To be at my wits end with 15 year old dd and latest escapade

[Flyingpigsleigh]

She wa allowed out tonight to go to friends house. We are strict with her as every single time she gets the chance she gets blackout drunk and endangers herself. It’s been a cycle for the past year. She goes out and gets so drunk she passes out. We ground her. She’s told she can gradually work up to going out again under certain conditions, eg keeps in touch, keeps her location on, keeps us informed of movements. She absolutely swore blind she was just going to a friends house and I dropped her off there at 8. All okay and she kept in touch and location showed her there. DH went to pick her up at 1230. Suddenly her location started moving from high street near her friends house and it was clear she was in a car. DH had to intercept her by chasing after the car using her location. She’d been picked up by nice people thankfully - a mum dad and daughter who sw her wandering barefoot down the street!!! Didn’t get much sense out of her but she said she fell out with friends.

Thus is the 4th time strangers have intervened and the 2nd time she’s got in a car with strangers. I feel physically sick at how this could have turned out tonight. She absolutely promised she was just going to be at her friends house. Her friend is quite sensible so I thought she would be okay.

it’s her 16th birthday next month and she is going to go crazy if I say she can’t go out but every single time we life restrictions she does this.

She’s seen a counsellor but tbh I think she just told him what she thought she should say and he thought so too.

I don’t know what to do.

Whatever you do, know that you cant trust her.

Such a shame. She is spoiling it for herself.

She would not be going out for her birthday based on her track record if she lived in our family.

What a worry!

Oh OP mid teen girls can be a nightmare (I was).

In a couple of years she'll hopefully be delightful, but it's so hard for now. She doubtless does just want to party, but she doesn't intend to fall out with friends, wander off when drunk or even get so drunk - she just cannot regulate her emotions or manage drinking so she doesn't get totally wild.

I wouldn't go madly OTT, but every time she does this, she needs to loose privileges she cares about. It should all come good.

Thanks. I know, we have told her that she is ruining her teenage years for herself spending most of her time grounded!! We let her have sleepovers here a much as she wants and she is allowed out with heavy restrictions eg till 8pm. Her older siblings had far more freedom by her age as they were able to behave!!

She is a very high achiever at school and constantly says she cannot wait to leave home and go to university and have freedom. Tbh the thought makes me feel sick, unless she matures very rapidly in the next couple of years I can’t imagine how she will look after herself at university.

wandering barefoot down the street!!! It's fucking January!

every single time she gets the chance she gets blackout drunk

This is more serious than you and your husband running around can fix.

15 years old?

I'd be taking her to the GP, or A&E. She needs serious intervention.

Sorry you're going through this OP. Kids can be a nightmare but you and her dad have to seriously step up.

Before you know it she'll be forced into prostitution.

I hope others will be by to give serious help with places you can access help. I don't live in UK. Maybe women's Aid to help you guide the way to it.

As a mum I'm worried for her.

That counsellor sounds utterly crap. He should have signposted it to child services, or whatever it's called in UK.

OMG, I really feel for you. I don't have any suggestions for you but hope that you and your husband stick together on a solution for your daughter's behaviour. Getting into strangers' cars is so dangerous, as is wandering about late at night, alone, obviously drunk, she is really putting herself in danger. Times have changed so much, we had youth clubs and discos in church halls at her age, with plenty of adult supervision. Good luck with her 🤞

I used to do all that kind of stuff as a teenager and it continues to amaze me how I didn’t get into serious trouble doing it! My parents never knew mind you because I was very good at lying (and no GPS/smartphones back then).

Firstly, don’t take her to the GP or A&E that’s insane. Sounds to me like she needs a new therapist and being grounded each time is perfectly reasonable as punishment.

If you can, approach her college or school - lots of times they’re able to support with mentoring or alike? A joined up approach is probably needed where you and your DH aren’t on your own being ‘the bad guys’.

Behaviourist approaches to getting her to stop risk taking won’t sort this long term - does she have hobbies? What is her social life like? Does she have common interests with you that you can dive into together? Have you looked at her self esteem and why she has the need to ‘escape’ and socialise in this way?

Lastly, if you’re in England you could always reach out to Social Care. The Early Help service (if you have one in your area) is great for supporting families with such things.

She doesn’t need a&e. Jesus wept - is it any wonder hospitals are in such a state.

Really feel for you OP. I’d ground her for a bloody long time and get a new therapist.

Have you explained to her how to drink and how her body processes alcohol? She may not actually understand that the buzz she gets after the first couple of drinks just needs smaller top ups to be sustained and she doesn't need to keep drinking fast to keep that buzz, as her body will take a lot longer to process the alcohol and sober her up than it took for her to get drunk in the first place.

She may be hearing warnings not to get drunk as people asking her to stay sober, and while ideally she would do just that, realistically advice on how to drink to stay nicely buzzed but not paralytic may be the most practical.

Could friends be spiking her drinks with extra vodka for the fun of watching her get paralytic?

Why did she feel out with her friends? Was she an annoying drunk to them?

Do her friends get this drunk or just her? Also where are they getting the alcohol from at 15 to get this drunk?

You must feel sick you poor thing - not a great start to the new year- getting cars with strangers?!?!

I think for her 16th it will have to be a sleepover no alcohol

Do you know a nurse or police officer who can chat to her - scare some sense into her..

I’m sorry to say that getting blackout drunk whenever I had the chance was
my modus operandi at that age too. I was extremely anxious and always had been, so
when I discovered booze it felt like a magic cure. For the first time in my life I didn’t feel anxious!

But of course, you build your tolerance. I put myself in some very dangerous positions and would drink anytime, anywhere. If I had sourced a bottle of vodka it was going in my tea mug to drink while I did my homework. Of course I was hiding it from everyone, but my parents weren’t stupid and did try to make it more difficult for me. But they were floundering in the dark.

What was weird was that by 17 I was drinking go blackout stage four or five times a week, but I got good A Levels, went to uni and got a good degree and masters. It was like I was two people: daytime
LambriniBob seemed to be doing okay, but nighttime LambriniBob was a pissed-up mess.

By 23 it was clear I had a problem and after splitting from a long-term partner (who was an enabler as he was a massive pisshead too) it all came to a head. I saw my GP and went to some AA meetings. My GP put me on anti anxiety meds and I had talking therapy, both of which were a revelation.

I have drunk since (I am in my early 40s) but only ever socially and never to the extent I was for those seven or eight years. I was also diagnosed with AuDHD at 35 which explained a lot.

I would bet a pound to a penny that your daughter is highly strung, highly anxious and maybe neurodiverse. She’s still so young, you can nip this in the bud. Get her to the GP, get her some CBT rather than a counsellor (CBT really helped me with my drinking) and if she is anxious get her on something to help with that. I know she’s 15 and it won’t necessarily be easy to get her there, but in your shoes I’d be dragging her, kicking and screaming if necessary. Good luck.

I was also high achiever, drinking to blackout as a teen. Really didn’t manage drinking at university well. Now sober.

As you mention “behaving” I wonder whether worth exploring if alcohol is just not for her.

Can she stop once she starts or does it feel inevitable to continue drinking? Does she explicitly know that other people are not blacking out? That blacking out and memory loss is unusual and not representative of “normal” social drinking? Does she know some people process alcohol differently, and that for some alcohol isn’t a sensible choice at all?

Appreciate may be over-interpreting yet I think of the teen I was, and wish to a degree someone had intervened - it took me many bad incidents to get to sober - which for me now is a great place to be

Well, I am sad that UK services like for a child walking around barefoot in January are so bad that other posters are saying you cannot take her to A&E.

I can phone for a doctor's appointment here and get one next day or later in the week.

Can you talk to the friend and to their parents. Find our what happened. Was there a falling out? Who supplied the alcohol? Did friend want to stop and your dd insist on keep drinking.
At 15 she is clearly too immature to handle drink so from now on, socialising only at your house or with one of you present (gym, sports, shopping etc).
Remove all alcohol from your house. Where is she getting money from? Better control on that too.
Ask advice from the school. Ask her if she wants to go to a therapist. Try to get to the bottom of her anxiety. It sounds to me like she wants you to intervene.

I would get her connected to your local drug and alcohol service, im sure there must be a young person's service there. Its sounds utterly terrifying.

A and E??? For what???

Prostitution???

Why is she drinking at all? She’s 15. I sometimes feel like I’ve stepped into the twilight zone with other people’s children.

How is she getting access to alcohol? If it’s via friends, then why are you still letting her go to these houses. Similarly, she wants to escape to university - how is she planning to fund that without your support? I wouldn’t be sending a child to university who has untreated alcohol addiction issues.

It’s very lucky that nothing terrible has happened. I would not be carrying on like things were normal, and drastic changes need to be made. Therapy needs to be at the top of the list.

A&E? And what do you think they’ll be able to do?

Kindly, and I do mean this kindly, if she were my daughter her 16th birthday would be a dry one, it would be lower key than probably she is expecting, that’s the consequences of last night. A celebration that does not and will not centre on alcohol. A family/friend party at home, or a spa weekend or anything that’s alcohol free.

She has shown she is not responsible or respectful around alcohol. If only to keep her safe, strict guidelines I feel, are vital. Thank goodness she is safe after her last night out, as a Mum you must be terrified.

I hadn’t even clocked the prostitution comment. I’m astounded by this.

Look, it's a six hour wait for issues you are supposed to seek immediate medical attention for, like an ectopic pregnancy.

What, exactly, are A&E nurses and doctors supposed to do or say if the OP rocks up at A&E at 4am on New Year's Day (you posted at 2.50am) with her daughter in tow, to say, "my daughter is sober right now, but she drinks underage and gets dangerously drunk. How do we discourage this?"

Right now, A&E will be full of drunk adults. If A&E nurses could talk people out of binge-drinking, they wouldn't see the same people being brought in every month.

I suppose the OP could take her daughter there specifically to see the drunks in the waiting room?

Asking the GP for a referral to the appropriate service for alcohol abuse in children would be reasonable. A&E on New Year's is not.

I'm not sure about the sex work comment, but I agree she needs to see a gp and get a referral for help with alcohol.

If she doesn't learn to control this now it'll be doubly concerning when she goes off to uni.

Ivwas a nightmare teenage (and beyond) drunk for years. I eventually grew out of it but didn't ever get into strangers cars. What's behind it? What's making her want to get so drunk?

Great post. Glad youre ok now.

Op, it must be so frustrating having to watch the same highjinks happen again so frequently. But it will take your daughter awhile to chill out with. If she’s ‘out’ it should only be with a a group of girlfriends/bf/ family, make sure leaving arrangements are final. No forgetting a friends accidentally. Also, depending what she’s taking out with her - I used to carry a bag at that age, would an AirTag be a good idea? Damage control in what is misplaced/lost.

Wow, sounds like we had similar journeys, LambriniBob!
I was a bit slower at making the connection between my penchant for vices, that would momentarily soothe my anxiety.that gave me temporary relief from nervously counting down the minutes to my next panic attack. I’ve always been this exhaustingly highly strung!
The first handful of times I’ll got drunk with my mates, I had black outs. It doesn’t happen now at all. This is due to not having the time available to lose whole days to benders/hangovers, but also, I found after I had Premature Ovary Failure (I went though Menopause in my mid thirties), my body chemistry seems to have changed around alcohol, as I really don’t get the same enjoyment from it no (it’s quite a different sensation).

As someone who was prone to blackouts, and indeed, the kind where I really will never ever be able to regain the info of what took place during my black out(another reason why it doesn’t appeal to me so much as a grown up, because I can see how the possibility is endless). The blackouts I am referring to, are in fact quite unusual (or they do the other favourite drunken pastime of, passing out, and limiting the ability of mischief they get up to!

Luckily, if people are going to black out while drunk, it often happens the first couple of times they experiment with booze, before they get a handle of their limits.

She is 15. She is a child.
Where is she getting the alcohol from? Who is supplying her with it?
Because whoever is giving alcohol to her should be reported to the police. It's a criminal offence.

And she really needs intervention with expert help. She may be a high achiever at school but there is something seriously wrong in her life if she turning to alcohol as a child.

I am wondering if your dd is perhaps neurodivergent? Perhaps undiagnosed? She sounds to be sensory seeking and unaware of her physical and mental health needs.

Unfortunately all you can do right now is have cast iron boundaries. I know what a worry it is. My 17 yo dd is vulnerable for different reasons (and possibly neurodivergent, the ASD assessments are booked) and dh and I have to parent very differently to the average teen parent. Every time I get rudeness or the door slammed in my face, I take her phone for an hour. She tried to walk out of the house a couple of months ago. It was dark and very cold and I had to physically restrain her. She needed, even subconsciously wanted, me to do this because she needed me to help her regulate. She also has to get permission to do stuff and is grounded sometimes, that regulates her.

Dd is naturally quite independent in her thinking even if she depends on me so much. And if we grounded her almost all of the time, this would have the opposite effect. We go for better the boundaries to get her being nicer and more cooperative with the things she needs to do.

So I wonder if what is missing with your dd is the carrot because you seem to be giving the stick a lot then as soon as she is allowed to do something, she goes wild so she possibly needs baby step carrots rather than being allowed out all in one go. Take the example of going shopping with her friends in the afternoon to a local shopping centre then perhaps back to her friend’s house for tea and picked up at 6 or 7 latest. ‘Ok sweetheart, we are going to let you do x. And we want you back at y place at z time sober and to be honest and open about where you have been and what you have done. This is a test and depending on how well you do will depend on whether you will be able to do this again. Because we need to be able to see that you can keep yourself safe. So please take the time between now and x day when you go out to think about how you can keep yourself safe.’ Then you remind your dd. Then you thank her for being in the right place at the right time (if she manages it). Then you build on it. Slowly. So you do that again. Then next time she gets to go to the local city, maybe has lunch out then comes back at a set time etc. Then when you think she’s trustworthy, a sleepover.

If she doesn’t succeed, heavy guns of disappointment won’t work. Very much do this from a place of love. You have 1-2 years to get this right. As for feedback to her, you can be a bit sad that things didn’t go to plan. You can see that she wasn’t quite ready for that. And you can talk about doing things differently another time. And maybe when she’s sobered up and the dust has settled, you can ask her if she has any ideas how to manage this one. She may not though. And if there is failure, you let her earn something perhaps a little more manageable next time. And hopefully if you can all get the balance right, she will succeed.

Dd does chores and earns stuff. This is important to move her forward and to reduce the controlling behaviour... she has always tried to control me from age 4, perhaps younger. So for example she’s away and now asleep in a hotel with a friend having been to a rave (dd is 17 and year 13). For that she had to do a bunch of things related to her specialist needs to move her on. Ongoing we’ve instigated things like studying 3 hours at a weekend and 1 hour in the evening Monday-Thurs, stacking the dishwasher and tidying the kitchen a few times a week, emptying her bin twice a week. The studying is new and we are in the process of cracking it btw. She needs to do this get very high grades for the course she really wants to do but isn’t capable yet of instilling the self discipline.

This all perhaps sounds a bit controlling to most. But absolutely necessary if dd is going to be able to look after herself, which she isn’t capable of doing right now. And we are doing this with specialist advice btw.

We are perhaps 18 months / 2 years or so ahead of you and dd is coming up 18 and also fixed on the idea she will move out at 18 on the dot. You don’t have long. And these are the years, where kids really start to go off the rails if not given boundaries. And your dd needs more boundaries, not fewer because she is vulnerable. My dd’s lovely friend now is pretty ill, waif thin, pregnant, engaged and living with a violent / controlling drug user. He loves her and in essence he is a nice person. But the baggage…

You and your dh need to be seamless in this. Right now you’re fire fighting. This is how I am approaching it with dd. Lots and lots and lots of love and ‘love bombing’, messages with kisses and hearts about how much dd is loved. Encouraging dd to spend family time (this doesn’t happen much). Drip feeding all of the stuff dd needs to learn about life. Eg

• several boy discussions on various themes eg being first choice rather than an option, careful of being used for sex, a lot of small conversations about how some boys/ men are because I could see some big red flags from a lad, who was love bombing her but she still months later is struggling to see what he’s really like… living examples from what happened with her friends, people we know etc. And we have dd’s friend over and it’s really useful to talk to her about stuff in front of dd
• friendships and who she spends time with being people, who should have her back because she is vulnerable even if she doesn’t feel that way,
• condoms. A lot of teens think it’s not cool to use them btw…
• about how dd gets to decide the level of freedom she has based on how much she can participate in the stuff she needs to be doing to move her forward
• loving and respecting herself etc

I write notes and scripts in my phone to deliver them to dd. And ask dh to deliver some as well. But it’s mainly me as I have the time, the guts to do it when dh just wants an easy life, and the attention to detail.