How come I also have responsibility if my child uses drugs?

How come I also have responsibility if my child uses drugs? It is common to arrive at this question, or this resolution at a certain point in family therapy in addiction. My first response as a therapist is usually "so ... look ... we are not talking about guilt, we are talking about responsibility."

Generally, when we receive a patient where the identified demand is the use of drugs, we are hardly talking about that young man who smokes marijuana but has not had any school or social losses, or that other who has been drinking too much until he fell on weekends with his friends , makes some "fiascos" but has not had any major consequences - even though in many cases, when we collect the history, we find a car accident under substance use, a possible fight with physical aggression or other occurrences.

In the psychoeducation work of the family, undergoing treatment, we seek to raise awareness about family co-responsibility, and establishing this commitment often requires understanding that they were also part of the path traced by the disease. As I also say in the office: Chemical dependency has a path, a process. Nobody moves from the first one based on school funds to a daily consumption that leads to the loss of job opportunities, of motivation to study, to build the next steps of a life. Nobody goes from the first sips at a teenage party to the need to drink at lunch, or drink larger and larger doses to feel comfortable, relaxed. Addiction happens on a continuum, and day after day we have people around us. People who could have imposed limits, required postures or adaptations that would be protective of these identified patients. But again, it is not about guilt, we all have the right not to know what to do. It is no wonder that one of the largest support groups for family members in chemical dependency in Brazil is called "Demanding love". This name speaks especially of the act of family containment that is often extremely demanded by the patient before the most difficult years of the disease.

That is why we use the term co-responsibility to summon the family to be part of the "way back". Before we didn't know what to do, but now that we are here we already know that it is possible to find other alternatives. In this text alone we have already presented two support resources, family therapy and mutual help groups.

The treatment of chemical dependency is a social issue built together with the family, with groups, and with patients. Therefore, the term co-responsibility calls for learning new ways that help us to recognize possibilities of intervention and ways out for our loved ones and for our community in general.