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| Princess Go-Go Rach |
You have no idea how much, or how often, but you busted him or her with a stash. Or, even more traumatic, your precious one broke curfew and came home WASTED.
What to do? What to do?
If you are anything like my mom, you will talk down to your kid and do whatever is necessary to control disobedience, even if it hurts. She went to Tough Love Meetings, where lies and abandonment are acceptable methods to deal with unruly teens.
Tough Love gave my mom the "courage" to throw me out of our house at seventeen years old with the stipulation that I could return only after I went into a CULT based treatment center.
Partying was my pain killer. I had no desire to stop, let alone be locked up in a hospital somewhere. My mom demanded my keys one night when I was leaving for a date. I had no money, job, or any place to go, so I camped out with my boyfriend, who left me alone in a tent, without food, most of the time.
Fear and starvation gave way to my mother's demands.
How do you think that worked out for me?
Treatment did not get me sober because my core issues of low self esteem, anger, insecurity and abandonment were never discussed.
My counselor told me that my problems were due to the fact that I was an "addict," who was powerless over my "disease" and that I would end up in jail, dead, or in an institution within a year, unless I got clean.
No one ever asked me WHY I felt the need to stay as fucked up as possible ALL THE TIME. Needless to say, I left rehab even more sick than I went in with another reason to hate myself. I drank a bottle of champagne with a friend to celebrate my release and wondered when I would be lucky enough to DIE.
My POWERLESSNESS training stole away any hope I had that I could succeed in life. I was brainwashed in twenty eight days to believe I had an incurable "disease." My new labels gave me license to do more substances and stupid shit.
Why not rob a bank? It seemed like a good idea to me, since I was screwed, anyway. That's what I got out of rehab as a teen. Is this what you want for your kids?
Basically, rehabilitation killed me before I learned how to live. As you know, I spent twenty one years avoiding my real issues, while I tried to manage my "disease" in a program full sick, abusive people. I tried and tried again to get sober, instead of getting WELL. What a fucking WASTE.
How different do you think my life would be if anyone cared enough to ask RELEVANT questions, instead of shoving me off to LIVING DEATH?
I'll never know, but I beg any parent reading this post to PLEASE save your kids from the same dreadful fate. The last thing any teen needs is to be told they are different from their peers and incapable of controlling themselves in ANY instance.
What to do, what to do?
Well, you could do what a very good friend's family did, which was ban together with LOVE and SUPPORT to find out what was wrong with her brother that made him want to get high instead of succeed. With the help of a good therapist, the boy matured out of his drug problem into the happy, healthy and productive man he is today.
A rehab may have been easier for them in the short term, but their effort instilled a belief in him that he is worthy of more than anything I learned from rehab or all the years I wasted in THE CULT.
TOUGH LOVE KILLS.
'Till Next Time,
