I have been an addictions counselor for over two decades. I’ve sat in hundreds of diagnostic conferences with parents and explained the history of their child’s alcohol or drug use. After listening to the details, a frequent response from parents was “I had no idea this was going on.” Or, if they suspected their child was using a substance, they were shocked at how extensive the use was.

Adolescents can be very clever at flying under their parent’s radar. Parents want to believe the best in their children. But that belief can quickly turn into a double-edged sword when they learn their child is abusing substances. Parents sometimes feel angry or frightened or will ask themselves “how did I miss the warning signs?” For most of these parents, they didn’t just simply miss the warning signs. They were unaware of what signs to look for. 

Alcohol is a good example. By age fifteen nearly 33 percent of teens have had at least one drink, and by eighteen about 60 percent have had a drink. Eleven percent of all alcohol consumed in the United States is by people ages twelve through twenty, and 90 percent of their drinking is binge drinking.

 Jack was one of my patients who was admitted to the hospital with a history of anxiety, self-injury, marijuana and alcohol abuse. He’s an example of teens hiding their drinking, sometimes right under the nose of their parents. Jack’s parents kept their liquor in an unlocked cabinet. When he wanted alcohol, Jack stole gin or vodka. He’d take part of the alcohol from a bottle and replace it with water, so his parents never discovered Jack raiding the liquor cabinet. Not until it was almost too late.

  Sometimes parents can be too trusting of their children. Sarah was another of my patients. She was fifteen when admitted for depression, anxiety and marijuana use. During our first session she shared with me an event just prior to her admission. She baked a batch of cookies laced with marijuana while her parents were shopping and set them on a table to cool. Her dog found the cookies and helped himself. When Sarah’s parents returned home, they found their dog sleeping in a corner. They asked Sarah why the dog was sleeping. She said she had taken him for a long run and he was tired. Her parents bought the story. While it might have seemed like a simple lie, it was a red flag to Sarah’s deeper unresolved issues.

 During my career at Menninger Clinic in Houston Texas I met hundreds of adolescents abusing substances. Like many adolescents abusing alcohol or drugs like marijuana these young men and women also suffered from an underlying and often undiagnosed mental health issue such as anxiety or depression. I saw firsthand the pain and suffering parents went through and often the guilt they felt upon hearing the details of their child’s condition.

 Sadly, many families do not have the financial resources to send their child to a nationally acclaimed psychiatric hospital like the Menninger Clinic. Their desperate search for help often leaves them feeling alone and without a roadmap to guide them through the process of assessment and treatment. I wrote my book, The Addicted Child: A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse for these families. 

 The journey to write my book began soon after I retired from Menninger in March 2019. I had worked as an addictions counselor at Menninger for over a decade on both the adolescent treatment unit and the comprehensive psychiatric assessment and stabilization unit. Following my retirement, I set about to write my book. 

   As I began writing my book it was important that I create a user-friendly, parent-oriented resource. I knew the chapters needed to be brief, easy to digest and void of technical jargon and heavy-duty research. My goal was to keep the book around 100 pages with short but comprehensive chapters. 

   The process to research, write, re-write and have the book professionally edited took about one year. It went through several revisions and I had the help of a very talented editor that guided me through the process. Finally, the book was ready to send off to my publisher, but that was only the beginning of the publication process. Once my manuscript arrived at the publisher the next goal was to create a cover for the book. I wanted the cover to depict a child and their struggle with substance abuse. After several revisions, I settled on the current cover. Once the cover was approved the next process was to approve the publisher’s text layout and final design. Once all this was approved the book moved into final production. The entire process took longer than I anticipated but was worth the effort.

   After I completed writing the book, I wanted to create a workbook that would help parents with their own struggle of having a child abusing substances.  I created The Addicted Child Workbook to help parents. In the workbook parents process their child’s motivation to change their substance use behaviors, identify which behaviors have become problematic, assess interventions that may or may not have worked, identify and rate their own emotions, discover coping skills for anxiety, and learn tips to help connect with their teen. 

   My goal in writing The Addicted Child: A Parent’s Guide to Adolescent Substance Abuse is a simple one. Knowledge is power. My goals are to empower parents with the information to help them become better informed about the various aspects of adolescent substance abuse. I also wanted to make my book easily available to any family – and that is why the Kindle version is priced at only 99 cents. The goal is not to make a lot of money…it’s to help a lot of parents.