After Rehab (What To Expect When Your Kid Leaves Addiction Treatment)

In this video, we're going to cover the top 10 mistakes that parents make after their kid leaves rehab. You know, I usually save the most important one for last, but not today. Today I'm going to start with it right out of the gate. And that thing is that parents bring the kid home from rehab. Those of you that know me know how adamantly against this I am. And if you haven't already, I have got several videos that address this issue. There's a video called reasons why you should not bring your kid home from rehab. And there's a video called why home contracts don't work. So if you haven't, make sure you check those out. The second huge mistake that parents make after their kid leaves rehab is that they try to manage the kid's recovery. They try to keep up with how many meetings they've gone to. Have you talked to your sponsor? What step are you on? You can't force recovery. You can force compliance, but not recovery. And if you've got a bunch of rules around this kind of thing, then either you're going to end up in a power struggle or your kid is just going to be checking things off the list. When you went to a meeting, got a sponsor, that doesn't mean that they're absorbing the information. That doesn't mean that they've had a change of heart, any of that stuff. They're just checking boxes. You can say things like, I expect you to be clean and sober, or you can say, I expect you to attend your aftercare program. But outside of that, you cannot micromanage their recovery program. Number three, parents too quickly put a lot of focus on the kid getting a job or going to school. It's if they're right out of a residential treatment program and they haven't been working or haven't been going to school, then you need to ease this in. I know if you've got a kid that's been to rehab, they're probably behind and you're feeling frustrated because they're so behind their peers and they're probably feeling frustrated and they want to jump right back into school or work, but they need to get a good, solid recovery community plan program established before you put all of your focus on these things. So many times parents think that having a good job or being back in school is going to fix the problem, and it's not. School and work should definitely be secondary to recovery. Number four, big mistakes parents make after their kid leaves rehab. They think the kid is actually cured. Parents are like, okay, great, wonderful. They Went, we paid a lot of money. They're acting better. They're fixed. Wrong answer. You are not fixed just because you went away to 30, 60, 90 days of treatment. Trust me, there's a lot more work that needs to be done. Getting sober is not the hard part. Staying sober in real life, now that's the hard part. Which leads me to number five, not having a really good aftercare plan for your kid after leaving rehab. Anytime that you're leaving any sort of addiction treatment, you want to move from the level of care they're at to the one just down from that to the one just down from that. It needs to be a step down process. So that might look like residential treatment. Recovery residents, intensive outpatient program, individual counseling, regular meetings. And you can see how the intensity and the duration and frequency of treatment gets a little less all the way. You do not want to have somebody at a very high level of care go from this step all the way down to this step, because it just doesn't work. Little baby steps of freedom, of letting the rope out of accountability. All of those things need to happen in little increments if you want to set them up for long term recovery. Number six, not seeking help for the whole family. There's no way that you've put a kid in rehab without it causing at least some amount of havoc in your household between you and your spouse, between you and your kids, between your kids and themselves, between your spouse and your kids. And just because the one kid went away to rehab doesn't mean that that's all fixed. Make sure that you're addressing the family dynamics. The faster the family gets better, the. The faster the person will get better. Number seven, you heard me mention this one before. This one is home contracts. At Hope4Families, we don't think home contracts work. In fact, we think when parents set up home contracts, it actually just backs the parent into the corner. If you haven't already, make sure you check out that video where Campbell and I talk in detail about why that is and what you should do instead. And the eighth mistake is that parents make when bringing their kid home from rehab is that they act weird. They don't know what to talk about, or that they only talk about the addiction or the recovery. You know what? Yes, it's important to deal with that, but it doesn't have to be dealt with 24 7. In fact, sometimes we have to tell parents what day and time they're allowed to talk about that, because if left to their own devices, they'll talk about Nothing else. Or. Or there are these weird purple elephants all the way around. It's okay just to be normal. Just to talk about regular things, like the Netflix show, like the ball game, like anything that you would normally talk about doesn't have to be stressful. Most of your conversations should be regular, normal conversations. And yes, there's a time and place to talk about difficult, therapeutic family dynamics, but it shouldn't be the time. If you're doing that, your kid is just going to start to avoid you like the plague. Number nine, constantly reminding your kid about everything. Constantly reminding them that they've got to do their community service, that they. That they have to be at work tomorrow at 8, that they need to go to their meetings, that they haven't called their sponsor, that they have a therapist appointment on Wednesday. Constantly being on their case. This just doesn't allow them to develop good young adult skills in life, period. You've got to back up. And maybe they miss a meeting and maybe they're late for their job, and that's okay. The universe works if you'll just let it. It'll teach them what they need to know. You just have to back up and let that happen. I had a parent ask me once. They said, well, can I remind him of this? Can I tell them this? And I said, yes, you can. You can tell me anything you want to one time, but that's it. No more after that. No constant reminding. You know what that's called? Nagging. And that's the best way to get someone to tune you out. You want to get someone to not listen to you do that. It'll work. And lastly, number 10 is parents arguing and power struggling over little things that really don't matter. This is simple. I call it pick your battles. When I used to work on the adolescent unit of the psych hospital, we used to say, that's just not the hill I want to die on. Do I want to spend my time and energy telling this kid to pull up their pants and eat their vegetables, or do I want to spend my time and energy worrying about this kid doing heroin? That's right. Pick your battles. Vegetables and broccoli and clothing and some of these other little things that you're worried about. I'm not saying they're not important. I'm just saying that they're not nearly as important as this bigger battle that you're fighting. So let it go. Stop. Every time you do that, you're damaging your relationship with your kid. And ultimately it's that relationship that has the power to heal your kid. So every time you do that, you're taking some of your own power away. So those are your top 10 mistakes that parents make after their kid leaves rehab. For tons more information on all things addiction and recovery and lots of free expert advice. Make sure and subscribe and hit the bell so you don't miss a thing.