Wrong way teen
A journalist asks, perhaps with Lindsay Lohan in mind: “Did you have a friend from childhood who took a wrong turn in high school? How did you cope with it? Also, I seek experts on the subject: What should friends and parents do?”
As is true of most people who took a “wrong” turn, it usually means they’ve done really stupid or bad things. “Stupid” and “bad” are hallmarks of alcohol or other-drug addiction. “Bad” usually results from a need to wield power stemming from egomania often rooted in alcohol or other-drug addiction.
Don’t get me wrong–there are some fundamentally stupid and bad people. Only, without benefit of chemistry this is rare. We need to look where the odds take us.
Alcoholism-driven egomania causes power-seeking behaviors. Power includes that which can be wielded over boys, as in “sexual” power and, worse, as in false accusations (“rape” comes to mind; and those who actually commit such felonies are themselves usually alcoholics, so this isn’t just a one-sided affair).
Once proven (and if there is addictive use combined with misbehaviors, it’s effectively proven–it really doesn’t hurt to act on that information even if later unproven), friends and parents must uncompromisingly disenable. This means they need to not only stop protecting the young person from consequences of stupid actions or misbehaviors, but should actually proactively assist that person in experiencing just consequences. It is, in other words, a seemingly very harsh form of “tough love.”
Only it isn’t as harsh as it may seem to the non-addict and uninitiated. Ask recovering addicts what got them clean and sober and we repeatedly hear it was the “last person who finally didn’t extend a hand,” the person who stepped on her, the cop who arrested her, the parent who said, “You have a choice” and drew a line in the sand.