Quick Answer
When your child struggles with substance misuse, you don’t get to tap out on yourself. You must hold both taking care of your own needs and dealing with your child’s problems simultaneously. Giving all your energy to their crisis means everyone loses—including you and your child.
Key Takeaways
- You cannot tap out on yourself while your child struggles with substances—doing so means everyone loses
- The pain of parenting a child through addiction is real and different from other parenting challenges
- Hold both your self-care and your child’s problems at the same time, not one or the other
- Create conditions for change rather than trying to directly change your child
- Unstick yourself emotionally and logistically from your child’s problems to be more effective
- Allow natural consequences while maintaining boundaries and practicing self-care
In this article
Episode Resources
- Listen to this episode on Hopestream
- Six Week Kickstart Coaching Program
- Hindsight: Three Things I Wish I Knew When My Son Was Misusing Drugs (Free Ebook)
- The Stream Community
- The Woods Community
- Hopestream Resources
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About the guest: Brenda Zane
Brenda Zane is the host of Hopestream, a podcast for parents of teens and young adults who struggle with substance misuse. She has been producing the podcast for three years, now heading into year four, sharing insights from her own experience parenting a child through addiction. She acknowledges that her experience is often one-tenth of those in the field with decades of education and professional experience, but she speaks from the heart about the real challenges parents face. She created resources including a six-week kickstart coaching program and a free ebook called ‘Hindsight: Three Things I Wish I Knew When My Son Was Misusing Drugs.’
Parenting a child through substance misuse brings a pain that feels different from any other parenting challenge. It’s isolating, confusing, and overwhelming. Many parents feel alone in their struggle, even when they know intellectually that other families face similar battles.
The Unique Pain of Parenting Through Substance Misuse
The host, who has been producing this podcast for three years and heading into year four, acknowledges her own limitations: her experience is often one-tenth of those in the field who come alongside struggling kids with decades of education, professional experience, and lived experience. Yet she speaks from the heart about a truth many parents need to hear.
‘the pain is real, and it seems to be different from any other kind of pain that a parent feels.’ — Brenda Zane
This pain can lead parents to completely abandon their own needs, interests, and health. The host herself lost her health and ability to work during her family’s crisis. When her son emerged from his struggles, she tried to return to her advertising career but couldn’t—she had changed too fundamentally.
Why You Don’t Get to Tap Out on Yourself
The central message of this episode is direct and powerful: you don’t get to tap out on yourself while your child is struggling. This isn’t permission to ignore your child’s problems, nor is it a suggestion to focus only on yourself. It’s something more nuanced and more challenging.
‘You don’t get to tap out on yourself. If you tap out on you and give all your energy to her problems, everyone around you and you lose.’ — Brenda Zane
When parents completely sacrifice themselves—their health, interests, relationships, and dreams—they create a lose-lose situation. The child doesn’t benefit from having a depleted, resentful parent. The parent loses themselves. And often, the outcome for the child isn’t any better than it would have been if the parent had maintained some balance.
Holding Two Things at Once
The key is learning to hold both realities simultaneously: your child has serious problems that need addressing, and you still have needs, dreams, and a life that matters. This isn’t either/or—it’s both/and.
‘You feel the fear and you take piano lessons. You research treatment programs, and you trained for the half marathon. You hold a difficult boundary and you start the book. You’ve always wanted to write. You do both.’ — Brenda Zane
The host shares how she tried to create change through anger and confrontation with her son, operating from a place of ignorance about better approaches. She wished she had known earlier about creating conditions for change rather than trying to force change directly.
Creating Conditions for Change
Rather than attempting to control or fix your child directly, the more effective approach involves creating conditions that make change possible. This means unsticking yourself emotionally and logistically from your child’s problems. It means allowing natural consequences to occur rather than constantly rescuing them.
The host emphasizes that parents need to learn how to set boundaries while simultaneously practicing genuine self-care—not just bubble baths, but meaningful activities that restore and sustain them. This work is challenging and counter-intuitive, which is why she created resources like her six-week kickstart coaching program and a free ebook called “Hindsight: Three Things I Wish I Knew When My Son Was Misusing Drugs.”
Moving Forward With Both Courage and Self-Care
For parents in the darkest moments of their child’s struggle, the message is one of both realism and hope. The pain is acknowledged as real and different. But the path forward requires not abandoning yourself in service of your child’s crisis. For parents in brighter seasons, there’s an invitation to share your story with others who desperately need hope.
This episode serves as a heartfelt reminder that effective parenting through a child’s substance misuse requires maintaining your own foundation. You cannot pour from an empty cup, and more importantly, you don’t serve your child by becoming a martyr to their addiction.
Connect with parents who get it
You don't have to navigate your young adult's addiction alone. Join The Stream, our private community where moms find understanding, practical strategies, and hope from others who truly get it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it selfish to focus on myself when my child is struggling with drugs or alcohol?
No, it’s actually essential. When you tap out on yourself and give all your energy to your child’s problems, everyone loses—including your child. You must hold both taking care of yourself and dealing with your child’s issues at the same time.
Why does parenting a child through substance misuse feel different from other parenting challenges?
The pain is real and seems to be different from any other kind of pain that a parent feels. It’s isolating because even though other parents have kids who are struggling, you may not have any connection to them or know how to find support.
What does it mean to create conditions for change rather than trying to change my child?
Creating conditions for change means unsticking yourself emotionally and logistically from your child’s problems, allowing natural consequences, setting boundaries, and practicing self-care—rather than trying to directly control or fix your child.
How can I take care of myself when my child’s problems feel so urgent?
You do both simultaneously. You feel the fear and take piano lessons. You research treatment programs and train for the half marathon. You hold a difficult boundary and start the book you’ve always wanted to write. It’s not either/or—it’s both/and.
What happens if I give all my energy to my child’s addiction?
If you tap out on yourself and give all your energy to their problems, everyone around you and you lose. You lose your health, relationships, interests, and sense of self—and your child doesn’t benefit from having a depleted, resentful parent.
Where can I find support for parenting a child through substance misuse?
Resources include coaching programs specifically designed for parents in this situation, free ebooks with insights from parents who’ve been through it, and supportive communities where you can connect with others facing similar challenges.
AI Answer Summary
When parenting a child through substance misuse, you must hold two realities at once: your child has serious problems that need addressing, and you still have needs and a life that matters. You don’t get to tap out on yourself—if you give all your energy to your child’s problems, everyone loses. The key is learning to create conditions for change rather than trying to force change directly, which means unsticking yourself emotionally from your child’s struggles while maintaining boundaries and practicing meaningful self-care. This both/and approach, though challenging, is more effective than sacrificing yourself completely to your child’s addiction.
Transcript
Brenda Zane: Today I’m going to share from my heart some things I’ve been thinking about which haven’t really seemed to fit into any other episode. I’ve been doing this podcast for three years, every week, and now heading into year four. And during that time, a few themes keep repeating in my mind. that I think are important to talk about. One of those is that I have only been doing this work specifically for three years. It’s a blip of experience compared to the people in this field who are working with your kids or available to work with them. Who has been doing this work for decades. I think that’s important to mention because one of the key learnings I’ve had is the level of sophistication and professionalism from the therapists, program owners, educational consultants, and even the staff within the programs is significant. I wanna give credit to these people because they have dedicated their careers to helping young people change the trajectory of their lives. And it’s not glamorous work. They’re in the weeds with kids who are in a really difficult and often ugly season of life at a very young age, with brains that are not fully developed, and that is hard. They are in the foxhole with teens and young adults who have messy stuff that they’re trying to figure out. So my point is, yes, I have learned a ton and I share information and stories here, but my experience is often one 10th of those in the field
[00:03:00] who are coming alongside your kids with decades of education, professional experience, and often lived experience. Another theme that strikes me is the universal thread of fear, anger, loneliness, and exhaustion. You feel when your child is misusing substances and has mental health challenges, and when I say child, I mean a person who you are a parent to. So that could mean they’re 12 or 42. the pain is real, and it seems to be different from any other kind of pain that a parent feels. It’s something you can’t describe, but when you meet another parent who’s going through it or gone through it, it’s like an invisible app perception. It creates this bond between you that says, I know what your heart has endured. I know the feeling of being awake at 2:00 AM wondering, praying, negotiating with your higher power to just let them come home tonight or just let my phone light up with a text or a call. And then there’s also the knowing and connection that happens when you meet someone who has a child in recovery. It’s kind of like you’ve both climbed Mount Everest and reached the peak after all the hard. , you both recognize the miracle of the little things that you used to take for granted, and you know the feeling of that weight that starts to lift off your shoulders and your brain as your child starts to make better decisions. And as
[00:04:30] they navigate life in the raw without the buffer of substances, when you meet another parent who has a child who’s come out of hell, you can appreciate each other in a way most people won’t ever get to appreciate. It’s also important to recognize that young people do get out. in the work I do with parents, I see the look on your faces and I know what you’re thinking. What if they don’t make it out? And of course there are people who don’t yet the majority do. . It’s not an enjoyable process, but it’s their journey. And often when I talk with people here on the podcast, they say they wouldn’t trade that experience for anything because it’s made them who they are. So if your child is still in it, know you are in the dark and stormy season, but there are brighter seasons ahead, you’re just not there. . And if you are in a brighter season, please consider sharing your story with someone who needs your hope. People ask me why I do this. Why do I stay in the muck of it all? Why didn’t I just take my bruises and my blessings and carry on with my life? And the reason is I felt like that would be ethically irresponsible of me. Let me elucidate a few points on that because it might sound weird when our family was going through the hell, and I don’t need to explain hell to you because we have that knowing with each other. When we were there, I felt like I was there alone,
[00:06:00] hypothetically. I knew other people had kids who were quote unquote off the rails, but I didn’t have any connection to. . And as a result, my world got really ugly. I lost my health. I lost my ability to work and function at the level that I was capable of, and my parents, my husband, my other kids, and all my other family members lost out on having me whole and healthy and I’m one. So if you multiply that by the millions of parents who are going through this in the US alone, suffice it to say there are a lot of people with diminished lives who could be better off if they had the right connection and the right support and the right resources. So when my son emerged from the other world that he had been living. . I tried to go on with my advertising career and literally couldn’t. I knew I wanted to help other parents, but I didn’t feel qualified to do that. I had zero professional training in addiction or treatment or psychology, and then I thought, what if I could help people just by sharing my experience and surfacing information that would’ve been helpful for me and my family. My son was doing well, and I thought if I just keep all this to myself, it feels wrong. It feels like I’d be failing you as the mom who’s awake crying at 2:00 AM or you as the dad who’s looking at
[00:07:30] selling your family home to pay for the residential. So that’s the genesis of this podcast and the two communities I created to provide that sense of connection and the resources that I didn’t have. I have something new and really special to tell you about if you’re listening in real time, which means it’s either December of 2022 or January of 23. You can join me for a six week kickstart coaching program. Or we’re gonna focus on a goal you have or an area of life where you are feeling stuck, and we’ll help you make progress in the first 60 days of the year. This is great for you. If life feels a bit more stable and you’re not living in chaos or crisis, it’s perfect if your son or daughter is in treatment and you have a little bit of time to regain some of yourself, or if they’re in sober living. Or just plain doing well overall. And you know it’s time to shift your attention away from them and back onto you. It is really common to lose ourselves when we have a child or children in crisis. So this coaching program is a chance for you to think about a goal or a dream that you have been putting off. Some examples of things that people have worked on in this program are starting the book that you want to write, reducing your sugar intake, starting a podcast, getting your life paperwork in order, starting a consistent movement, practice
[00:09:00] decluttering your home and going back to school. There are lots of things that get put on hold. So if you’re ready to start the year with focus and intention and you know you could use some accountability and encouragement along the way, you can get the [email protected] slash kickstart. I’ll be holding an informational q and a session via Zoom on January 5th, so if you want to join that call and just learn more about the program and ask questions, you can also do that at brenda zane.com/kickstart. Okay, I hope to see you there. And now let’s get back to the conversation. One thing I really, really am working to do is to change the narrative and the experience for parents who find themselves in this season, because right now it is steeped in fear and negativity. and there is a lot of shame involved, and I hear people talk about ending the stigma around addiction, and that is lovely, and I hope somebody can do that. But what I am chipping away at is imprinting on your brain and your heart, the fact that you can get through this, that this experience is actually capable of making you a more enlightened and compassionate person. That this is exactly where you’re supposed to be, as painful as it is, and that you can choose to do it alone, angry, locked in, a head-to-head battle with your
[00:10:30] child, or you can choose a different way to go through it. I want to liberate you from being strangled by the anxiety and fear that can come with this and do it better, and. That different way can be a lot more loving. And if you choose to accept the fact that you are gonna have to do some hard work, learn some new skills, be really flexible while also being really vigilant in your boundaries, you can very likely speed up the timeframe around getting your son or daughter help you Absolutely can change the tone in your. and the way you show up with your child, you can absolutely be healthier both physically, emotionally, and spiritually. You can have a better relationship with your parenting partner or partners, and it’s your choice in exactly the same way. Your child has a choice whether or not to accept help. So do you. I say it all the time. I can only imagine if I had had the tools I have now and the ones that I teach, things would’ve been so different with my son and in our home. I wouldn’t have been able to change him, but I could have created conditions for change that would’ve allowed him the option to change. Instead, in my ignorance, I created an angry atmosphere. I created shame for him. I created power struggles where I put up my hand and
[00:12:00] he pushed right back. I didn’t have a spirit of empathy or understanding of why he was doing what he was doing, and now I know I didn’t have to do that. So that sucks because I wish someone would’ve been available to share a different way with me. But again, it’s my painful experience that birthed this work. So I’m grateful for how I arrived here. So through all of this, my aspiration is to alchemize your experience of having a child misuse drugs and alcohol. The optimal outcome for me would be to reshape this experience. from what can feel like a death sentence for you as a parent into something that you can step back from observe and gain wisdom from. I’m not saying you aren’t gonna go through impossibly difficult times, and I’m not saying it’s all going to turn out fine. It might not. But I do want though, is for you to have a life as you go through this season so you can look back and be proud of the way you. what does that look like? I want you to see your friends for coffee. Even if your daughter is living in a car, I want you to pursue the new job. Even if your son is in the wilderness of Utah and you don’t know how you’re gonna pay for it all, I want you to move your body regularly, even if you haven’t heard from your child in three days and you fear the worst. What I want is for you to say yes and
[00:13:30] yes, my child is really struggling with depression and I can take care of myself. You can hold both in your life at the same time when your daughter is high and you worry where she’s getting the money for her drugs. You don’t get to tap out on yourself. If you tap out on you and give all your energy to her problems, everyone around you and you lose, she loses her healthy mom or dad. She loses a mom who doesn’t resent her. She loses a dad who’s able to approach her with love and compassion. You cannot tap out on yourself. And I know it feels counterintuitive to step out of the mess and live your life. Trust me, I know how hard that is. I also know if you don’t, you are not creating conditions for your child to change. So you do both. You feel the fear and you take piano lessons. You research treatment programs, and you trained for the half. , you hold a difficult boundary and you start the book. You’ve always wanted to write. You do both. The last observation I will share is the parents who can ung glue themselves from their kids’ problems emotionally and logistically are the more resilient parents. . And what I mean by that is our kids are sticky. They’re like double-sided tape, and it can be really
[00:15:00] hard to unstick yourself from them as they go through life and start coming up against the bumps and bruises that it brings. And because we’re their parent, we feel like we should be the bumpers on their sides so they don’t get hurt because life is painful. It’s just a fact. Not all the. But life is going to have pain and struggle, and I watch parents who can’t get unstuck. They work to solve their kids’ problems. They’re entwined in every aspect of their life, and it keeps everyone in a spiral. The ones who are able to unstick to get out of their kids’ back pocket are the ones who have perspective, who can be humble and say they don’t know everyth. and they’re able to be on the observation deck instead of swimming in the deep end. It’s hard to explicitly describe this relationship. You could call it Enmesh or Codependence, but I’m not a big fan of labels like that. . But if you’re listening and you’re glued to your kids’ issues and you’re feeling like there, and your lives don’t have clear edges, then this is probably applicable to you. It’s something to work on with boundaries and self care. It’s something to work on with allowing natural consequences, and I can say with certainty that as you grow these skills, you’ll start to unstick and be more. Okay friend, that is what was on my mind today and what I wanted to share with you at the beginning of the new year.
[00:16:30] It’s a great time to not necessarily make a resolution, but to set an intention about how you want to show up for this season of your life in 2023. It’s a great time to identify one pattern that pulls you in the wrong direction and get to work. , it’s a great time to belong somewhere where you can be real, where you can work on not tapping out on yourself, where you can learn skills and find resources, and we have all of that for you in this dream and in the woods. Those are the communities where I live out my purpose, where I work to radically change how you experience this dark and stormy season. I would love to see you there. So moms, you can go to the stream community.com and dad, you can go to members dot the woods community.org and become part of something bigger with us there. As always, thank you for doing the hard work. Thank you for joining me here each week and allowing me to come alongside you. Right. If you’re looking for some additional insights and support, you can download a free ebook I wrote. It’s called Hindsight. Three Things I Wish I Knew When My Son Was Misusing Drugs. It’s [email protected] slash hindsight. Please be really good to yourself today. I will do the same and I’ll meet you right back here next.
[00:18:00]
