Drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Recognition. Prevention. Treatment
20/20 Parenting. Recognizing and mitigating early vulnerabilities and risk factors.
Letters to Kerry
Stories of Victory, Struggle, Tragedy, & Workplace Concerns
July 12, 2006:
Thank you so much for your responses.....
.....One more thing I want to add is my intense shock, frustration and anger at finding out when my son was 14 and dangerously involved in alcohol, that I could not put him in treatment. I’m still furious and totally amazed at how the obvious increased destruction to the addict, family, and society by having treatment delayed can be totally ignored. And the decision is left to someone who is too young to drive, vote and make other important life decisions, whose mind is not fully developed or mature due to adolescence and all the irrational emotions that go along, let alone the additional instability due to substance abuse. Yet if you wait until the youth is so entrenched in addiction that they get heavily involved in crime, then a court can mandate treatment so you end up still having a reluctant youth who has now been addicted for a longer period of time and more heavily entrenched in the lifestyle of addiction and crime. What or who benefits by not allowing the parent to put their child in treatment for addiction, while we would be considered unfit parents if we withheld medical help in other circumstances? I just can’t wrap my head around this idea at all!
Since I’m relatively new to this subject of youth addiction (although I’ve had an unexpected crash course during the last 16 months) I was wondering if any parents have individually or collectively challenged this idea of parents of youth not being able to obtain treatment for their youth and/or lobbied for accessible and successful treatment program, through the courts kind of like the parents of Autistic children have had to advocate and fight for money and treatment for their children, which ended after a long hard battle I understand, with success.
Marlene
Marlene has done an excellent job of describing the frustrations and desperation of so many of us who have attempted to get early medical help for our addicted youths/young adults. I have forwarded her querie to an affiliate parent in Langley who has been working very hard on the laws that hinder us from fullfilling our parental duty to our youths. If you are based in Canada (due to Canadian laws) and would like to get involved in this issue please read Gina's letter and send her an e-mail:
July 19. 2006: Contradictory Laws Hindering Parental Responsibility
