“Your teen or young adult child might not realize that they are entering into a pressure cooker of threats when they leave for college,” says David Magee, author of the upcoming book Things Have Changed: What Every Parent (and Educator) Should Know About the Student Mental Health and Substance Misuse Crisis and award-winning book Dear William: A Father’s Memoir of Addiction, Recovery, Love, and Loss. “They need to know what they’re walking into…and that they are not alone.”

Magee isn’t suggesting you “scare your kids straight.” Rather, he wants parents and children alike to approach college with clear eyes. After losing his son William to an accidental drug overdose, and nearly losing another son, Hudson, to an overdose at a college frat party, he advocates for having difficult conversations up front — they can save lives.