How do you help someone who is addicted to drugs, especially if that someone is your child?
As a parent, you have a huge influence on your child, whether they’re teens or are already adults. However, when drugs creep in and take control of their lives, it’s like drugs are all they know. How do you take control? How do you stay close and protect them without enabling?
Here are some suggestions on what to do and what not to do to help your child face the harsh realities of addiction and find their way to recovery.
What you can do:
1. Be informed. You can’t fight something you don’t understand. Learn about drugs and addiction–find resources online or talk to a psychologist about it. Find out what the signs, triggers, and treatments are. Know all you can so you will not be prejudiced before talking to your child about their addiction.
2. Take care of yourself. You have no control over your addicted child. You only have control over yourself. As you try to help your child, be careful not to lose yourself in the process. You must remember to make healthy decisions for yourself, keep looking forward, and not let the addiction take you on a downward spiral too, as it tends to do to families of addicted people.
3. Talk to someone. You also need a support group to help you cope as well as to provide you with an outlet for all the emotions that may have been going through you all this time. Other people close to you such as family and friends may not be feeling the same things you’re feeling as they may not have gone through what you’ve been going through, but keep an open mind and heart to any advice they have to say–at least for your own sanity.
What you can’t do.
1. Force them to quit. You can’t force them to quit their addiction. Understand that they, too, have to make that decision for themselves. You can’t control them or the situation, and the sooner you know that, the better off things are.
2. Do the work for them. No matter how much you love them, you can’t do the work for them. You can’t take all the consequences of their actions from them. You should avoid enabling them, or even babysitting them back to recovery. Otherwise, how will they ever learn to cope by themselves?
3. Allow them to overstep boundaries. First and foremost, set boundaries for yourself. Then, lay these out for them. Let it be clear to them the things that you can accept and what you will not tolerate. Make them experience the consequences of their actions, even if it means disengaging from them for a while.
If you have kids who are struggling with addiction, you have to understand that the only way for them to see the seriousness of what they’re getting into is to make them experience the full effect of their addiction. And by this, we mean the consequences. Let them be incarcerated, if necessary. It is only when they see how bad the choices they’ve made that they will realize that they indeed have a big problem and to get the help they need.
Do you have a child with addiction? Call or text us through our confidential helpline at 09175098826. We’re here to help.
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