October 2017

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

Anecdotes from Avi

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

October 2017

Anecdote 12: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part eight

Anecdotes from Avi

Prev: Part seven Next: Part nine

Introduction

During the last anecdote, we discussed the fact that your child needs your help and the importance of not letting your other children feel neglected. We will continue our discussion of actions a parent can take.

Actions a parent can take

Protect your relationship with your spouse. Chances are that you are at odds with your spouse. Dealing with an addicted child puts a heavy burden on a marriage. Try to reserve frequent alone-time with your spouse for talking and just being together. Make a point of you both telling each other one positive thing about each other during your time alone.

Protecting your relationship with your spouse includes not blaming your spouse for the child’s addiction. You may feel that if your spouse did or did not do some specific things the situation would have been different, but you do not know so. It is easy to blame your spouse but my feeling is that you are both responsible and you both need to work on the problem together to solve it. Blaming will stand in the way of a solution, be painful and will not lead to cooperation.

Note that sexual relationship between the couple often suffers when the couple is at odds with each other. Mostly the wife feels that engaging in sexual relationship is “dishonest”. Today’s advice is to start with regular sexual relationship while working on the relationship itself. For more details see: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-5-love-languages-gary-chapman/1112878532?ean=9780802412706).

If you and your spouse cannot settle down and find a loving way of working together, then professional counseling may be in order. I recommend that you set your expectation for professional counseling to be a mediator between yourselves and not as a solution provider.

I believe that this is an important point, to keep in mind, for the path to free your child from addiction. Family dynamics and a stable family environment are very important. See reference, as per Anecdote 6, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3799532/.

Evaluate yourself and do not lose your own sanity: It is easy to lose the sense of your own faults and options that lay in front of you. It is also very easy to be stressed out, chronically (continuously) and give up. Use the Directed Free Association technique described in Anecdote 5, to rejuvenate yourself, daily, and laser focus your attention on the options you have in front of you.

Educate yourself about addiction: I recommend that you start with the following three books and never stop educating yourself:

“Chasing the Scream” by Johann Hari, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chasing-the-scream-johann-hari/1119439492?ean=9781620408919
“Dreamland” by Sam Quinones, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dreamland-sam-quinones/1120727233?ean=9781620402528. Cautionary note, Quinones calls drug users, at times, “junkies” which can be very painful for you the parent. Overcome these feelings, the rest of the information is good.
“High Price” by Carl Hart, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/high-price-carl-hart/1114195547?ean=9780062015891

Conclusion

Say that you read these suggestions and would like to change the way you behave. I believe that you should not rush into it and you should not alter your behavior without first letting everyone of those who will be affected by such a change. First allow yourself a period, no less than a day during which you will get a good night’s rest. This period will allow you go over your changes in your mind. I recommend that you gather your family (or those that are affected by the change in your behavior), explain your intensions, explain your goals and ask your family to help you in your new endeavor. Then listen to whatever everyone has to say. When you listen to everyone else do not interrupt your family members, except for clarification. Then allow yourself a period, no less than a day (during which you will get a good night’s rest) to fine tune your changes.

If you have more distant family or other “close friends” that are not helpful but are prying for information. I believe that your only immediate responsibility is for your spouse and children. Responsibility to others, more distant family and friends is a distant second.

Next anecdote: we will explore a silver lining in the story of addiction

Prev: Part seven Next: Part nine

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

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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

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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

August 2017

Anecdote 7: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part three

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Introduction

During the last anecdote, we discussed the importance of good relationship with your child and family love, we also discussed the sandwich approach to criticism. We will now turn to an evaluation of the drug use itself.

Evaluate and Act

Casual user: If you suspect that your child is a casual user of drugs AND NOT AN ADDICT, then you may care to do nothing more than express your concerns and set a regular discussion times with your child. These discussion times should be welcomed and not painful for your child. A time during which your child will look forward to talking with you, a time during which you are not judgmental, negative, insulting or punitive. These discussions do not always have to be about drugs. Try to learn from your child as much as you teach your child. Keep in mind that these discussions are not meant to make you feel good about yourself, they are designed for you to learn more about your child.

I have one word of caution for you: The thought that your child is using drugs, especially Heroin, is so painful so terrifying that you may minimize or exaggerate your child’s habit. You need to investigate what your child tells you, but in a way that does not harm your relationship with your child. You may care to pay close attention to your child’s behavior.

If the use of drugs is truly casual, then you may care to invest in reading the book: High Price by Carl Hart (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/high-price-carl-hart/1114195547?ean=9780062015891). Carl Hart describes drugs and their use in an honest way, where casual use may not be as devastating as we are led to believe by the authorities.

Frequent user: If, on the other hand, you believe that your child is using drugs frequently, as frequently as daily or close to it, then you may consider a different course of action. The rest of our discussion will concentrate on this topic of the frequent user.

A child that is a frequent user of drugs is more than likely an addict, this includes daily use of Marijuana. Addiction is a difficult concept to wrap your head and emotions around and at this point you may feel that your child is not an addict. I ask that you make sure that you are not in denial.

If the concept of “addiction” is revolting, then I ask that you overcome the negative connotations of the word “addiction” and consider the fact that if your child cannot stop the behavior that hurts her/his life then discussing if it is addition or not is a moot point.

For alcoholism, there are tests that will allow one to better evaluate the likelihood of one being an alcoholic. For example, https://www.verywell.com/could-you-have-an-alcohol-abuse-problem-3894213 is such a test. A good starting point is to evaluate, for yourself, as if the questionnaire was about Heroin, or your child’s drug of choice and take the test for your child. (Unfortunately, the test does not provide the arithmetic to reveal the likelihood of alcoholism based on the questionnaire.)

Next anecdote: we will delve into the symptoms of the frequent user.

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You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny

August 2017

Anecdote 6: What to do if you suspect that your child is using drugs, part two

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Introduction

Last time we identified the fact that one cannot think about the problem of addiction when one is in a shock or panic (or an emotion that leads one to similar behavior) then we introduced the concept of Directed Free Association and the Master Mind Alliance as action points. When one is alone with one’s own thoughts one is often capable in “seeing” things more clearly without the interference of one’s emotions and ego.

Good relationship

I believe that your goal hereon is to keep your relationship with your child intact and constantly work toward improving it. Ruining your relationship with your child may lead your child to more drug use and abuse. I believe that one of the most drug-deterrent factors, for your child’s drug use, is good parent-child relationship. A relationship where you establish a safe and trustful connection, allowing your child to approach you, especially in times of need. A relationship where your child does not fear retribution, criticism or fear that you will be disappointed and think less of her/him. A relationship where your child knows that you are a helper, a supporter and are willing to understand her/him rather than being a punisher, a judge or be full of shame.

Family love and stability are also very important as deterrents to drug use. For more information see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3799532/.

Criticism: If you must criticize your child and you believe that the criticism would help your child, then do it privately and use the sandwich approach. My advice is that you never, ever complain or criticize your child to anyone else, especially someone who can help neither you nor your child.

Be careful not to allow criticism to be a form of a relief valve for your negative emotions. If you criticize your child as a form of punishment, or just hope that criticism or a stinging remark will alter your child’s behavior, then keep in mind that this method is ineffective. More importantly, what you tell your child often is a powerful message that your child will accept subconsciously. For more information about the path into the subconscious mind, see the book: What to Say when You Talk to Yourself, by Shad Helmstetter (https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/what-to-say-when-you-talk-to-your-self-shad-helmstetter/1102183465?ean=9780722525111).

Sandwich approach: If you must criticize, then sandwich your criticism between two positive thoughts about your child. If you have difficulties coming up with two positive thoughts about your child, then use the Directed Free Association and/or the Master Mind Alliance technique to come up with at least two positive attributes about your child. The last positive comment is more important than the first one, so reserve the big positive comment to the end. In general, I recommend that you find a way to communicate with your child without criticism. This, no criticism communication should be extended to any conversation in which your child is mentioned.

I would like to leave you with the thought that if you have trouble coming up with two positive thoughts about your child, if you cannot establish a trustful relationship with your child then consider the fact that you may be part of the problem. I advise that you analyze your behavior and expectations of your child. Keep in mind that the most influential factors in driving a person toward using drugs are: Isolation, Hopelessness and Trauma.

For more information about the benefits and suggestions of good relationship with your child see the book: The Blessing by Gary Smalley (https://www.amazon.com/Blessing-Gary-Smalley/dp/0671737430/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1500316781&sr=8-2&keywords=The+blessing). The book is written from a very, very Christian religious point of view. If you are not very religious, or you are not a Christian then please ignore the very religious aspects of the book that you disagree with and take only the parts that will benefit you.

Next Anecdote: We will discuss the difference between a heavy user and a casual user of drugs

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You are not invincible—Stew Birbrower

Together we march towards a destiny