Are you a parent who is hoping your child will be interested in recovery?
I am the parent of a daughter who has changed her life.
She has been living a healthy life for the past twenty years. It often seems like a lifetime ago that we were all struggling. It also feels like it was just yesterday.
Some have said how lucky I am that she has changed and has remained there.
I do feel lucky. I also feel gratitude. I’m sure that during her substance use, there were many close calls.
What brought my daughter to recovery, though, is not just luck. Definitely, someone was looking out for us. As a family, though, I feel we made some choices that made a difference.
Every family is different, so as they say, find what works for you and leave the rest.
We did our best, made some mistakes along the way, and stayed open to learning as much as we could so we could make the best decisions for our family.
Here is what we did to her and each other.
- As any new mom who discovers that her child struggles with a drug issue, I scrambled to find any resources. Suffering through the shame of the situation, I contacted any friends that I thought might help. I felt there was a small window of time to find and get my daughter into treatment.
- Although her dad and I are divorced, when I called him from Colorado, where she was attending college, he immediately sensed the urgency of the situation. We put aside our differences and came together for our daughter’s sake.
- The evening after I realized that she was using crystal meth, she stayed with me in my hotel in Colorado. She wanted to go out with her boyfriend and say the last goodbye. Now she could have walked out that door and not returned. She chose not to. She came back, ready to face her situation and seek help.
- Through personal references, we interviewed two specialists, and together with our daughter, we chose a wilderness program that worked well for her. Getting help from someone who regularly visits the programs he recommends made all the difference in my feeling comfortable sending her away.
- Although I’ll admit we had some rocky times agreeing on the treatment plan, we did agree. We worked out together what we thought was best.
- Our daughter, at age 19, had the choice of whether she wanted to go to treatment or not. She chose to attend. I feel one reason was that her parents were on the same page, and we were giving her the same message.
- Neither one of us yelled at our daughter. We did not put her down, call her names, or make her feel worse about her situation. We did not throw out ultimatums or threaten her if she did not recover on our timetable.
- Even though the price tag took our breath away, we realized that she needed help.
- As parents, we both realized that treatment was needed, and we moved forward. Her out-of-state college days were over, and if she continued college, it would be on a much less of a budget.
- Even though she had lied to us during the last few years, wasted our money, and had made poor choices, once she was clearly trying to change her life, our trust in her returned. We no longer doubted her; we wholeheartedly supported her. We did not continually remind her of the past.
- As long as she continued on her program, we supported her recovery 100%.
- Once she was in the treatment program, we let the counselors take over and did not control the process. I knew very little about the disease of addiction, so I chose to leave it to the experts.
- As the counselors suggested, we attended family group meetings. I also found a counselor trained in addiction to help me on a more personal level. I’ve also hired a coach at different times and begun writing about my experiences.
- We didn’t mention that the counselors recommended that she attend an aftercare treatment facility, but left it to the counselors to discuss the value of continuing her treatment after she had some time in the wilderness program. We let her know how much we supported this idea.
- We listened to the experts and realized even then that 30 days was not going to be enough time.
- Even though it was a stretch, we supported extended treatment. My daughter has since said that if she had come home after the five weeks at the wilderness program, she would most likely have started using drugs again.
- Her father and I researched many programs and found a women’s treatment program in southern California.
- We agreed again to send her to three months of treatment to a program that had been recommended by many sources. Our counselor agreed that it would be a good fit for her.
- As much as it bothered us, we kept quiet about her smoking habit, as we felt she had enough on her plate at the moment. We hoped she would quit smoking in the future. She finally did.
- We were supportive of the next step, which was a sober living home. She thrived there, continuing to work and to attend the local junior college.
- We welcomed her new friends from the treatment program and realized that they will always have that unspoken bond of a journey shared. These are young women, just like my daughter, who are amazing and talented at the core, but have made some poor choices at one point in their lives. They were all now ready to thrive and flourish in their lives, and they have.
- One last thought. My daughter was continually reminded throughout this entire process of how much we loved her, how proud we were of her accomplishments, and how much we believed in her. She knew we had her back and that we would cherish her as our daughter through thick and thin.
If your child struggles with drugs or alcohol, think through how you can put aside your disappointment, anger, and shame. Reach out and learn as much as you can about substance use/addiction so that you can help your child in the best possible way.
Drug and alcohol use affects us all.
My daughter just announced yesterday that she has a new promotion at work. She continues to thrive. Your child can get too.
Drug or alcohol abuse affects everyone in the family. Take care of yourself so that you are less anxious and can make better decisions.
Know that there is always hope for your child and that you are not alone.
Thank you for reading. You can get more tips in my email newsletter. Every other week, I share tips and ideas to help parents motivate their son or daughter to change if they are struggling with substance use. Join us by entering your email now.
