Parents Don't Always Know Best
Los Angeles, California—August, 2009
Parents Don’t Always Know Best… You know what’s crazy? Spending an hour trying to convince a parent or a family member that a loved one needs to go into a long-term drug and alcohol treatment program because nothing they’ve done so far has worked.
Sometimes, whether they know it or not, parents are the biggest roadblock to their child’s recovery. Even the best-intentioned parents still continue to do what they’ve always done. They think that through sheer force and will power they can get their children sober, but experience has shown that the end result will always be the same. The addict continues to lie and manipulate his family into getting their way with little or no consequences for the addict.
The addict knows this and continues to “work” his family so he or she can keep getting loaded. The problem is that we are dealing with a fatal disease. It’s in parents DNA to do whatever they can to eliminate their child’s pain and suffering but when it comes to drug addiction and alcoholism it is best to leave this to people who are skilled in recovery. Sometimes parents become blind to what needs to be done. Unfortunately the end result is that parents can wind up enabling their kids to death.
I’m not a doctor, but this kind of behavior has got sickness written all over it. If the doctor told you, your child had a deadly disease and the only thing that could save them was treatment, you would do anything they told you to save your kid, wouldn’t you? Would you try to treat your child on your own? Of course not, that would be insane!
So why do parents insist on trying to treat their child’s drug addiction. Why do they find it so hard to listen to the treatment professionals who are advising parents to get out of the way and let professionals do their job and save your loved one’s life? Whether you know it or not people do die from drug addiction. I’ve seen it my self, up close and personal. That’s how insidious this disease is. It tries to tell us we don’t have it. If you truly want to help your child then you have to stop listening to what they’re telling you and start listening to people who know what it takes to recover from addiction.
That’s where a place like Liberty House, a highly structured sober living recovery home can be so helpful to a person suffering from drug addiction. “Drug addiction doesn’t just affect the person addicted, it effects everyone around that person, especially family members. That’s why we stress the entire family be involved in the recovery process.” says Josh Schreiber, CADCII, Director of Liberty House, a sober living home located in Los Angeles, California.
“Family participation is a big part of our program. In order for family members to break the destructive cycle of co-dependence and enabling of the addict, they must learn how to set and maintain boundaries. We’ve found over many years of experience that our weekly family meetings are an integral part of helping parents and siblings learn how to deal with these issues. We also encourage family members to go to Alanon meetings and work their own programs. As the addict begins to recover they learn how to take care of their own problems. That can only occur once the cycle of co-dependency is broken”.
If you as a parent want to put an end to the cycle of addiction, constant relapse and destructive behavior then you should seriously consider the highly structured and successful sober living program of Liberty House.
|
