Parenting Through It: Alcohol, Cannabis, Vaping, and Your Own Anxiety

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Finding out that your teenager or young adult is drinking, vaping, using cannabis, or experimenting with other substances can trigger about fifteen emotions at once.

You may be angry. Scared. Embarrassed. Unsure whether you are overreacting. Wondering whether this is normal experimentation or the beginning of something serious.

Parents often swing toward one of two extremes:

Usually, neither reaction helps very much.

Your job is not to predict your child’s entire future from one incident. Your job is to stay involved, understand what is happening, set appropriate limits, watch for increasing risk, and get more help when the situation calls for it.

How worried should I be?

You do not need to diagnose addiction yourself. The question is whether substance use is becoming a pattern that affects safety, health, relationships, responsibilities, or functioning.

Lower concern does not mean risk-free. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. For a mental-health or substance-use crisis, call 833-710-6477 or 988; text 988.

Warning signs

• use becoming more frequent
• larger amounts
• difficulty cutting back
• missed school/work/parenting responsibilities
• repeated arguments or broken trust
• driving or riding with impaired drivers
• using substances to manage anxiety, depression, trauma, or sleep
• tolerance or withdrawal
• repeated legal, financial, or health consequences
• spending increasing time obtaining, using, or recovering
• major changes in friends, routine, motivation, or activities

One warning sign alone does not prove addiction. Look at the pattern, its impact, and changes over time.

Talk more than once

One of the easiest mistakes is turning substance use into “The Talk.”

Repeated shorter conversations are usually more useful than one giant confrontation.

Questions to ask:

• What do you like about it?
• When are you usually using?
• Who are you using with?
• Is this mostly social, or do you use when you are alone?
• Does it help with stress or anxiety?
• Have you ever tried to stop?
• Have there been consequences you have not told me about?
• Do you think I am more worried than I need to be? Why?

You do not have to agree with their answers. But if you want honest information, you need to create a conversation in which honesty does not automatically produce ten minutes of yelling.

You can understand without approving

Understanding the function of a behavior helps you respond to it. It does not require pretending the behavior is harmless.

Alcohol

Pay attention to safety risks and to the role alcohol is playing in daily life, including:

• impaired driving
• injuries
• blackouts
• fights
• alcohol poisoning
• mixing substances
• using alcohol to manage anxiety or distress
• drinking alone
• repeated responsibility problems
• escalating tolerance

If someone is drinking heavily every day, abruptly stopping alcohol can be medically dangerous. Withdrawal risk should be discussed with a medical professional.

Cannabis

Arguing whether cannabis is “good” or “bad” is usually less useful than discussing frequency, potency, driving, school/work use, anxiety or paranoia, sleep reliance, motivation, and feeling unable to calm down without it.

Questions to ask:

• How often are you using?
• How strong are the products?
• Are you driving afterward?
• Are you using before school or work?
• Is your motivation changing?
• Are you more anxious or paranoid?
• Do you feel unable to sleep or calm down without it?

Vaping and nicotine

Nicotine dependence can be real even when there is no obvious intoxication. Signs can include:

• frequent disappearing/bathroom trips
• irritability when unable to vape
• borrowing or buying devices repeatedly
• difficulty getting through school/work/travel without nicotine
• wanting to quit but returning repeatedly

Punishment alone does not treat nicotine dependence.

Minor vs. adult child

Examples of boundaries:

• You cannot smoke in my house.
• I am not paying your car insurance if you continue driving after drinking.
• I am willing to help pay for counseling. I am not willing to keep paying legal bills caused by drinking.

Parenting an adult child increasingly means deciding what you will participate in rather than trying to control every choice they make.

Consequences that make sense

Consequences work better when they are:

• predictable
• enforceable
• proportionate
• connected to the behavior
• explained calmly

Do not create consequences you already know you will abandon in two days.

“Everyone does it”

Population statistics do not determine whether an individual behavior is becoming harmful.

When to bring in professional help

Consider evaluation when:

• substance use is repeated rather than experimental
• there are school/work consequences
• emotional symptoms are significant
• substances are used to manage anxiety, depression, trauma, or sleep
• family conflict is escalating
• impaired driving has occurred
• they cannot cut down
• there are withdrawal symptoms
• multiple substances are involved
• the parent genuinely cannot tell how serious the situation is

For children/minors, pediatricians, primary-care clinicians, school supports, or child/adolescent behavioral-health providers may be appropriate starting points.

For young adults 18+, outpatient mental-health or substance-use clinicians may also be appropriate depending on severity.

What if they refuse help?

You can still:

• change what happens in your home
• stop funding unsafe behavior
• keep communication open
• get counseling yourself
• talk with school/medical professionals when appropriate
• learn treatment options ahead of time
• keep naloxone available if opioid exposure is possible
• make sure they know you will help when they are ready

Readiness can change. You want help to be easier to access when it does.

New Hampshire resources for parents

If your child is 18+

These guides may be useful when concerns have moved beyond prevention into adult treatment decisions:

• Which Kind of Help Do I Need?
• When Someone You Love Is Using

About this guide

Written by Ken Haberland, LCMHC, MLADC, H&H Counseling

Last reviewed: October 2026

This guide is general educational information and is not a diagnosis, medical advice, or a substitute for evaluation by a qualified professional.

It is written primarily for parents and caregivers and does not mean that H&H Counseling provides child or adolescent treatment.

You are welcome to print, share, or link to this guide.

Where H&H Counseling fits

H&H Counseling provides outpatient counseling for adults and couples, with in-person offices in Tilton and Concord, New Hampshire, and telehealth throughout New Hampshire.

For parents, H&H may help with:

• anxiety about a child’s substance use
• boundaries
• communication
• relationship strain
• guilt and anger
• family stress
• deciding how to respond to an adult child

For young adults 18 and older, H&H may also provide counseling directly when appropriate for:

• substance use
• anxiety
• depression
• trauma
• recovery

Request Care

Public work phone: 978-547-8633