When your co-parent is an addict and not in recovery

Karen Khaleghi, PhD, offers advice for parents who have both a child and a spouse abusing drugs or alcohol
Family & Parenting Tips | When your child is using drugs or alcohol and your spouse is an addict
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When your co-parent is an addict and not in recovery

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Parenting is difficult in any circumstance. and having two people agree on how to handle parenting, is also extremely difficult. However, when you introduce addiction either with someone who is in treatment or is not in treatment you develop a whole conundrum of problems that are exceedingly difficult. Because they're not walking the walk. They're not delivering on their parental message with their own life story. So if they're trying to help their child through a difficult situation, where's the example being set? So it's really a very impossible situation. The parents do then need to understand, or the sober parent if it's one using and one not, needs to be able to make some really difficult judgement calls about how this is actually going to happen, and can it happen successfully for your child. One of the things that can happen with parental situations where one is using and one is not is that you can avail yourself to some of the support programs that are out there. There's Al-Anon, there's Al-Ateen, there's groups that help you determine where you're enabling and where you can change patterns of behavior in parenting, and change the family dynamic. So there are resources out there if you want to work through a parental situation and maintain the family dynamic. There are resources in order to help determine how you can best proceed.

Karen Khaleghi, PhD, offers advice for parents who have both a child and a spouse abusing drugs or alcohol

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Karen Khaleghi, PhD

Co-founder of Creative Care Malibu

Dr. Karen Khaleghi is a pioneer in the field of dual diagnosis, or co-occurring drug and alcohol addiction along with mental health disorders. As one of the co-founders of Creative Care in Malibu and co-author of The Anatomy of Addiction, Dr. Karen speaks to parents and organizations about the formation of addiction, the critical aspects of nature and nurture and the resulting disconnection between emotions and behavior as well as the genesis of addiction and the path to recovery, a process she calls "connecting the dots." 

There are many things that set Dr. Karen Khaleghi apart from others including her individualized treatment approaches and excellent treatment facility Creative Care which is filled with clinical staff comprised of professionals that offer the highest standard of care in the industry. Karen graduated from California Graduate Institute with her Ph.D in 1989 and lives in Los Angeles, CA with her loving husband and children. Dr. Karen Khaleghi has been featured on The Today Show, KCAL 9, Dr. Phil and many others!

 

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