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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > February > 16 > Entry
Helping your children to outlive you
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ve told my kids, a number of times, that I don’t want to outlive them. They told me many times that they hoped I didn’t either. I’m not sure what that means.
All parents are the same way. We llive our lives in a very imperfect world, raise families, pass along the torch, critique them as they raise their families, and go into retirement, enjoy grandchildren, and the “Early Bird” special at the local cafeteria every Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
I want my children to outlive me because that is the way it is supposed to be. Hopefully we all will live a long lives and pass on as an old person who gave back to his or her family in the form of wisdom. In my case, incoherent babbling. All the same, we hope that we will live as long as we were expected to.
That isn’t always the case as we see every day on television and in the papers. And very few of us have not, at least once, passed a horrific car accident resulting in one or two fatalities, looked at it, wondered who was involved and what happened to them. How long did you think about it before your life went back into its regular routine?
That’s normal, it’s a busy world and things happen. You get conditioned to it and insulated from it, at least mentally.
Most men and women in public safety see so much of it that it that an event conjures up very little emotional response. I have worked around homicides, suicides, natural deaths, car wrecks, plane wrecks, deaths from alcohol, drugs, guns, knives, scissors, shovels, ropes, animals, asphyxiation from carbon monoxide, oxygen deprivation during sex asphyxiation, heart failure during sex, screwdriver in the ear during sex, wife finding out about sex, and so on. Most police officers are called into someone’s life or the end result of it, once or twice a week. It’s like a movie. You turn it off when you leave. That’s the plan. It’s a good defense mechanism. We didn’t know the guy so we’re not grieving for him.
The first change comes when you have kids. Anytime you work a death or serious traumatic event involving children, you automatically associate it with your own children. It becomes a bit more personal and you tend to leave more of yourself behind each time. The victim and victim’s family now remains in your thoughts longer.
As you get years of experience under your belt you tend to examine these events a little closer. What control does a young person have who was hit by an out of control car on I-285? Some people say it was their time. How could they prevent it? They simply had no control over that event. They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.
But what if it were someone who didn’t have to die, who didn’t intend to die but unknowingly drove their life right over the edge of the cliff?
We are so bombarded with drug information and alcohol information that it really is hard to sort it out. As we learn more, we tweak that information so that we can do everything possible to prevent drug abuse. If you ask a parent to name what drugs they would consider that are available to kids, they would name alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy and maybe crack and methamphetamine.
What about inhalants? Something that has been around but not really on the front burner of prevention information is inhalant abuse. Inhalant use is widespread across the U.S. The primary user is an adolescent and the drugs of choice are often common household products. The term used for it is ‘huffing.’ The effects are commonly euphoric.
Volatile solvents are liquids that vaporize at room temperature if left in unsealed containers. Paint thinner, gasoline, correction fluid, felt tip markers, nail polish and remover, and glue (such as rubber cement) all contain volatile solvents.
Aerosols are sprays that contain propellants and solvents. Paint, hair products, cooking products are examples.
Gasses are substances that lack definite shape or volume such as refrigerants and medical anesthetics. Abusers frequently inhale gasses found in butane lighters, air conditioning units and propane tanks. Medical anesthetics such as ether, chloroform, and nitrous oxide (laughing gas) is abused more often that the other gasses.
Nitrites are a group of chemicals including Cyclohexyl nitrite, amyl nitrite, and butyl nitrite. Nitrites are mainly used to enhance sexual experiences rather that to achieve euphoric effect. Amyl nitrite comes in small capsules sometimes known as ‘poppers.’
These products breathed in. Inhaling and sniffing, known as “pulling air” from open containers or rags, soaked in the fluid are common. The most dangerous form of this is ‘bagging’ which is exactly what it sounds like. The fluid or gas in put in the bag. The user then puts the bag over his or her mouth and nose or in some cases the bag is placed over the person’s head. Passing out could be fatal. It has been fatal.
When I was in high school, shortly after the fall of the Roman Empire, I distinctly remember kids doing deodorant spray. They would take a toilet paper cardboard roll, place a tissue over the top, and spray the deodorant up through the bottom of the roll and through the tissue and inhale it to get high.
I am quite sure that many of you remember someone or know stories of kids who snorted some ridiculous product into their heads without the slightest thought of their consequences.
The best thing you can do is read up on this and any other form of drug abuse you may hear of around your kids, their friends, and the talk around school. Read and research and stay in touch with your kids. Drugs have warning symptoms and serious mood changes and depression have symptoms.
It’s a crazy, busy world but stop and take a long look. Make sure you know and they know that this form of getting high is deadly and don’t think that this happens in other places. It happened right here this past week.
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Comments
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By K2K
February 16, 2007 1:15 PM | Link to this
Thank You Senor Esteban is muy importante informacion’
By Kim Manlove
February 16, 2007 3:40 PM | Link to this
You’re right Steve we never want to outlive our kids…but some of us never make it. By most standards I was living the best life. I had two beautiful children, a wife I loved very much, and a secure and rewarding career. I was an academic dean at the largest public urban university in the Midwest, Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis, in a high profile position that suited me perfectly. I had grown up a university brat, my father was a college professor. So I liked the culture and I knew how to navigate it. I loved my job. It paid well. It was safe. It was well within my comfort zone.
Then on a beautiful day in June, five years ago, my life changed forever. My 16 year old son David, got up early that Saturday morning, mowed the yard, then asked if he could go swimming at a friends pool not far from our home. After swimming a while, David and his friend went a drugstore and brought an aerosol can of computer duster. They returned to the pool and began to do what’s called “huffing,” inhaling the propellant from the can while underwater to intensify the high. On the fourth try, David went into cardiac arrest and drowned in spite of the immediate efforts of his friends at the pool, the EMT’s who responded, and the doctors and nurses in the E.R.
That day, my wife Marissa, and I became members of a club no parent ever wants to join. We had suffered a violation of natural law – the one that says your kids are not supposed to die before you do.
A Father tends to mark his life in milestones. High school graduation. College. And then marriage, which is eclipsed by the birth of your children. Then many more, mostly joyful ones, follow. But the death of my son has become my defining moment in such a way that I now divide my life between before he died and after he died. And I can’t see anything from here on out eclipsing this.
I think all parents at some point, either consciously or unconsciously flirt with the thought of, What would I do if something happened to my child? Often it’s brought on by someone else’s story. And I did think about that before David died, because we had been dealing with his substance abuse for some time. We had taken him to Fairbanks Treatment Center , in Indianapolis for his drug and alcohol addiction.
The day David died, the coroner took possession of his body and did an autopsy. And when I read my son’s autopsy…another thing a Father should never have to do…it revealed he was the picture of health. There were no signs of alcohol or drugs in his body; that’s one of the attributes of death from huffing. So we could easily have written it off as an accident. But we knew he had died of inhalant abuse. His addiction killed him in spite of all that we-his parents, his friends, and Fairbanks-tried to do to prevent it. We chose not to be silent about what had happened to him, and to make his death a lesson for others. Since then, we’ve become deeply involved in substance abuse education, honoring David’s struggle with addiction by telling his story through presentations at schools, as well as through the Partnership for a Drug-Free America.
Two years ago at age 52, I began to feel an internal struggle between my job at the university and my advocacy work, which was quickly becoming my passion. I found that when I made a presentation, people would come up to me and say, “This happened to my daughter or son. Somebody has to put a personal face on the disease of addiction. Thank you for doing it.” But I feared the risk of leaving the safety of academia. Men tend to think it’s their duty to provide for the family table, and that was still part of my psyche. But in the end, I did it. I left, after 26 years, and joined Fairbanks Treatment Center as a project director for the State of Indiana’s Strategic Prevention Framework, and now my passion is my life’s work.
Also, over the past five year, I have developed friendships with people who’ve suffered similar losses. These are deep, abiding relationships that I’m sure I never had before. So David’s death has led me down paths I never wanted to be on, but now that I’m here, I want to travel them more than anything - anything – else. I am where I am supposed to be, and that is an incredible feeling. It’s a gift of a life of satisfaction and purpose.
A gift directly from my son. Thank you Dave….but God I miss you. DAD
http://drugfree.typepad.com/kim/
By fk
February 16, 2007 7:52 PM | Link to this
This is a message that never gets old. Thanks for putting it out there. Unfortunately, most times, it takes a tragedy to strike close to home before most of us sit up and take notice. Kids think they are invincible and that bad things happen to other people. So many parents not only think, but actually say, “not my kid”. Hopefully, your message today will touch someone and save at least one life. To outlive a child is, by far, the saddest and most unnatural of all experiences. It was definitely worth the time to check out Mr. Manlove’s website. Thanks again, Lt. Rose.
By LL
February 16, 2007 7:57 PM | Link to this
Steve, And Kim; Well written and great advise to all the young adults who read this column. You can never get enough good advise in life. Utilize it wisely. Keep up the great work that you both do.
By yancy
February 16, 2007 8:25 PM | Link to this
Kim u are truly a wonderful human being. I will pray for u each and every day to continue on your journey.
By Missandie
February 17, 2007 9:17 PM | Link to this
Some years ago when I lived up north, we had a patient, really nice, good looking, 18 year old kid that started huffing. His chemical of choice - paint thinner. At first you would see him hanging out with his friends and slowly those friends started dropping off until you would only see him alone. Whenever you were withing 30-40 yards of him, you could smell the paint thinner. After a awhile his hair started thinning and he had the shakes - he looked like an old man with Parkinson’s. In the year since I had first met him, he had aged so that he looked like he was 40. It was so sad when his mom came by to tell us he had passed away. In a strange way, I was happy. He had tried to quit but just couldn’t do it and had contemplated suicide but in the end his nervous system shut down on him and put him out of his misery.
Lt. Steve, thank you for letting parents know drug abuse does not consist of just marijuana, cocaine, meth and alcohol. There are a multitude of inhalants lurking in your home, in addition to things that seems benign, such as cough syrup.
Be on the look out for the following: breath or clothing that smells like chemicals, clothing stains, spots or sores around the mouth, nausea, lack of appetite, weight loss, nervousness, restlessness and outbursts of anger. A drunk, dazed, or glassy-eyed appearance might mean your child is abusing inhalants.
Do not be afraid or too embarrassed to get help for your child. You are not alone.
By Pamela Y Jones
February 18, 2007 9:19 AM | Link to this
I have witnessed friends losing their children in ways that are horrible. Thanks for writing this story
By Barbara Skinner MBE
February 18, 2007 3:19 PM | Link to this
Thank you for publishing this item.
In 1988 I walked into the bathroom of my home and found my son dead…He was just sixteen. I was a nurse who had spoken the my children about the dangers of drugs, alcohol, smoking and even told them about safer sex…but I never mentioned VSA because I was unaware of the consequences.
One year after his death I founded SOLVE IT a charity for the prevention of Volatile Substance Abuse. (VSA)
No young person deservse to die because they don’t know the facts…. No young person deserves to be excuded, from their family, from school, from society,just because no one told them the facts about VSA. The charity has discivered that many childen and young people who have abused volatile substances turn to ilegal drugs in later years….. In addition we have discovered that many adults, who have used these substances turn to them again when faced with problems when adults. These substaances are forgotten…..pleae dont let them be.
By Lt. Steve
February 18, 2007 7:53 PM | Link to this
What brought the idea on to mention this was the death of a child last week. A 14-year old child was found dead with a plastic bag over his head. He was huffing freon, perhaps passed out, and then suffocated. As bad as it is to re-live something like that, I am glad that you folks wrote into this blog and said what you did. I makes the experience personal for the reader more so that reading from a police officer. I hope that it makes a difference with a parent who may even be suspicious or in denial that it could happen. I thihk a lot of people who read it didn’t necessarily want to comment on what you have written becuase of the impact of it. It makes you see that it does happen around you. Thank you for your comments.
By Natalie*
February 19, 2007 8:55 AM | Link to this
Lighten up! I read your article for the hilarious crime stories. When I want serious statistics, I watch CNN.
By Dianna
February 21, 2007 1:12 PM | Link to this
Natalie — grow up!