Begin the Process
If your just finding out that your child is abusing drugs you've come to the right place. Ask any parent who knows, this is going to be a lifelong battle not a quick fix. To start, you need to think about what the best possible approuch to your child will be, and discuss it with your spouse. Only you know your child best, how they will react to a certain situation, and the severity of their addicion. If you fear that your child is going to overdose or already has then you may want to consider an intervention. Find a treatment facility that best suites your needs. You may want it to be further from home to prevent your child from leaving and ultimatly relapsing. Be sure to check the forum for advice and to see what other parents have done. Although some people and experts will say that "Inpatient" rehab is overated and doesn't provide the real coping skills an addict needs, it is up to you to do the research and form your own opinion on the probability of success with an inpatient facility. Rehab is not supposed to be a punishment, it's not supposed to be a vacation either. Unfortunately many facilities, especially those involved within the courts, have become a hybrid of punishment and recovery. The experts argue that taking someone out of their day-to-day life, and throwing them into a structured environment for 30 days, then throwing them back into their normal lives with the same problems and responsibilities they had before they left, does not help an addict recover. There are many different forms of recovery, it's up to you and your family to decide. Also, be aware that inpatient rehab can be very expensive, and chances are your insurance company is not going to cover it, or only cover a few days and not the full recommended time. Once you've established a rehabilitation clinic you need to get your family together. Be sure to include relatives that your son and daughter have a close bond with, this could be a sibling, grandparent, aunt, or uncle. Include relatives that are not directly involved with the day to day fighting. Your child may, for the moment, bare resentment towards you from the constant family fights that follow with heroin addiction. So you don't want to have your son or daughter in a room with just mom and dad, it will most likely escalate into another fight. The objective of the intervention is to get your child to consent to treatment. If you really want to do it right, you can hire an intervention specialist to come by and coach you through the process as well as talk with your child and even help you find a suitable rehab that meets their needs.
Typically what happens during an intervention is you offer a recovery center for the addict, and if they refuse you layout new rules which will take effect immediately and will no longer enable them to be supported while using drugs. It is not uncommon during an intervention for each person to read outloud a letter they wrote towards the addict. The letters usually consists of how how the persons addiction has effected them. This can be an emotional situation so be prepared with tissues. As the intervention continues someone will finish off their letter asking the addict to get treatment today. They may or may not accept the treatment. Don't be suprised if your son or daughter accepts under the condition that they can get high one last time. This can be a good thing or bad thing. You be the judge of your son or daughters honosty. However, In rare sitautions you have to allow the addict to get his or her last "fix" in order to survive the trip to treatment. It all depends on how high their tolerance is and how far they're traveling to rehab. You may have seen the show on A&E "Intervention" which documents families during an intervention. Watch this video of an intervention from the show to get an example of what it is.
Warning: This content contains brief graphic heroin use.
If you are successful in getting your son or daughter to commit a dedicated amount of time to a rehab facility, you've only just begun. You can expect relapses and setbacks throughout their recovery. Feel free to use my site to help you understand what's going on in your life. In short, Heroin is flooding neighborhoods all over the world, much more now than any other time in history. It is crippling an entire generation and destroying the family structure. And It is not an accident. What your seeing now is a symptom of a much bigger problem. The profits from U.S. controlled afghanistan poppy fields are destroying the civility in our society. Check out the Drug War / Politics page to learn the truth about what's happening to your neighborhood.