Pubdate: Sat, 04 Aug 2001
Source: The Herald-Sun (NC)
Copyright: 2001 The Herald-Sun
Contact:  http://www.herald-sun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1428
Author: Lashawnda Price, The (Jacksonville) Daily News

LIFELONG STRUGGLE FOR THOSE BORN ADDICTED

JACKSONVILLE -- Her children have grown up and have had children of their 
own. Yet Ethel Faulk's worries didn't stop when she hugged her youngest 
goodbye, and sent her off into the world.

They seemed to begin all over again with her sister's conception of her 
niece-to-be -- a would-be celebration if it wasn't a conception by a mother 
addicted to cocaine and alcohol, bearing a baby that would yearn for those 
same drugs.

Now Faulk's worries are not about the baby, but about the young woman that 
baby has become.

"I feel that it is terrible because it's more than one life that's being 
destroyed," says Faulk who lives in Jacksonville. "If a woman wants to have 
a baby she should care enough about the baby -- the life inside her -- to 
change. When my sister told me that she was pregnant, I went to her and 
begged her to have an abortion. But she wouldn't have one because she 
thought it would change her life (for the better)."

Her sister's mistake would lead to many more, and a life for her child that 
she never anticipated.

"(My niece) was sexually abused as a baby," Faulk says. "A woman molested 
her and the state was going to take her away and I came and got her. I was 
in and out of her life at that time. But both parents were drug addicts. 
... Her mother would take her with her while she was turning tricks. You 
see these movies where people will give their babies up in exchange for 
drugs. That's not fake, it's true and it's sad, and she still remembers that."

Deb Young, a certified clinical addictions specialist at the Family 
Recovery Center in Greensboro, said accounts like Faulk's are very real and 
all too common among addicts.

"A cocaine-addicted mother has the added disadvantage of using a drug that 
actually interferes with the physiology of maternal instinct," said Young. 
"No other drug has this kind of impact on what is very natural to most 
women: the strong desire to bond with and care for a child. It is maternal 
instinct that allows a mother to put aside her own physical and emotional 
needs for the sake of her children.

"Cocaine-addicted mothers have an extremely diminished capacity to put 
their children first," said Young.

Now at the age of 19, Faulk's niece is beginning to emerge from the 
physical and mental difficulties she's grappled with since birth.

"She recognizes that something is wrong and that's why she goes to 
counseling," Faulk says. "In school she was always getting in trouble, 
getting suspended or kicked off the bus. She didn't start calming down 
until 10th or 11th grade. That's when she started counseling. She worked 
really hard to graduate and I'm really proud of her."

Graduating can be difficult for anyone, but especially for a child born 
addicted to drugs.

"One thing that I did notice was her learning ability," Faulk says. "She 
graduated from high school with a reading level of 2.6. As a baby, she 
cried for hours. Her learning ability was slow. She repeated kindergarten 
because she wasn't retaining information. She repeated kindergarten and 
first grade until they started pushing her through. I went to the principal 
and I went to the director of the school board. I had her report card, and 
she was failing everything. I said, 'why are you promoting her when she has 
F's in everything?' He said she was too big to be held back.

"They were pushing her through classes in the third grade, giving her 
homework and she couldn't even read it. It was in the third grade that I 
started seeking help for her and getting her in a mental education program."

Young said some school systems are doing a better job of identifying 
children like Faulk's niece and providing them with the help they need. 
"There are, however, professionals who continue to moralize addictive 
disease and see it as 'hopeless,"' said Young. "Kids who pick up on these 
attitudes towards addiction take it home with them and it just reinforces 
their own sense of hopelessness."

Faulk knows that at some point she will have to allow her niece to leave 
the nest and stand on her own.

"My daughter says I need to step back a little and let her go. I don't know 
if it will ever be a time to turn her loose," Faulk says. "Maybe I need to, 
but I don't want to because I'm afraid for her. I'm very afraid for her. I 
don't want her to go out and try something and fail because her self-esteem 
is so low. I don't want it to drop any lower."

Faulk believes she has plenty of reasons to be concerned about her niece's 
self-esteem.

"I took her down to Coastal Psychiatric Clinic and they diagnosed her as 
schizophrenic," Faulk says. "The majority of my sister's last 25 to 30 
years were committed to drugs, beginning when she was in college. She had 
her daughter, and I feel like those drugs killed part of (my niece's) 
brain. I don't know, that's just the way I feel. She has an imaginary 
friend named John. She tells him about everything and they talk about all 
kinds of serious issues. She will talk to John just like I'm talking to 
you. She don't socialize. She don't have no girlfriends; she has real low 
self-esteem, and it's sad."

But Young believes that these signs do not necessarily mean that a 
drug-dependent child will be cursed in adulthood.

"These kids have some of the same attachment issues as their moms in the 
very early stages of development," Young says. "The hope lies in the 
mother's capacity for recovery and her level of motivation to stay clean 
and sober. Addicted babies are not 'ruined,' nor are they 'damaged goods.' 
When there is early identification and intervention, there is tremendous 
potential for a healthier life than they were given in the womb."

Her niece now leads a much different life than she did 18 years ago, and 
for her part, Faulk believes her niece has benefited from the special care 
and attention given to her. Faulk says love kept her committed to her niece 
and she doesn't view her years as a surrogate mother to have been a sacrifice.

"In order for me to put up with and go through the things I have, I have to 
love Christ," she says. "It wasn't really no sacrifice for me. I was just 
glad to be there for her. It was as normal as any child who has a problem. 
I had a lot of sleepless nights, crying a lot, when I didn't know where she 
was at."

Faulk hopes her niece will use the things she has taught her to go far in life.

"I hope that she can go to college and pick up a trade without having to 
depend on the state to give her money," Faulk says. "If she listens to what 
I tell her, she'll be fine. I've already raised two successful kids of my 
own. I learned that when you put something into your kids, they'll get 
something out of it. I hope she will do that, and I believe she can do 
anything anyone else can. It will just take her a little longer."

No matter how long it takes, Faulk says she will be right beside her niece. 
And, despite everything that has happened, Faulk says she will also be 
right beside her sister.

"Quite naturally, we've distanced ourselves from each other," she says. 
"But I still love her, and I talk to her all the time. But drugs can change 
a person, even now that she's clean."
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