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Recovery in the News
Parents champion drug treatment reform: Son's addiction spurs help for others
Lisa Thompson
Erie Times-News, PA
January 18, 2010
You wouldn't picture it happening to Pat and Chuck Klenk, a teacher and a police officer who were deeply involved in the life of their only son, Jeffrey.
But as they'll tell you now, it can happen to anyone. When it happened to them, it took years for them to recognize the signs, despite their professional training.
Jeff's an addict.
That fact, discovering it and surviving it, has given the Klenks a hard-fought wisdom they now use to help others.
Both serve on statewide parents' organizations working to reform the policies governing the diagnosis, treatment and societal response to the problem of drug addiction that plagues one in four Pennsylvania families.
Chuck Klenk, 64, a retired Edinboro police officer and an Erie County sheriff's deputy, belongs to the Parent Panel Advisory Council (PPAC), which was formed in 2006. The panel recently concluded a two-year study and made reform recommendations to the state House of Representatives Health and Human Services Committee.
Pat Klenk, 56, an elementary school teacher, is on the board of Families of Addiction, which aims to create a high-quality treatment system that is family-focused and easily accessible, supports recovery and promotes prevention.
"My personal mission is to help our young people to understand that when they are thinking of experimenting with any kind of substance, they don't know if they will be the one whose brain takes on the chemical and continues to want more. Their life spins out of control over a single decision," she said.
"Once addicted, it is a lifelong struggle that affects everyone in the family."
For years, many, including the Klenks, of Edinboro, viewed addiction as a moral failing.
They say they have learned to understand it as a disease that can strike and ensnare anyone.
The cure depends on effective, available treatment and the will of the addict, they said.
"People don't choose to become addicts," Pat Klenk said. "But they can choose to remain one."
When Jeffrey Klenk took to sleeping late, when he retreated to a downstairs bedroom, and when he began to struggle in school, his parents took it as the signs of adolescence. When he failed out of college twice and told lies to cover his failings, the Klenks knew something was seriously wrong. They ordered him to take a drug test, but did not really expect it to come back positive.
The results left them sickened and stunned. Jeffrey Klenk's test registered in the highest range for almost every substance tested.
"We were crushed," Chuck Klenk said. "We didn't know what to do."
The efforts to "fix" their son began. At that point, they believed that was in their power. Jeffrey Klenk went through stints of rehab and recovered, but he always relapsed. He's now reached one of the safer final destinations for addicts who do not get clean. He's in state prison on forgery charges, crimes he committed to support his habit.
The Klenks love their son without limit. But they know they can't "fix" him.
Through work with groups like Al-Anon and Narcotics Anonymous, a chapter of which they founded in Erie County, they have learned the only way they can help their son is by taking care of themselves.
"It is like a grieving process," Pat Klenk said. "You learn to accept things the way they are. You come to realize it does not have anything to do with you. It is their choice."
Their experience and that of other parents they have met led Chuck Klenk's panel to recommend a host of reforms.
In Pennsylvania, more than 600,000 people have unmet treatment needs. In 2005, substance abuse and addiction cost the state almost $12 billion, the panel found. Yet during the same period, only $188 million was spent on treatment.
The PPAC recommends that the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Programs be elevated to a cabinet-level position. It says services should be made more visible by implementing a "211" emergency system with round-the-clock information and referral services. Some of the parents the Klenks know lost their children to overdose deaths because admission to treatment was not available during a weekend.
Medical personnel need to learn to recognize the signs of addiction and make the appropriate referrals, the panel said.
The Klenks are hopeful that their son maintains sobriety upon his release from prison.
In the meantime, they will be working to help spare other parents the heartache they've endured.
"Both of us have been put on a path we never imagined ourselves on. It is a path where we're able to do some good for other people," Pat Klenk said.
"It has given us a purpose beyond our own little family and our jobs, for sure."