When Your Teenager has a Drinking Problem
Teenagers are three times more likely to develop drug and alcohol problems that adults. The combination of normal youthful rebellion, immature coping skills, and family issues can find a young person at the bottle a lot faster than most would suspect.
With technology becoming increasingly more powerful and teenagers having more resources at their disposal, fake identification is becoming easier to get despite the states’ efforts to make licensing more difficult to forge. Friends with highly relaxed parents, parents who are unaware or self absorbed may very well miss the quantities of alcohol missing from their supply for a long period of time. Parents who tend to throw a lot of parties themselves are not likely to keep tabs on the alcohol in the house quite as soundly as those who are light drinkers and seldom have festivities over at the house.
Recognizing alcoholism in teens can be a slow process. Most parents spend quite a bit of time in denial and attribute the behavioral changes to normal teenage experimentation and teenage rebellion. Understanding that your child has an actual alcohol related disease can take months of arguments, punishments, failed attempts to get them to stop drinking, and unfortunately all too often a disaster.
The most important first step the instant you even suspect a drinking problem is getting help. Your teenager needs help and you need help. Nothing else that surrounds the issues is as vital as getting help. Your child will need interventions to stop the drinking while you will need professional guidance in dealing with their behavior and attempting to save their life.
Drugs and drinking are the two most destructive behaviors a teenager can experience. They are five times more likely to be in a serious car accident and three times more likely to experience teenage violence.
Often, resolving a drinking problem can not be done in the home. There is too much freedom and too many unaccustomed eyes. Rehab facilities offer your teenager a place where someone can deal with the physical effects of detoxification as well as the behaviors exhibited by people who are still trying to sneak in a drink here and there. Addicts can be quite manipulative, and their manipulations can get past even the most aware parents who haven’t had specialized training. Even those with specialized training are likely to choose to send their child elsewhere until they find some self control, as professionals are typically not very professional when dealing with their own children.
An onset of depression is almost guaranteed as your child stops drinking. This depression is serious and needs to be taken every bit as serious as the drinking itself. Most teenagers experience a period of self hating remorse, a feeling of being completely overwhelmed, and anger at the situation which very easily manifests itself in depression.
Kids start down the road to alcoholism 94% of the time to mask symptoms of an original depression or to deal with a traumatic event. When the drinking is forcibly stopped, the original issue will eventually come to the surface and it needs to be dealt with, no matter how unpleasant the situation may be for everyone.
It can be difficult to recognize the symptoms of drinking in a teenager. Excessive sleeping after coming home late is a normal behavior, so it came be quite difficult to determine whether they are sleeping off a hangover or sleeping because they need to sleep. If your child is permitted to come home after you are in bed, wake up during the night and check them out fairly closely. Remember they have friends out there who will teach them how to slip this by you. They have friends out there who will convince them that they don’t have a problem, and friends who will even e willing to provide them with alcohol or drugs while they are rehab.
Do not give up. A teenager with a drinking problem is twice as likely to end up with a drinking problem in early adulthood if it is not handled while they are still young. You can not put a band aid on this problem and call it resolved. This is a problem that will take a few years to really get under control and a lifetime for your child to maintain control. There is no shame in reaching out for help and getting the best help available for your child.
