February 2018

Anecdote 19: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part four

Anecdotes from Avi

Introduction

During the last anecdote we likened the loss of a child to the permanent loss of dancer’s legs. We will now conclude our discussion of how to behave around a bereaved parent with a set of dos and don’ts.

Dos and don’ts

When you are around, or with, a bereaved parent and you are together in order to discuss a specific purpose, then keep that purpose in mind. If you are together for a social meeting and have no specific reason other than being together, you should behave with the bereaved parent as you would behave around anyone else. The subject of the loss child may be brought up and discussed, it is not a taboo subject. In other words be yourself.

Don’ts

Your job is not to assume that you need to cheer the bereaved parent up
Your job is not to do one better and tell a story of a loss in your life
It is not your job to dictate how the bereaved parent should feel.
It is not your job to repeat every time you meet a bereaved parent that such a tragedy should happen to no parent

Dos

Allow the bereaved parent to have a burst of sadness, tears or cry without you needing to “fix” it or cheer the bereaved parent up. At times an event will trigger a memory in the bereaved parent. The emotions that are wrapped around the lost child are intense and as such may result in an uncontrolled burst of emotions. Those emotions will subside, the bereaved parent will regain control. What you can do is give that bereaved parent the gift of time and space and allow the bereaved parent to regain composure. After Peggy found Ben’s lifeless body we called 911 and started CPR in an attempt to bring Ben back to life, the paramedics arrived shortly thereafter and determined that Ben is gone at which point the police wanted no one in Ben’s room. Nevertheless, Peggy refused to leave Ben’s side because she did not want Ben left alone. A year, or so, later during lunch, a lady told me about the loss of her father and how busy she was arranging the funeral and burial. All this time she was so busy she could not think about the loss of her father. Then when people left the funeral home it was the first time she could wrestle with the loss itself and she could not bring herself to leave her dad’s coffin’s side, because she did not want her father left alone. When I heard the story I thought of Peggy and burst in tears. The lady allowed me the time to finish my tears. I explained what raw emotion her story touched.
If the lost child died due to an overdose, the term “junkie” for a drug user is a painful description for a bereaved parent. So is the opinion that “junkies do not deserve to live”. Bereaved parents tend to learn about addiction and in general believe the scientific diagnosis that addiction is a mental disease and like any other disease the addicted person deserves treatment. A bereaved parent may not be in the mood or may not have the mental energy to argue the scientific findings with a person who wants to express their opinion with no scientific backing.

We thank you for taking the time to read these anecdotes.

Prev: Part three

Avi,

The BTFMovement

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

February 2018

Anecdote 18: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part three

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: part two Next: part four

Introduction

During the last anecdote we discussed our human inability to understand an emotion that we did not experience. We will now try to relate the emotion of a loss of a child with another experience.

Loss of a child

A bereaved parent, has in a way lost a part of herself/himself. Especially a senseless loss, like loss due to an overdose. This loss is wrapped with trauma, sorrow, self-pity, regrets, guilt and constantly going over in one’s mind “what if I said …”, “what if I did …”, “what if I understood …” and “only if my spouse did/understand/do …”.

The emotions, the pain, the trauma wrapped around a loss of a child are invisible to others mostly because most of us do not experience such a loss and obviously it leaves no external visible marks. We all know sadness, disappointment and heartbreak, they all pass away with time. These experiences of sadness, disappointment and heartbreak do not reflect on the emotions of a loss of a child.

For the sake of this discussion let’s liken the loss of a child to a dancer who spent years perfecting her dancing skills, worked hard at perfecting these skills and sacrificed practically everything else in life for these skills; then due to an accident, she lost her legs and now is confined to a wheelchair. The difference between the loss of a child and the dancer’s loss of legs is that the loss of legs is a visible condition while the loss of a child is an invisible condition.

A dancer who lost her legs now needs to learn to live her life without the use of her legs and without constantly working on her dream–dancing. Similarly, a parent who lost a child needs to learn to live without the child and without the work toward the future of that child and future grandchildren from the lost child. When the dancer says: “I don’t feel the same” people around her “understand”. When the dancer says: “I still cry over the loss of my legs and my inability to dance” even years after the accident, no one feels that she needs to be schooled about how she should feel, or that she needs to “move on”.

The memory of the lost child

The parent who lost a child wishes above all that the memory of the child will not be lost. A lady who lost her daughter wrote on Facebook: “If you mention my daughter’s name I may cry, but if you don’t I will be devastated.”

Next anecdote: We will conclude our discussion with dos and don’ts.

Prev: part two Next: part four

Avi,

The BTFMovement

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

January 2018

Anecdote 17: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part two

Anecdotes from Avi

prev: part one next: part three

Introduction

During the previous anecdote we introduced a name for a parent who lost a child as “Bereaved parent”.

Understanding emotions

We, as people, are very good at feeling empathy toward someone else. We “understand” how someone feels because we have gone through that experience ourselves. We know how we felt while and after we have passed through an experience and as such we believe that others feel the same way, when they go through a similar experience. Moreover, we re-feel those emotions when we see (or understand) that someone is going through the experience that we had gone through. In the absence of going through the experience we cannot “understand” how someone else feels.

We know the feeling when we see someone who is elated because they achieved an A grade on an exam or report card and we know the feeling when we see someone hurt because they were cheated by a cunning sales person. However, we do not know the feeling of weightlessness.

During a talk show the interviewer asked an astronaut how does weightlessness feel? More than it “feels great” and “pleasurable” the astronaut could not explain “how it feels”. Better yet, the astronaut’s wife could not explain it either and she elected to tell that her husband needs to relearn that if he leaves the toothpaste tube in mid-air, it will not stay there.

During birth giving the nurses told Peggy, my wife, to let the contraction build up. After Ben was born I asked Peggy if “letting the contraction build up” made sense to which she replied: “Yes it does”. Though she could not explain the process of letting the contraction build up, at least not in a way that I understand. It seems that a physical feeling is just as hard to explain as an emotional feeling, to someone who did not go through the experience.

In general, we as a society, accept that if we did not experience it then we don’t “understand” it. It is generally accepted that men do not understand the feeling, the emotions, the experience of pregnancy and giving birth. Men do not understand how it feels to have a baby roll inside or feel a baby kick on the inside; the pain, the exhaustion, the euphoria of giving birth or the joy of first breast feeding; and in general, we, as a society, do not expect men to understand any of it.

When it comes to a loss of a child many times people feel that they are responsible for uplifting the spirit of a bereaved parent. At times people feel bad about the state of the bereaved parent and are afraid of making things worse by saying or doing the wrong thing, therefore some people end up shunning the bereaved parent.

Next anecdote: We will draw an analogy in an attempt to exemplify the emotions around the loss of a child.

prev: part one next: part three

Avi,

The BTFMovement

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

December 2017

Anecdote 16: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part one

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part eleven Next: Part two

Introduction

We are starting a new topic and as usual we take no responsibility for the actions you take to help yourself and your children. The information I share here is true as it relates to my wife and I, our experience and the knowledge I amassed since our son, Ben, passed on. With that I expect that you apply the information that I share as it best applies to you and your situation. With that let’s get started.

At times people do not know what to say or how to act and react with a parent who lost a child. At times people feel that they need to say something “smart” so that the person who lost a child will feel better; sometimes people try to dictate how the person who lost a child should feel; at times people try to put a time limit to mourning; and at times someone needs to do “a one better” by reporting, to the mourning parent(s), about a loss of someone or someones in their lives. I will try to bring to light the side of the parent who lost a child, something that most folks did not get to experience (and we all hope that they never do) and deal with the question of how to behave and what to say to someone who lost a child.

Nomenclature

A person who lost his parents is an orphan, a woman who lost her husband is a widow, a man who lost his wife is a widower, but a parent who lost a child has no descriptive word in the English language. In order to talk about the subject without constantly writing the sentence “a parent who lost a child” I will borrow a phrase from Hebrew “bereaved parent” (הורה שכול).

Next anecdote: we will discuss: understanding emotions

Avi,

The BTFMovement

Prev: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part eleven Next: Part two

You are not invincible –Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

October 2017

Anecdote 15: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part eleven

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: part ten Next: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part one

Introduction

We will wrap our discussion by touching upon some of the scientific knowledge about addiction that lifts the fog from some baffling points.

Freedom of choice

We, as a society, especially judicial and law enforcement, consistently treat drug use as bad decision making and a bad moral choice. The underlying thought is that the addict prefers the high, from the drug, to the success of hard work.

Can you imagine a person liking the high, from a drug, so much that this individual will be willing to give up all their possessions, their love of family, love of friends, love of self, their honor, their morals, their freedom, their goals and even their life for that high? We are taught that this is the case, despite the fact, that this opinion makes absolutely no sense. We know that most addicts do not like being addicts they do not like what the drug had done to their lives. (See: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=nora+volkow%2c+study+of+the+live+brain&&view=detail&mid=2C4C24406D164D9F58AD2C4C24406D164D9F58AD&rvsmid=71AFD11A366AB2F7244771AFD11A366AB2F72447&fsscr=0&FORM=VDQVAP)

So, the question is: “Why wouldn’t the drug user just stop using this awful drug and start working hard to achieve their goals and dreams?”

Let’s try to answer these questions…

Addiction is a chronic disease: Addiction is a mental, chronic disease that destroys the person’s ability to self-control. When self-control is destroyed the person will not be able to resist taking the drug when a friend or a dealer offers the drug to them. Similarly, a morbidly obese person, who does not like being fat, will not be able to resist a high caloric desert, or two helping of that desert, or three after that person finished eating a full meal and is no longer hungry.

Addiction destroys a person’s “normal” reward mechanism: The reward mechanism governs most of our actions in life. If you have a to-do list and you finish a task on your list, you cross it off your list and you feel good about it. Now, what happens when you accomplish a task that is not on your list? You will, more than likely, write the task in your list and then cross it off. Why will you rob yourself of the good feeling that comes along with crossing the task off? This is an example of a “normal” reward mechanism at work.

For the reward signal to register as reward, as a good feeling stimulus, in the brain, must exceed a certain minimum threshold. On the other side, if the stimulus exceeds a certain maximum threshold then the brain adjusts its minimum and maximum thresholds to a higher value and will keep the range of minimum-maximum approximately intact.

We observe that folks who use drugs are not motivated to do much else other than use drugs. This seeming lack of motivation is caused by the fact that the drug use, on its own, gives the user such a high, reward stimulus, that exceed the “normal” maximum threshold level. As such the brain elevates both minimum and maximum thresholds. So, a “regular” stimulus, say crossing an item off a to-do list, no longer registers as rewarding and it now appears like the person is not motivated to do anything else but use drugs. We in return label the person as “lazy”, “bad” and “worthy of punishment”. In turn, this “bad” label and punishment only causes more isolation, trauma and hopelessness which feeds the need for more drug use. A truly vicious cycle.

The good news is that after recovery, an approximately five (5) years period, the brain will adjust its reward thresholds back to “normal” levels.

As a parenthetical remark, the infrequent user of drugs does not suffer from this problem, because the brain can “recover” before the next application of the drug.

What can you do

Calm down, build a relationship with your addicted child based on love and honesty where you do everything to understand your child.

Be prepared for the long haul. By the “long haul” I mean a timeframe on the order of five (5) years or so.

If you have other children, you need to bring up the subject of the sick brother and listen to their pain and guilt.

Protect your relationship with your spouse and work on stability in the family. Handling an addicted child puts strain and hardship on a marriage and family dynamics.

You need to protect your own sanity, we recommend 5-10 minutes of Directed Free Association daily.

Educate yourself on the field of addiction, you may start with the three books I recommended in anecdote 12.

Conclusion

Addiction is not a bad choice, it is a chronic disease.

Even if authorities do not treat addiction as a disease you should be better informed.

Last point is about you. If you started following the Directed Free Association technique daily, you probably already found out that it makes a difference and you begin to think of things not just from your point of view but from your child point of view or others point of view. You may have also started to come up with potential action steps. In parting from the subject of the last eleven anecdotes I would like to offer the following points.

if you thought about a topic and changed nothing except your mind, then this change is acceptable provided that you conclude that this is a good thing. If on the other hand you intended to change something external to you then your solution falls short of its goal and you need to keep on thinking.
if your thoughts lead you to change drastically anything about your life or your relationships, then allow yourself a period no shorter than a day, during which you will get a good night’s rest and during which you will mull things over but take no drastic actions. This is a good time to consult with your master mind alliance partners. Spending one, two or a few, 10 minutes sessions, by yourself, are not sufficient to turn your life or your relationship inside out.
If after a wait period you decide that the right thing to do is turn things inside out then let everyone affected by your decision know what it is that you are about to do, ask for their help in doing so, allow everyone a chance to voice their point of view during which you do not interrupt (except for clarification). Then give yourself an opportunity to fine tune your decisions. Life changing events are not to be rushed into!!!

We thank you for taking the time to read these anecdotes.

Avi, The BTFMovement.

Prev: part ten Next: How to behave around someone who lost a child, part one

You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

October 2017

Anecdote 14: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part ten

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: part nine Next: part eleven

Introduction

During the last anecdote, we discussed the fact that some folks are more prone to addiction than others, this is our genetic makeup and there is little we can to change our genes. However, we can influence our environmental makeup, we can deal with the causes of isolation, hopelessness and trauma.

Enabling

As a parent, you will need to walk a tight rope between protecting your child and not enabling your child.

Let’s exemplify this tight rope with a scenario, in general financing the purchase of the drug for your child would be considered enabling. However, if you feel that your child is in danger unless your child obtains their drugs you may consider financing the purchase of drugs in return for some safety. An example of safety is: your child needs to use the drug in your presence only and not obtain drugs otherwise. (The use in your presence is so that you will be able to act in case of an overdose.) In addition, your child may need to agree to work with you on a new set of friends that do not use drugs.

If you have a daughter and you are afraid that she will prostitute herself to obtain her drugs then you may consider this option. If you have a son and you are afraid that your son will engage in criminal activities to obtain his drugs then this may be something that you may be willing to explore.

Purchasing drugs for your child is not a recommendation!!! I brought it up to illustrate a point. Creative thinking is most important at this point. Please use your Directed Free Association, the Master Mind Alliance and professional addiction counseling to think about your actions.

A contrary story to purchasing drugs for your child, is a dad who tried and succeeded to have his daughter committed to prison so that his daughter will not have access to Heroin. This was his first step in helping his daughter stop using Heroin. I lost frequent connection with this dad, but I understand that he succeeded in getting his daughter off Heroin.

Intoxicating with your child

Under the guise of relationship building, your child may invite you to use an “acceptable” drug with her/him like Marijuana or to engage in excessive drinking of alcohol. I, personally, believed that I would be better off if I did not participate in any drug use with my son, especially when I advocated against the use of drugs. I felt that getting intoxicated together is not the best relationship builder. Especially when I did not engage in intoxication with my son in the past.

Overdosing

If you suspect that your child is using drugs, you may care to carry Naloxone with you at all times. Naloxone is an antidote to Opiates, it nullifies the effect of the opiates in our body.

Opiates, in our body, slow the functions of our body down, functions like cognitive ability, heart rate, breathing, digestive systems, etc. A person ultimately dies from an opiate overdose because the person stops breathing. This process of overdosing takes anywhere between half an hour and four hours depending on the level of opiates in the body. During that time, during unresponsiveness and before the person stops breathing, is the time to administer Naloxone.

Administering Naloxone requires training, which is a few hours’ worth of training, usually takes place on a Saturday. These training are usually free of charge and many times Naloxone is provided at the end of the training. Please do not hesitate to travel a few hours to reach a training session. They are well worth the effort.

Opiates are not the only drug out there and Naloxone is effective only on the opiates. But if you suspect that your child is using drugs and you are not sure which drug your child is using or you suspect that opiates are used, then Naloxone will nullify the effects of the opiates and will not harm your child if opiates are not involved.

Closing note

Overdose from opiates is more likely if opiates are mixed with other drugs. Educate your child about the risk of mixing opiates with other drugs. If a person used a different drug on a particular day, then that person should not use opiates that day. Let the other drug exit the body first.

In many ways, you are fighting to buy time. For as long as your child is alive, you have a fighting chance of saving your child from the drug and from death. Statistically, folks who use drugs will stop their use, on their own, with or without rehabilitation efforts, after approximately 10 years of use. The trouble is that the impurities in the drugs purchased from illegal dealers, drug-users’ lifestyle and our authorities many times kill our children before our children had the option to quit using drugs on their own. (See: Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chasing-the-scream-johann-hari/1119439492?ean=9781620408919)

Next Anecdote: we will wrap our discussion in the next anecdote

Prev: part nine Next: part eleven

You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

October 2017

Anecdote 13: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part nine

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: Part eight Next: Part ten

Introduction

During the last anecdote, we discussed the need to protect the relationship with one’s spouse, protect one’s own sanity and we discussed the need for education about addiction. We wrapped the discussion with a plan for changing behavior and not to “sneak up” with a new behavior.

I understand that what I advocate here:

Love your addicted child and help the child understand her/his isolation, hopelessness, trauma and stress

goes contrary to what we are taught by society and authority. Society and authority teach us that the appropriate response to catching someone using a drug is punishment, shame and ridicule. Even in earlier Nar-Anon meetings we were taught to let the child reach rock bottom and not cushion their fall due to “bad” behavior. The rationale behind “let them reach rock bottom” advice was to allow the user of drugs reach this place, rock bottom, quickly. Knowing that “rock bottom” is so unpleasant, so unacceptable that the person, who keeps on making bad decisions, will want to escape that “rock bottom” place so badly, that now, that person, will do the “right thing” out of necessity. As result, we found out that “rock bottom” is an unreachable, moving target and too many of our children died away.

Silver lining

The silver lining in the whole story of overcoming addiction is the fact that the drug, the substance, on its own, is not the only cause for addiction.

Our soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war witnessed unimaginable atrocities. Those soldiers, in large percentage, used Opiates, the drug of choice of that area of the world at the time. A lot of these soldiers, when back States-side stopped using Opiates, they just did not need it any more. Our ex-soldiers just went on with their lives and did not need the numbing effects of the drug. An important point here is that not all soldiers, who used Opiates, stopped using the drug once State-side.

A second anecdotal story in our silver lining narrative is cigarette smokers who want to quit smoking: When these smokers are provided the drug, Nicotine, through a different delivery mechanism, the patch, only 17% of them will quit smoking, even though 100% of them wanted to quit smoking and bought the patch.

Some folks are more prone to addiction than others, this is our genetic makeup and short of changing our parents we cannot change our genes. Isolation, hopelessness and trauma are environmental makeup factors that lead to addiction, factors that we can control. Therefore, your job, as a parent, is to help your child understand the cause of her/his isolation, hopelessness and trauma. Then enlighten your child and help your child find the cause and solution to their isolation, hopelessness and trauma.

Your child needs your love and understanding now more than ever. Punishment, shame and ridicule will hurt your child and further their use and addiction.

Addiction is not lack of moral conviction

At times, you may feel that deeply religious conviction runs contrary to addiction and an addict is a person who simply lacks or lost a moral compass.

A person may have deep moral and religious convictions yet that same person can suffer from pain and/or chronic sickness. Drug addiction is a chronic sickness and as such religious conviction is not at odds with addiction.

I do know of a mother whose son turned to religion and spent the majority of his time with his new-found religious order and as such did not associate with his drug using buddies. His mother attributes his recovery to religion. If your child finds new friends, away from drug use, then this is a positive step.

Next anecdote: we will explore antidote to opiates and describe the process of overdosing

Prev: Part eight Next: Part ten

You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

September 2017

Anecdote 11: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part seven

Prev: Part six Next: Part eight

Introduction

During the last anecdote, we discussed the importance of patience, the importance of seeking a support group, the importance of trusting your own knowledge and instincts and good communication with oneself and with others. I believe that honest communication with oneself are key to success in achieving any goal or endeavor.

We will now continue with the list of actions a parent can take to help their child through to recovery.

Actions a parent can take

Your relationship with your child is of high importance: It is very easy to demand that your child just stop making bad decisions, or just stop using drugs, or just stop seeing friends that you consider bad influence. These demands will only hurt your relationship with your child, especially when you tried this approach in the past and have met with no success.

Let’s consider the following scenarios: Say you ask your child to stop using drugs and let’s assume that your child would like to comply. So, your child stops using drugs for some period of time. We will ignore withdrawals for now. If there is no substitute for the time that was spent using the drug, then your child will be in a need to fill that time with some activity. Having no other viable substitute (at least not viable in your child’s mind), drug use will come back.

Second scenario: Say you ask your child to stay away from his drug using buddies and let’s say that your child agrees and would like to comply. With no other friends to hang out with (at least none that your child believes s/he can hang out with right now), your child will be drawn back to her/his drug using buddies. Potentially you, at this point, would love to point out how many non-drug-using friends your child has. Your child, for whatever reason, may not feel comfortable approaching these non-drug-using friends right now. Your job is not to argue and prove logically that you are right and your child wrong. Your job now is to help your child find a path to her/his non-drug-using friends or new non-drug-using friends.

Knowing the above, you may attempt to direct your child to spend time in school or work, in the hope that having an activity away from drug use will lead your child to a path away from drugs. Depending on how addicted your child is, these activities, that you consider normal, may become high stress situations which will lead your child back to using drugs.

Help your child architect a path out of addiction with love and understanding.

Protect your relationship with the rest of your children: No doubt the rest of your children have guilt feelings that need to be aired out, or worse yet they may be on their own path to their own addiction. Make sure that you do not neglect your other children in your attempt to help the addicted child. Try not letting your other children feel that they are less important than the addicted child. You may care to set up regular scheduled time with your other children. Explain to your other children that their risk of being addicts themselves is greater than average and as such they may care to refrain or curtail their use of alcohol.

Next Anecdote: We will delve further into actions a parent can take up.

Prev: Part six Next: Part eight

You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

September 2017

Anecdote 10: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part six

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Introduction

During the last Anecdote, we discussed the fact that the user of drugs is in pain, had developed self-defense mechanisms that adds further isolation. We discussed the fact that addiction is a mental disease that hijacks the ability to self-control and lastly, we discussed that recovery from addiction is five (5) years period. Now we will turn our attention to the actions a parent can take.

Actions a parent can take

Arm yourself with patience: You will need the patience of a saint, because you are trying to help a person who wants none of your help. Use the Directed Free Association and the Master Mind Alliance to come up with different topics of discussion and strategies of behavior towards your child. Expect your strategies to be ineffective and yield little result. Keep in mind that you do not have the luxury of giving up on your child. Keep on consulting with yourself, professional help and keep on keeping on, even when the situation looks like nothing is working.

Neither you nor your child can solve the problem of addiction on your own: Seek out the help of a support group like Nar-Anon. Nar-Anon stands for Narcotics Anonymous which is the equivalent of Al-Anon (Alcoholics Anonymous). If you cannot find a Nar-Anon meeting in your neighborhood go to an Al-Anon meeting, the two follow an identical program. While you attend Nar-Anon, you need to encourage your child to attend NA and better yet, attend Rehab first. NA also stands for Narcotics Anonymous and is a support group for the habitual user. NA is the equivalent of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous which focuses on the alcoholic). NA follows the same program as AA.

Trust your knowledge and instincts: I recommend that you evaluate the suggestion of any external advice, be it an advice from a support group member, a health professional or anyone else, then apply the given suggestion only if it makes sense for you. Use caution when you take an advice from an advisor having no skin in your game and none or little knowledge of the specifics about your situation. This is, for the most part, true for professional counselors who listen to you for a period of 45 minutes during which your counselor remembers none of the information that you shared during any other counseling session. I do not mean to imply that there is no benefit to be had from a professional psychologist, I am asking you to evaluate their advice—or my advice for that matter of fact.

Common sense: Be honest with yourself, with your child and with your family. (Being honest with oneself can prove to be most difficult as the adage says: A person can lie to strangers half of the times, a person can lie to their own spouse seventy five percent of the times, but a person can lie to her/himself a hundred percent of the times.) Say what you mean and mean what you say. My advice is not to let your emotions run away with you. Don’t make threats, especially not idol threats. Be consistent with your opinion, your message and your goals. Then, stay positive and work tirelessly toward achieving your goals even in the face of no-progress and defeat. Keep in mind that your struggle will take some five years, so expecting success overnight is not realistic. Then if you do not succeed, this lack of success does not mean that you failed or that there is no solution, it means that what you had done did not work, right now.

Next Anecdote: We will continue the discussion of actions a parent can take

Prev: Part five Next: Part seven

You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

September 2017

Anecdote 9: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part five

Previous: Part four Next: Part six

Introduction

During the last anecdote, we discussed symptoms of a frequent user. Let’s turn our attention to understanding of the child’s behavior and actions a parent can take.

Information points and action steps

Your child is in pain: Recognize that your child is in pain and therefore your job is to add no further pain. Getting to the source and cause of pain is the hard part that will require an investment of mental energy and communication with your child. Potentially you will need to seek the help a professional counselor.

Self-defense: Your child developed some self-defense mechanism techniques. Some of the defense mechanisms include hiding her/his behavior and emotions from you. You are trying to break these defense mechanism barriers down. Breaking those barriers down will require creative thinking and deviation from the normal BAU (business as usual).

Addiction is a mental disease: Addiction is classified as a mental disease that is co-morbid with other mental diseases that may have developed due to the addiction itself. You may meet folks who are willing to share their ignorance and even sound intelligent while they lay out an argument as to why addiction is not a disease. Keep in mind that the folks conducting research on addiction, like Nora Volkow, the head of the Drug Abuse Division part of the NIH (National Institute of Health) believes that addiction is a disease and has research to back her opinion up.

Stress leads to more drug use: In general, an addicted person cannot handle stress. Stress will lead an addicted person to more drug use. Drug use, especially opiate use, not only takes away physical pain it also takes away emotional pain. We all learn from our past behavior and create patterns of behavior called paradigms of behavior. So does an opiate user and the pattern of behavior that and opiate user develop is that pain, discomfort and stress can be resolved with another dose of opiates.

Addiction hijacks the self-control mechanism of the brain: Consider the following scenario: an addicted child decides not to use drugs any longer. The child even tells you so and means it; you feel that your child means every word they said and you believe your child. Then your child goes off and uses the drug again. This behavior means nothing more than the fact that the child is addicted and lost her/his self-control. When the child told you that s/he will not use drugs any more, the child meant it and was honest about it. Due to lack of self-control the child could not resist her/himself when the drug was offered to them. Your child’s addicted friends and drug dealer will give your child drugs, free of charge, and exert pressure on your child to use drugs, just to keep the status quo. Friends would like not to lose friends, especially not a good drug-using buddy and a dealer would like not to lose a client.

Recovery, a path out of addiction: Recovery from addiction is a period of about five (5) years. Plan your child’s recovery with that time frame in mind. Preferably long-term rehab is part of the picture.

If your child had attended rehab and now out of rehab, then this is a dangerous time for your child to overdose. Rehab lasts a short period of time during which the drug is, physically, out of your child’s body, but not necessarily out of your child psychological need. Your child may have been dreaming, during rehab’s time, of using their drug of choice. Now after rehab, your child’s tolerance for the drug is not what it was before rehab and hence the danger of overdose. Even leaving your child to find their way home on their own, after rehab, could be a time for purchasing and using their drug. You need also to watch out for your child’s safety, from overdose, during the holidays and especially on your child’s birthday.

Mixing drugs with opiates can be fatal: You may care to educate your child that mixing other drugs with opiates can be fatal. If your child had engaged in use of any drug then during that day your child should refrain from opiates and vice versa, if the child used opiates, then on that day, the child should refrain from using any other drug.

Next Anecdote: We will discuss what actions a parent may take

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You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny