Fran, I'm not blaming surroundings or peer pressure, I'm merely pointing out some realities and just how strong those factors that I mentioned really are. I think we can agree that drug abusers come from all kinds of families, good and bad.

Like yourself, my wife and I have been doing our part from day one. How else would our older daughter now be a surgeon, and our younger one a Registered Psychologist? No abuse of anything by either of them and, much as I'd like to think that was entirely because of our efforts in their upbringing, it could well have been a case of 'but for the grace of God'.

Again, similar to your own situation, my parents did no drugs - again, apart from my mother being a heavy smoker, which I'm sure was instrumental in my staying away from cigarettes. Never smoked, drank, done drugs myself, the wife neither.

So you see we share some similarities. But I do honestly believe that the slide into drug abuse has contributing factors other than strong parenting.