Your Child Is an Addict: What Now?

We love our children, but having a child who’s addicted to alcohol or drugs can be very challenging. It can even cause you to question yourself as a parent. Knowing what to do or figuring out the right way to deal with this situation can be difficult.

Where one parent aims to show their child love and compassion, this could easily shift into enabling. Another worried parent may try the tough love approach, which could push the child to using more drugs. When it comes to a child who is addicted to a substance, whether it be drugs or alcohol, it’s crucial to understand the disease itself in order to provide the appropriate help.

Addiction and Adolescence
Young people are at high risk of abusing substances and becoming addicted. Teenagers, especially are a large part of this group. Why? Because children are naturally curious, and teenagers tend to be reckless and rebellious.

There are plenty of people and organizations out there fighting to teach young people and prevent them from falling prey to addiction. Yet, it can sometimes prove to be inevitable. It’s been revealed that our children are at a disadvantage, they are highly at risk of addiction caused by their lack of brain development.

The prefrontal cortex of the brain isn’t fully developed until a person’s mid-20s. And what this means is a young person gets a much powerful euphoric sensation when using drugs than someone in their 30s would.

Going through a difficult situation without the right coping strategies can create the need to self-medicate. They may experiment with alcohol or different kinds of drugs. They will depend on this self-medication to escape hard feelings causing themselves to become totally dependent.
Ultimately, their mind and body will come to crave the abused substance whenever things get hard, causing addiction. Once a child or young person is addicted, professional help is vital to a successful rehabilitation and recovery.

Do Not Blame Yourself for Your Child’s Addiction
Unless you put the substance in that child’s hands and made them abuse it, it is not your fault. A major reason for a lot of parents being reluctant about sending their child to drug or alcohol addiction treatment, is because they feel it’s a sign they have failed as a parent.

However, this is not true. When dealing with addiction, your son or daughter’s childhood could play part, but addiction does not discriminate. There are plenty of children who grew up in tough or bad situations that are not addicts or alcoholics. There are also plenty of children who had great childhoods, and yet they still turned out to be addicts.

Realizing that you are not responsible for your child being addicted to drugs or alcohol, you’ll see that it will take outside professional help to get your son or daughter the help they need.

Helping Your Child When They’re Addicted to Drugs
The most suitable way for your child to recover is getting in a qualified treatment program for addiction. Give your child the opportunity to get better by leaving their old environment. This will allow your son or daughter to concentrate on the recovery process. The right treatment program will provide them with the necessary tools to live a successful, happy life.