<p>I’ve been lurking on the cc boards for ages, always picking up advice & tips that you can’t find anywhere else, and now i am in need of serious advice.
My youngest D approached a teacher last week and told him she has been abusing drugs and needed help.
The backstory - D is 16 - she is a beautiful, bright, personable girl wh had a rocky first two years in hs after being a straight A student til then. This, her junior year, had started great. She had all A’s on her 1st report card, good attitude, good conduct marks, I sure as heck didn’t see this coming.
Looking back, I see warning signs I dismissed or missed or ignored. She took naps after school, she was always spraying those room scent things, she was often called in to work at the last minute-she knew that would gain free access to her car. </p>
<p>the good news - she DID ask for help. I got the call from the guidance counselor last Monday after her teacher passed on the news. She IS in a very good treatment facility. She DOEs have a stable family who love her and want to do whatever we can to fix this.<br>
The bad news - her drug of choice - cocaine. She also used prescription drugs like lortab and xanax. oh, and she started with pot. It really is a “gateway drug”. She’s been dabbling for a year but using daily for the last month. I thought that was the worst of it but last night while cleaning out her room (purging!) we found a recent journal where she basically begged for help, wondered why I, her Mom, had not realized what was gong on, and chronicled her recent use of crack on top of the other drugs I’ve mentioned.
How does a parent rebound from this? I have failed my daughter. She is getting treatment now, yes, but what do we do when she gets out? There is a good 2 hours between the time she gets out of school and when I get off work. Her dad works a good hour later. I can’t find any TEEN centered narcotics groups locally. I’m thinking volunteering, classes at a local gym, ?? How do I fill this kids free time with healthy, good options to keep her from going back? This is my baby I’m talking about.
If any other parents have had experiences with addiction, please, please share. This is breaking my heart.</p>
<p>I have no advice but my heart breaks for you. I am sure you will find many helpful posters. She asked for help – that is huge. Really huge. Make sure you get yourself into therapy, not just her – take care of yourself too. This isn’t your fault. My very best to you.</p>
<p>Is there a way you can arrange with your manager to either shift your work schedule earlier or reduce it by a couple of hours per day (either at a reduced salary, with vacation time, working some Saturdays, etc.) for at least a month or two until you can see how it goes with her? At some point she’ll be unsupervised (she already will be to some extent when she’s ‘at school’) and will have to sink or swim but it might be helpful if you could be there for the first challenging month or two.</p>
<p>Thanks, pizzagirl. We did have our first family therapy at the facility yesterday and thought it very helpful until we came home and found the journal I mentioned above. It’s been a rollercoaster. This was NOt supposed to happen to MY family, you know?</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad, I have had the same thought. I intend to ask for either flex time or the use of vacation time spread out and used 2 hours at a time. My boss has been sympathetic thus far, and I do think that the most crucial time will be the first couple of months.
My oldest D will arrive home from college in another week, and while she is home I will have to ask her to basically babysit. I don’t’ want to lay the responsibility on her shoulders, but I am hoping that the time together will strengthen their relationship which became strained in the last few years.
for the life of me, though, I can’t find a TEEN based narcotics anonymous group. Does it not exist?</p>
<p>My heart goes out to you. I note that you and your husband both work. Check with your employers to see if they have an Employee Assistance or Counseling program. Most large corporations do. These are generally confidential and free. They can steer you to all the kinds of help you might need. It might also be possible for one of you to flex your work hours to be home after school if that is part of a treatment program.</p>
<p>my heart goes out to you also. My nephew 18 years old is a heroin addict. Pot was also a gateway drug to him. He still has not graduated high school and has been abusive to my sister. My thoughts are with you, this will be a lifelong battle for you and for her!</p>
<p>I am really sorry to hear this. I stumbled upon your post just a minute ago. Although i am not a parent, rather just a student who has no real knowledge to your daughter or her story, i can relate because this exact thing happened to my best friend. She was a straight A student all through out high school until recently (her senior year) she started dabbling into drugs first marajuna- now crack. I no longer communicate with her due to the fact i tried helping her but she cut me out completely, but i just want you to know that it’s not your fault. As a student who is in all ap classes there is so much pressure to be perfect and get the best grades, that students feel trapped and need some sort of release. Honestly most ap students experiment with pot in order to relax themselves, however people tend to have addictive personalities like my friend, thus they start getting more heavily involved. I just wanted to share that with you, and to let you know that you shouldn’t blame yourself.</p>
<p>Thanks, all. I have been truly amazed that most everyone I have told about our situation in my real (not cc) life has had a relative, friend, personal experience to share about addiction. Look, I was pta mom all through elementary & middle school. High school seemed to be time for hands off parenting - push the independence- privileges earned through trust. all of this worked with d#1, but you see where we are now.<br>
Speaking of people we’ve told - it’s been on a need only basis at work, and a couple of friends. this weekend we have to break ti to our families, including my 89 year old parents. I’ve had maybe 8 hours of sleep this week, where i used to get 8 a night, and I can’t remember what I last ate. I did, I just did it on auto pilot.<br>
I know that this experience will leave me a much better, more sympathetic person. I will admit to you right here and now that in the past - if I am being perfectly honest - whenever I heard about a teen with drug problems I would in the back of my mind blame the parents immediately. Hey, I am bounding between self blame, fear, sorrow, anger, etc, but now at least I understand that this is a complicated problem.</p>
<p>Hey ceecomfort, I really do want to hear from the teens out there, as well. I have discussed with one of d’s old best friend that we really need the support of her TRUE friends, including holding her accountable. Of course, we can’t expect anyone else to babysit her, but if D feels a responsibility to the people she loves & respects that can only help.
Sorry to hear about your friend, but you are right that you have to concentrate on your own stuff. Just know that - as we are just finding out - friend in trouble really value any show of support be it notes, phone calls, visits.
I Would especially value input from teens who have been through this or witnessed the process that friends have gone through. . .</p>
<p>I know a couple of people who have gone through this with under 18 children. Two of them ended up keeping their D’s in a boarding treatment center for teenage girls. They finished their HS diploma while at treatment. The case I am most familar with I think she stayed 1 2/2 yrs. She came home at 18 lived with her family and now is at a Top 20 private university. In their case they felt their D needed long term treatment away from home and her peers. They were able to get their health insurance to cover a portion of the treatment center.
Another D of a friend went to a treatment center for 6 weeks and came home and went to a sober HS that was run by the local HS district in conjuntion with a non profit drug treatment center. Her D attended AA meetings with adults.
Also get yourself to an Al Anon meeting. You will find others going through the same thing.</p>
<p>I am so sorry that you are going through this. There is not one parent anywhere who can be one hundred percent confident that this won’t happen to their child. All of us miss signals. It could be any one of us and some day it might be. </p>
<p>As far as teen support groups. Have you tried a local hospital? They might have one or know of one. And I really agree that you need to be in counseling for your own health and to help you deal with your feelings around this.</p>
<p>earswideopen,
hugs to you, your d, and your family. i just want to reiterate what pizzagirl said. it is HUGE that your D spoke up and asked for help. really. it is a tremendous step and --from what I know-- bodes well for her recovery. it’s a process…the rollercoaster ride will continue for a while. but hang in there and don’t blame yourself. as you’ve noticed in the past weeks when you’ve shared your D’s story, the vast majority of families have some experience --direct or indirect-- with similar issues. your D is lucky to have the loving, supportive family she does to help her get through it. deep breaths and grace…</p>
<p>I’m so sorry you have to go through this! I’m not a parent, but when I was in middle school my older sister was abusing drugs, so I know how you must feel, having seen my mother go through it. My sister smoked pot a lot, but then when she was probably 17 or 18 she started using other drugs, including ecstasy. We started getting worried at her increasingly bizarre behavior, and on top of the drug abuse, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I think with both drug abuse and mental illness, it’s like staring at one of those cartoons that’s two faces and a candlestick. You look at it and just see a candlestick, and then BOOM, you can see the two faces, and you don’t understand how you couldn’t see them before. But you can’t blame yourself for not seeing it earlier! Like you said, she was getting good grades and apparently going to work all the time, and it’s not so out of the ordinary for a teenage girl to spray her room with scented aerosols. Hindsight is 20/20, but you really can’t hold that against yourself. I know it’s hard, but for you to give your daughter all the love and support she needs, you need to be able to not beat yourself up over it. And it’s so great that your daughter is self-aware enough at 16 to realize that she needs help, and to actually seek it out. It’s always darkest before dawn, and I think your family will pull through it. All the best!</p>
<p>P.S. Don’t worry about depending on your older daughter to babysit, we sisters are resilient! :)</p>
<p>I just wanted to mention that even in “good” schools drugs are available during school hours and kids use during their lunch break and sit high for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>I completely agree, although she might not say it much now in the long run im sure your daughter is really going to appreciate that you care enough to help her seek treatment. For my friend, it wasn’t exactly the same story, instead of dealing with the problem, her mom just shunned her and ignored it, so it really does say a lot that you are willing to provide her the help that she needs. But its also really hard too, because she really meant a lot to me and just watching her through her life away and stop caring was really intense. I felt like i was stuck, because i wanted to tell her what she was doing was so wrong, but i didnt want her to feel like i was “attacking her” at the same time. However through the process, It finally made me realize that although i will always care about her, its ultimately up to her to want to make the right choices and get clean. And hopeful through rehab she will learn that. And as for teen groups, i think that is a great idea. I mean i think its really important for people to know that they have others who care about them.</p>
<p>What size city do you live in? Are there a local Narcotics Anonymous meetings? You should look into this. From very personal experience I know that many teenagers go to these meetings and find peer support. She’ll need reinforcement for a drug-free life when she comes out of treatment, going to NA and getting a sponsor can be a real life-saver. Also, having a support network outside her immediate family is very important.</p>
<p>Drug addiction is a very tricky heartbreaking thing and there may be ups and downs. Hang in there with her and don’t give up, sometimes people slip a few times before they actually understand what recovery entails. It’s a terrific sign that she asked for help.</p>
<p>Educate yourself about addiction and remember that you can help her, but you can’t fix her, she’ll have to learn to do that herself. Just find as many resources as you can.</p>
<p>I am just a student so I do not have much of anything useful to contribute, but my family has been in a similar situation with my sister. I just want to say that this sort of thing can truly happen to any family. You’re not one of <em>those</em> families now. Drug addiction is a stigmatizing thing, but it really can happen to anyone. I don’t judge you for this. What I would judge you on is whether or not you did all you could to get your D through this, and you are doing that. You should not feel ashamed of this situation, your parenting at this point is commendable. You have done all the right things. Still things didn’t go quite your way, and that’s a shame but it happens, and as long as you keep doing all the right things you stand a chance and you are not to blame for any of it. Hang in there.</p>
<p>Do remember that though the focus is on your D, this situation is a sort of trauma to every member of the family and everyone else that knows her. Remember to take care of yourself, your spouse, and your other children in this as well as your D. You all are going to have your own coping process, and it does no good to your D if you ignore yours to take care of hers (same goes for dad and siblings.) You’ve got to get through this together. Once the shock starts to die off I think it starts to get a little bit easier, but do your best to make sure you’re eating and sleeping-- maybe take a bath or read a book and try to relax. Easier said than done, I know, but you’ve got a long road ahead of you and you can’t afford to burn out. So just do the best you can and hang in there.</p>
<p>The thing that helped us with my sister was realizing that we were being given a second chance. She was hospitalized for a while and all we could think of how bad and scary the whole situation was and how traumatized we all were by the fact that she’d had to go (as well as worrying ourselves sick about her, of course), but we were being given a second chance. Her ex-boyfriend died of a heroin overdose at 18 years old in September. His parents didn’t get that second chance. We did, and you are getting it now. You may feel as though you have failed as a parent, and maybe that’s true-- I can’t be the one to tell you either way, but by her reaching out for help she is giving you a second chance to save her. That is a VERY good thing, and that is something you can work with, there is a way forward here. Focus on that if it helps.</p>
<p>I’ll reiterate what many others have said: It means everything that she went to the teacher and asked for help. EVERYTHING. She wants out of this, and her young age gives her an excellent chance at recovery.</p>
<p>Also: This is not your fault. Period! </p>
<p>As for a teen-centered program/facility, ask the treatment center, her doctor, your doctor, pastor, guidance counsellor, county/city services. Ask, ask, ask. We don’t know what’s available in your community, but someone there will.</p>