Dear Margo® by Margo Howard

Dear Margo: I think my sister, "Allison," has been abusing Adderall and similar drugs for about 15 years. She's increasingly paranoid and delusional, and has difficulty keeping jobs or managing her money. For example, within 18 months, she spent over $250,000, which represented her portion of our mother's estate. She claims that our brother purposely placed "tracers" in our mother's car, which supposedly hastened her demise. (Our mother passed due to a stroke at age 89.) She believes her ex-husband and former neighbors are watching and following her.

The problem started when she was supposedly diagnosed with ADHD and was prescribed Adderall to manage the symptoms. However, I question the diagnosis, as she did not exhibit any traits associated with ADHD as a youngster or as an adult. The "symptoms" appeared at about the same time she was experiencing marital and family difficulties. I would like to arrange for a family intervention, but she has alienated her two children, her siblings and her ex-husband. We're all concerned about her welfare, but she has cut us out of her life and refuses to speak to us. What to do? — Alarmed and Stumped

Dear Al: Fifteen years is a long time to be zonked out on psychostimulants, whether she needed them or not. She has manically blown through a fortune and become estranged from everyone, and she exhibits paranoia. All this pretty much renders an intervention useless. About the only thing you can do is go to her prescribing doctor and lay out the facts. (She is getting these pills from somewhere, let us hope not the street.)

Assuming she is seeing a doctor, he could commit her for observation and/or treatment. If this is not possible, you're all unfortunately going to be unable to prevent her from self-destructing.

How Do You Make Your Family? One Child or Two?

Dear Margo: Both my wife and I are over 50. We went to India and hired a surrogate so we could have a child, and now we have a beautiful baby girl who is 1 year old. We will be paying off the cost of the doctor and the surrogate for the next three or four years. We're struggling with the decision of whether or not to get her a sibling, which would double our debt. Also, India is not the safest place in the world. Two weeks after we came back to the U.S. with our baby, terrorists slaughtered people we met in Mumbai.

We want our baby to have a happy life and worry that she'll have no one when we pass away. On the other hand, we are worried that we won't have enough money to provide for her if we double our debt. We swing back and forth in our decision-making. We ask people and get advice ranging from she won't be lonely to she will; many only children are well-adjusted to they're not; parents who don't have a second child when they get a chance regret it later. Your ideas, please. — Confused

Dear Con: In the same way that "Sajani" is a girl's name in Hindi meaning "well loved," I wish there were a name meaning "good just as things are," so I could say, "Leave well enough alone." Here are my reasons: You are already older parents. Your family finances are strained. The actuarial tables say you will both live into your 70s, your wife perhaps longer. Your child has a very good statistical chance of being at least in her 20s before she is left alone. Only children usually have good friends, and they develop inner resources to be comfortable by themselves. I, myself, am an only child who never wished for a sib. — Margo, realistically

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Dear Margo is written by Margo Howard, Ann Landers' daughter. All letters must be sent via e-mail to dearmargo@creators.com. Due to a high volume of e-mail, not all letters will be answered.

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