- Have your adolescent evaluated by a professional drug counselor or treatment facility
- Immediately admit your child to a drug treatment program if it is recommended
- Educate yourself and your family about the disease of addiction
- Seek family counseling from a group or a professional specializing in addiction
- Consider attending Al-Anon or Al-A-Teen meetings
- Understand that addiction will lead to prison, institutions or death if not treated
- Understand that no one has any control over the addicted adolescent except the addict
- Do not give your adolescent cash or credit cards
- Recognize that addicted adolescents have a disease and do not reason the same way as non-addicted teens
- Do not make excuses for your adolescent’s behavior; let the natural consequences of their actions occur
- Do not feel guilty about your parenting skills, your child made the decision to abuse drugs
- Realize that emotional maturity in addicted adolescents stops from the time they begin their drug or alcohol use
- Set and communicate clear behavior standards for the adolescent to live by while living in your home, no fuzzy or gray areas
- Hold the addicted adolescent accountable for their actions
- Consider suspending their driving privileges until the teen achieves sobriety
- If the adolescent is facing legal problems, do not intervene, let the natural consequences occur
- Be wary of the addict’s skills at manipulating people and events
- Consider removing or securing all alcohol, narcotic prescription medication, cold medication, etc. from your home
- Realize that addiction is a life long disease that cannot be cured, but can be treated
- All family members should try to be of the same mind set when setting behavioral expectations for the teen, and when holding them accountable
- Realize that addiction is a family disease that has a negative impact on all members of the family
- The addicted adolescents recovery is his program, you should not try to work harder than the teen at that program
- Relapses are common, recovery is achieved one small step at a time
- Learn to live life with an addict one day at a time, and be grateful for the time you have together
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