“Attempting to usher a young person (or adult) entrapped in substance abuse ‘over the hump’ until he or she ‘gets it’ will turn a well-intentioned mother or father into part of the problem, not part of the solution.
“Our first instinct as parents has always been to protect our children. We guided them as toddlers away from the hot stove, the steep stairs, and the traffic in the street. Preventive guidance worked then, but no longer.
“Here’s the cherry on the top: while marshaling your best efforts against the chaos, you, Oh-Well-Meaning-One, are aiding and abetting a destructive course. Though every instinct you have exercised as a mother or father is driving you to do anything and everything to derail an emotional and physical train wreck, the ‘conductor’ on this careening ride is the addict. The more you scramble for solutions, the more you, the parent, are enabling the addictive behavior to progress! Without realizing what is happening to you and your family, you have morphed into an anxious, frantic, crazy person, embroiled by a condition that you did not cause, cannot control, and cannot cure.
“Welcome to codependency. You have now become part of the problem, not part of the solution. As if this weren’t enough, you good intentions amount to sticking your nose into someone else’s business–the business of the daughter/son you are trying to rescue. Even smoothing the rough spots for your child can provide only a temporary fix. Like applying a Band-Aid to a boil, treating the surface problem cannot reach what is going on underneath. The core of the problem continues to fester and grow.” – Barbara Victoria in It’s not about you, except when it is
Parent’s paradox is when helping the child is actually hurting them. They want to help but helping in the wrong way can be detrimental to their child.
