Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
-- William Saroyan

SAMANTHA'S STORY

Samantha, 18:
I started smoking cigarettes in sixth grade. In seventh grade, I started drinking and smoking weed. When I was fourteen, I started using meth. I got hooked four months after I started using.

I hated the way I was. There was no me. I was a horrible person who was mean to everyone. I cheated, I lied, and I stole from people. I even stole from drug dealers. Everyone thought I was so sweet and innocent. People just couldn't believe I would do drugs.

I spent two months in treatment, and I've been sober now for nine months. I have a job as a waitress, and it makes me feel good just to make other people happy by waiting on them. I have people who are clean in my life, and I stay away from people who are using.

I want so much to be sober. I can't say I'll make it for the rest of my life but right now I'm confident in today. When I get those cravings to use, I think about how much clean time I have, and I don't want to ruin everything. I never want to go back to the way I was on drugs.

KIDS TALKING

What advice would you give to parents raising kids these days?

For the last three years we have been asking kids this question. These are kids who are locked up in detention or juvenile institutions, who are on probation or in treatment programs, alternative schools, recovery school, and youth camps, support groups.

They are kids who use or have used drugs. They have been there. They have suffered and lost and yet, in so many ways, they have triumphed. They are alive, thinking, wondering, yearning. They are walking the walk.

When we first ask the question, they are taken aback, for they are used to taking advice, not giving it. So they sit for a while, thinking. Then, tentatively, one person offers an insight from his or her own experience, and then another builds on those words, and suddenly everyone has something to say.

Their words are simple, but they come straight from the heart. Here’s what they have to say:

* Parents need to be there for their kids. Most of the time, they are just not there.

* Try to talk to your kids more. Every chance you get try to find a way to spend time with them. Go to a movie or a ball game. Go camping. My dad goes to the bar so I just leave and go to my friends’ houses. My dad tries, but he always just drinks.

* Parents need to discipline their kids -- good, old-fashioned discipline.

* If you discipline your kids when they’re young, they’ll learn to obey you. It’s just something they know inside.

* My parents didn’t discipline me. Now all they do is yell at me.

* I wish I’d been brought up on a farm because the discipline would be part of life. You know, feeding the animals, getting on the tractor, getting up early and going to bed early -- a hardworking kind of life. I like to work because you get a sense of pride from it. But I’ve never had to work. So I don’t have much pride.

* Give your kids chores to do and make sure they do them. If you live in the city, tell them to vacuum, clean their rooms, wash the car, take out the garbage, walk the dog. If you live in the country, they could chop wood or whatever. Then if they don’t do it, take away their privileges. That’s what they do in juvenile detention centers, and it works. You take away what they want, take away phone privileges or computer privileges or dessert. But don’t ground them. Grounding doesn’t work. You just leave, climb out the window, run away, whatever.

* Don’t let kids always get their way. Don’t spoil them.

* Don’t beat them when they’re just little kids.

* Don’t hit your kids. If you hit them, it makes them want to hang out more with their friends. If you hit them, they just want to get away from you.

* Don’t hit me no more.

* Instead of constantly harping on kids, talk to kids in ways they can understand.

* Don’t argue with every petty little thing.

* Don’t speak in high voices all the time. My father yells at me; he yells so hard he spits in my face. I hate that. I lose respect for him then.

* Express yourself to your kids as a human being. You can yell at them or you can talk to them. It’s much better just to talk to them.

* Be a parent and a friend. If you’re always in parent mode, you’re nagging, and your kids just rebel.

* My mom can’t be wrong, ever. That’s not right.

* You need to say sorry to kids when you’ve been fighting.

* Don’t blame your problems on us. Don’t use us an excuse for your own problems.

* Always keep things positive and on the right track.

* Listen to what we have to say. Don’t assume you always know what’s going on.

* I knew all about drugs at six, and I started using when I was 8. You need to talk to your kids about drugs when they’re little, five or six years old. Tell them that drugs are bad for them, that drugs can kill them.

* Tell your kids what drugs do to you. But tell them the whole truth -- that drugs can make you feel good but the bad part lasts a lot longer.

* Keep your kids away from people who would influence them to use drugs. Even their brothers, sisters, cousins -- sometimes you have to keep them away from their own family.

* Don’t try to get your kids out of trouble. If they’re doing something bad, let them take responsibility for their actions so they know that if they get into trouble again, they’ll have to face the consequences.

* Don’t be hypocrites. If you’ve done drugs before, tell your kids. Be honest. When your parents drink or smoke cigarettes or marijuana, and then tell you not to use drugs -- well, that’s hypocritical. How are we supposed to listen to our parents when they’re hypocrites?

* Don’t tell your kids they’re bad kids because they use drugs.

* If your kids’ friends use drugs, don’t look at them and say they’re bad. Everyone is a good person. They’re just lost. They’ve taken a detour.

* A lot of parents just give up on their kids. They say, “My kid is a druggie, that’s how they’re going to be, there’s nothing I can do.” Don’t give up on your kids.

* Yeah. Never give up.