You often hear that when parents have children with addiction problems, after the softer, easier options have been exhausted, the answer is to show them “tough love”. Throw them out, disconnect, withdraw support, however you want to phrase it.
I know that it would be difficult to find any reliable “success rate” data for this, but anecdotally, does it work? Or does it make the problem worse?
I submit that the “tough love” approach is as much for the parents as it is for the child. Reclaiming your space, both emotional and physical, for yourself, and not spending the bulk of your energy trying to help someone who is bent on self-destruction, is healthy. No one should have to be held hostage by a loved one.
But the old saw that an addict won’t begin the process of change unless the pain of using becomes greater than the pain of not using is real as well. If Mommy and Daddy are feeding you, keeping a roof over your head, giving you money or at least turning their heads when you steal it, and so on, you will feel little to no real need to change your ways.
I haven’t had to Tough Love my kids (touch wood), although I did learn to stop solving all their problems for them, which may look like Tough Love from the outside.
I did have to cut a friend off due to her drug use, though. I spent a decade trying to fix her, including paying her half of the rent for the better part of a year. Finally it became apparent that she loved heroin more than anyone or anything else, and I moved out and stopped taking her phone calls.
Years later, clean and sober and reconciled, she confided that my leaving her was a wake up call, although she pressed snooze a couple of times. But realizing that I, the one who had always stuck by her when no one else would, finally said “fuck it,” alerted her to the severity of her problems. It didn’t fix everything all at once, but it did make her realize that there were problems she needed to fix, that she wasn’t just surrounded by uptight assholes.
It depends on the kid. I’ve had a few teachers who seem to believe in tough love - they’d often go all Alec Baldwin on us (NSFW language!). Personally, I hated it. I thought it was patronizing, stupid, thuggish and a power-play. But lots of my classmates found it inspirational and it really helped them, so go figure.
The few times I’ve seen it implemented by parents, they generally caved in pretty quickly. I’m more curious about the cases where the parents stuck to their guns.
Sometimes it works, & sometimes it does not. When we were foster parents, we had some kids that just were unwilling to change their inappropriate behavior. After the psychologist advised us to use “tough love” we did as she asked us to. It worked slowly, (slowly = about two years), on two of the kids. we had four at the time, but only two of them were in need of some extreme parenting.
As WhyNot has related, you have to have a fairly deep, caring relationship with the one needing “tough love”. In our situation, we had fostered them for seven years or so before we were asked to use the “tough love”. The headshrinker had been counseling these kids for the entire seven years, & we felt comfortable with her work.
To be clear, we had dealt with the inappropriate behavior for seven years, & the “tough love” took two more years before we felt that it was no longer needed. We stopped using it only after we talked with the psychologist about its effectiveness. At that time, we really had not needed to implement it for three months & she agreed that it was no longer needed.
We have observed other foster parents that tried “tough love” & when the going got rough, (OK, really rough), they stopped doing what was required. Of course it failed. They did not have the support that we did. It can get very ugly for awhile as the kids have to adapt to this “new reallity”.
I only call it a failure if the parents quit using it, or if the kids quit living. One of my aquaintences had to use the, “kick them out of the house” kind of “tough love” on his heroin addicted college aged kid. She died of an overdose about one year later. It failed, the parents did not fail, but the theropy failed, as the kid had no more time left.
Recanted tough love is not tough love.
Seems to me that it works best on kids with addictions, then the older ones with addictions & then on up to your elders.
Tough love has degrees. " No desert until you eat this or that." and that is actually followed through with.
Tough love can go all the way to staying consistent even with a very real possibility of death.
Buy your own car, pay your own education, etc…
Seen both great success and/or death as the result when dealing with addiction. Or gangs.
There is no formula or success percentage.
Depends on the doer and the receiver.
If you can’t stand 8 hours of sitting at the table in revolt & then 4 hours of crying. Don’t start IMO.
I do not like corporal punishment in this kind of situation.
For adults and older kids ( Your definition is the correct one for you. ), if you can’t get up close & personal with death, just remember you have a built in failure point that some addicts, criminals & children will see and use against parents ( enabler ). If you are not convincing, IMO, don’t bother.
YMMV
I suspect that the tough love successes are more memorable than the tough love failures. We remember the person that changed her or his ways after being given an ultimatum, but we forget the guy who ended up committing suicide or homicide afterwards.
Also, I think survivors of anything unconsciously weave a narrative that is conducive for storytelling. “I was doing bad things, but then one day I just stopped having the urge to do them. I don’t know why though” doesn’t make for a great testimonial at the tent revival like a “come to Jesus” story does. We always want to latch on to a specific event or reason that explains how we ended up where we are. Makes life less complicated.
But then, you know, how many stories do you hear of “Well, I enabled my child/friend/spouse for years instead of showing him/her tough love, and eventually it worked and that person shaped right up!”
Sure, tough love must fail a large percentage of the time… but my suspicion is that it works more often than enabling. (After a certain point. Most people aren’t in as extreme a situation to be talking about tough love at all, of course!)
This is my take on it too. Addicts are addicts. Pain and consequences only get through to them when they’re ready to see the problem. I’m not even convinced that the degree of pain is all that relevant… plenty of people consume their drug of choice until they’re entirely homeless and waiting for a liver transplant (or the equivalent) whereas someone else realizes that they need to change after they forget to pick their kids up from school.
Tough love is necessary to make sure the addict doesn’t drag everyone else down too. It’s just a way of mitigating the damage.
I guess we need to define “tough love”. I think most people have seen improvements with doses of “firm” love. But I’m guessing that once a true “tough love” strategy is being implemented, the failure rate is pretty high.
Monstro, a guess is not a fact that beats even the smallest survey unless you have some special knowledge that you have not told us about.
In instances I personally know, it has been 50% or better success. ← Fact
Aprox. 80 times. 40-45 success so far Only 2 have died sober, all the rest are still working on it.
I have no world or USA total numbers, maybe you have seen some official numbers some place. I have no idea about everywhere.
You don’t know what a fact is. <–fact
Tough love (or at least very clear boundaries) can work - trouble is, it’s often prescribed as a remedy for a problem where fuzzy boundaries have already been traversed and eroded. It doesn’t always work well in that context - it’s better prevention than cure (which is tricky, because then it may look like excessive and unnecessary strictness)
In parenting courses that I used to help run it was emphasised that good discipline and love were the two key ingredients in successful childraising, and they had to be balanced - either too much discipline not enough love or too much love not enough discipline will screw you up. The principles of Tough Love seem to be just an extension of this. If your kids know, rock solid, that you love them to hell and back, then you can afford to go an awful lot further down the discipline path than you could if you only had a so-so relationship. You have to build up the credit, then you can spend it.
I don’t personally know any people who’ve had to go extreme tough love on their kids, but I can think of some spouses. Generally in that case it hasn’t worked too well … but possibly by the time you’ve kicked a spouse out over their behaviour they just figure the relationship is broken - you’ve lost the love foundation.
Agreed, “though love” is a strategy which boils down to “you need to set boundaries and stick to them”. The process of defining what your boundaries are, of learning to express them in a clear and non-whinny way, and of standing by them, is already of benefit to the person who needs to be setting the boundary. Will it help the other person, and how much? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.
What people define as “tough love” is often just love, while enabling is codependence that is killing the person and keeping them sick, the total opposite of love. Healthy boundaries are loving. Those who just give in to everything aren’t loving well.
LOL, define the word fact in such a way that your guess is better than my actual observation. 
IIRC, on the intwarwebs, an insult is not a winning or factual response.
I was talking/attacking your belief in the apparent importance of your guess vs my actual observations. ( or just calling me a liar )
You are talking to me/attacking me personally with an insult. :smack:
Yeah, you win… 
Tough love is just another tool in the relationships toolbox. It works for some - people and problems - and not for others. (You don’t “tough love” a suicidal person, for example, not unless you are a very skilled therapist making a very select judgment.)
But not-enabling destructive behaviors is one useful lever to changing some such behaviors. I’d be leery of the average Oprah-watcher trying to apply it to a dicey situation, still.
Is anyone else reading this thread and the “How do I get my toddler to eat veggies?” thread at the same time:
If tough love is related to addiction, etc., then of course it takes on a whole 'nother dimension. But both relate to the power dynamic between parents and their kids…