How Can I Help My Son Or Daughter Quit Drugs?

This is the call I get the most and it is also the easiest question to answer. How can you help your son or daughter get off drugs? Get them to treatment, NOW.

This may sound like it is over reacting, but when a young person is unable to quit drugs on their own, it means that their addiction has already become more than they can handle.

The truth is, you cannot handle their addiction for them. Only the addict can stop using drugs and that is not an ability the parent can give to them. They must gain for themselves the strength of will, the courage and the reasons to quit drugs.

You can give them information that explains the damages that drugs do, show them photos of addicted persons on the street, in hospital or graveyards, and it will rarely be enough by itself to turn them around.

When addiction has set in, it is too late for just drug education, or a “good talking to.”

If addicted, they need treatment. That is the bottom line and I wish it were otherwise. I have tried too many times to talk someone off of drugs. It might seem that you are making headway, there may be tears and hugs and huge ‘thank you’s, but without sending this person to a successful, drug-free rehab program, you are just spinning your wheels. That is the hard truth.

The best time to attack addiction is always right now. I have seen hesitation to act have fatal consequences.