Parental Involvement In Drug Rehab

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The decision to finally intervene in your child's life and either convince or mandate drug rehabilitation is rarely a decision taken lightly, and whether your child bottoms out (legal problems, school expulsion) or intervention occurs before the worst has arrived, the emotional stress and trauma of addiction and the difficulty in knowing how best to help can easily overwhelm.

Making the Decision to Get Help

Once the decision is made to get help, parental involvement continues to play an integral role in the drug rehabilitation process. Although during drug rehab your teen may no longer be living under your roof, you as parents remain the strongest people of influence in his or her life, and you need to remain supportive and involved even as your teen receives treatment in a residential facility.

Research has shown that a high level of parental involvement throughout the residential drug rehab period is the single greatest factor influencing eventual completion of the program and long term sobriety. Occasional phone calls are not enough, and parents need to be involved with the therapy, education and counseling, to encourage the best eventual outcome.

The period of residential drug rehab is a period of enormous growth and challenge for an adolescent coping with a transition away from drug or alcohol abuse, and the process is rarely free from trauma or abuse. Parents need to remain involved, and remember that some of the behaviors as exhibited against the parents are not necessarily true expressions of emotion, but a process of acting out against the facility and the required changes to be made.