PARENTS' DRUG ABUSE TAKES TOLL ON CHILDREN

ASHEVILLE -- Elizabeth Wilson became acquainted with substance abuse
early in life. Alcoholism runs rampant in her family, she says. She
left home when she was 14, pregnant and alone.

Wilson married when she was 18, happy a man would have her even
though she was an unwed mother.

Within a few weeks, she discovered she had married a man who would
drink heavily and abuse her.

Advertisement "You would think that I would have known better than to
start drinking myself," says Wilson, now 60 and sober 16 years. "But
I did." Wilson had five sons in 10 years and lost one to crib death
when he was 3 months old. She tried to prosecute her husband for
beating her, but the courts at the time didn't send husbands to jail
for beating their wives. Fearing for her life, Wilson hopped on a bus
and fled to California, where she worked as a housekeeper in hotels.

It would take three years for her to get her children back. By then
she had begun to ease her emotional pain with alcohol. "My boys used
to tell me I was an alcoholic, and I would tell them that there were
a lot worse things I could be," she says. "I was a functional
alcoholic, but it did have an effect on my ability to parent.

Of course it did. I misspent a lot of time. I should have taken them fishing.

They were facing the same problems I was, and they needed me to be
there more than I was. ... In the end they were taking care of me."
In fact, substance abuse is a major factor in child abuse and
neglect, says Donna Beck of the Buncombe County Department of Social
Services. Many parents who abuse drugs and alcohol can't keep it
together even as well as Wilson did.

"It's a huge factor in what we do," Beck says. "About 70 percent of
all (child abuse and neglect) cases we deal with at DSS involve
substance abuse." Nearly half of the children taken into custody are
from homes where substance abuse is taking place.

One drug that has experienced alarming growth is methamphetamine. In
1999, nine meth labs were confirmed in North Carolina; in 2003, 177
were confirmed, Beck says.

And, according to a report to be released Nov. 18 by Children First
of Buncombe County, 322 methamphetamine labs were broken up in the
state in 2004; 23 were in Buncombe County.

Children are found in about one-third of those labs, according to the
report, "State of the Children in Buncombe County." From a medical
standpoint, Dr. Susan Mims said she believes alcohol or drugs are a
factor in more than half of child deaths and perhaps as many as 80
percent. Mims is a pediatrician and internist, medical director of
the Buncombe County Health Center and a member of the Buncombe County
Child Fatality Task force, which investigates every child death. "We
don't even know the long-term effects being in one of these labs has
on children," Mims says.

What is known is that substance abuse touches on many aspects of a
child's life, Mims says. It is a factor in poverty when parents spend
their money on drugs or alcohol; it is a factor in neglect when
parents don't supervise young children properly.

"The younger the child, the higher the risk of injury," Mims said.
Much of the problem, child advocates say, is that parents who are
substance abusers tend to focus on the thing with which they're most
enamored: the alcohol or drug.

"By the time they grow to hate the substance because of what it's
doing to their lives, they're addicted," Beck says. "Their focus is
on getting and using and not on meeting their children's emotional
needs -- and too often, their physical needs." "If you're using, it's
likely having an effect on your ability to parent," says Patrice
Wishon, a licensed clinical social worker with Perinatal Health
Partners in Asheville, a program of the Partnership for a Drug-Free
North Carolina. "It's hard to say exactly what effect it will have on
any given family, Wishon says. "But even if DSS doesn't come and take
your child, there will be some effect on your ability to parent."
Wilson says she always made sure her children were fed and clothed,
that they attended school and that their homework was done. "I was a
drill sergeant of a parent," she says. "And my house was always
clean. I always went to work -- but I was a barmaid, which served my
purpose well. ... I never got a DUI, although I should have, so it
was easy to deny I had a problem." Wilson never expected to live to
age 60, she says. She thought she would be dead from an accident or
disease brought on by her lifestyle.

She credits her recovery to her faith in God.

Today, Wilson is helping raise four grandchildren -- three girls ages
13, 12 and 10, and an 11-year-old boy. She cares for them after
school and is imparting the wisdom learned from hard experience.

"I'm a much better grandparent than I was a parent," she says. "Every
day is a gift from God."

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PARENT'S DRUG USE CAN HURT CHILDREN BEFORE THEY ARE BORN

Even before becoming a parent, a woman can do damage to her child by
using alcohol or drugs -- including nicotine.

Alcohol can cause fetal alcohol syndrome, which is characterized by
abnormal facial features, growth retardation and central nervous
system problems.

It can occur if a woman drinks alcohol during pregnancy, and no one
knows how much -- or how little -- a woman must drink before it harms
her child, says Patrice Wishon, a licensed clinical social worker
with Perinatal Health Partners in Asheville, a program of the
Partnership for a Drug-Free North Carolina. Children with the
syndrome may have physical disabilities and problems with learning,
memory, attention, problem solving, and social/behavioral problems.
Tobacco use is associated with low birth-weight and pre-term birth.
"Nicotine is one of the biggest frogs in the puddle," Wishon says.
"Studies show women who use tobacco have smaller babies and it's in
direct proportion to the number of cigarettes a mother smokes." Women
who use other drugs also put their babies at risk, says Dr. Susan
Mims, medical director of the Buncombe County Health Center.
"Substance abuse is associated with pre-term delivery," she says.
"Cocaine constricts the blood vessels so the baby doesn't get as much
oxygen. Anything you take in, you're giving to your baby."