that children are exposed to during their adolescence and early youth — smoking, drinking and eating candy excessively all start off as fun… until the habit starts to control you.
That’s the way it is with addiction — you think you can control it, and in the beginning, you succeed. But in time, as your body becomes dependent upon the stuff, you lose control. And you never see it coming; you’re never aware of it. It just happens. One day you wake up and find that you have crossed that fine, grey line. By then, it’s too late — you’re an addict.
Although Brad and Lucy seem confident that they can teach Shaun to tell the difference between excessive substance use and controlled substance use, there is no way they can be sure. Shaun may well learn something different: escapism, self-deception and the pure pleasure of getting ‘high’. In any case, his idea of family dinners will always involve marijuana afterwards, and his childhood memories of Sunday afternoons will always have a round of “chasing the dragon”.
Unless he forms new ideas of what is ‘normal’ family time, Shaun will one day watch his own son play video games while he keeps a date with Lucy in the sky… with diamonds. How frequently he dates her, of course, remains to be seen.
That’s a risk Brad and Lucy either cannot see, or don’t want to see.
Naturally, it’s too early to tell. After all, Shaun is only four. But addiction is a slippery slope, aye, and once you’ve slipped, few find their way back up.
I’ve been smoking since I was twelve, and I never thought that I’d be doing it this long. How did I start?
Well, to begin with, both my parents were smokers.
One can only hope that little Shaun is stronger than I.
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