enabling

[parent]

Dr. Bradley -

I have written to you over the years regarding my teen son and his addiction issues. He is now of adult legal age, living here at home, going to a local community college, but is still using.

His behavior a few years ago was out of control. He made life miserable for himself and us. At that time he was clearly a poly-substance abuser, but even then he regularly commented that pot was his drug choice.

Finally we were able to get him into inpatient as an adolescent. He was sober for awhile but slowly went back (it seems) to "only" pot and alcohol.

All along my husband was the "protector". He said I was negative when I would point out certain things about our son and I told him that I was just being realistic. I convinced him to see a counselor with me. Counselor was of no help because I guess he could see how against my husband was about drawing a line in the sand and giving our son some alternatives - either treatment or out. In our parent support group I hoped that he would absorb something about the hard choices other parents were making, but to no avail. We even do a parent drug presentation at our local middle school and talk about enabling and that reinforcement doesn't seem to help.

I was tired of trying to change him or get him to see that we need some rules - something! We also have a solid marriage, but this certainly was testing it. So I let it go and stopped pestering him because it was fruitless.

Life got "better". I pushed our son's usage in the back of my head and even my relationship improved with our son. He actually seems engaged in school and actually does the assignments. We've NEVER seen this behavior before.

Having said all this - bottom line he's "better" but he's still using. Short of giving our son a choice - either treatment or out - is there anything else "we" can do? I tried the liberal curfew but that failed.

I found some odd looking unmarked pills which prompted me to see if there's anything else we can do. Just grasping at straws - I guess.

Thank you for what you do!

[Mike Bradley]

Don't underestimate the power of the "next best thing," which is to lovingly, consistently and firmly object to drug use by an 18-year-old based upon the brain research that shows (1)how older brains are less likely to become addicted, and (2)that this kid in particular is playing Russian Roulette, hoping that the round of full-blown addiction doesn't go off. Over time that message might begin to have more impact.
and thank YOU for what YOU do. It's much harder. Hang in there.