Responding to Drug Abuse 2

This week we’re looking at five steps to take if you have a teen who’s abusing drugs or alcohol. Here’s step two – confront the teenager about the problem. Delay only allows a bad situation to get worse. As you prepare to face the teenager, keep three objectives in mind. First, don’t confront him while he’s under the influence of alcohol or drugs. You want him to be in a frame of mind to hear what you have to say. Second, don’t confront him until you are calm. Because your goal is to eliminate the drug problem and deal with the heart issues that have caused it, you should avoid any possibility of coming across harshly. And third, you want the confrontation to yield an admission of the problem and a desire to get help. Because denial is a common addiction problem, a process of intervention might be necessary. If so, enlist the help of a trained Christian professional to facilitate the intervention session.