YOUR drug use's DIRECT impact on YOUR family

[Rambo!12]

Just wanted to create a thread that discusses what kind of an impact your DOC has had on your immediate family members. You can include friends as well if you desire or compare and contrast the difference between how it has affected your friends vs family. For example, maybe you lost some good friends due to your addiction and gained some that were not so healthy. Or maybe your friends support the habbit while your family is brokenhearted that you have one.

It would be nice to hear from both family members who have a loved one with this disease, sons or daughters of parents who were addicts, and most importantly would like to hear from people who are the ones struggling with addiction. Please be honest with yourself and really think hard to discuss exactly what you have put your family through or what your loved one has done to affect you. It would be interesting to compare and contrast the two. (the addict/addicts loved ones) I would like to see how YOU believe YOU have affected them directly or indirectly because of usage. For example does the addict believe he or she is only affecting himself, while in reality his family is going through sleepless nights, constantly worry, depressed, think its their fault, gotten family members addicted etc.

PLEASE INCLUDE FOLLOWING WITH POST:
1. YOUR DOC
2. ARE YOU AN ADDICT/SON OR DAUGHTER OF ADDICT/ETC.
2. FAMILY SIZE (WHO AMONG WAS AFFECTED MOST, MOTHER, FATHER, SIBLINGS, FRIENDS?

AGAIN PLEASE BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND THE GROUP. IT WILL HELP NUMEROUS PEOPLE, INCLUDING YOURSELF. I FOUND THAT GETTING THINGS OFF YOUR CHEST AND ADMITTING TO THEM CAN BE EXTREMELY HELPFUL. THIS IS A GREAT PLACE TO DO IT, WHERE YOU ARE AMONG PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN THERE DONE THAT AND ARE NOT GOING TO JUDGE YOU. GIVE IT A SHOT

SAMPLE QUESTIONS (FEEL FREE TO ADD TO IT OR NOT ANSWER)
1. Do your loved ones know when your high?
2. Do they know the extent of your addiction?
3. Are they experiencing sleepless nights do to worrying about your safety?
4. Have people stopped seeing/talking to you because of use?
5. Does you child know when you are using? What do they do when they see the bottle/pipe?
6. Has it caused a major increase in stress in family?
7. Have you cost them financially as well as emotionally?
8. Have you been increasingly late to family members events, dropping your kid off at school, too hungover to take them?
list goes on and on and on.

 

[SS373dOH]

Broke my girlfriend of 3 years heart by cheating on her while high as well

You probably would have done this sober to, cant pass that up amirite..

 

[Rambo!12]

suprisingly I didn't haha

 

[Kittycat5]

Im going to move this to TDS.

 

[neversickanymore]

How do you feel exploring this will positively influence you/others?

 

[strity1994]

This is very depressing for someone labeled an addict.... I try not to think about how my actions affect others becwuse it tends to make me feel worse. It's important to focus ongetting better.....

 

[Rambo!12]

This is very depressing for someone labeled an addict.... I try not to think about how my actions affect others becwuse it tends to make me feel worse. It's important to focus ongetting better.....

To, strity1994 and neversickanymore,
I too am an addict. Yes, it is depressing to see the pain that you caused and realizing that you are not the only one that is being affected. Healing yourself of addiction goes a lot deeper than most of the posts I have seen on here. You can't just switch your DOC, say sorry (again), move to a new place, start AA, etc. and expect to be healed. I believe that it is an essential part of recovery to take responsibility and fixing your wrong doings. How are you going to focus on getting better if you continue to bury what has happened. Most likely, like me, use drugs to forget about it. However, pretending that things did not happen do not make them go away. The people that you have hurt do not forget about it either. In my opinion, it is essential that we acknowledge what we have done and who we have done it too. If you do not think about how your actions affected others, than you will continue to not give a shit. Put yourself in your loved ones shoes. Take some time to see how you would feel if you were in their situation. Basically, you may for the first time in a long time think about others instead of yourself and are being completely honest with yourself. It is so obvious to tell the difference between a sincere apology and one that you just mutter out. When you put yourself in their shoes, you sincerely understand the pain they went through and have made the first step in making things right. You can have sit downs with the people you have wronged, tell them you realize you were wrong, and begin the recovery process. Otherwise you will just be tip toeing around eachother for the rest of your life. Recovery is more than just quitting a drug. If you do not recover emotionally and psychologically as well, I can promise you that you will not be happy, just sober. I believe addiction is something that completely changes who we are and digs deep inside us. Just my opinion, but it feels as if a large weight has been lifted after this difficult task is complete. People will respect the fact that you made that sincere effort to do the right thing. Sometimes they won't forgive you and thats okay. You can at least leave with a clear conscious knowing that you did all that you could.

 

[Moreaux]

How do you feel exploring this will positively influence you/others?

^ would like an answer to NSA's question - curious about that myself. Are you conducting research for an assignment or article? While the topic itself if tweaked a little could be interesting, the way it's phrased on this thread makes me feel like our answers are for your benefit only, and I am not certain I agree with that of there is am ulterior underlying motive. Please don't take this the wrong - I'm not trying to be rude.

 

[herbavore]

To, strity1994 and neversickanymore,
Recovery is more than just quitting a drug. If you do not recover emotionally and psychologically as well, I can promise you that you will not be happy, just sober.

I think that understanding how your actions in addiction hurt your family is important and understanding how your family may also have hurt you (or failed to adequately support you) before, during and post addiction is also important. I am a family member and I know that even though I have never really liked the word disease to describe addiction there is great truth in the phrase, "addiction is a family disease". In order to make the word disease something I can buy into I think of it as dis-ease. There is no ease in a family where one or more members are owned by an overwhelming need for a substance. Everyone gets crazy. Everyone's craziness feeds on itself and there is no trust. Trust is the foundation of every single relationship between two or more people.

I think there is value in naming out loud what feeds your shame as long as you are concurrently working on walking past shame into a deeper understanding. I think that's what you are trying to get at here. There is a danger of getting stuck in self-loathing when you put your actions from active addiction under a lens in recovery. So I would caution everyone to think with wholeness and integrity when it comes to this subject. You had a need or a vulnerability that led you into abuse or addiction. Learning to see, evaluate and diminish that need is the path. Addiction feeds on low self-worth and negative perceptions about the truest self. Healing the true self is a profound journey.

 

[Erikmen]

^ That was my first thought as well as most researches tend to narrow their perspective. For recovery purposes I also think this should be more in regards to how it affects you, others, your social and emotionally self, etc.

 

[Muzda Jonxx]

Whoa, what a shouty title for a thread.

I've had a very hard time coping with the damage, heart ache and trouble I've caused my friends and family these last ten odd years. It'll make my blood run cold if I dwell on it. There's only two things to be done that make me feel better -

a) continue working at mantaining a good, healthy path, as difficult as that is at times. I've screwed the recovery many times, but as my good ol' dad says, "it ain't how you fall down, it's how you get back up again". I'm transformed from a couple years ago now.

b) come to a great forum like this where I (who is not a trained therapist or councillor) can help other people who are experiencing some of what I've seen in the past. Forums helped me in the past, so if I brightened just one person's day a bit, then that makes me feel better. Good can now come from the bad I've lived.