Am I really powerless to stop my loved one's drug use?

[Jabberwocky]

There is nothing that makes a person feel more helpless than watching a loved one suffer from drug addiction, especially when it seems they don’t want help. Al-Anon teaches that we are powerless over alcoholism and while that may be true to some extent, there are steps we can take that will help an addict in the long-run, and may even lead them to get the help they so desperately need.

There’s a widely held belief that people with substance use disorders need to “hit bottom” before they are willing to seek treatment. Unfortunately, loved ones can actually prevent addicts from experiencing the negative consequences necessary for them to reach that point. This is called “enabling” and it can take many forms. If you have found yourself covering for your addicted loved one when they can’t make it into work, or picking them up from the bar when they are too drunk to make it home, or explaining away their behavior to your kids, then you are enabling them to continue using.

The good thing about being a loved one in an addict’s life is that you can actually bring their bottom “up” by stepping back and allowing consequences to take their natural course. In the book, “Boundaries” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, there are some ideas which can help you navigate the treacherous waters of truly helping an addict begin their journey toward recovery.

Sometimes, experiencing well-deserved karma is a good thing. There is a law of “sowing and reaping” Cloud and Townsend say that all of us live out. It is especially important to allow this sowing and reaping process to be happening in the life of your loved one. Don’t get in the way. If they lose their job for being late or showing up drunk or high, then so be it. Those are consequences that can help that person get in touch with their addiction. If they get drunk at a party, let them know you don’t intend on getting into the car with a drunk person, then take a cab home with their money.

If you have a son or daughter who is using and doesn’t have a job or isn’t paying rent, then it may be time that you show them the door. Give them the addresses of some homeless shelters. This may be the very thing that helps them to sober up. Yes, it is difficult and painful and it may not work, but enabling them to continue in their addiction is worse. We can talk to addicts until we are blue in the face and this will not matter to them, only when they receive some actual negative consequences for their behavior will they wake up and smell the coffee.

One of the most loving actions I ever saw a parent take was when this man’s daughter was sent to jail because of drug use. He could easily have bailed her out, but instead, brought her a recovery book and a toothbrush and said, “I love you, but this is the best place for you right now.” She is sober today.

One thing you can expect when you allow natural consequences is your loved one’s anger towards you, especially if you have previously been enabling their behavior. This is unfortunate, but normal. The important thing is for you to not retaliate. Otherwise, they will just blame their use on their “crazy” spouse or parent. What you can do is empathize with them that negative consequences are difficult and ask them if they are ready to get help with their problem.

Finally, it is important to remember what real love is. Real love is not rescuing the addict from pain if that pain is a natural consequence to their behavior. People learn good life lessons when they reap what they sow. Hitting bottom is possible before that bottom is death, and not getting in the way of that process is the most loving thing you can do for your loved one.

http://theinfluence.org/am-i-really-powerless-to-stop-my-loved-ones-drug-use/

How is this bullshit? How is it now?

I will always find it amazing how some people genuinely believe becoming homeless or going to prison is conducive to recovery...

 

[simco]

What a breezy little bit a sadism! For fuck's sake, it manages to be simultaneously cruel, wrong and stupid.

TPD, what did you mean when you asked, "how is this bullshit? how is it now?"

 

[Jabberwocky]

I guess I was trying to ask what in particular about the rock bottom as presented by this article is disingenuous.

 

[simco]

I guess I was trying to ask what in particular about the rock bottom as presented by this article is disingenuous.

Where to begin?

I guess the thing I hate the most is the author's implication that people who are addicted are qualitatively different than normal people in how they should be treated by their loved ones. It's a really pernicious up-is-down, black-is-white maneuver...addicts are SO selfish (the thinking goes) and SO out of control that their loved ones need to forget our shared notions of support and care. Something totally different is needed when you're dealing with addicts...and we're just the people who can show you how to do it 'right.' It's a super-fucked thing to do to families.

I should qualify all this. I do believe that there are germs of truth at the base of tough-love attitudes. Probably true that you don't want to help someone make their life worse (i.e. 'enabling'). And as a caregiver, it's important to guard yourself emotionally. But those small insights get totally undone by the larger undercurrent of meanness and over-dramatic cruelty that fuels the larger tough-love impulse.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That’s actually what I find so problematic about the whole tough love approach, how it is built up on a kernel of truth.

But that is simply to say that health boundaries are important. The idea of “helping” people hit bottom as some kind of useful boundary (at least in terms of the vast majority of everyday people) just is so beyond me... I know from experience that there are skillful and less than skillful ways of setting healthy boundaries.

Like you said, anything too black and white just reinforces unhealthy dynamics. More often than not it seems like a cop out on the part of family members or loved ones who just don’t know the first thing about handling substance use disorder.

Cutting someone off is a hell of a lot easier than helping them learn to practice healthier habits, but it seems like in most cases it just exacerbates the problem.

 

[Mysterie]

it seems out of balance for me the way they go from, you either are enabling addict behaviour by continuing to let them live at your house with free rent, to tough love approach of kicking them out and telling them where the nearest homeless shelter is.

i think its possible to still show love, care and support for someone in active addiction, without feeding their addiction. the addict is not in a vacuum and their addiction is symptomatic of society as a collective, the family and community as a collective.

i suppose its also very situation dependent on what would be the most compassionate thing to do in the hypotheticals they related. there is no black and white response to a generic situation.

also when parents punish their children for their maladaptive coping mechanisms of addiction to drugs, this weakens the trust the child has for the parents, damages the relationship, and i think could also exacerbate the child's addiction pattern.

it is bizarre they end the article talking about real love, this whole approach seems to be very intellectual and not very heart centred or open to communication, love is a bond.

 

[cj]

This article should be titled " how to destroy your relationship with your child". If my parents had kicked me out without damn good reason we wouldn't be speaking.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^Indeed

At one point very early in my recovery much family was basically conned into the tough love approach by a highly unprofessional and unethical so called drug and alcohol counselor. His advice, which totally disregard my accessing the kind of treatment I thought would help (low and behold when I eventually tried what I originally wanted to explore it worked out marvelously) led to so much unnecessary pain and suffering and did nothing but fuck my relationship with my parents up almost to beyond repair. Thanks to the tough love bullshit he conned my mom into trying to do she is still recoverying from the harm this counselor’s advice directly let to for her as well as me.

it seems out of balance for me the way they go from, you either are enabling addict behaviour by continuing to let them live at your house with free rent, to tough love approach of kicking them out and telling them where the nearest homeless shelter is.

i think its possible to still show love, care and support for someone in active addiction, without feeding their addiction. the addict is not in a vacuum and their addiction is symptomatic of society as a collective, the family and community as a collective.

i suppose its also very situation dependent on what would be the most compassionate thing to do in the hypotheticals they related. there is no black and white response to a generic situation.

also when parents punish their children for their maladaptive coping mechanisms of addiction to drugs, this weakens the trust the child has for the parents, damages the relationship, and i think could also exacerbate the child's addiction pattern.

it is bizarre they end the article talking about real love, this whole approach seems to be very intellectual and not very heart centred or open to communication, love is a bond.

Very well said

That is why I like how Bruce Alexander talks about addiction, as primarily as issue related to bonding/connection/relationships. Cutting loved ones off when they are in a place of need won’t help the situation for anyone short of those coming from horribly abusive homes. To some degree distance is healthy and good, but not when it comes to an individual or family’s wellbeing.

Really like how you explain your concern with this though. I struggled to put into words but your thoights are my own precisely. Namely the false dichotomy between cutting a family member off versus enabling their harmful behavior. So disingenuous!

 

[herbavore]

As many of you already have heard me say, Al-anon helped me immensely during my son's craziest year. There was another mother in the group with me, a former addict herself, that had lost one of her children to an overdose. She and I frequently were very outspoken about any hard and fast concepts of "tough love" or "hitting bottom". As she once said, "If I could bring my son back I would enable the hell out of him." But here's the important thing to consider: nothing is black and white. Not all "tough love" is cruel or destructive. Not all "enabling" is destructive either. I made many, many decisions that would have fallen into either of these categories and all I have to say is don't judge until you've been there. Each of us is a human being that must decide for ourselves (yes, even with our own adult children) what our boundaries for sanity are. For me, preventing my son from becoming homeless was what I had to do for me--I was never sure whether it was right or wrong for him. I did not care what other people thought about enabling and the concept of co-dependence generally just makes my blood boil. But on the other hand, I do recognize that part of my role as a parent is to foster independence--addiction or no addiction. Supporting my son forever was not sustainable and we both knew it. Needless to say, there is an inexhaustible vein of guilt and shame that I can mine for the rest of my life when it comes to any of the decisions I made or my husband and I made together. Because the one thing we wanted was the one thing we failed at doing: preventing my son's death. But that is why this title caught my eye and one thing I can say for certain:Yes. You are powerless to stop someone's addiction. You may err or you may be right on in the type of support you provide (I guarantee you will do both) but you are powerless to make the internal decisions a person must make for himself (herself) concerning his or her addiction. That part, I am very clear about.

This is where Al-anon helped me to define what I could and could not do. I did not accept a recipe from them and I don't think anyone should when they are participating in a 12-step framework or any other prescriptive philosophy. Think for yourself, define for yourself, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater as the old saying goes. It's like the child-rearing of the 50's (when I was raised) in contrast with child-rearing today. I could sit here and say that it was all terrible--no one listened to kids, all authority was right and kids were wrong, people spanked their kids etc. But it was not all wrong. Some of it made more resilient people. People deny themselves lots of things in life because they think in binary, limiting ways. Once you realize that you do not need to either outright accept nor outright deny anything--from dogma to traditions to commonly held labels such as Christian or non, Republican or Democrat, etc, you are free to walk through the cafeteria line of life as often as you want, taking what you need at any given moment. (Don't like beets? Don't put them on your plate. Don't like abortion? Don't have one.) Dogmas are killing us IMO. What we need to address every single problem from our own individual problems to the collective problems of the world is to move away from black and white limiting thinking and to embrace the uncertainty of actually being in charge of ourselves. One of the recent poet laureates of the U.S. had a mentally ill and addicted brother that lived on the streets in San Francisco. I heard him being interviewed and he was asked about his decision to pay for an apartment for his brother--whether that was enabling or not? His answer resonated with me. He said, "Everyone must do what they feel is right at any given moment. That is all we can ask of ourselves and should ask of ourselves. I could not face myself in the mirror knowing that my brother does not have a safe place to go. My brother rarely if ever even uses the apartment. He prefers the street. So is the apartment for him or for me? It does not matter. It's what I think is the right thing for me to do."

 

[Jabberwocky]

The article mentioned "natural consequences". The whole reap what you so thing, but it isn't so simple. The consequences most drugs users face are anything but natural - they are the result of arbitrary, racist, sexist, etc etc, policies that have been implemented not because of anything inherent in drug use but instead to bolster political careers. That is what gets me about this idea of tough love.

To some degree kids need to learn what real life is like, and learn to become responsible for their own mistakes. But given the arbitrary severity in terms of some of the consequences of drug use (like incarcerating someone for using drugs), it just isn't that simple. No one deserves to go to prison for using drugs. No one. But it happens hundreds of times in America every day. It's shitty, it's the way it is, but parent have the power to help their kids about becoming so destructive. They certainly won't always succeed even with the best of efforts, but it simply isn't true that parents, family and loved ones are powerless when it comes to a loved one's substance use disorder. Kicking someone out of the house for using drugs is exercising their power, for instance. As is not helping a child with legal fees or whatever.

As I think we all agree, it just isn't that black and white. But it is good to hear from a parent too

 

[cj]

My parents biggest mistake was not listening to what I as the patient thought would work. I knew from the get go that maintenance was going to be my road but it took years of suffering and failure to get my family on board.

 

[Jabberwocky]

That mirrors my experience cj. My family's biggest mistake was listening to "professionals," which is just fucked up on multiple levels (as in most professionals who work in the treatment industry are unqualified to do so, etc).

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy where I am today despite it all, but I can't help but sometimes wonder where I'd be in life it I was allowed access initially to the treatment I really wanted, and eventually got for myself, and didn't have to spend five plus years trying every other treatment under the sun and them all falling dismally short of my needs...

I'm so gratefully to be where I am today I can't get to beat up over it, but it definitely makes me wonder...

 

[herbavore]

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy where I am today despite it all, but I can't help but sometimes wonder where I'd be in life it I was allowed access initially to the treatment I really wanted, and eventually got for myself, and didn't have to spend five plus years trying every other treatment under the sun and them all falling dismally short of my needs...

I'm so gratefully to be where I am today I can't get to beat up over it, but it definitely makes me wonder...

What was that treatment and was it available? Did both you and your parents know of it at the time they were listening to the "experts"?

@cj: I know how frustrating and damaging that has been for you. Neither of the people in my family (my brother with crack; my son with mdpv) had that option.

 

[herbavore]

What was that treatment and was it available? Did both you and your parents know of it at the time they were listening to the "experts"?

@cj: I know how frustrating and damaging that has been for you. Neither of the people in my family (my brother with crack; my son with mdpv) had that option.

And, as Ali often says, I guess we are going to agree to disagree about the "power to stop" a loved one's addiction. Do you have the power to be emotionally supportive (yes), financially supportive (maybe),encouraging (yes) , an advocate with the legal world and the medical world (yes)? Do you have the power to listen and learn (yes)? You could do all those things every single moment of your waking life and your loved one may still: go to jail, become psychotic, develop severe and irreparable physical damage or die. This is a reality no matter which side of this equation you find yourself on. And the truth is that this is why we need to have a fluid exchange of respect and compassion when talking about addiction and abuse or unsafe drug habits; because the stakes are very high for all of us.

edit: LOL, I meant to edit and add to my post, not quote it and double-post! Senior brain.

 

[Jabberwocky]

What was that treatment and was it available? Did both you and your parents know of it at the time they were listening to the "experts"?

@cj: I know how frustrating and damaging that has been for you. Neither of the people in my family (my brother with crack; my son with mdpv) had that option.

MDPV and rock are the two drugs I cannot do and want abso-fucking-lutely nothing to do with. So moreish, psychosis, ugh...

Anyways, story time:

How tpd came out and tried to get help with my life becoming unmanageable due in signficant part to substance use, specifically substance use disorder ("severe opioid use disorder" is what the medical charts have read).

I know a little bit about the available treatment options, I pretty much understood how I wanted to get off heroin and other opioids (at this point the only drugs I could enjoy were opioids, so that was the primary problem substance). I wanted to explore my options with buprenorphine or methadone based ORT programs, not abstinence only 12 step based programs. I voice my concern, but it was totally ignored by the "professional," yet I was too desperate for help and depressed I would have agreed to anything.

Yet the people (family) I confessed this struggle I was experiencing with my health and wellbeing, they had no idea how to handle the sitaution. With a lot of substance use, a lot of mental health and medical stuff, they just weren't aware of it (you could generalize this to most people I think, to various degrees). There was one neighbor who's teenage sons had went through some kind of treatment program for teens with substance use disorder, and that was the suggestion we got, so I ended up seeing this guy.

I was so desperate and had no idea (more specifically I was so depressed at that point I had zero internal drive or motivation) how to get help that was appropriate for me. I brought up ORT. I calmly told him that I wanted to explore and learn more about programs that use buprenorphine or methadone.

Immediately NO. Instead he basically blackmailed us into sending me to some particular treatment center. 12 step, abstinence only, substance use disorder only facility.

The place I ended up at apparently didn't have a treatment plan for mental health issues (they were a substance use disorder only facility), and left unaddressed my experience of mental illness was left to do its thing.

Upon assessment, they were aware the help I needed with mental health stuff, and specifically that some aspects of it simply fell outside the scope of the program they run, but they still agreed to treat me. I had insurance, and my family was very supportive.

There is almost an irony at work here, that my family ended up giving money to organizations that try to brainwash or simply want cheap labor.

The whole process with the "addiction counselor" guy at the start of it all, if he had just picked up on my obvious goal - getting on ORT and stabilizing - if he had been open to talking about that treatment I probably wouldn't be typing this right now.

The cookie-cutter treatment style, it's a simple method: detox then impatience, inpatient they have process group, education group, and other group exercises, often has a 12 step flavor, most of them requires mandatory weekly meetings in AA or NA, places where you're the patience but you also are working for them for free cleaning their bathrooms.

Nothing wrong with having to clean up after oneself, but we are talking about entire treatment facility, with dozen and dozens of patients and staff, in detox and inpatient. It could get pretty rank.

I eventually got a job working in the kitchen, because it's a little easier than cleaning bathrooms as far as I'm concerned, and low and behold: literally everything with an expiration date, back in the big industrial refrigerator we stored perishable food in, all of it was was at least a day or two expired.

I stumbled upon buprenorphine IOP treatment through a relative. It helped, but only so much. I wasn't doing the things in life one must go through, engage in and learn from. I was busy trying to get drugs, do drugs, get money for drugs, too busy stuck in rehabs, on the street, or at home nothing. Or feeling like a piece of shit. That kind of existential hopelessness.

I used buprenorphine for a year and a half. It definitely helped overall, but by the end I returned to opioid use a few months after I stopped taking buprenorphine. I ended up getting arrested one two occasions about a year later. The first one was pretty petty. I was arrested because I was hanging around the wrong neighborhood (in their defense, this definitely was a junky crew), one Caucasian middle class look kid - not man, kid - all awkward as hell, the police decide to come see what's up.

They find a syringe in the gutter or on the sidewalk not far from me, and I get arrested. The DA throws the case out so nothing came of it. But a couple weeks later, without too many details, I got arrested again. This time it was a set up bust - where the drug dealer is really a drug law enforcement agent, who has fake drugs to sell on him, openly asking passerby's if they need anything - I had grabbed the balloons from him, didn't even make it half a block before two squad cars and a bunch of cops snagged me.

Frankly I was grateful they didn't kick the shit out of me. I mean I try to be courteous with them, but it would have very easily gone the broken nose direction (either from the cops or someone in jail). But that experience sort of woke me up to, "hey man, you got some serious fucking problems, gotta start sorting yourself out as an adult or else you die." That kinda thing. They were super professional the second time, like firm but "you're gonna do whatever the fuck I tell you" kind of undertones.

I ended up getting on methadone a week laters. For some reason that one phone call to the methadone clinic was so difficult for me to do. For some reason I felt so ashamed, like this is the lowest thing someone could do who has drug issues (that's all the conditioning from the former inpatient treatments I underwent).

This time I ended up doing the probation and DEJ thing. I didn't get arrest, didn't use drugs for the most part. Methadone allowed me to stabilize in my life so I could sort out how to live with and manage my mental health concerns and other issues, and once I had some mastery over certain small but meaningful acts, secure and stable in life now made it easier to get off methadone as well.

For those of your who aren't family with my experience on methadone, simple put it (the entire treatment, so the people AND the medicine) saved my life.

Getting off methadone was nothing like how it had been portrayed to me before. It was actually very manageable. It wasn't fun, but it wasn't even close to the worst detox I've had.

And don't misunderstand, I have plenty of stuff to work on, but the second arrest woke me up from my slumber. Ever since, I can't help but want to explore. I'm often trying to orient myself around it in skillful ways.

It was the entire methadone program that allowed me to get off drugs and stabilize. Using mindfulness based stress reduction stuff, that really enhanced my recovery more than anything I've ever explored. So I stuck with that until I felt stable and ready to get off methadone. I then got off methadone, and it was much more manageable than the commonly heard horror stories about kicking methadone in jail or something (talk about shitty). And now I keep up with mindfulness/contemplative stuff and have school as you know etc.

I think I answered your question? LOL herbs