Once upon a time I was working with the family of a 16 year old. After the young man had established his sobriety, his parents’ two main points of contention were his scholastic performance and his use of cigarettes. It was the cigarettes, though, that consumed the most time in our family sessions.
There were countless crises brought on by the young man coming home smelling of cigarette smoke, the parents finding his cigarettes or lighter or their interpretation of his smoking being a reflection of his drug use. They grounded him, took privileges away and their house was littered with pamphlets on the dangers of tobacco usage.
Finally, in a couples session, I asked them how their efforts were proceeding. His father exclaimed that the youth wasn’t really sober because he was still under the influence of nicotine. His mother reported her fears of serious illness or death if her son continued. They had both noticed that their son's attitude was growing negative and he was much more distant. Proof, the father said, that he was back on drugs.
The parents' obsession with their son's drug use was undermining his recovery efforts. Any efforts he made towards communication always led back to the question of when he would give up cigarettes. Every time he came home his father made a point of doing a "sniff exam" for any signs of cigarette smoke. Three months before the young man had been regularly in possession of drugs that would qualify for a felony arrest. He was failing school and had no real direction. Now he was sober, passing school and being treated worse than he was when using.
There are a couple of questions we must ask ourselves as adults. One deals with what is really important to us. Teens and young adults often do things we don't approve and it's been that way throughout history. We have to decide which behaviors are truly important to us and stick with them. Constantly raising the bar does little more than frustrate the youth and convince them they will never meet their parents' approval. Then they give up.
The second important point is defining where the youth's problem stops and ours begins. Often I see parents who bait their child into arguments over what are actually minor issues. Or engage in power struggles that simply drive the youth into exactly the behaviors the parent doesn't want. When a parent is just as upset over a teen's smelly room as they were over the teen's coming home high on opiates something's wrong.
Recovery for families is about learning what issues are worth pursuing and those best left alone. It's about learning how to deal with our own fears and not taking them out on our children. Finally, it's about learning how to let go, to be able to say what it is we feel without trying to control another human being.
John
There were countless crises brought on by the young man coming home smelling of cigarette smoke, the parents finding his cigarettes or lighter or their interpretation of his smoking being a reflection of his drug use. They grounded him, took privileges away and their house was littered with pamphlets on the dangers of tobacco usage.
Finally, in a couples session, I asked them how their efforts were proceeding. His father exclaimed that the youth wasn’t really sober because he was still under the influence of nicotine. His mother reported her fears of serious illness or death if her son continued. They had both noticed that their son's attitude was growing negative and he was much more distant. Proof, the father said, that he was back on drugs.
The parents' obsession with their son's drug use was undermining his recovery efforts. Any efforts he made towards communication always led back to the question of when he would give up cigarettes. Every time he came home his father made a point of doing a "sniff exam" for any signs of cigarette smoke. Three months before the young man had been regularly in possession of drugs that would qualify for a felony arrest. He was failing school and had no real direction. Now he was sober, passing school and being treated worse than he was when using.
There are a couple of questions we must ask ourselves as adults. One deals with what is really important to us. Teens and young adults often do things we don't approve and it's been that way throughout history. We have to decide which behaviors are truly important to us and stick with them. Constantly raising the bar does little more than frustrate the youth and convince them they will never meet their parents' approval. Then they give up.
The second important point is defining where the youth's problem stops and ours begins. Often I see parents who bait their child into arguments over what are actually minor issues. Or engage in power struggles that simply drive the youth into exactly the behaviors the parent doesn't want. When a parent is just as upset over a teen's smelly room as they were over the teen's coming home high on opiates something's wrong.
Recovery for families is about learning what issues are worth pursuing and those best left alone. It's about learning how to deal with our own fears and not taking them out on our children. Finally, it's about learning how to let go, to be able to say what it is we feel without trying to control another human being.
John
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