Is my child an addict?

This is one of the most frightening questions that parents ever ask themselves. Fortunately, the answers are gradually becoming clear. Addictive children can sometimes be identified in their pre-school years and often in their primary school years, let alone in secondary school. The six characteristics to look for are as follows:

1. Coming from an addictive family. Look back into the family at parents and grandparents to see whether there is any form of addictive behaviour. Don’t look simply for drug addiction but also look for nicotine addiction, alcoholism (significant problems that come as the result of repeated use of alcohol), eating disorders, prescription drug addiction (the chronic use of tranquillisers, anti-depressants or sleeping tablets), compulsive gambling and other forms of addictive or compulsive behaviour.
2. The tendency to be isolated emotionally. Addictive children may be surrounded with friends yet still feel isolated emotionally. They feel as if they are on their own even when they are not. They feel lonely and misunderstood even when they are given plenty of love and understanding.
3. The tendency to have wild mood swings. All children will cry when their hamster dies but the addictive child will cry because it is Tuesday or suddenly become elated for no particular reason. Their mood goes up and down without particular cause.
4. Addictive children are highly manipulative. All children are manipulative - that goes with the territory - but addictive children have post-graduate degrees in manipulative skills. They can twist anyone round their little fingers.
5. The tendency to be easily hurt emotionally. Addictive children are very fragile in this way, being completely demolished on occasions and absolutely determinedly brave on others. They don’t seem to be able to take life as it comes in the way that other children often do.
6. The tendency to be easily frustrated emotionally. Addictive children don’t want what they have got: they want two of them or they want what someone else has got and so on.

Children who have three or four of these six characteristics are likely to have addictive tendencies. They may be completely mis-diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder or hyperactivity syndrome or depression and they may be given completely inappropriate treatments such as Ritalin or Prozac when in fact they need to be seen for what they are: potential addicts.

The sad thing is that this diagnosis seems at first sight to be worse than the alternatives. Fortunately this is not true. Something can be done about addiction whereas it is all hell trying to wean people off Ritalin or Prozac. It is also obviously better to have the right diagnosis in the first place so that the right treatment can be instigated.

The real problem behind all this is that medical students are not taught about addiction. They are trained in the consequences such as drug overdoes or alcoholic cirrhosis or brain damage but they are not trained to deal with addiction itself. Doctors therefore rarely know how to do anything other than prescribe. Naturally they therefore tend to make diagnoses for which they can justify a prescription. When they diagnose adult addicts they readily prescribe Methadone, Prozac or Naltrexone rather than ask themselves what could be done for addicts without prescribing for them.

The tragedy of recent years is that some consultant psychiatrists have expressed themselves to be "gratified" that other doctors are now more prepared than previously to prescribe anti-depressants to children. This has happened at the same time as becoming more aware that the human brain is far from fully developed at the time of birth and that it goes on developing throughout much of childhood. Thus, these doctors are saying that they are actually "gratified" that drugs, about whose actions we know extraordinarily little, are now being prescribed to the most delicate tissue in the entire body at a time when it is still developing.

The alternative, more effective and more respectful, treatment is to follow the general principles of a Twelve Step programme, first developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. The Twelve Step programme can be summarised as follows: "Trust God" (any God rather than oneself), "Clean House" (tidy up the messes in one’s life and take responsibility) and "Help Others" (reach out anonymously to do good things for other people). These principles can be applied to young children just as they can to adults. They are in any case the basis of a good upbringing. There are no damaging side effects: the children learn to become useful and productive members of society but, even more importantly, they are happy and they don’t need to do dangerous and destructive things to make themselves feel better.

In the teenage years children often experiment with alcohol, nicotine and various illegal drugs. This does not necessarily mean that they are addicts. For parents and teachers to search for strange plants, tablets, powders, burnt tin foil and funny shaped spoons and glass apparatus is an utterly destructive process. It damages the bond of trust between parent and child and, if these substances are discovered, it does not necessarily mean anything other than simple adolescent curiosity. A far more accurate method of estimating whether one’s child might have an addictive potential is to observe behaviour. The characteristics of addiction in teenage years are as follows:

1. Failing to live up to known potential (under-achieving at school, even more than can be accounted for by the normal casual attitudes of any adolescent).
2. Loss of interest in areas of life that a child previously found stimulating (hobbies may be dropped and old friends and activities ignored).
3. Change in behavioural standards (addictive children will tend to establish the values of an addictive culture - not really giving a damn for anyone else or for simple courteous behavioural standards - and this may contrast dramatically with the value with which they have been brought up).
4. Getting into trouble repeatedly (addictive children are constantly at war with society - and society fights back).
5. Changing friends so that they feel more comfortable with those who are likely to be less critical of their behaviour.  (Addictive children become part of an alternative culture).

If your child exhibits a number of these characteristics you should ask for professional help.