“We don’t know our son”
Dear Doug: Our 18-year old has become a different person from the one we know and love
Dear Doug:
Our 18-year-old daughter has been lying, sneaking out at night and smoking dope. She swears and yells at me and calls me names. While she was once a straight-A student, if she graduates it will be due to my helping her with schoolwork.
We tried taking away privileges. When that didn’t work, we tried easing up. That didn’t work either. We have even let her take the consequences of her bad behaviors. She seems immune from pain.
We are thinking of kicking her out, but are afraid that will further alienate her and make her even more dependent on her fellow addicts. Please help us.
Signed, Exasperated Parents
. . . . . .
Dear Exasperated,
Other columnists might suggest that turning your back on your daughter at this point should be a last resort. However, giving her a hand will only prolong the agony of what is likely an addiction not only to dope, but also to alcohol and other drugs.
Sober addicts tell us that until every enabler stopped protecting them from consequences, there was no incentive to get clean. Only when the protection stopped did they make a decision to “try” sobriety. The pain from consequences must exceed the perceived pleasure from use, a comparison that varies tremendously from addict to addict and something we as sober individuals cannot measure. Therefore, the best option for a speedy end is to increase the level of pain wherever possible. You claim to have let her feel the consequences of her misbehaviors, yet you help her with homework and provide a home at which she no doubt violates countless ground rules. It’s time to let nature take its course.
On the other side of the coin, thoughtful codependents who have gone through this process inform us that it was only when they finally “gave up” that the addict cleaned up. We are not God and, therefore, cannot know the level of pain required. Keeping in mind that you are dealing with a person whose emotional growth stopped the day addiction was triggered and who has a damaged neo-cortex, the human part of the brain responsible for reason and logic, she needs to experience any and all non-life threatening consequences that increase pain. You should stop helping with her schoolwork, inform her that continued use and poor behaviors will not be tolerated in your home, try to have her arrested for DUI and record with audiocassette and videotape any misbehaviors you observe, which you will use in an intervention with a qualified interventionist. You may not “raise” her bottom, but you will certainly hasten it.
(Source for story idea: Annie’s Mailbox, April 29, 2005.)