If alcoholic, you’ve already lost her. Now, bring her back.
NOVEMBER 2004
Dear Doug: Drunk daughter loses privileges
Dear Doug,
After our 17-year-old daughter Mandy came home from a party drunk, we grounded her. She now complains she will lose all her friends, tells us everyone thinks we’re rotten parents, says she hates us and limits her conversation with us to monosyllabic responses.
We can’t trust our own daughter. Mandy has repeatedly lied to us. However, while we know we must be firm, we are afraid of losing her. We are in counseling but wonder if there is anything else we can do.
Signed,
Suffering Parent
. . . . . .
Dear Suffering Parent,
Other columnists might say that the punishment is fair and discipline must be offered with love and concern, not anger, and that she needs to know you care. I would agree with those sentiments. They would add that counseling is a good start. However, if Mandy is a young, early-stage alcoholic, counseling her would only enable. Countless addicts in recovery report that their biggest enabler was a therapist, giving them all the excuses in the world while failing to treat the underlying disorder.
Coming home from a party drunk may be common even among non-alcoholic teenagers, but few will do the driving. Fewer still will belittle and hate to the degree your letter implies. Such attitudes, especially if vitriolic, are usually rooted in alcoholism. Repeated lying is almost exclusively the domain of alcoholics, and if there were several occasions of her having been obviously drunk, there is little doubt the two are connected.
This can be confusing because the alcoholic doesn’t have to appear inebriated to lie. The alcoholic’s Blood Alcohol Level (BAL) can be as high as .24%, three times the presumption for DUI, before she begins showing classic signs of drunkenness such as staggered gait and slurred speech. (This is true regardless of weight or age; weight determines the quantity of alcohol that must be consumed to reach a given BAL.) Nor does she even have to be under the influence to lie. Poor behaviors often occur between drinking episodes.
If she has triggered alcoholism, you needn’t worry about losing her, because you already have. If alcoholic, her love is now the drug. Only consequences, combined with intervention, will bring her back. If she has triggered alcoholism, do everything possible to coerce abstinence and get her into a program of sobriety, before tragedy happens.
(Source for story idea: Annie’s Mailbox, October 2004.