Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 57, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 16, 1987 Page: 21 of 48
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APR FINANCING
$237?,?.
• V-6 Automatic
• Titt & Cruise
•Air Conditioning
•AM/FM Cassette
• Red With Grey C'otn
PER MO
$11,995.00
•Dessert Sand Cloth
•Power Steering
• AM/FM Stereo
•Automatic
•Air Conditioning
•4 Door
•Yet'ow Beige
PER MO
$9,552.00
$178??.
*9.368.00
•2 Door
•Hatchback
•Light Blue
•Automatic
•Blue Cloth
•Air Conditioning
$165?.?
PER MO
$8,794.00
•3 To Choose From
BERETTA
CAVALIER
NOVA
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TUI KSI> AY M l.V Iti. Itttt"
LIVING
THE POIJK COUNTY ENTERPRISE,
■PAGE 1C
Our children can fall prey to drug-pushing preditors
Dianna Campbell
The Folks Around Us
As ;t parent I am concerned about
the tJrttfc; and alcohol problem that
surtourid.s us I am convinced we no
longer can hide from it and pretend
we are safe from it's terrible effects
W<* live in a free country and would
riot allow a dictatorship to control
our lives yet we allow those that
would control our minds with mind
impairing drugs rule the way we and
our children live.
Had someone said that to me last
week, I may have taken offense. To
day f know that f am guilty of ig-
norance. Unless I find out all I can
about chemical dependartcy, 1 am
sending rriv son to face these
ravage!': of children’s minds and
bodies without the neccessary ar-
mor to defend himself.
! att ruled a Parents Against
Drugs” meeting the other night and
how very real the problem
here m Livingston.
I have agreed not to mention
,v name because of the pro-
guaranteed anonymity for
toe nog to gain support one
fiom another, but I would like to
relate - eou dc of stories, and for the
.Mike et i let iy will use ficticious
names
One teen's name is Brad. He is one
of our own Livingston kids and his
parents worked hard to establish a
standard of living that should have
made each member of their family
comfortable. Yet, he began ex-
perimenting with drugs as a young
teenager. It wasn’t difficult to get,
and at first the changes were so sub-
tle that his parents who were not
educated in the symptoms of drug
usage did not notice.
However, after a while they began
to notice changes in behavior, ap-
pearance. friends, and attitude
towar: ills own family. Eventually,
he had all but destroyed their family
because they had to wraD their lives
AS LOW AS
maJizeC
a nyonc
gram's
those g
around his just to get girt through the
flay, fie only performed acts that
took no exertion; watching televi-
sion, etc. fie began to disregard
curfews and eventually coming
home at night at all.
This was getting harder and
harder to believe for his parents
because this shouldn’t happen to
people who had tried so hard to give
their child the things they had given
him.
One morning, his mother woke up
and decided she was going to do
something THAT DAY, not tomor-
row or next week when she had time
.She sought out the Palmer Drug
Abuse Program iri Lufkin and
started on the slow road back to
recovery for their son and sanity for
the family.
They have had to be stronger than
they ever thought possible by prac-
ticing tough love" and making
Brad responsible for his own ac-
tions The hardest thing to ac-
complish was to stop blaming
themselves or others for his addic-
tion.
fie still slips back and forth but his
family as a result of this program
can now function the way they feel a
family should and no longer feel
guilty for his problems
She and the others would like to
help those suspecting their child of
indulging in drugs or alcohol and
a nd give them the support they need
and help them find the answers they
are seeking.
Bob Meehan,founder of Palmer
Drug Abuse Program said The
'get-high' society they live in tells
kids that using drugs is “cool”, that
it is accepted behavior. And so
y oung people want to experiment for
themselves."
He said, “If your child hasn't tried
drugs yet, that’s great. Rat even if
you have a solid wall m your home
forbidding drugs, the yellow brick
road to drug use begias as soon as
your child walks out the door. Many
young people, out of curiosity or
peer pressure, will take a stroll
down that road."
He also stated that the solution
and the prevention of a drug pro-
blem begins with you, the parents. If
you find your child has been ex-
perimenting with or abusing drugs,
you masn’t trap yourself into feeling
guilty or helpless. You must take ac-
tion that will help your child TO-
DAY He said, If your child was
bleeding to death, you wouldn’t run
off and take a course on first aid.
You’d stop the bleeding.”
Another woman, I’ll call her Ann,
was raised in an alcohol dependency
atmosphere. Her father drank every
day of his life and as a result finally
lost everything for his family. She
was the oldest child and took on the
responsibility of filling the gap for
the things her mother could not do.
Her father eventually became
violent arid had to be hospitalized
several times. While in the hospital,
he received almost as much alcohol
as he did on the outside (from the
orderlies to keep him quiet). The
doctors gave him d nigs to keep him
under control. When the insurance
money would run out they put him
back on the street arid within four
days, he would resume ail of his old
habits.
Much later she found out that she
and her mother were what is called
co-dependents. They covered up for
him and helped him out of scrapes
time and time again, therefore en-
couraging him and not making him
responsible for his own actions. Co-
dependents fail into two groups:
persecuter and rescuer. Both equal-
ly fan" the flames. Both give the
alcoholic an excuse for his actions,
one because he says he can’t stand
the constant criticism of his drinking
so he drinks more, the other because
his spouse or “caretaker” makes it
too easy for him and removes all in-
centive for quitting.
After .18 years of marriage, her
mother finally divorced him, but on-
ly after she literally feared for her
life. Ann says her mother has no idea
to this day that slit: had any part, in
her husbands devastation.
Ann married a man who drank
and became an alcoholic. She had
never been taught to take care of
herself, only for others. She con-
tinued in the role she had as a girl.
When Ann divorced her husband,
their daughter was 13 and began pit-
ting one against the other. Her hus-
band gave the daughter all the
money she wanted and therefore
supported the habit she was beginn-
ing with drugs. She began skipping
school and hanging out on the
streets. She was a mother’s
nightmare. At 15 the Houston school
she attended kicked her out for
truancy. She kept going back and
they kept kicking her out.
Ann said when her daughter was
12 and 13, she thought the giddiness
was just childish behavior. She
herself had been raised in a
disfunctional” (non-
communicating) family setting so
she did not easily spot the abnormal
behavior until it was too late to pre-
vent the serious problems.
When Ann’s daughter was a
freshman in high school, they
discovered FDAP and now she is a
recovered drug addict who works
with others to help them return to a
normal life.
She says the idea of "tough love”
is to love your child spouse friend
enough to risk them hating you.
See Group pg. 4C
YEARBOOK STAFF - Members of the Big
Sandy Yearbook staff who attended the
Walsworth Publishing Company Texas
Workshop in Austin on July 8-11 were (1-r)
April Seward, Stacey Hendrix, Danae King,
and Carolyn Capuano (sponsor).
Students attend Austin workshop
BIG SANDY - Dedicated to pro-
ducing the best possible yearbook
for their school this year, members
of the Big Sandy Yearbook staff,
Danae King, April Seward, and
Stacey Hendrix, accompanied by
their sponsor Carolyn Capuano, took
four days out of their summer vaca-
tion ori July 8-11 to attend trie
Walsworth Publishing Company
Texas Workshop in Austin,
These students became subjects to
a rigorous schedule each day, begin-
ning at 7:15 a.m. ending in the late
evening, when all assignments were
completed and turned in.
Ail aspects of yearbook production
were covered, such as theme
development, section development,
headlines, copywriting, graphic
design, etc
King attended the photography
sessions during the workshop and
won the Best Photography Award
given in the closing session on Satur-
day. The staff as a whole came out
on top in receiving an award for Best
Section Development out of all the
schools represented there
Capuano stated, “The students
returned home excited about ail they
had Seamed and are ready to put
together another great yearbook for
1988 ”
T
School SuppliesClothes,
You Can Read About It All.
•4 Dow
•OarK Blue
•Blue Oath
•Automatic
•Air Conditioning
•l»wr Windows
•Rw» Ooor Locks
•AM FM Cassette
$222°J.
PER MO
$11,335.00* • *
I** !•*» v«,neiiiti to Ortwin i.ww, -nm tm »• timmi .m w> hwwm m *»'» *
V *4 PLANTATION
BACK TO
SCHOOL
SECTION
Coming August 9th
In The
Polk County Enterprise
ADVERTISERS:
Be Sure To Reach Your
Customers in This Section.
Call Our Ad Dept. Today 327-4357.
Deadline Is July 30.
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White, Barbara. Polk County Enterprise (Livingston, Tex.), Vol. 105, No. 57, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 16, 1987, newspaper, July 16, 1987; Livingston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth810770/m1/21/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Livingston Municipal Library.