Parents, Kids and Drugs

The people who suffer from abuse are the users and those around them. These are the ones who experience the pain and destruction that occurs from improper use of drugs.

The following guidelines are written for the parents of drug abusers who struggle and often suffer while they attempt to understand and cope with behaviours so foreign to their own experiences.

• Drug dependant persons have an illness, which alters their personalities and behaviours.
• Parents are responsible only for their own behavior and attitudes.
• If parents are to survive, they must set limits. They cannot prevent all bad things from happening.
• Parents do not choose to have their children use drugs. Do not dwell on the past with, “if only….”
• Protecting and rescuing leads to irresponsibility and resentment by the children.
• Drug related painful experience is a good teacher.
• Put responsibility for users behavior where it belongs – with the user.
• Lecturing, scolding and threatening seldom work with users.
• Promises and excuses are never substitutes for responsible behavior- they only encourage further use.
• Love requires detaching yourself from the burden of responsibility you carry for a user.
• Be firm about what is acceptable behavior in your home- it is YOUR home so do not let it go.
• Parents can make treatment available for users; they cannot force the users to benefit from it.
• Recovery is almost never immediate – it is a daily process that may even take years.