Every parent’s worst nightmare is to find out that your child is addicted to drugs or alcohol. This scenario would rank right up there with losing a child to tragedy and death. Parents are human and we all handle problems in our lives differently. Some parents bury their head in the sand and pretend like nothing is wrong, while other parents overbearingly try to handle the problem themselves without any training, skill or knowledge about addiction and recovery.
In the addiction industry and recovery community, there are highly-skilled professional coaches that are well-equipped to help parents with their addicted children and keep them from trying to do the job themselves. A job that they are not qualified to do. Think about it like this, if you went to school to become an elementary school teacher you aren’t going to drive to the local airport and apply for a job as an airplane mechanic. You aren’t trained to repair airplanes. You aren’t skilled and you aren’t qualified to repair airplanes. You were trained to teach elementary school children and you need to leave the airplane repairs to those who are trained to do so. The same goes for recovery from addiction. Many people think they are skilled and qualified to help those suffering from addiction, but only those who have been carefully trained and are skilled in recovery-based methods need to be giving advice on recovery and helping those suffering from addiction. In this blog we are going to discuss the top five things that parents do wrong when dealing with their addicted children.
1. PARENTS BURY THEIR HEADS IN THE SAND– many parents turn the other way and bury their heads in the sand when they find out that their child is addicted to drugs and alcohol. Many parents find it too painful to deal with or they just don’t know how to deal with having an addictive child. So they turn a blind eye and act as if it’s not happening in hopes that it will fix itself. Of course, it never fixes itself.
2. PARENTS BLAME THEMSELVES-A lot of times we find that parents of addicted children blame themselves for their child’s addiction. They start playing the “What if” game. “What if” I caused this mess. “What if” my parenting methods led to their addiction. This is definitely a counter productive way to help.
3. PARENTS BLAME THE CHILD– now let’s make one thing clear here. There is absolutely nothing wrong with holding your child accountable for his or her actions during his or her addiction. And there is nothing wrong with keeping your child honest during his or her recovery. However, constantly placing the blame for your child’s addiction on them will only cause adverse reactions and hinder the recovery process.
4. PARENTS BECOME HELICOPTER PARENTS DURING THEIR CHILD’S ADDICTION– in a lot of cases, parents become helicopter parents during their child’s addiction. By this I mean that the parent steps in and tries to fix everything by stepping over their child’s personal boundary and doing everything for the child instead of allowing the child to work through his or her own issues that led to the addiction in the first place.
5. PARENTS BECOME EXPERT SOBER COACHES– I am obviously being sarcastic here. Most parents deem themselves expert professional sober coaches overnight once they find out their child is addicted to drugs and alcohol. The parent may have had zero training in addiction and recovery-based methods, but they claim to hold the golden key to recovery. Usually this results in misguided information and methods that only do the addicted child more harm. Please leave the sober coaching to the professionals!
So as you can see, there are many different ways in which parents fail their addicted children and we need to be better educated and put our addicted children in the hands of highly-skilled and trained professional coaches. So if your child is dealing with a deadly addiction or you know someone who is please contact The Addictions Coach at
Top Recovery Coaches and Life Coaching for Drug and Alcohol Addiction or by calling 1.800.706.0318 ext 1.
