19yo DD failed her freshman year and now is at home refusing to work or go to school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is incredibly difficult. May I suggest an out-of-the idea? Send her to a semester program at NOLS. There are still openings for programs that leave this fall. She will mature in a controlled environment and come back changed. I’ve seen it happen to kids in similar programs.

This touches at me because I could absolutely see my adhd tween daughter making these same choices, and I see myself already enabling the helplessness now by being too involved in her schoolwork.

She does not meet the basic eligibility criteria for NOLS. They are not a form of mental health care.

https://www.nols.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/nols-wilderness-medicine-essential-eligibility-criteria-1.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs treatment for alcohol abuse and it is not going to be a 28-day process. This is the primary issue, it is medical, you are her parents, and the only right move here is to get her treatment.

If you do not address this now, you can forget about college. You may be here in 1-6 years regarding her legal woes and 10 years after that regarding the long-term consequences of binge drinking.

I hear you saying that you did not know she had ADHD until she was in 10th grade and I accept that, but regardless of how it happened, you are living the very strong association between untreated ADHD and substance use disorder.

Alternatively, what appeared to be “sudden ADHD” years after symptoms are supposed to be evident was actually substance abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She needs treatment for alcohol abuse and it is not going to be a 28-day process. This is the primary issue, it is medical, you are her parents, and the only right move here is to get her treatment.

If you do not address this now, you can forget about college. You may be here in 1-6 years regarding her legal woes and 10 years after that regarding the long-term consequences of binge drinking.

I hear you saying that you did not know she had ADHD until she was in 10th grade and I accept that, but regardless of how it happened, you are living the very strong association between untreated ADHD and substance use disorder.

Alternatively, what appeared to be “sudden ADHD” years after symptoms are supposed to be evident was actually substance abuse.

Very unlikely that an experienced clinician seeing a patient long enough to try multiple different med regimes would have completely missed substance abuse in the differential. But maybe, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She needs treatment for alcohol abuse and it is not going to be a 28-day process. This is the primary issue, it is medical, you are her parents, and the only right move here is to get her treatment.

If you do not address this now, you can forget about college. You may be here in 1-6 years regarding her legal woes and 10 years after that regarding the long-term consequences of binge drinking.

I hear you saying that you did not know she had ADHD until she was in 10th grade and I accept that, but regardless of how it happened, you are living the very strong association between untreated ADHD and substance use disorder.

Alternatively, what appeared to be “sudden ADHD” years after symptoms are supposed to be evident was actually substance abuse.

Very unlikely that an experienced clinician seeing a patient long enough to try multiple different med regimes would have completely missed substance abuse in the differential. But maybe, I guess.

where did OP say that her child had been seen by an experienced clinician for an extended period of time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:19 year old DD is now at home acting complete different and wanting to do nothing after she failed her freshman year. DD got diagnosed with ADHD in 10th grade after her grades suddenly slipped significantly and she wasn’t getting her usual A’s. The rest of high school, we tried medication and some therapy for a while, but got her off the medication because she had some bad side effects. So, we mainly had to sit with her to make sure she did her homework, turned it in, and studied for tests which helped. End of senior year, we put DD back on another medication that we thought would help her do well this year, because now that she had to be away for college she needed to manage her school work in her own. We weren’t able to monitor her anymore. We didn’t have access to her grades, so all we knew was what she told us.

She had a great year socially and made many friends, but she has developed a drinking habit. DD came back home in May and started a part-time job for the summer, which has now concluded. She’s currently dating a guy she went to high school with and is a commuter to our local university and now that she is home and without a job, she spends most of the time over at his. DD wants a good future for herself but I’m not aware how she expects that to happen right now. DD doesn’t want to take her medication, refuses to get a new job, and she doesn’t want to do any community college classes to continue her education because she tends to be very perfectionist and was very upset about failing so she believes since she failed out it isn’t worth continuing because she wanted a full 4 year university education. When she is at home, she doesn’t cleans up after herself and does nothing but sleep in and be on her phone.

A lot of times DD comes home really drunk after being at her boyfriends, and she’s a mean drunk, so she gets super disrespectful and calls DH and I names. We have two other teenage DDs ages 17 and 13 and we are afraid she’s setting them a bad example by her behaving like this. We have no issue wi to her living with us as long as she is respectful and is working or in school but right now that isn’t happening so we are not sure where to begin or what to do. Any advice would be extremely helpful.

Sorry to hear this and this is a parents (my) worst nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I mean nothing about failing at life indicated perfectionism to me.

Some people with perfectionism (+anxiety) freeze if they can’t do something “right”

Yeah this kid is doing exactly nothing right.

There's a serious disconnect here.

Also Lord help me if I ever describe an unemployed teen living in my house as a "mean drunk". I mean that sincerely. Something has gone really wrong here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She needs treatment for alcohol abuse and it is not going to be a 28-day process. This is the primary issue, it is medical, you are her parents, and the only right move here is to get her treatment.

If you do not address this now, you can forget about college. You may be here in 1-6 years regarding her legal woes and 10 years after that regarding the long-term consequences of binge drinking.

I hear you saying that you did not know she had ADHD until she was in 10th grade and I accept that, but regardless of how it happened, you are living the very strong association between untreated ADHD and substance use disorder.

Alternatively, what appeared to be “sudden ADHD” years after symptoms are supposed to be evident was actually substance abuse.

Very unlikely that an experienced clinician seeing a patient long enough to try multiple different med regimes would have completely missed substance abuse in the differential. But maybe, I guess.

Substance abuse is always self-medication for ADHD, trauma, autism, etc. Once you notice this, things become more clear.

[Anonymous]

She needs a neuropsychological evaluation. With the all or nothing thinking, she has something more going on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:19 year old DD is now at home acting complete different and wanting to do nothing after she failed her freshman year. DD got diagnosed with ADHD in 10th grade after her grades suddenly slipped significantly and she wasn’t getting her usual A’s. The rest of high school, we tried medication and some therapy for a while, but got her off the medication because she had some bad side effects. So, we mainly had to sit with her to make sure she did her homework, turned it in, and studied for tests which helped. End of senior year, we put DD back on another medication that we thought would help her do well this year, because now that she had to be away for college she needed to manage her school work in her own. We weren’t able to monitor her anymore. We didn’t have access to her grades, so all we knew was what she told us.

She had a great year socially and made many friends, but she has developed a drinking habit. DD came back home in May and started a part-time job for the summer, which has now concluded. She’s currently dating a guy she went to high school with and is a commuter to our local university and now that she is home and without a job, she spends most of the time over at his. DD wants a good future for herself but I’m not aware how she expects that to happen right now. DD doesn’t want to take her medication, refuses to get a new job, and she doesn’t want to do any community college classes to continue her education because she tends to be very perfectionist and was very upset about failing so she believes since she failed out it isn’t worth continuing because she wanted a full 4 year university education. When she is at home, she doesn’t cleans up after herself and does nothing but sleep in and be on her phone.

A lot of times DD comes home really drunk after being at her boyfriends, and she’s a mean drunk, so she gets super disrespectful and calls DH and I names. We have two other teenage DDs ages 17 and 13 and we are afraid she’s setting them a bad example by her behaving like this. We have no issue wi to her living with us as long as she is respectful and is working or in school but right now that isn’t happening so we are not sure where to begin or what to do. Any advice would be extremely helpful.

Is the boyfriend an issue/the cause of her change in behavior? College can be tricky for many. Also, was she burnt out from HS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She needs a neuropsychological evaluation. With the all or nothing thinking, she has something more going on.

This, this, this.
ADHD often has a co-morbidity of anxiety and/ or depression. Your daughter is self-medicating. Best of luck getting her into a program that will treat the addiction and its underlying cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I may be in the minority here, but I wouldn’t start with ultimatums like if you don’t do this, we will take away this. Why not have a discussion about what she sees as her next steps and her future plans overall? Ask if she would be willing to see a therapist. Maybe she would like to.

About the drinking, say that you don’t want her to hurt herself or others by driving if she has been drinking. Say that you will always pay for an Uber for her, or offer to drive her and pick her up. If she insists on drinking and driving, this is where you would have to say regretfully that you can’t allow her to take the chance of an accident that would seriously harm her future.

Maybe she just needs to rest and plan her next steps. She is likely to make a plan eventually and move forward and not stay in this holding pattern forever. Don’t set up a dynamic in which she digs in her heels because you are pushing. If she will see a therapist, let the therapist be the one to have the discussions needed with her.

This, and I feel like everyone is massively overblowing the drinking. If every 19 year old who drank needed rehab, colleges and universities would be converted into residential treatment facilities. Good lord.

Tell her it's time to pull up her big girl panties. She cannot keep coming home shit faced and screaming at you guys. How was this even allowed to begin?! You are in a position to demand that she not come home being disrespectful and she can't drive drunk.

She needs tough love, not to be treated like a child. Taking away her phone, threatening XYZ is going to make her defensive. Those things should only be last resorts.

[Anonymous]

And wtf at "She doesn't want to go to Community College." Tell her she needs to start somewhere and that if she's living at home for free you expect her to take a couple gen eds a semester and pick up part time work.

[Anonymous]

Is this underage drinking? Most people this age drink some but it’s unusual to be openly drunk in front of your parents. She’s got a tough road dealing with the detox pain of alcoholism.

Can you talk to the boyfriend about supplying drinks to someone under age?

I suspect she has no confidence after a lousy freshman year. I’d see if there is a reasonable thing to work on that’s not competitive: volunteering, art, animal care. Gyms can be pretty toxic so not working out. But long hikes are good.

[Anonymous]

I'd look into AlAnon for you and your husband
and AlAteen for your daughters.

[Anonymous]

Drinking is well known to cause anxiety.