As a parent, you can be the strongest supporter of your teen’s path to substance use recovery. Recovering from a substance use disorder isn’t always easy, but by creating a healthy and supportive environment for your teen to flourish in, you can help them turn a new leaf and create a strong foundation of mental health for the rest of their lives.
Project Eden helps teens struggling with substance use. Learn more about Project Eden at Horizon Services.
The science of recovery can provide you with a few actionable steps to help make the process easier. Some of the best things you can do to support your teen include:
Educate Yourself About Addiction
One of the first steps should be to educate yourself about substance use disorders. Learning more about why teens drink, why they use prescription drugs, or how substance use can affect the brain and behavior are all good starting points.
You can find quality, evidence-based information about adolescent substance use from government institutions such as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Have Open and Honest Conversations
Achieving recovery from a substance use disorder is difficult for anyone, but teenagers may face even more challenges than their adult counterparts. The path to recovery may include them experiencing:
- Difficult feelings
- Mood swings
- Low self-esteem
- Peer pressure
- Substance use cravings
- Relapse
By encouraging open and honest conversations with your teen about these potential challenges, you place yourself in a position to support them should they struggle.
Even if your teen has achieved abstinence or graduated from a drug and alcohol treatment program, that doesn’t mean their challenges with substance use are over. Keep the lines of communication open, encourage your teen to talk to you about their difficulties, and be prepared to support them through hard times.
Encourage Healthy Activities
Several studies have shown that high school students who are engaged in extracurricular activities are at substantially lower risk of engaging in substance use. This could include any number of activities, including:
- Organized sports
- Playing in band
- Special interest groups
- Academic clubs
Each of these activities can provide several benefits for your teens. They promote healthy socialization, provide a source of enjoyment and reward outside of using alcohol or illicit drugs, and can even improve your teen’s mental health.
And since teens in these clubs are at lower risk of substance use in general, they are fantastic spaces for your teen to meet people their age who aren’t using drugs or alcohol themselves. This protects against peer pressure and offers proof that teenage drug use isn’t the norm.
Create a Supportive Environment
If your teen’s recovery is a priority for you, then consider how you can change your family environment to be more conducive to their continued sobriety. This could include taking any alcohol out of the house, locking up any prescription drugs that could be misused, or even making sure to prioritize spending quality family time together.
As a parent, your actions have an outsized effect on your teen’s behavior. If you want them to see that sobriety, honesty, and accountability are all important values, one effective way of doing so is to model these behaviors yourself.
Consider Family Therapy
The science of adolescent addiction treatment has resoundingly shown that the best option for professional help is family therapy. Working with a family therapist can not only help your teen learn valuable skills to maintain their recovery but also provide you with expert guidance on how to support your teen.
Decades of research have resoundingly shown that if you want to give your teen the best chance of maintaining recovery, then the best course of action is to join the path to recovery with them. Working together, you can build the foundation for a lifetime of sobriety, better mental health, and freedom from addiction.
Project Eden helps teens struggling with substance use. Learn more about Project Eden at Horizon Services.
