Mother says 'tough love' the only way to deal with a child's drug abuse

She watched her son battle drug, alcohol addictions for 20 years before they killed him

By Jeremy Schwartz

Connie Sengler's son Joey would have been 34 last week. Instead of celebrating, she commemorated the fourth year since his death.

For almost 20 years, Sengler watched her son battle drug and alcohol addiction. She watched him quit school a semester before graduation, choose substances over his wife and slowly disintegrate.

Sengler, a recovering addict herself, said her son began drinking and using drugs when he was just 10. Since she was in the fog of her own substance abuse, she didn't realize her son was getting hooked until she went into recovery and got clean.

"By the time he was 16, it was real evident that he was addicted," she said. Joey would come home wasted or not at all, and he became rebellious and abusive. He briefly entered rehab, but it didn't take, and by the time he was 17, Sengler gave him an ultimatum.

She told him to stop using drugs and alcohol or leave the house. His substance use was not good for his mother, who was in the early stages of recovery, and was setting a bad example for his two younger brothers, Sengler told him.

Leaving home, school

Joey moved out of the house and dropped out of high school in his last semester.

"That day he left, we were devastated," she said. "The three of us held each other and cried."

The next few years were hell. "The tough love thing is real hard," she said. "That's what I exercised that day."

Joey's alcohol, marijuana and cocaine use accelerated, he became violent and put a friend in the hospital after flipping his truck while under the influence.

But he met a girl, got married and cleaned up a little bit. "When he stopped drinking and using, he came back to who he was," Sengler said. "Our son came back."

After a year of marriage though, he resumed abusing and, like his mother had done years earlier, his wife gave him a choice. He left again, and "then it got really crazy," Sengler said.

Suicidal thoughts

He met a new girl who shared his drug and alcohol problem, and the couple would get into violent fights. He finally called his mother and told her he was having suicidal thoughts and needed help.

She got him a counselor, and for a recovery was going well. But as had happened every time in the past, he slipped back into his old ways and soon was using again. His new girlfriend left him two weeks before their wedding. "That knocked the feet from under him," Sengler said.

Soon after, police knocked at his parents' door and told them Joey had slammed his car into a parked semi-trailer.

'Not my kid'

That was four years ago. Sengler now leads a parent-support group at the Palmer Drug Abuse Program, where parents of drug abusing youth can learn how to cope.

Sengler said that perhaps the most important lesson parents need to learn is that they cannot control their children or their children's drug use. At some point they need to exercise tough love and force their kids to take responsibility. It was a lesson she had to learn the hard way and one she says is the only sane way for a parent to deal with a child's drug or alcohol abuse.

At the same time, parents need to face up to their children's problems and bring them to treatment if they need it.

"A lot of parents are not willing to take a look at it," Sengler said. "They say, 'not my kid, he's a good kid.' "

Contact Jeremy Schwartz at 886-3618 or schwartzj@caller.com

November 20, 2001