Shameless, the hit TV series created by Paul Abbott, is anything but subtle. It paints a portrait of addiction’s “ripple effect” on the family—an effect that is by turns violent, gross, tragic, absurd, and hilarious, but never far off the mark.

Thoughtlessly prescribing addictive medications to improve a child’s grades is wrong, and so is perpetuating the idea that ADHD is “made up”—a notion that can lead the undiagnosed to self-medicate their ADHD by abusing other drugs.

This Father’s Day will be a particularly exciting one for the clients and staff at our Phoenix House Career Academy in Brooklyn, NY, as the holiday also marks the completion of treatment for the first participants in our Phoenix Fathers group.

Banning designer drugs and monitoring prescriptions can only go so far when every generation of bullied kids will try anything just to escape their own lives—and that includes finding, buying, or even inventing the next big drug.

Parents of older teens are breathing a sigh of relief as their kids graduate from high school and take a great step towards adulthood. But just because your child is leaving the nest doesn’t mean your involvement should end.