Painful

A father describes the torment of watching his son struggle with methamphetamine addiction (NYT link; registration required). It's hard to read, leaves little room for optimism. There are people who can try a drug once and then steer clear of it, a rarer few who can maintain a "recreational" relationship to heavy drugs over time, and all too many who quickly become a statistic, like the high percentage of meth users who relapse after quitting. Reading a story like this, I think I'd rather it were me than one of my children -- I'm too susceptible to heartbreak on behalf of those I love.

Drug-and-alcohol counselors, most of them former addicts, tell fathers like me it's not our fault. They preach ''the Three C's'': ''You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it.'' But who among us doesn't believe that we could have done something differently that would have helped?

(via Follow Me Here)