Mid-August was quickly approaching. My 11-year-old daughter was about to start middle school. I was not exactly looking forward to it, as I knew middle school can be a challenging transition and many pre-teens are just beginning to find themselves. I also knew that my sixth-grade daughter would also be exposed to older students; therefore, I assumed she’d be exposed to behaviors that I would not necessarily approve of.
Working in the mental health and substance use field for over 10 years, I have always educated my daughter on the negative effects of drugs and alcohol. I can’t even begin to tell you how many in-depth conversations we’ve had regarding drugs being “poison for your body.” I was always pretty confident in that regard.
The Genetic Predisposition As middle school loomed, my daughter’s father was very sick and had been for a while. He suffers from the disease of addiction since way before my daughter was born. It’s all she has ever known. Being as educated as I am, I also knew that alcoholism has a very strong genetic predisposition. I always believed that when my daughter would ask me questions about her father that the right thing to do was to be honest. That doesn’t mean I went into every single detail with her. It means that when she asked me a question I would answer it. I have always informed my daughter that
addiction is a disease and it does not mean that your father is a bad person. It means that he is sick. Did you know that if a child has a biological parent that struggles with addiction they are
more likely to develop addictive disorders themselves? That is the genetic predisposition. As a parent, because of this, I tried to implement moderation in my daughter’s everyday life with video games, sweets, etc. I knew that the “more more more and more is never enough” behaviors needed to be addressed and managed right away.
“Where Did My Daughter Go?” It was like a light switch – my beautiful, kind and sweet daughter was spending all her spare time isolating in her bedroom away from the family. She’d have random outbursts and treated me very poorly. I kept asking myself, “Where did my daughter go?” It started to get really bad; worse than you could possibly imagine.
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