Take care of yourself - Often, parents are deeply affected by their child’s addiction and experience emotional, mental and physical illnesses. Therefore, your health and well being must be your top priority of all tips for parents. You cannot help and support your child if your state of mind and physical health are lacking.
Educate yourself - Addiction is a disease. The more you know about it, the more equipped you are to help your child recover as with any disease. The Internet has an abundance of material available for parents to read. There are several suggested readings for parents below and additional online resources here. Equally important, get involved in the recovery community in your area.
Set guidelines and stick with them - An addicted child needs very clear guidelines and our primary job must be to enforce these. Follow through on any consequences you agree to. Clearly they become very proficient at manipulating within any grey area. As well as, using deceitful tactics and employing bullying when parents are not consistent with their boundaries.
Encourage and Support Recovery - Enabling is spoken about in all support meetings. Consequently, as parents we have to encourage recovery and ONLY assist our addicted child when it leads to their recovery. This includes assistance financially, emotionally and with their daily livelihood. This is a key tip for parents.
SUGGESTED READINGS
Addict in the House, Robin Barnett & Darren Kavinoky
Beautiful Boy, David Sheff
Boundaries, Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend
Codependent No More, Melody Beattie
Don’t Let Your Kids Kill You, Charles Rubin
Heroin, Hurricane Katrina and the Howling Within, Eliza Player
How to Stop Time, Ann Marlowe
Parched, Heather King
Parent Through Addiction, Ginny Mills
Son Down, Son Up, Brenda Seals
Tending Dandelions, Hazelden
The Jagged Series, Lorelie Rozanno
The Joey Song, Sandy Swenson
Please contact [email protected]
to suggest a book or other materials.