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Drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Recognition. Prevention. Treatment

20/20 Parenting. Recognizing and mitigating early vulnerabilities and risk factors.

Prevention Solutions - Older Child

Ann Schiebert, Mom of 3, PsyD

Ann has thirteen years of experience working with teens and adults. The last four and a half years she has been employed at a U.S. national hospital. She has provided therapy to multiple populations including adolescents in the highly impoverished Richmond school district in northern California, and families of in-patient teens at Thunder Road Treatment Center, Oakland, California.


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Are My Children Abusing Substances?

What to Look For and Tips on How to Proceed

Discovering that one's child is on drugs or is abusing alcohol is a shock to almost all parents. Often teens have been using for a long period of time and their parents have wondered about the behavior changes they have been witnessing. Is my child just being a teenager? Or having difficulty with friends? Or having "growing pains?" Or just trying to be independent?

One of my patients, a single parent with three children, wondered why her oldest son was sleeping so much, isolating in his room, being nonconversant.  He spent much of his time practicing his drums while listening to deafening music on his stereo.  He was argumentative, his grades were declining and he seemed not to care.

This mother had had many conversations with her son about the perils of drug and alcohol use and her son had assured her that he would never use drugs.  It was a shock to this mom to discover that her son had become addicted to cocaine and marijuana!  What could she have looked for and how could she have intervened earlier?

Watch for Behavior Changes

If your child's eating patterns change this could be an indication of drug use.  The typical cycle for marijuana is to get high and get ravenous. Methamphetamine users, on the other hand, often go without eating for long periods of time and exhibit great energy and an increased ability to focus.  In the beginning stages of meth use, strangely enough, better grades could be a result. For females, the common weight loss from meth use can be viewed as a bonus and reason to continue use.

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