Only You Can Save Your Kids

Dr. Reznicek is a clinical psychiatrist who offers radical advice for parents who want to keep their teens away from drugs: take complete control of your child's life. He says parents have all the tools they need to keep kids drug-free: clear expectations, close supervision, home drug-testing and swift consequences for drug use. He is a harsh critic of the disease model of substance abuse and drug rehab, which he says enables drug use. Rehab teaches teens that drug abuse is a brain disease and that quitting is so complicated it requires trained experts. Neither is true. The disease model also makes parents think they are inadequate for the job. This is an iconoclastic, thought-provoking 9600-word essay that will unsettle anyone who thinks the medical profession holds the keys to solving the drug problem. It is full of common sense and hope-it shows that real help for teens is much closer to home, and much less complicated than many think.