...please begin learning all you can about drug abuse prevention. 

When your child is 23 at time of disclosure, having shortly before that disclosed that she has become addicted to opioids, almost overnight you realize you live in a war zone. You're standing in a single battlefield, but fighting two potentially unwinnable wars.

My daughter took her first drink at age 8, during the year she was being repeatedly raped by a neighbor. She opened the liquor cabinet at her friend's house when no one was looking and took a big drink. During high school she made a big deal of being anti-drug, but she had begun smoking pot and trying cocaine at parties. When her vile boyfriend introduced her to Oxycontin in college, unknown to us, we were all on the road to ruin. 

Now, nearly 30, she is two classes away from graduation, just as she was at 23. She lives with us and has been sober -- as far as we know -- for about two years, but she is so worried about relapse that instead of throwing herself into school and launching into the world as an adult, she has begun a Narcan program and continues to work menial jobs.

Had we known when she was young that she had been sexually abused, AND had we known the close correlation between child sexual abuse and drug abuse, we would have immediately had her in therapy for the sexual abuse (instead of for vague psychological symptoms and budding depression). Further, we would have learned everything about how to prevent her from engaging in substance abuse as a result of what we now know to be her PTSD.

I have to run now, but will soon post resources for how to prevent drug abuse.