When my beautiful, big-hearted 16-year-old son Dan died after taking MDMA, a great long list of things I wished I’d known formed rapidly in my muddled head around all the reeling chaos and confusion a loss like this leaves. How could I have let this happen? Why didn’t I know what I needed to know to stop it? My most important job in the universe is to keep my boys safe, and here I was, one boy down, and down forever.
The one thing I did know, with absolute certainty, was that I needed to do everything I possibly could to prevent any harm of any sort happening to anyone else’s child. And so, just days after Dan died, we set up a drugs education charity in his name, the Daniel Spargo-Mabbs Foundation. Seven years on and this has grown and grown, and reached many thousands of young people, professionals and, of course, parents. Evidence-based drugs education, with the story of Dan at its heart.
Last year, when Covid hit, the world shut down and time opened up, I decided to write a book – a book for parents about young people, drugs and decisions. The book I wish I could have read before Dan died. It weaves the story of Dan around all the information, advice and practical tips I wish I’d known myself: all that I’ve learned and passed on to parents at workshops across the country over the past seven years.
On 27 May, Dan’s 24th birthday,
I Wish I’d Known will be published by Sheldon Press. As I write in the book: ‘I’ll never know whether knowing any of the things I didn’t know, or doing any of the things I didn’t do, would have been enough to keep Dan safe in that moment of decision, but if in reading this book my gaps are filled for you, and a difference is made for your children, then that will be more than good enough for me.’
To find out more about the DSM Foundation, click .
I Wish I’d Known (Sheldon Press, 2021) can be ordered from all major book retailers or via the . Every penny from sales goes to the charity.
Extract 1:
Chapter 2 – I wish I’d known what drugs can do: effects and risks
“Most of us have, at some time or other, taken a psychoactive substance, whether it was our early morning cup of tea, a cold beer on a warm summer evening, or a sneaky teenage cigarette. Most of us have also used psychoactive substances specifically in order to change the way we feel in some way or other. A strong coffee after a rough night’s sleep to help us make it through the morning. A glass of wine after a stressful day to help us relax. Even a bar of chocolate to take us to a better place when we’re feeling down.
“And this is nothing new. Historical evidence points to the use of psychoactive substances, from alcohol to ritualistic hallucinogens, across many cultures and many centuries stretching back thousands of years. Most of us won’t have taken controlled drugs, but statistically, , around one in eleven adults aged 16-59 years in England and Wales had done so during the previous year.
This chapter begins to look at what drugs do and how they do it. It starts with what they began to do to Dan…”
Extract 2:
Chapter 3 – I wish I’d known how complicated risk is: drug, person, place.
“When it comes to managing the risks of drugs, most parents know more than they realise, and that includes the variable factors that affect risk. It’s easy to be bewildered by this very different world our teenagers inhabit, and to believe the messages coming from various directions telling us we have become somewhat redundant, a bit of an irrelevance, once our children reach a certain age, especially about something like drugs. But this is very far from the case. Not only do parents remain the most important influence in their teenage children’s lives, they also have a lot of transferable knowledge, and just need to know how and where they can usefully transfer it to drugs.
“Most of you reading this book will have had your own experiences of taking medication, many of you will have drunk alcohol, and some of you may have used controlled drugs. From these experiences you will know how many variable factors can affect the effect a substance can have on an individual. In the drugs and alcohol sector these variable factors are referred to as drug, set and setting. We like to talk about them as drug, person and place…”
Extract 3:
Chapter 4 – I wish I’d known about the teenage brain: choices, friends and managing risk
“When it comes to making decisions about drugs and alcohol as a teenager, and making those decisions as safely as possible, it’s vital not only to have sufficient knowledge and understanding of the risks at hand, but also to understand what makes the safe navigation of these risks more complicated than at any other time of life, and the skills to be able to take control. The most highly intelligent, well informed and sensible people can make the most terrible decisions and take the most ill-judged risks, and never more so than in their adolescence. Most of us will have at least one eye-watering, toe-curling, hair-raising memory from our own younger years. The business of this chapter is unpacking a bit of this in the context of drugs and alcohol.
“Understanding what makes the adolescent brain unique, and different from the adult brain, or the child’s for that matter, is incredibly helpful for parents trying to make sense of some of the mysteries of their teenagers’ words and actions. It is also essential for teenagers to have a good understanding of what’s at work in the dynamic of their decision-making so that they can make sense, take control, manage risks and stay safe. It increases the potential for both parents and teens to work with, rather than battle against, what’s going on in their heads and translating itself into what they do and say, and when and how they do and say it. And it’s important not just for teens but for pre-teens and those in their twenties, too, because this is a process that begins at around the age of ten, and takes until your mid-twenties to end.”
Why drugs education is vital - watch Fiona's Tedx talk .