16 year-old in denial about alcohol - what can I do?

[Ijustdontknoww]

I’m looking for some advice from anyone who’s been through something similar.

My daughter who has autism is 16 and under CAMHS. They have told me they are concerned about her alcohol use and have confirmed that she is drinking. She is on medication and should not be drinking. The difficulty is that she completely denies it whenever I try to talk to her.

She doesn’t drink at home. It all happens at her boyfriend’s house, so I never actually see it. She insists she doesn’t drink, despite professionals telling me otherwise.

I’ve been told her drinking has increased and it’s having an impact on other areas of her life. Her college work has deteriorated significantly over the past few months, and her predicted grades have dropped. I’m terrified she’s heading down a very dangerous path, but I feel completely powerless because she won’t even acknowledge there’s a problem.

I’m also struggling with knowing what to do. If I keep bringing it up, it turns into an argument and she shuts down. If I don’t mention it, I feel like I’m just standing by while things get worse.

Has anyone dealt with a teenager who drank heavily away from home but denied it completely? Did anything eventually get through to them? How did you balance trying to keep the relationship intact while also making it clear you were worried?

I know I can’t physically stop her going to her boyfriend’s house, but I feel as though I’m watching her life unravel and there’s nothing I can do.

Is there any way you could contact bf parents? Have a talk with them about supplying your child with alcohol? Unless the bf has money to buy this stuff, then it is funded by the parents…

There may be a reason for the change of behaviour. It may not be a reason she wants to tell you about.

Your dd is a vulnerable minor. I don’t understand why you say you can’t stop her from going to her bf house. If she’s doing something, which is detrimental, even dangerous to her health, what is stoping you from putting a boundary up?

CAMHS have flagged that she’s disclosed she’s drinking, which is detrimental to her health with x side effect / consequence. Because of this, the easiest thing is that her bf comes to your house and he’s welcome any time / x y z days / x y z times etc.

Maybe she’ll argue / accuse you of trying to split them up etc. And it is possible to maintain this boundary as nothing personal. He’s a nice lad and you’re doing this to ensure she can keep seeing him in a way, that is safe to do so.

Why can’t you stop her from going to her boyfriend’s house?
They are supplying alcohol to a minor

I have contacted the bf’s mum before and she is not willing to help in anyway. DD went mad at me for contacting her. The mum told me to never come to her house again.

DD has plenty of money unfortunately because she gets PIP. She gives him the money to buy it.

That does seem to be the case sadly.

How do I stop her? I have told her not to go. I have asked CAMHS for advice. They understand I can’t stop her leaving the house and going there. Any boundaries I put in place make no difference.

She doesn’t want to bring him to my house because I won’t allow her to drink in the house due to her alcohol dependency.

How do I stop her? I can’t physically stop her from going.

Ok, first thing, about the PIP, you can still get this paid into a parent's bank account if your child is 16. I'd ask cahms for a letter stating her problems with alcohol and then you contact PIP with that evidence to let them know that she cannot be trusted to manage the pip due to her spending it on alcohol and how this is to her social, emotional and physical detriment. Then you can manage her money for her.
You just need to say no to her. She is not allowed to go to BFs house. If she goes there, you go and pick her up. Sit outside all night if you need to. State he is welcome to come to yours but she needs to be home until you are reassured she doesn't have a problem with alcohol. Yes, she will put up a fight but sometimes we have to battle with our teenagers, it's a part of parenting. Without free access to money, she may be easier to manage.

I need her permission that the PIP is paid to me and she refuses. This was my preference when I made the claim for her. Even if I did manage to get the money paid to me, she now has around £10K in her account which will keep her supplied with lots of alcohol for years.

I have tried saying no to her lots of times. She leaves and goes anyway. If I go to the house, she won’t come out. What will sitting outside the house all night achieve? She spends more time there because she says she can do what she wants. Every time I put a boundary in place, she just refuses and goes to his house.

She will be 17 next week.

She won’t bring him here because she wants to drink with him and I won’t allow alcohol in the house. If I say anything about alcohol, she denies it and says she has not drank for a year.

Is she staying over at his house? Presumably she must be if you’ve not seen her coming home drunk. Is she hoping to learn to drive if she’s about to turn 17? I hope not if she’s drinking all
the time.

She is staying over at his house several nights a week, I told his mum I didn’t want her staying over but she said she will not send DD home. I have not seen her drunk. She gets drunk there and has the hangovers there before coming home.

No interest in learning to drive.

Is she on contraception?

Yes she is on the pill.

I don’t know what the answer is and I suspect there is no one thing that’s going to just fix this.
i sadly have a 20yr old who is alcohol dependent and it’s taken 18months from us first realising to get to a place where my young adult child is asking for help to manage.
There is a background of depression, and probable Neurodivergence.
no easy answers from me, I think when people says ‘just make them xxxx’, it’s clear they haven’t managed what we are trying to manage.
my best advice is to get some help for you- a local support group has been very helpful to us.
My YA has gone from full on denial, crashing out of school and then spending the whole of a university year drunk in their room - covering it up brilliantly.
And now we are working on tapering the alcohol over the summer, doing retakes and trying to get help from various sources, including an addiction charity.
if she isn’t ready for the next step to sorting it out, make sure that you are well supported and also that you are ready. When the time comes that you need to get all the wheels in motion for detox/ tapering: reduction - whatever it is, you can provide a safe and nurturing space.
I’ve gone from rage to desperation to denial and depressions to anxiety and none of it works.
my most important thing for my YA is to be a safe place emotionally and physically - and there’s a very very fine line between that and enabling and nurturing and enabling but having support helps you negotiate that with yourself every day.
in the end, my main concern is maintaining a relationship with my child. And sometimes you end up doing things that feel counterintuitive eg buying them alcohol so they don’t dry out too quickly (I find this extremely hard- and I’ve stopped drinking now because of it) and allowing ‘behaviours’ that you wouldn’t normally tolerate.
There is also a tension between being nurturing and being a doormat- and again, I think about this every single day and hopefully land on the nurturing side with some boundaries.
Early on, my husbdan and I realised that ultimatums usually end up with kids being chucked out and then homeless and that makes it a whole lot worse. We decided that unless we are in physical danger or if our youngster stole from us significantly (the odd bit of money was manageable at the start but that’s stopped now) we would be sure there is a bed here for them. They know this, and we do too.
the fear that you are feeling translates into anger and blame and that’s understandable but managing it in a different way helps the co bc redactions that need to happen.You have my utmost sympathy x

If she's being reckless with alcohol, there's a chance she will forget to take the pill and you'll be dealing with a pregnancy.

Meanwhile, if you can get her to talk to someone, a therapist or other trusted adult, it might help to get to the root cause of why she is behaving like this.

What is she covering up or trying to forget.

I had problems with my dd at 15 . She would physically fight me to get out of the house. Making wayward teens do what you tell them is extremely difficult!

Thank you so much for replying. Reading your post, I felt like someone finally understood how impossible this situation can be.

I think a lot of people don’t appreciate that you can’t physically stop a nearly 17-year-old from doing things. Those days are long gone. If she wants to leave the house and go to her boyfriend’s, she will. The more I try to stop her, the more she runs there, and that’s where the drinking happens.

The hardest part is that she denies she drinks at all. CAMHS have told me she has an alcohol dependency, but because she won’t acknowledge it, I can’t even have an honest conversation about it. Any attempt to raise concerns ends in her walking out and going to her boyfriend’s, where she drinks even more.

She has been under CAMHS and receiving support for years because of her mental health, but since meeting her boyfriend her drinking has escalated dramatically.

Like you, I find the negotiating part the hardest. I’m putting up with behaviour that I would never have tolerated a few years ago because I’m constantly weighing up whether saying something is worth the risk of pushing her away.

Her hygiene is appalling, her room is disgusting, she’s rude, she won’t tell me where she’s going, and I spend my life walking on eggshells. I hate feeling like I’m accepting things I know aren’t okay, but at the same time I’m trying to preserve a relationship with her because I know if she cuts me off, she’s even more vulnerable.

My husband has reached the point where he wants to throw her out, but I just can’t agree with that. She would be at even greater risk if she wasn’t at home and knew she always had somewhere safe to come back to.

I’ve been dealing with one crisis or another since she was 11, and if I’m honest, I’m on the verge of a breakdown myself. My whole life has revolved around trying to keep her safe for years now.

Your point about trying to be a safe place rather than winning every battle really stuck with me. It feels like such a fine line between nurturing and enabling and I’m constantly questioning whether I’m getting it wrong.

I do think she is covering up something. She mentioned abuse in childhood once but wouldn’t tell me anything else. I told her psychiatrist who doesn’t want to go down the road saying it will open up another can of worms and she can deal with things now as they are never mind going to the past.

@Ijustdontknoww , I sympathise with you so much. If it's any consolation, I went through absolute hell with my dd between the ages of 14-20 , it very nearly broke me. She was expelled from school, was arrested, took drugs., ran away to her massively unsuitable boyfriend's I didn't know where to turn .
In the end , I just waited, tried to keep the fragile line of communication open and hoped .
I don't know what happened but she gradually came round, the boyfriend was dumped and the drugs stopped. We now have a great relationship.
Hang on in there lovely xx

TBH sounds like the can of worms is open already.

Thank you so much for your kind words. It really does help to hear from someone who’s been through the other side of it.

I think that’s what I’m trying to do now. Keep that fragile line of communication open, even though it’s incredibly difficult at times. Every instinct tells me to challenge things but I’m terrified of pushing her away completely.

It’s reassuring to hear that your daughter eventually found her way out of it.

When you’re living it day after day, it’s hard to imagine things ever getting better, so hearing stories like yours gives me a little bit of hope ❤️

You really ought to sort that money out, OP, if she's got a child/teen bank account. It's an open invitation for her to get used and gives her too many options. £10k is an obscene amount of money for a child her age to have access to.

Is this accurate? If this is true this is an appalling response.
Do they also use the phrase "difficulties can be understood in the context of their autism"?

A person can be autistic and also at the same time suffer mental health difficulties as a result of past trauma. It sounds like your DDs mental health difficulties are being expressed through alcohol abuse. Not all behaviour is because of a persons autism. And people with mental health difficulties which have a root in the external world (such as childhood abuse) should receive the same treatment as a non-autistic person would receive. If she's been put in the 'autistic box' and now no professionals have any curiosity about her as a individual eg offering her therapy for past trauma, I would make a formal complaint and ask for her to be assessed against and discussed by the MDT. If your NHS trust employs them, a child and adolescent psychotherapist would be an ideal person to assess her.

How do I get the money out without her permission? She won’t hand it over and the bank won’t deal with me as she is over 16.