By Dr. Dalal Akoury Dr. Dalal Akoury October 9, 2015

Learning children addiction from other parents: Don’t give up hope

Winning the fight against addiction in children is not new because many parents have had the same experience before. Therefore if you are going through trial moment with your addicted child to drugs, be encouraged that you are not alone and you can always find somebody to talk to about your current situation. I must agree that it is not a very good experience to go through and that is why as professionals from AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center we want to share with you in this article some experiences other parents have gone through even as learning children addiction continues in the days to come. In this journey of learning children addiction, we need to have addiction professionals and Doctor Dalal Akoury who is a veteran addiction expert and the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center is going to share with us experiences of past clients so that we can develop the culture of learning from other parents about children addiction.

Over the past two decades doctor Akoury has been very instrumental in offering solutions to all people across the globe and in her experience, she came a cross one client whose story will be very useful for many parents who may be going through difficult moment with their children’s addiction. According to this client about five years ago their son was 27-year-old and was so much addicted to alcohol drinking that finally led to usage of other strong drugs (cocaine to be specific). For more than one year they were in the dark about his new habit until he was out of control and that is when he lost his job this really caught us pants down because of his life and that of our grandson the client said. We could not believe how ignorant and blind we were until it all started to make sense when our son was consistently broke, weird phone calls, not showing up for family events, his actions, and his physical appearance. At this point the reality down on us and we tried to help him so desperately by enrolling him in treatment programs one after the other. It was difficult because the response was very discouraging but we kept telling him how much we loved him. In solidarity we began attending recovery meetings with him where we met other people going through the same thing.

To cut the long story short it reached a point when we realized that it was beyond our control and we were prepared for the worst but even as we were in that situation, we still told him how much we loved him even though at this time we also needed to take care of ourselves. And so very painfully we detached with love. Our house was still open for him and he would come for meals and to shower but he could not live with us any more, nor would we give him any financial assistance. As fate would have it he who was never taught by his parents would be taught by the world and so he was arrested and we did not bail him out. He was so angry with us, but we still maintained our love for him. He was sentenced to go to a treatment program. He literally had only the clothes on his back, not even a pair of shoes, and it was winter. We did not give him anything but told him to call when he was settled in his new home and that we still loved him. At this point he knew he was losing his family and possibly his son. That was about four years ago. Today our son has gone through treatment, is working on a recovery program and has custody of his son. We all take it a day at a time

From that story you will realize that as parents we really need to be on top of everything and more so when the children are still young when they are able to listen to us. It is only at this time when we still have influence over them that we can penetrate and impact on them positively about misuse of drugs. Our role as professionals from AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center is to share with you useful information about drugs and alcohol and then encourage you to choose wisely for a better life. Therefore as we progress into the discussion, if this story is communicating something in you or your family or about someone you know, do not hesitate to schedule for an appointment with doctor Dalal Akoury today for the commencement of your treatment and recovery program. In the meantime we want to share with you briefly about some tips you can use as a parent to make a difference in your children’s live

Learning children addiction from other parents: Guide lines for drug prevention applicable for parents

Without question, talking with your children is extremely important in our efforts to protect them from alcohol and drugs. But there are other things that we need to do as parents to be effectively involved in preventing alcohol and drug problems for our kids and in our families. Now the question would be “what can I do to influence or to encourage or promote prevention efforts with my children drug use?” the following are some of the guidelines parents can adopt to help their children from being addicted to alcohol and drugs:

Don’t be afraid to be the “bad” parent – Because of the love we have for our children, learning children addiction became our priority and sometimes our fear of negative reaction from our kids keeps us from doing what is right. Doctor Akoury advices that when it comes to alcohol and drugs, taking a tough stand is very necessary since it can help our children to say no to drugs because “my mom or my dad would kill me if I drank or used.” Our decisions and our rules allow our child to use us as “the reason” for not using alcohol or drugs.

Get to know who your child’s friends are – Pay attention to who your child is hanging out with, who is coming to the house and get to know them. Encourage your child’s friends to come to your home, invite them for dinner and make them feel welcomed. Encourage your child to invite friends over to the house.

Make connections with other parents too – As you get to know your kids friends, take the opportunity to introduce yourself to their parents. It’s a great way to build mutual support and share your rules about alcohol and drugs. And, it will make it easier for you to call if your son/daughter is going to a party at their house to make sure that there will be responsible parental supervision. Other guide limes may include:

Promote healthy activities
Establish clear family rules about alcohol and drugs
Get educated about alcohol and drugs
Be a role model and set a positive example
Keep track of your child’s activities
Keep track of alcohol and prescription drugs

Finally in doing all these remember in learning children addiction, walking along with experts in every step of the way is very necessary so that nothing is left to chance and doctor Dalal Akoury is only a phone call away.