SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost - then found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the

[continues 1922 words]

SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost - then found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the

[continues 1922 words]

SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost - then found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the

[continues 1922 words]

SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost - then found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the

[continues 1922 words]

SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost - then found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the

[continues 1922 words]

SOMEWHERE ON the road to adulthood, Derek Cooper got lost -- then found, then lost again. It would take the intervention of a stranger to set him back on track.

Derek's start was promising: Upper middle class home, college-educated parents, great schools, plenty of money for extras.

A bright, good-looking kid, he did OK in school and made friends easily in his Burlingame neighborhood.

But his mom drank too much. Sometimes his dad overdid it, too.

Along with plenty of love, the Coopers unintentionally served their young son and his older brother a diet of emotional confusion, a model for alcohol abuse and a set of genes that experts say predisposed their children to abusing alcohol and drugs.

[continues 1888 words]