Yesterday, I yelled at my 19 year old son. He is a drug addict. He is an alcoholic. He is a liar and he is a thief. But he is still my son and I love him. 

I had to yell. He had to know how frustrated I am. How beyond hope I am. How close I am ready to giving up. Five years of rehabs, and this past year he has been kicked out of one apartment after another. And now most recently kicked out of his girlfriend's house, too. I have paid for motel rooms for the past few weeks. He doesn't seem to have hit bottom yet. What will it take?

I told him, if he wasn't working he would have to do volunteer work until he found a job. He would work just like everyone else 8:30-4:30 every day Monday through ...

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Drug addiction begins with a compulsive drive to take a drug despite the consequences. While traditionally viewed as experimentation in teen years or simply "bad choices", recent studies indicate that repeated drug use leads to long lasting changes in the brain that effect voluntary control. 

As parents we want to give our children benefit of doubt, especially when they come at us with questions like "Why don't you just trust me?" We so want to believe in our children, but the truth is that they have to earn our trust. Even smart kids do drugs. A child's brain does not fully develop until about the age of 25 and even longer in some boys. How can we expect them to act like adults when they physiologically haven't even fully grown into an adult.  Adolescence is a hard time to assess what is normal. It's important to ...

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I have personally always been of the mindset that addiction is a choice rather than a disease. If I can say no to alcohol and drugs then why couldn't everyone else? It was a consciencious choice I had made. I had experimented with alcohol and drugs in my teens and early twenties, but it was never something I had chosen to do to the point of becoming an addict. I could manage to work and school and keep the party life to a minimum. Addiction as a disease seemed to me to be a crutch, or lame excuse.

I began to get a better understanding of addiction as a disease when I read something that explained the concept of a disease. A disease causes its own symptoms and is not itself a symptom of another disease. Alcoholism/drug abuse addiction is felt to be a primary disease in that ...

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http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/PainManagement/34650

I have a friend who has an adult son that is an addict. We will call him Kirby. He has talked his doctor into his "need" for a prescription of Klonopins. Also referred to as Clonazepam it is typically prescribed for short-term relief of symptoms of anxiety. Xanax (Alprazolam) is often used for anxiety as well, but apparently more difficult to get off of. Klonopin is more mood lifting while Xanax is more of a knock out drug.

Both of these drugs have become a popular mix (sometimes referred to as a cocktail) for teens to help them "chill". What often happens is that teens are taking either and/or both and experiencing black out events. This parent can have a conversation with Kirby and then have the same conversation an hour or so later and the teen doesnt remember either conversation. Kirby talks slowly, careful to enunciate his words ...

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UNDERSTANDING TODAY'S YOUTH FREE Seminar on Monday, March 19, downstairs at library in Kernersville, NC at 7pm. Handouts  and discussion. Help with peer pressure, student leadership, and staying on the drug free path . . . or getting back on if necessary.

This event is sponsored by Patty Jo Sawvel, author of Under the Influence.

The hardest part of helping your child is letting them fail. As parents we tend to want to help our children sometimes to the point of enabling them. It is our role as their parent to be their advocate, so how can we really let them fail?

Genuinely concerned parents refusing to support their drug addicted child financially until he or she enters drug rehab would be said to be practicing tough love. It is this tough love which is often coupled with watching your child hit rock bottom. Your child's behaviors are not going to change until he or she decides for them to. So backing them into a corner is not always going to guarantee success. But letting your child know that you are not going to be a participant in their drug use or abuse will begin with the parent having to pull away from the ...

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