Answer Addiction

Tag: parenting

  • How To Love Yourself the Way You Love Your Addicted Child

    How To Love Yourself the Way You Love Your Addicted Child

    Our mission in life became to fix our son, get his life on track, keep him safe, and stop the madness. We became addicted to fixing our addict. In the meantime, my life was circling the proverbial drain and it was all my son’s fault… or was it?

    Stories are the cornerstone of living and loving—from oral traditions to New York Times best sellers, tales written by others and those we make up inside our minds. They help us make sense of our existence like nothing else can. Good stories tether us to life and help us transcend into new ways of being.

    There is a story rattling around in my head—a story for myself and perhaps for you. It whispers to me with prompts and questions like: What would I say to you? But then I wonder who you even are. Are you my beloved or a friend I’ve yet to meet? Someone I embrace or a ghost from whom I run? Would we pass each other on the street without a second glance or might we sit and chat over coffee for hours on end? What would I tell you if we were one and the same? No separation, no delineation. Not the stranger or the ally. Not the sober one or the drunk, but rather you, me, we. What would I tell us?

    We’re All Addicted to Something

    Those of us who’ve lived with people who have addictions—oh wait … who am I kidding? We’re all addicted to something. No one is immune. We each have the places we run when we’re feeling vulnerable, scared, or confused. We create our lives so we have our fix of choice within reach at all times. When life feels excessive or news in the broader world is crazed, we grasp at something to ease our rage, sooth our aloneness, and calm the overwhelm. We eat, we shop, we drink, we gamble or easier yet, we try to fix someone else.

    We point a finger away from ourselves and toward them. They are the one with the problem. If only he or she would stop drinking, agree with “the right” viewpoint, pay more attention to me then surely I’d feel better.

    I can’t begin to tell you the number of hours and ways I’ve spent over the last 30 years trying to improve my husband. Lucky guy, the pressure eased for him when our 13-year-old son turned to drugs and alcohol. Together, our mission in life became to fix our son, get his life on track, keep him safe, and stop the madness. We became addicted to fixing our addict.

    We tried inpatient and outpatient treatment, therapeutic boarding school, and a wilderness program. We were all in except, of course, our son, who did his best to skirt the therapy sessions, game the system, and do the bare minimum to figure out how he could get out of our fix and carry on with his agenda. In the meantime, my life was circling the proverbial drain and it was all my son’s fault… or was it?

    Hitting Rock Bottom as a Parent

    They say that true addicts must hit rock bottom before they’ll change, but what’s the rule of thumb for concerned family members? Do we have to hit rock bottom too? It doesn’t really seem fair.

    I recently met a woman who was ensnared in her 40-something-year-old daughter’s cycle. (My son is almost 30 now.) I watched this woman wring her hands and spend precious time trying to figure out how to wire money to her daughter on the other side of the world. I wondered about the difference I felt between us until I realized that that mother hasn’t hit her bottom. Some people never do. They value their child’s life more than their own. That’s what society has told us we should do. Sacrifice for others. Family first. Give to the death.

    When I hit my bottom, I began to wonder if there was another way. What if sacrificing for my son wasn’t the solution? Please don’t get me wrong, I adore my son. In fact, he has been my greatest teacher and I am deeply indebted to his role in my personal journey. I would indeed give my life for him, but I was giving him my living. I was disintegrating into my own form of insanity and it was helping no one. Not him, not my husband, not me. We were each in our own way following addiction into the darkness.

    What if love others as you love yourself looked different than I’d been taught? What if that’s exactly what I was doing? Loving him as I loved myself which turned out to be not very well at the time.

    How to Love Yourself

    I don’t recall if it was the third or fifth or nth incident with the police or treatment when I realized I had a choice. I could go into that dark hole of despair and stay there, or I could find a way to bring myself back into the light. If I could continue to love my son without joining him in the madness, then maybe I could shine a beacon for him when or if he chose to return to a healthier way of living. So in service of myself and family, I chose to light my own candle while continuing to literally light candles and offer prayers of love for all of us.

    I began to develop a journaling practice. I poured my thoughts, fears, worries, and internal and external stories onto the page every day. I wrote and wrote and wrote until I exhausted the dialogue, covered all of the what ifs, and landed at a moment of rest. Then I got up and did it again and again and again. As my practice deepened, so did my sense of peace and ability to be present to others and the world around me. I started to heal. I learned how to draw appropriate boundaries and managed to send love and light to my son even when we were estranged for months at a time. I developed empathy and compassion, regardless of whether I understood or condoned my son’s choices. And somewhere along the way, the chaos quieted. Our legacy gave way to the promise of a brighter ending.

    I remembered that authentic stories untangle us from lies, tether us to truth, and help us transcend into new ways of being.

    May it be so for you and yours.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Evolution of a Beard: My Growth as Reflected Through Facial Hair

    Evolution of a Beard: My Growth as Reflected Through Facial Hair

    My hatred and rage grew alongside my father’s beard. Beards represented mental illness. Beards represented embarrassment. Beards represented my failed family.

    The last time I saw my father without a beard was the night he accused me of being an alien sent to harvest his testicles. It was the summer before I entered eighth grade.

    My father’s mustached face was otherwise smooth. Always had been as far as I knew. I remember kissing his cheeks as a child. Avoiding the scratchy upper lip hair.

    Now, my father’s cheeks were blushed with anger and fear. I lost myself staring into his terrified eyes.

    That night was the culmination of months of odd behavior. Standing outside at my sister’s Girl Scout summer camp, my father screamed accusations at everyone. His family had been replaced by testicle harvesting aliens. The other parents were FBI agents who’d been stalking him at work and recording his thoughts for months.

    I’d always known my dad was a little odd. He had disappeared a few times for no reason. Usually my sister and I would end up staying a few nights at my grandparents’ house. My mom would buy us new toys. My dad would eventually reappear. Things returned to our version of normal. Unknown to me was his diagnosis of schizophrenia.

    This time I knew exactly why my dad disappeared, he was going to the mental hospital; the loony bin. My dad was certifiably crazy and teenage me knew it. Worse, other people knew it. Other teens! Complete strangers. This last image of my father without a beard is seared into my memory.

    My father came home from the hospital with a beard. Well, he came home with three days of unshaven stubble. Still, it was thick, dark, and covered his face. This bearded man no longer looked like my dad. This bearded man no longer acted like my dad.

    The bearded stranger talked to himself out loud in private and public. He cursed and gestured wildly at random times, crossing himself with vigor as he watched Catholic Mass on TV three times a day. We weren’t Catholic. The bearded man spent evenings and weekends shopping for pornographic movies that sat unwatched and unopened in haystack shaped piles in our basement.

    My hatred and rage grew alongside his beard. I hated my father. I hated his beard. By extension, I hated everyone with a beard. Beards represented mental illness. Beards represented embarrassment. Beards represented my failed family. Beards were something crazy people used to hide behind.

    I daydreamed of shaving my father’s beard. Peeling off the stubble to reveal the man he had been prior to having a beard: the father I no longer had.

    At the time I wasn’t able to grow my own beard. That didn’t stop me from making a pact with myself – I would never grow a beard, damn it.

    As you can see in the image accompanying this article, I did not keep my pact.

    As an adult, I didn’t have a beard or a relationship with my father. I became a father myself and vowed to never put my children through what I had gone through: a childhood filled with an empty father.

    I didn’t prevent my father from having a relationship with my children. My mother and father would visit sporadically throughout the year and at holidays. My children were fine interacting with my father. Hell, sometimes I’d catch a glimpse in my children’s eyes of what looked like love toward their grandfather.

    I wasn’t doing so well, though. I treated lingering depression and anxiety with antidepressants, sporadic counseling, and another illness: alcohol use disorder.

    I was failing at life and I frequently drank until I blacked out. I was divorced and only seeing my kids every other weekend. I tried to wash away my bitterness and guilt but instead I found myself on an alcohol-fueled ride to my rock bottom.

    The last time I remember not having a beard was the last time I remember drinking alcohol. I had an appointment with a new counselor. He told me that nothing could improve if I kept drinking and that he wouldn’t work with me if I didn’t stop. Somehow, I heard him. I also heard what he wasn’t saying: things could improve if I stopped drinking.

    I went home and got drunk for the last time that evening.

    It wasn’t easy to stop drinking. At first, every minute of every day was hard. I didn’t have the energy to do anything other than attend AA meetings and counseling. Then, without thinking, I stopped shaving and grew a short beard. At first it brought me comfort in a tangible way: I’d rub on it and scratch it and twist the hairs. After a few weeks it started filling in. And so did my sobriety. My beard grew thicker along with my willpower. I kept the beard and I’ve kept my sobriety.

    At some point I made the first proactive phone call to my father I’d ever made. It wasn’t a magical conversation– we talked about sports and the weather, the same topics we’ve always been able to safely cover during face-to-face conversations over the years. When it was over, I hung up the phone, feeling sick to my stomach. I knew I’d never have the dad I wish I had. I know it’s on me to deal with it. But I wanted to have whatever relationship I could with him.

    I’m four years sober. In these four years I’ve searched my soul to forgive my father. My children love their grandfather. They don’t know the bearded stranger I knew when I was growing up. They’ve never known him without a beard. They only know him as Grandpa!

    I can’t regain my childhood. And I can’t undo what I’ve done to my children. But I can make sure I don’t go back to the dark place of alcohol abuse.

    I kiss my children with a beard. I cuddle my youngest daughter and tickle her with my whiskers. She’s never known me without a beard. My kids see beards differently than I did.

    Today I still have a beard. I keep this beard as a reminder of the importance of staying sober; a reminder of the importance of my family; a reminder of the forgiveness I’ve given others and that I’ve asked for from my loved ones.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Parents Can Support Teens’ Mental Health

    How Parents Can Support Teens’ Mental Health

    Parents play a key role in connecting teens with mental health treatment and helping them learn to live with their diagnosis.

    The parents of teenagers used to fret about whether their kids were sleeping too much or “just saying no” to drugs, but today’s parents are more in tune with the mental health needs of their children, recognizing that many mental illnesses start during adolescence. 

    More than 17 million American teenagers have a mental, behavioral or emotional disorder, according to USA Today, and many times parents are key in connecting these individuals with treatment and helping them learn to live with their diagnosis.

    With suicide being the second-leading cause of death among people ages 10-34 in the U.S., talking about mental health with young people could very well save a life. 

    Still, many parents aren’t sure what the warning signs of mental illness are, especially since teenagers are general apt to be moody and withdrawn. Parents should look for sudden changes in behavior—a quick drop in school performance, a change in sleeping or eating habits, or physical pains such as stomach issues. All of these can be signs of mental illness in teens. 

    Myths and stigma about mental illness can hinder access to treatment, so it’s important to remember that mental illnesses are biological conditions, not caused by bad parenting, personal weakness or character flaws. Just like physical illnesses require expert care, so do mental illnesses.

    It’s important that parents consult with professionals such as counselors and primary care physicians to get teens the help they need. Most mental illnesses that emerge during the teenage years will become lifelong conditions. Although this is scary, connecting with the best treatment as soon as possible will help teens learn to cope with their illnesses. 

    Even when parents are able to identify that their child has a mental or emotional issue confronting them, it can be hard to talk about. However, talking is key. Ask your child how he or she is doing. If they’re not receptive to conversation, just try again later rather than pushing the issue. 

    If you suspect that something is wrong but your child insists that he or she is fine, turn to other adults in their life, like coaches, teachers or school counselors. Ask if they’ve noticed changes or behaviors that they find concerning.

    Although a medical professional may not be able to give you information about your teenager due to patient confidentiality, they are always able to listen to your concerns. 

    Finally, connecting with teenagers is important for controlling and preventing mental illness. Take walks together outside or play sports. Eat dinner together. These activities allow you to connect with your teen without the pressure of a sit-down conversation. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kids, Parents & Grandparents All Face Strain Of Opioid Crisis

    Kids, Parents & Grandparents All Face Strain Of Opioid Crisis

    One expert estimates that for every child in foster care due to a parent’s addiction there are 18 to 20 children who have been informally taken in by family members. 

    When parents are living with opioid addiction—or even trying to establish their lives in recovery—it can take a toll on the whole family, from kids to grandparents, as roles are redefined. 

    Donna Butts, the executive director of Generations United, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, has seen how families have coped with drug epidemics fueled by cocaine or meth. This time, she told CBS News, feels different. 

    “With the opioid epidemic, it seems so much more severe and, in some ways, more hopeless,” she said. “Which is why I think the grandparents and other relatives that are stepping forward are playing such a critical role because the hope is with the children.”

    Oftentimes family members will step up to care for the children of people who are addicted without going through the formal foster care system, making it difficult to get an estimate on how many families have been rearranged because opioid addiction.

    The foster care statistics themselves are overwhelming; Butts estimates that for every child in foster care because of a parent’s addiction there are 18 to 20 children who have been informally taken in by family members. 

    This has financial implications for the family member taking responsibility for the children, usually the grandparents. Twenty percent of grandparents raising grandchildren are living in poverty, and 40% are older than 60, which often means they are retired or semi-retired and living on a fixed income. 

    In addition, many children have been exposed to trauma, and their grandparents have been through their own traumatic experiences in seeing their child battle addiction. 

    “What they really need is to understand the impact of trauma on the children and try to help support them as they deal with that. Also, they need to have access to trauma-informed services, the services that can really help them to overcome what they’ve experienced,” Butts said.

    However, she noted that having stable grandparents can really help children overcome the harms of having a parent battling addiction. 

    Even for parents who are working to get clean, keeping custody of the children can be challenging. 

    Jillian Broomstein, of New Hampshire, was in a methadone program when her son was born. Because the baby tested positive for opioids, he was taken by the Division for Children, Youth and Families. Broomstein had just one year to be off opioids and in a stable housing situation, or she would risk losing custody permanently, according to WGBH. 

    “I cannot stress enough that 12 months is a really short window for somebody who’s in early recovery,” says Courtney Tanner, who runs a New Hampshire recovery home where pregnant women and new moms can live with their babies while getting sober. 

    Situations like Broomstein’s are too common, she said. 

    “Here in New Hampshire what I have seen is a mom can be enrolled in this program and compliant in treatment and they are giving birth to a child and that child is still being removed and put into foster care.”

    However, given the right resources, people in recovery are able to be reunited with their children. 

    “We see a lot of that,” said Dr. Frank Kunkel, the president and chief medical officer of Accessible Recovery Services. “We see a lot of people that spin out of control. They’re involved with the judicial system and all that. And we see grandma have the kids for a while. Then they’ll get back on track with things legally, and they’ll get on our medications, and they’ll get in seeing their therapist, and they’ll turn their life around. We see that every day.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Sponsoring Fellow Alcoholics Is Teaching Me How To Parent My Son

    How Sponsoring Fellow Alcoholics Is Teaching Me How To Parent My Son

    How do I, an alcoholic with a dysfunctional childhood who didn’t even begin maturing until his early 30s, go about the daunting duty of raising a son to manhood?

    Recovery through Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me build an incredible life. A restored marriage, a promising career, and a comfortable suburban home highlight the tangibles; the wisdom of the program and mentorship of its members have provided the intangibles – accountability, purpose, sanity.

    Two years ago marked the most notable blessing to date: The birth of my first and only child, Nicholas.

    This gift, however, also presents my most vexing sober challenge yet: How do I, an alcoholic with a dysfunctional childhood who didn’t even begin maturing until his early 30s, go about the daunting duty of raising a son to manhood? How do I break, as much as any parent can, the cycle of insanity Nicholas has inherited?

    As Nicholas approaches toddlerdom – where he’ll start truly developing lifelong memories – solidifying certain notions of parenthood has become increasingly urgent. “What type of dad do I want to be?” is quickly becoming “What type of dad am I?” It’s becoming clear that these child-rearing concepts aren’t going to magically manifest; I need to search for them.

    And where I keep finding answers is the only relationship in which I’m actually qualified to give guidance: my role as an AA sponsor. Here are just a few of the many parenting perspectives my experiences as a sponsor have helped formulate.

    Coddling Is Counterproductive

    The most meaningful child-rearing principle that sponsorship has instilled in me carries even more significance considering our helicopter-parenting, participation trophy-wielding times: Coddling trades short-term ease for long-term hardship.

    Many addicts, myself included, are recovering from people pleasing as well as alcohol and drugs. Our diseases demanded instant gratification and, by necessity, we were talented at telling people what they wanted to hear in order to skate by or score more.

    When we become sponsors, we must play a longer game. We learn that giving a sponsee an undeserved pat on the back when what he needs is a kick in the ass is not only counterproductive, but downright irresponsible. Enabling a sponsee’s laziness or self-denial can mean being party to his relapse.

    Sponsorship has taught me that I can’t shield someone from tough choices, uphill climbs and heavy lifting. As much as I root for a sponsee, I can’t want his recovery more than he does; as my son grows, I’ll fight similar urges to carry an oversized share of burdens he himself must bear.

    The overall message is clear: work hard for worthwhile goals. In a sponsee’s case, that goal is long-term sobriety and perpetual personal progress; in my son’s, the goal is responsible, upstanding citizenship and self-sufficient adulthood.

    Here, AA is endearingly traditional in its nose-to-the-grindstone approach to progress.

    There is a grit factor in the rooms that, these days, is sorely lacking outside of them. To both sponsees and children, “get to work” is the kind of simple but meaningful instruction that is easily understood and, when followed, results in both tangible and character-building rewards.

    I’m finding that the less I coddle my sponsees the more favorable the result. I am increasingly confident that the same will hold true for my son. Soft sponsorship yields soft recovery. Ditto for soft parenting.

    Keep Calm and Carry On

    Roll your eyes all you want, but when this starting appearing on mugs and memes everywhere, I hoped (beyond hope, it turned out) that more people would adopt a mantra that AA so effectively espouses.

    Few markers are more telling of one’s maturity than the breadth and depth of people, places and things that anger, cower or otherwise derail him. As someone who, according to men with many more years sober than me, had “smoke coming from his ears” as a newcomer, I’ve learned this lesson particularly harshly. It’s taken years of trial and error – of getting a little less angry to similar situations, then reflecting on how useless and toxic that rage was – to form a demeanor even remotely resembling even-keeled.

    Watching my sponsees struggle with this journey – with getting totally jammed up over matters of dubious-at-best significance – is Exhibit A of sponsor-sponsee symbiosis. As I talk my sponsees down off the inevitable next ledge, I remind myself to practice what I preach.

    I am committed to developing this big-picture, c’est la vie attitude in my son. And while anyone with a two-year-old understands how successful I’ve been thus far (not much, if at all), I can look to my own imperfect, ongoing transformation as proof that progress takes trial, error and – most of all – time.

    For now, this concept lives in little things. “I can see that you’re very sad about having to stop watching TV, but you’ll see Peppa Pig tomorrow,” I’ll tell a crying Nicholas, as the credits of his favorite show roll while I usher him off to bed. Or “It’s PJ time,” I tell a sobbing, splashing boy engrossed in his bathtime toys. “We’ll get all dry and get some milk, how’s that?”

    These gentle nudges, I hope, will push Nicholas toward a more bird’s-eye worldview where he realizes that the little things in life aren’t worth getting upset over. As he grows I’ll instill in him, gradually and imperfectly, that a precious few things warrant more than a brief moment’s annoyance. Here, my role as a sponsee gives me the best chance to break yet another inglorious familial cycle: rage-aholism.

    Think for Yourself

    Though AA most assuredly isn’t a cult (cue the usual troll bile in my comment thread), at times it is certainly prone to an unsophisticated, unhelpful herd mentality. There are sayings and beliefs in the rooms that I find silly, arrogant, or wildly inaccurate.

    I am upfront about this with my sponsees; they are free to disagree with me on any of my program-related peccadilloes. The overarching lesson is each of us needs to find a recovery that is workable within the construct of our authentic self. “Faking it to make it” will only take us so far; eventually, recovery through the 12 steps is a journey in self-discovery, one which, per popular program prose, demands rigorous honesty.

    First and foremost is the childish belief, held by far too many in AA, that God has saved them specifically. Simply put, this implies that God chose to let others die. I often wonder whether the person proclaiming such nonsense realizes that his belief system is based on declaring himself more special than fellow sufferers. Neither my sponsees nor my son will be weaned on such pompousness.

    Oddly, another whopper that permeates AA is the polar opposite of this holier-than-thouism. It is uttered every time a newcomer is told that his experiences, strength and hope matter as much as someone with longstanding sobriety – that each of us “only has today.”

    This well-intending white lie creates an unproductive false equivalence between those who’ve thoroughly followed recovery’s path and those just beginning to trudge the trail. Because AA – like parenthood, I’m educated-guessing – is about mentorship more than anything else. My responsibility to pay it forward isn’t as relevant if everyone has the same amount of currency.

    This all boils down to three words that I find myself repeating to sponsees and, because of this, will find myself repeating to Nicholas: “You’re still learning.”

    Sit back. Relax. Learn. Don’t overextend yourself. No, sponsee, you shouldn’t go to a bachelor party in Las Vegas at four months sober. I have enough sobriety to handle that, you don’t. Yet. And no, 17-year-old Nicholas, you aren’t driving across the country with your friends because you aren’t ready to do that. Yet.

    These are just a few examples of how the privilege of guiding recovering alcoholics through the 12 steps will help me guide my son through childhood. As my sober experiences grow in tandem with my son, there will undoubtedly be many more points where sponsorship intersects with parenting – much to Nicholas’ benefit.

    And of course, there’s this: if Nicholas comes home with his eyes pinned, I’ll know what’s up. My rocky past and recovering present will allow me to recognize the warning signs of the scourge of my son’s generation: opioids. Should that day come, my recovery may help save my son’s life, as it did my own.

    View the original article at thefix.com