Parents of Drug Addicts: Can You Help Your Child?
For parents who have children who are struggling with drug addiction, it doesn’t matter what age they are: it’s difficult. Emotionally exhausting and hard on the whole family, a child’s drug addiction can affect everything from family dinner to family finances. So what can you do to help your child when he or she is struggling with drug addiction?
Don’t Enable Their Drug Addiction
First things first: you may not have the power to “fix” your child or save them from themselves but you do have the power to make an agreement with yourself not to make it worse. Enabling behavior manifests in a number of ways. It could be as obvious as handing the drug addict in your life money or allowing them to stay with your rent free without getting a job or having any responsibility for themselves. It could occur when you cover for them with their employers, teachers, friends or other family members by lying about their behavior. Enabling also occurs when you continually do their work for them, handle their responsibilities or in any way protect them from the consequences of their own actions. When you stop doing these things and start allowing their drug addiction to affect them, you are helping them get one step closer to dealing with the fact that they need drug rehab.
Drug Addiction Intervention
A more proactive way to handle the situation when your child refuses to acknowledge his or her drug addiction is to stage a drug addiction intervention. At an intervention, you have the opportunity to gather together the people who mean the most to your child and allow each one to tell him or her about a specific incident in which your child’s drug addiction was hurtful or dangerous. The intervention culminates in an offer: go to drug rehab and get the necessary medical help or….
The “or” is a big part of the intervention, especially when it is your child struggling with drug addiction. Depending upon your situation and the age of your child, different ultimatums will be appropriate. It may be telling them to move out or taking away financial support if he or she is an adult or, for those who are underage, it may mean moving to a different city or changing schools.
Letting Go When Drug Addiction Treatment is Refused
If your child is struggling with drug addiction, you never have to stop loving him or her. However, it helps no one, least of all your child, if you continue to enable the behavior and make it possible for them to continue using drugs and/ or alcohol without real consequences. Letting go will look different for each family according the specifics of their situation and the addiction issues of their child. Only you know what’s best for you, but it can’t be repeated enough: letting go of your child when they refuse to get help for drug addiction doesn’t mean that you don’t love them.
Drug Addiction and the Family
If you would like to learn more about drug addiction treatment for your child, Michael’s House can help. We offer drug rehab services for those 18 and older. Call today to learn more.
