Drug Rehab Center

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for the Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses her new pamphlet “Giving Your Adult Child the Gift of Adulthood.”

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA RCC
Director of Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Center

In this 4-part series, we explore the dynamic of addiction in the family. How parents interact with their adult child struggling with addiction is an important element in restoring their own well-being and healthy, sustainable recovery for an addicted family member.

PART ONE

When raising children, we as parents have two primary responsibilities: 1) Keeping them safe and 2) nurturing them with love.  Protecting our children from harm and providing them with a loving, supportive homelife are both critical if we hope to have our children grow to become responsible, contributing members of society.

Similar to how physical pain tells us to pull back from a burning candle, fear instinctively tells us when we or our children are in danger. Fear is a powerful emotion and obviously serves a critical role. Unfortunately, fear can also unknowingly prevent us from lovingly nurturing our children towards personal growth. Fear can trump love.

When our children are still toddlers or pre-adolescent, it may be perfectly sensible to wade in, take control, and problem-solve on their behalf. As our children grow into adulthood, however, this same tendency to over-function and expert manage can have real and long-term negative consequences. The adult child addicted to drugs and/or alcohol is an excellent case in point.

Managing An Adult Child In Crisis

When we find our child actively struggling with addiction, we as parents are often motivated to take action out of fear. For example, we may pay their rent for fear they might end up homeless, or we may buy them groceries for fear of them becoming malnourished and vulnerable to sickness. If our adult child is charged with impaired driving we may pay for an expensive lawyer out of fear for the negative impact that comes with a criminal record.

Out of fear, we learn to tolerate their destructive, often illegal, activities at home. Crack smoking  or binge drinking in the basement becomes the lesser of two evils so long as it means they remain under our watchful gaze and away from places frequented by desperate, dangerous addicts, prostitutes, and criminals.

As an addiction progresses, we as parents may become little more than ATMs – knowingly providing money for drugs or alcohol in exchange for peace of mind. We know it’s not right but we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that it could be worse – at least our children are not dead from overdose, violence, or suicide. Money then becomes the last tenuous thread keeping the family together.

As parents, we may assume that part of our job is to keep our children free from pain. The reality, however, is that when parents protect their children in this way life then the opportunity to learn from the experience (and mature into adulthood) vanishes. Unfortunately, parents who don’t address this unhealthy dynamic may eventually find that their children physically reach adulthood but are emotionally stuck in childhood – incapable of living independently or assuming any real responsibilities. *

(*) Note: John Bowlby writes extensively on this topic in his classic book, ‘Attachment’. See the Recommended Reading section below.

Resilience: A Loving Alternative to Parenting out of Fear

It may seem obvious that the older a child becomes the more difficult it is for a parent to remove all potential sources of pain. However, fear often makes it difficult for a parent to think rationally when their adult child is self-destructing from drugs or alcohol. Fortunately, there is research showing the effectiveness of fostering resilience – the positive capacity of people to cope with life’s challenges – when it comes to raising children. ** While resilience can’t prevent painful events from occurring, teaching our children to courageously face life’s twists and turns put us as parents firmly back on the path to lovingly nurturing our children towards personal growth.

(**) Note: Resilience has been extensively researched in psychology. See the Recommended Reading section below.

Conclusion to Part One

For most of us, when we are hurting others or ourselves, internal ‘alarm bells’ are there to tell us we are making poor choices. When an adult child struggles with addiction, pain and discomfort serve as motivators that can lead to positive change. However, if we as parents fail to allow our children to take full responsibility for their own, often self-inflicted, life challenges then we end up muffling these inner voices that are advocating for greater personal accountability.

Paying the rent or buying groceries for your child may help them maintain a quality lifestyle but it removes any incentive to change a lifestyle that obsessively focuses on drugs or alcohol. Having our adult child face the consequences of missing the rent or experience the hunger pangs from having no groceries may seem like harsh punishment but it may also be the first steps on the path to recovery. This is the ultimate freedom of adulthood – the power of choice. As adults, we get to choose our actions and live with the consequences whether these decisions are good or bad.

Here’s a good question to ask yourself: “Am I basing my parenting on a foundation of love or fear?”

In Part Two, Cathy elaborates on what she means by the ‘gift of adulthood’ and what the costs are of habitually rescuing the adult child.

Recommended Reading

Bowlby, John (1983) Attachment: Second Edition (Attachment and Loss Series, Vol 1)

Brooks, Robert (2002) Raising Resilient Children: Fostering Strength, Hope, and Optimism in Your Child

Neufeld, Gordon (2006) Hold on to Your Kids

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC
Director, Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Centre

As Director of Family Services and with my experience of working directly with families impacted by addiction over the past twelve years I have noticed an important pattern that emerges between many parents and their addicted adult children.  As individuals progress further into addiction, there is an increase in negative consequences as substances become less about pleasure and more about coping and finding relief from life. As this attachment to mood-altering substances intensifies, individuals with addictions continue on a path of growing self-destructiveness: losing work opportunities, having personal safety/health risks, encountering legal problems such as DUI (Driving Under The Influence) charges etc. In most cases, parents feel powerless as they watch their child’s life spiral out of control.

Why Parents Assume the Role of “Expert Managers”

Once there are negative consequences parents are often all too willing to rush in to provide help. This pattern of rescuing their adult children provides parents relief from an overwhelming sense of powerlessness as they witness their adult children self-destructing with alcohol and/or drugs. Furthermore, parents can at least hold on to some type of connection with their loved ones who become even more emotionally-distant and erratic in their behaviours.  Some of the ways that parents rush in to provide “help” include paying off drug debts, offering their home as a place to stay (even though their own child may rob them to pay for drugs), hiring expensive lawyers to fight DUI charges, etc. In these examples, parents are unwittingly providing a buffer zone that separates their child from the painful consequences of their addiction. By solving problems that arise due to continued use of drugs or alcohol, parents become “expert managers” of the lives of the addicted adult children. 

The problem that occurs when family members expert manage the lives of their addicted adult children is that they do all the functioning and decision-making for the adult children. Family members may rationalize that their addicted loved ones are incapable of making good decisions, so they need someone to manage them and “keep them on track.” 

Consequence #1 of Expert Managing Adult Children: the “King Baby” Phenomenon

One of the difficulties parents encounter in becoming expert managers is that their children never have the opportunity to grow on their own or tap into their own internal resources as a way to solve their problems. Rather than being independent and “resourceful,” when addicted adult children are “expert managed” by their parents, they remain emotionally-stagnant as well as child-like. Such addicted individuals expect to be given to, view themselves as victims who have been ripped off in life, take others for granted, and become angry at moments when their own selfish needs are not instantly satisfied.  In essence, these addicted adult children grow into the role of “King Baby” as they have the sense of entitlement as a “king” that everyone should do things for them, but they also tantrum like a “baby” when their needs are not met. It is not uncommon to witness adult children well into their adulthood having temper tantrums or yelling at their family members when they are not given that to which they feel entitled. Such individuals take from others, without considering giving back in return.

Consequence #2 of Expert Managing Adult Children: Low Self-Esteem

Another difficulty when parents expert manage is that their adult child can develop low self-esteem because they have never had the opportunity to independently set goals and accomplish them. All too often, parents often intervene in the lives of their adult children as they try to “nudge them back on track” or find a way to make life tasks easier for them. For example, an adult child may express for a moment that he is interested in possibly going to college. Before he/she has had a chance to consider this option further, the parents are so excited that there is a moment of ambition (even if it is for a fleeting second) that they rush out and get the college calendar of courses, application form, and set out to speak with as well as meet all of the first year instructors in the college so they can tell their child about the quality of instruction.  Such parents are “over-functioning” for their child who by now is so turned off by all the attention that he/she retreats back into a drug-induced haze.

Self-esteem is built in a similar manner to self-mastery by setting goals and accomplishing them. This way, people are able to build an inner sense of confidence. The act of just getting up and going to the college would have been a self-esteem boost for the individual described above. Many families believe that if they don’t take the initiative to get their addicted adult children motivated, then nothing will ever get done. Addicted people will often make promises and then never follow through with action.

A Way out For Families

In order to break the “expert managing” pattern, parents must be willing to give up control over the affairs of their adult child. This is the gift of adulthood which means that family members can start to treat their child as an adult. As adults, people are rewarded for good choices and experience pain for poor choices. Pain and discomfort is a good indicator that people need to grow as well as change. Often pain is a type of “wake-up call” as individuals start to become motivated to change their circumstances that are causing them upset.

Conclusion

One of the hardest, yet most necessary, steps for parents struggling with an addicted child is to give back the power of choice. People in early recovery need to “strike out on their own” into their adulthood by having the freedom to make good decisions and to learn from poor choices. Over time, these individuals will learn how to solve their own problems and will be less tempted to the romantic view that a life of drugs/alcohol is better.

Once young people enter recovery, they likely need an extended amount of time so that they can become comfortable sorting out who they are, what they want out of life, develop new peer relationships, and learn how to be responsible as they “strike out into adulthood.” These adult children will likely experience bumps along the way, but at least they will have the dignity of being able to take ownership for their own decisions rather than staying in an emotionally-stagnant pattern of being managed by everyone else with their only coping role being that of “King Baby.”