The Canyon

As much as we would all love to do things amicably, there are times when showing that you love someone means you have to get tough with them. The Encarta North American Dictionary defines tough love as “a caring [and] strict attitude adopted toward a friend or loved one with a problem, as distinct from an attitude of indulgence.” If you feel like you’re talking ‘till your blue in the face, the words just aren’t getting through, and the chaos is escalating, then it might be time to take a different approach with your efforts at intervening.

The Need for Tough Love Drug Addiction Interventions

If your loved one is known to have a history of any of the following:

• Violence
• Mental illness
• Multiple drug addictions
• Threats to self or others
• Emotionally unstable reactions

it’s a good indication that they are already under immense strain with their personal life and may react in such a volatile way that personal safety becomes top priority.

Any involvement that elicits physical, emotional or verbal abuse is counter-productive for everyone involved. Lashing out in kind only adds fuel to the fire, and sitting back and taking it puts all your control in the hands of the abuser. Assertiveness, on the other hand, allows each individual to claim control over their own actions without bulldozing over anyone else.

Mentally Preparing for Tough Love Interventions

Realizing you are the master of only your actions and no one else’s is the first step in being able to separate from the situation and observe what’s happening from a distance. Thinking over the risks associated with getting involved vs. doing nothing, can you live with yourself if someone gets hurt – or worse?

Take the time to talk over your options with a pastor, mentor, therapist, or good friend who has experience with drug abuse and interventions. Explore the possible reactions that could surface when your loved one discovers you’ll no longer play the role of the victim or enabler. Know ahead of time how you will respond to assertively defend your decisions.

Tactical Maneuvers for Tough Love Interventions

When faced with a crisis situation, your first priority is to protect yourself from harm. Teach family members and children to call 911 for threats of violence or suicide, any type of physical assault, and loss of consciousness (drug overdose). These are legitimate emergencies that need to be handled promptly by paramedics and first responders.

Notify law enforcement when you suspect drugs are on your property, or your loved one is driving under the influence. Report thefts, trespassing, vandalism, and truancy immediately and press charges whenever possible.

Ignoring the problem will not make it go away; it rewards the behavior by allowing a free ride for unaccountability. Responding assertively brings a new awareness of consequences and sense of responsibility to a drug addict’s chaotic world. Eventually – hopefully – they will begin to understand the reactions to their own behaviors and realize that it is up to them to change the pattern by getting help for their problems.

If your child was using, would you choose the same or different methods than the ones described here?

I was watching a Celebrity Rehab Sober House rerun the other day and, done with the relentless relationship and relapse drama, I found myself far more interested in one of the topics of a group meeting: parenting. The guys all seem to have kids—I don’t know if the girls do—and they expressed some guilt over not being a part of their kids’ lives. My initial impulse is that, in light of how they’ve been spending the years since their children was born, it’s probably a good thing that they cut out when they did.

No Judgment on Parents Struggling with Drug Addiction

Now this may not be a popular opinion, but I have no problem with those who have biologically contributed to the production of a child and choose to continue getting loaded. It’s their choice. It may not be what I would choose or what I would hope for in a partner, but let’s be honest: it is far better that the parent take that life as far from the child as possible. Staying and “trying” to get or stay clean with constant relapses helps no one, not the addict and not the kid. So though these guys—Andy Dick, Rodney King, Seth Binzer—may feel some guilt about their choices, I applaud their moment of clarity and self awareness. They knew they weren’t done getting loaded and they didn’t bring their kids down with them.

Kids and Parents Who Get High

This is not to say that I advocate fathering or mothering children while under the influence, that I condone unprotected or irresponsible sex that results in a child, or that I think that it’s good for a child to have a parent who is actively using. However, things happen. Pregnancies happen unexpectedly. Abortion isn’t always an option or it may not be the option that the mother wants. Good intentions are not enough to keep you clean and neither is a baby. If you’re not done, you’re not done. The trick is being objective and assessing your desire to get and stay clean and be a parent against your addiction.

Personal Experience with Parenting and Drug Rehab and Recovery

So what has been your experience in this area? Do you have a parent or parents who continually chose to get loaded? Were they a part of your life? What about your kids? Do you have a partner who tries to stay clean but can’t do it and it’s affecting your child? How have you handled these situations? Do you have any advice for others who are going through it?

Statistics show us that few relationships survive drug addiction, whether or not both parties are victims of drug abuse. But if your loved one is addicted to drugs and/ or alcohol and goes to drug rehab, what can you expect from your relationship when drug rehab is over and they come home?

After Drug Rehab: State of Mind

In general, most who make it through drug detox and graduate from drug rehab come home excited about their new life, energized to make it on their own without drugs and alcohol and… a little nervous. This is something new for them—for some it may be totally new if they’ve never lived as an adult without drugs and alcohol before—and the idea that someone is depending on them to get it right, i.e., you, is stressful. They are coming from a very supportive place where they got to focus on themselves, their personal issues and had constant attention on multiple levels. They should feel encouraged and ready to try living the way they’ve been taught for the past few weeks.

How to Be Supportive After Drug Rehab

First and foremost, lower your expectations. This doesn’t mean you should expect them to fail, but it does mean that you shouldn’t expect that everything in your relationship will now be perfect. Even relationships where there are no issues with addiction go through hard times, so even if you think that all your problems are solved now that your loved one has gone through drug rehab, think again. There is still quite a bit of work to be done, both on a personal level for your loved one and together as a couple.

Give your partner space. Let him or her go to support group meetings, maintain friendships made during drug rehab. If he or she wants to talk about what they’ve learned, listen. If they want you to go with them to meetings, attend one or two. Above all, be supportive in ways that your partner finds helpful. Chances are, if they need something from you, they’ll ask. As long as it’s reasonable and within your boundaries, go for it.

What Not To Do After Drug Rehab

Though you likely have quite a load of resentments about their behavior while your loved one was using and more than a few hurt feelings and trust issues, now is not the time to talk about them relentlessly. Bringing up things they did during their addiction, blaming them for problems with money or with others in the family that may have arisen while they were gone or began during addiction, or alternating between icy tolerance and wanting “to talk” is not the way to go. Constant criticism or expecting your loved one to fail is not helpful and may end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If You Need Drug Rehab…

In many relationships where drug and alcohol addiction is present, both people suffer from drug addiction issues to some degree. If you struggle with drug and alcohol issues as well as your partner, it may be your turn to go to drug rehab now that they have come home. If you feel that you would benefit from outpatient or inpatient drug treatment, talk to your loved one about it. There’s no reason why both of you shouldn’t get help if you need it.

If you’re looking for a book about addiction and addicts, personal stories that you can identify with or that will help you understand what a loved one is going through, here’s one for you: “America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis. Told from the viewpoint of the addicts themselves, the book tells the stories of eight addicts over several years.

Eight Addicts in Search of a Life

Each of the addicts in Denizet-Lewis’ book suffer from a different mix of issues from heroin, crystal meth, prescription drug and/or crack addiction to other anti-social problems like shoplifting, gambling, sex and pornography and food obsession. The book lets them tell much of their story in their own words leaving the author to drop historical and scientific facts along the way.

There are direct quotes of back and forth conversations, for example, between a food addict named Ellen and her sponsor. A heroin addiction named Bobby gives his viewpoint on the world from his dreary South Boston address. He says, “Sometimes I think God could do us a favor and crash a 747 into this [expletive] place.”

True to Life

In the introduction, Denizet-Lewis makes sure to point out that the book contains no composite characters or made-up scenes. He even openly discusses his own struggle with sex addiction and answers hard to answer questions like: How is sex addiction even possible? And what’s wrong with becoming an alcoholic at the age of 80?

Far from preachy, it’s more of a documentary style book with an objective view of addiction told by the people going through it rather than some of the more personal memoir-style one-view books on the market or the clinical, more distant and psychological or scientific books. It’s real and it’s honest and it’s interesting.

Difficult Paths, Hopeful Ending

It’s not an easy read in that it doesn’t just show a joyful, straight shot from the bottom of addiction to the top of a successful recovery. There are successes but not cookie cutter, typical wins for the addicts in the book but there is definitely hope in the final pages. Even a call to action by Jody who went from an addict in recovery to a treatment director helping other addicts fight their disease. She says: “People in recovery need to stand up and demand to be counted. We don’t have nearly enough people out there screaming until something changes, until we start devoting real money and resources to fighting this disease.”

Have you read “America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life” by Benoit Denizet-Lewis? Any other good books you read that you’d recommend to those in recovery or family and friends of those who are struggling with addiction?

If hearing another’s personal experience with drugs is the best way to understand the true nature of drug addiction and if making connections with others who are struggling with drug addiction will help us become stronger in our recovery, then one Laguna Beach, California, mom is doing everything she can to help both sides of addiction.

Drug Addiction and Radio

Leyla Fatima is a single mother of two sons, both of whom struggled for almost 10 years with drug and alcohol addictions. With time spent in emergency rooms, drug rehabs and jail visitation as a result, Fatima decided to launch a radio show to talk about her experiences and reach out to other parents who are going through the same thing.

Fatima says, “Watching our kids self-destruct is one of the most horrible, difficult things we can go through as parents. Society often places blame on us for our kids’ problems, which also makes us feel further disconnected from the world.

“I was a present, engaged and good mother. This is a disease — it’s no one’s fault.”

Connecting with Parents of Drug Addicted Children

Her positive view of getting through the drug addiction of family members is spread through “Parenting the Addict Child,” her radio show which first aired on cable Internet a year ago and has since been picked up for national syndication by Intravision. Starting February 1, it will air from 12 noon to 2 PM on Sundays on KLSX 97.1 FM.

Fatima says, “I really want to create change so that we [as a society] come to a place where addiction is accepted and is not associated with failure or shame. Parents should not be ashamed of their children, but should feel open to talk about it, share their stories and educate one another in order to help their children.”

Sharing Offers a Gift to Both Sides

It’s a relief to vent and share whether we’re struggling with our drug addiction or someone else’s. It’s also comforting to know that we’re not alone in what we’re dealing with and listening to someone else’s story provides that support. “These parents are a gift, and they have no idea what they give me,” Fatima says.

According to Ashley Breeding at the Laguna Beach Coastline Pilot, “Fatima encourages her listeners with words of compassion and humor, and lends advice to mostly parents of young and adult addicts based on her own experiences. Her message to listeners is that they must redefine “love” as parents and deal with addiction as a disease. She encourages them to support their children’s fight against these addictions while maintaining their own independence.”

Fatima says, “It is important to laugh through it and still find pleasure in life despite our grievances. What else can we do?”

You’ve noticed a few changes in your loved one. He or she is looking a little less… coifed than usual, let’s say. There’s been more than a few ups and downs in their mood, a little excessively perhaps. Money seems always to be a problem and their hours have been a bit off. Maybe they’re disappearing for longer than usual or spending more and more time isolating themselves from the family. Conversation is minimal unless they are effusive and chatty and eye contact and interactions in general are strained.

Drug addiction comes to mind and you decide to ask them straight out. Good communication is the best policy, right? But your inquiries are met with defensiveness, anger, maybe they even turn it around on you or just ignore you completely. Still, you feel that something is definitely wrong but you don’t want to accuse them of addiction because you don’t have any solid proof. Is drug testing the answer?

The Issue of Trust With Family Drug Testing

The problem with testing someone for drugs after they have denied that they are using is that it says straight out that you think they are lying to you. This is not good for any relationship and if it’s possible that anything else is going on, you might want to exhaust your other options and explore other possibilities before insisting on a drug test.

On the other hand, few who are addicted to drugs will readily admit that to you when you ask. Lying comes part and parcel with drug and alcohol addiction if for no other reason than your loved one likely doesn’t want to admit to him or herself just how serious the problem is. Don’t take it personally, either way, as long as your concern is for their wellbeing and not just an effort to harass them.

Secret Drug Testing or Open Drug Testing?

For some, the need to avoid confrontation or even deal with the trust issue means that secret drug testing is the only way. This means securing a sample from your loved one without their knowledge. This is easy enough with hair sample tests, but it may be a bit more difficult if you need a sample of another kind.

What do you think? Is it ethical to drug test someone without their knowledge even though your intentions obviously hold their best interest in mind?

Are You Rationalizing?

Either side of the fence that you’re leaning toward, look at yourself and explore your motives before proceeding with a drug test or deciding against it. Does your gut tell you that your loved one is addicted to drugs, but you’re choosing to avoid a drug test to save your relationship with them or because you’re scared of what it might mean for everyone concerned if you get a positive result?

What do you think about at-home drug tests? Have you ever done one on your family member or loved one? What happened?

If you’re looking for a new film to watch this weekend, try and find a copy of the introspective Dancing Girl, available on DVD or as a download. It’s 80 minutes of the inner workings of one family who struggled with a daughter’s heroin addiction and its effects on the family as well as some of the reasons why she turned to drug use and abuse in the first place.

The Marks Family and Drug Addiction

Sally Marks created Dancing Girl as a way to explore the issues that her daughters, Bonnie and Emma, suffered from: anxiety disorder and heroin addiction, respectively. Emma, 37, is the focus of the film. She began using drugs at the age of 13 and, after ending up addicted to heroin, supported that addiction for 12 years by stripping. Bonnie, 28, suffers from anxiety disorder. She’s had panic attacks since she was 7 years old and was suicidal as a result of bullying by her siblings and loneliness.

A Mother’s Contribution to Her Daughter’s Drug Addiction

In the film, Sally comes to learn how her actions contributed to the eventual reactions of her daughters. It was her own self absorption, drug using and partying lifestyle, and neglect as a mother that provided the example that one daughter followed and alienated the other. Addicted to marijuana, alcohol and cocaine, Marks recognizes that the addictive patterns in her life can be traced back to her own father’s addiction and his father’s before him.

Marks says, “I was a middle-class, convent-educated girl from Kew with a successful company director for a father. But behind the facade of suburban perfection — beautiful house, tennis court, private school — it was a terribly unhappy childhood.”

Marks made choices that centered on self medication, lots of clubs and leaving her children with au pairs, nannies and childcare centers. “It was a crazy, chaotic household, back to the dope and the alcohol. We’d go out and party and leave the kids,” she says.

The Kids’ React To Mother’s Drug Addiction

Bonnie says she looks back on that time with anger and disappointment. “I missed my parents and grew up thinking they didn’t care. When they were home they were either stoned or drinking. They were either not there physically or not there emotionally.”

In the film, Emma says: “The first time I took heroin, I thought ‘That’ll show them’.” She says she grew up with a sense “of feeling that you’re less worthy of a happy life”. When her mother began shooting the movie, she didn’t react. “I was in a different place, Trevor was still around, I didn’t have a child and, frankly, I didn’t expect to make it anyway. I thought we’d be dead.”

It’s certainly not a comedy but the film works on multiple levels of drama and self discovery. Has anyone seen it? What did you think? Any other documentaries on the subject of drug addiction that you’d recommend?

There are a number of blogs written by addicts, both active and in recovery, as well as by family members who love their son, daughter, or partner who is an addict or alcoholic. New ones spring up every day and while many tend to fall off, often there are great little seeds of truth in just the few posts that make it online. I’ve chosen some to share with you.

OxyContin and Opiate Addiction: A Mother’s Story

A mother whose son is/was going through detox and recovery provides a different perspective on addiction. She says:

“My name is Debby, and my son is an addict. The purpose of this blog began as a way to keep my loved ones informed on how my son is doing with his detox/recovery. To date, this blog is evolving into what I hope will be a ministry and blessing to others who might be experiencing what I am. To respect my son, I will not use full names, in the theme of Nar-Anon.”

The Junky’s Wife

This blog is written, obviously, by the wife of a man addicted to heroin. Her honesty provides insight into just how heartbreaking it can be to be in love with someone who is strung out and struggling. She says:

“He’s been to three meetings in three days. It’s a big deal. He’s sometimes crazy, but when he says things that are hurtful or when he’s hyper-sensitive in that maddening addict way, he calls himself on it. He’s trying to clean up the messes he’s made, slowly but surely. It’s all good stuff, and it scares me, and it fills me with hope.”

Mom Vs Heroin

Written by the mother of a heroin addict, she is also a grandmother fighting for custody of her grandchild, who was born to her addicted daughter. Her posts are often detailed discoveries of a life loving someone who is addicted to drugs and how difficult it is to help them in a way that’s constructive and love them at the same time. She wrote a poem:

My Changeling

Who crept soft among mine
With envious delight,
To rob me of preciousness
As if overnight?

How slowly I awakened,
From my blissful bed,
To find my child gone away;
A changeling in her stead -

Bright eyes turned to angry stares,
No more laughing innocence;
What was once solicited
This being stoically resents

Pray keep me strong; accepting
Of this challenging changeling, who
If I frighten her away from me
She takes my baby, too

(And sorrowfully I see
For now we won’t agree,
Though I’m a changeling,
too)

Do you know of any great drug addiction and recovery blogs that you would like to share? Perhaps you have one of your own. Let us know!

Parents' Expectations Affect Kids' Drug Choices

If you think they’ll try it or you think they won’t, you’re right. The expectations we place on our children — the “voice of reason” that must be constantly repeated over and over again to relay simple acts of etiquette and morality –- really does sink in… eventually.

As adults, the inner dialogue we continually replay in our heads when no one else is looking comes directly from the people who influenced us the most in our childhood. These personal beliefs encompass more than just how we should dress or how successful we need to be in life. The entire fabric of our conscience is woven by millions of pieces of unconscious communications that frame the very essence of our personality.

Self Fulfilling Effects on Children’s Alcohol Use

Stephanie Madon, associate professor of psychology at Iowa State University, and lead author of a new study, elaborates on her team’s findings. “When mothers overestimated their teens’ future use of alcohol, the teens developed the self-view that they were likely to drink alcohol in the future, which ultimately led them to drink more.”

In previous studies, the team discovered that “mothers’ beliefs about their teen’s future use of alcohol were about 50 percent correct and 50 percent incorrect, and that the incorrect portion of mothers’ beliefs created a self-fulfilling prophecy — teens behaved like their mothers had incorrectly expected them to,” says Madon.

Expectations Influence a Desired Outcome

Self-fulfilling prophecies are, in essence, internal motivations to prove what one believes to be true about one’s self. Parental beliefs about their children are strongly linked to the child’s view of their own selves, creating an overwhelming desire to perform in the role that has been assigned to them.

“When we believe something — even if we’re wrong — when we believe it’s true, we act as though it is,” Madon explains. “And sometimes when you act as though something’s true, your behaviors will cause the belief to become true.

“So I think the moral here is to help children develop positive and pro-social self-concepts about themselves, because children are likely to make choices that match how they view themselves.”

Tell Us: Have you seen evidence of high or low expectations like these influencing behaviors in your own family? What about in school or at work?

Drug Facts Chat Day

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is sponsoring the second annual Drug Facts Chat Day for students and teachers across the country. A panel of NIDA’s top researchers, scientists, and addiction experts will be available live online to answer questions from teens about addiction, drugs, and their effects.

The Need for Open, Honest Conversation with Teenagers about Drugs and Alcohol

Illicit drugs, prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and inhalants are still important areas of concern for adolescents, and in an effort to spark the conversation and get the word out, NIDA is offering a second opportunity for schools to participate and get the straight facts about the impact of drugs.

How Can I Participate in Drug Facts Chat Day?

There are two ways to take advantage of this valuable, once-a-year resource:

1. Register your school to have full access with the ability for students to ask questions and receive answers
2. Log on October 7th to view the chat and observe the questions and answers as they come up on the screen – the “view only” option is also loaded with quizzes and factoids to keep students fully engaged

Computer labs can be reserved specifically for students to come in throughout the day and ask questions, or teachers can log on in their classrooms and students can ask questions together while participating in classroom dialogue.

Go to DrugAbuse.gov to type your questions and a reply can be seen as soon as it’s posted by the experts. If your question isn’t answered right away, come back after the chat is finished to view a full transcript of the day’s discussion.

How Can My School Get Registered for Drug Facts Day?

Priority will be given to those schools that participated last year but weren’t able to have their questions answered in a timely manner due to high volume. Have your school’s principal contact Brian Marquis at Bmarquis@nids.nih.gov to register for full access participation in this exciting, extraordinary event.

Tell Us: Do you like this approach to getting kids to talk about drugs and alcohol? Should parents be present or have the option to request alternative information gathering (such as electing that a child visit the library to look up information in books)?