By Eliza on May 4, 2013
Working the steps has offered powerful tools against addiction or alcoholism ever since they were invented by Bill Wilson more than 60 years ago. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can also be a powerful ally in the quest for recovery. Turns out, “the 12 steps and cognitive behavioral therapy have a lot in common” according to an interesting article posted on The Fix. Guided by a therapist who works with the chemically dependent, this article points out where the two meet and where they diverge.
I found this article thought-provoking because, as a Blue Chip co-dependent, I have been addicted to my child’s addiction. We all know that drill: if they are sober, we can be happy; if they are using, our world falls apart. If they relapse, so do we. And sometimes we relapse even if they don’t. For those reasons alone, I need the twelve steps as much as my child.
At a minimum, this article was thought-provoking because it reinforced the notion that Al-Anon and AA are not religious; they are spiritual. The fear of getting cornered by a religious zealot has kept people away from 12-step program unnecessarily.
Take a look at the article and see if it makes sense to you. As parents of beloved addicts or alcoholics, can the twelve steps replace our therapy, or can our therapy replace the twelve steps? Or maybe they work best hand-in-hand. Only you can tell.
Posted in 12 Step Program, 12 Step Recovery Program, AA, Eliza
By My3Sunz on April 9, 2013
How long did I deny this statement? For many years, I believed it was a matter of willpower. As long as I denied that it was a disease, then I would stay in utter conflict and constant turmoil trying to fight it. In this resistance mode, I was acting as if I knew best, based on no true knowledge about the chemical reaction in the body and the disease of the mind. I would lecture, blame and scold when my loved ones already had a bad opinion about themselves. I would take charge, place orders and expect change, but the outcomes were never what I wished for. I would do it again and expect a different result. The same result would happen and I still tried it again!
Alcoholism is also family disease, and if you were to look into my life, you would have seen evidence that it was not just the alcoholic – addict to be concerned about. I was progressing along with them. I was obsessed with saving those I cared about and in so doing my behavior was certifiable! And all the effort was doing nothing to help the problem. They were getting worse, and so was I.
To learn as much as I could about the disease I read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I went to open AA meetings, the 12 Step program for alcoholics, and I listened to Alcoholics in recovery on speaker tapes. To get a grip on myself, and to learn more about my relation in the family disease, I went to the Al-Anon Family Groups. I no longer deny that addiction is a disease, and completely understand why willpower is not the issue. I also know it’s a family disease. I don’t have to know why anymore. Being able to see my role in the disease dynamic has been a game changer. When you know better, you do better.
Posted in 12 Step Program, AA, Addiction, Al-Anon, alcoholism, Conflict, Denial, Family Disease, My 3 Sunz, Recovery
By My3Sunz on January 18, 2013
I am affected by someone else’s drug addiction. Addiction and alcoholism was not a part of my life growing up. It happened to other families and far away. I did not know anything about 12-Step programs such as AA (Alcoholics Anonymous), NA (Narcotics Anonymous), and certainly not anything about Al-Anon or Nar-Anon and the “family disease”. Then, when my sons reached late teens, I searched for help because my attempts to control, diffuse, deflect, manage, assist, help or buy a temporary fix to their risky behavior was failing miserably. My life was getting out of control the more I tried to control them. I thought I was researching a solution to fix their problem and in so doing, I discovered I had a problem too. I was obsessed with what they were doing. This obsession has a name: co-dependency. So the help that I sought turned out to be a life-rope for me too.
In a 12-Step program that helps those who have been affected by someone else’s drinking, it is suggested you learn as much as you can about the disease. In so doing, I learned the hard reality: Alcoholism and addiction, if untreated, will lead to incarceration or death. I knew addiction was a serious problem but I didn’t know the full story. I also did not know what to do or how to help. I did not realize it was a disease. Using conventional wisdom, my mothering tendencies were not helping and in some cases were actually harming them. This kind of relationship has a name: Family disease.
The Al-Anon Family Groups taught me how to be a loving mother and still enjoy life. I learned that I did not cause the disease, could not control the disease or cure it. I continue to gain tools to help me overcome the devastating effects of this family disease. This could only happen with the experience and kindness of others who have gone before me and for this I am thankful.
Posted in 12 Step Program, AA, Al-Anon, alcoholism, Co-dependency, Family Disease, My 3 Sunz Tagged 12 step, Al-Anon, alcoholism, family disease
By My3Sunz on December 14, 2012
My life got unbearable as the progression of addiction reached unmanageable levels. There was no denying: collection calls, unknown callers who knew my sons, unknown visitors, lost jobs, stealing, lying, and arrests to name a few. It was a low point for me to admit that I was not able to correct, fix or keep them away from dramatic and unfathomable criminal activity. Still, I was not ready to accept I could not control it, not me! I begrudgingly attended an Al-Anon meeting that advertised a parent focus hoping to find answers to a problem that was eluding me. I was very annoyed at having to take the time where I’d have to interact with people I did not know, all because of what my sons were doing, not me.
I would hear others talk about their stories and I would think how their discussion about the problem drinker had no resemblance to my kids’ prescription drug abuse. That’s not me! Someone would read the 12 Steps and when they got to step 5, “Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs” I’d think about what my sons had done wrong ….but…not me! And then I’d hear the parent who visited their loved one in the “orange jump suit” with “3 meals and a cot” and I would adamantly think “no way, not me!”
Fortunately, a change happened. I heard someone tell my story. Over a period of time I slowly went from “not me” to “me too!” Maybe that’s why they would say, “Keep coming back!” Or, “listen to the similarities” or “try to attend at least 6 meetings before you make up your mind if the program is right for you.” They knew the “not-me-syndrome” is a symptom of the family disease.
Posted in 12 Step Program, Al-Anon, Change, Family Disease, My 3 Sunz
By My3Sunz on November 20, 2012
She had a breakdown; her therapist said it was a “spiritual awakening”. Brené Brown, a qualitative researcher, offers an insightful take on what normal healthy grounded wholehearted people possess in terms of character traits. Her light-hearted short presentation on vulnerability and shame from years of her research is worth viewing. What’s interesting to me is her explanation that we cannot mask certain emotions. If we try to mask shame, then we also numb joy. We medicate, spend, overeat, overwork, and/or control our way through discomfort; numbing all faucets of the full emotional spectrum.
At the end of Brown’s video, one of many golden nuggets I appreciated: as parents our job is to understand our children are born hard wired for struggle and imperfection. We all are. Our role is to show them they are not defined by this, they are worthy of love and belonging. Yet we have to believe these concepts ourselves first.
My experience of hitting bottom, my own breakdown, was a necessary predecessor to my spiritual awakening. Al-Anon and working the 12-Steps has helped me get a better grip on ME; it seems I wasn’t very good at anything once the family disease took hold and I started NUMBING the emotions, especially shame and vulnerability. When a child was born, so was a mother. I have my life to work on this and it’s not too late. There is hope. Joy. Sadness. Fear. The emotional spectrum is no longer something I try to filter because I’ll deny the daily miracles.
Posted in 12 Step Program, Al-Anon, Control, Denial, Fear, My 3 Sunz, Spirituality Tagged 12 step, Al-Anon, Spiritual Awakening
By My3Sunz on November 13, 2012
For a long time I did not understand how my loved one’s substance abuse was my problem. In fact, I was quick to point out that they were the ones with the problem, not me! Then I heard an analogy of the how this family disease works. If you put a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out. If you put a frog in tepid water and slowly turn up the heat, it will cook to death because it did not recognize the change in temperature was in fact lethal. True or not, the story has been used in 12-step rooms to illustrate the family disease. Alcoholics Anonymous has recognized the family disease since inception, but oddly, there is limited research to support the family disease model. Nonetheless, professionals in the treatment community often look at substance abuse as a disease that affects the entire family. Many professionals suggest the family attend a 12-Step meeting. Another term equated with the family disease is codependency, a condition that develops in relationships where the non-addicted person enables the abuser to continue. According to Wikipedia, “Codependency describes behavior, thoughts and feelings that go beyond normal kinds of self-sacrifice or care taking.”
It took a long time for me to understand this “family disease” notion. I could not deny the similarities of other people in like-situations. Like me, their loved one’s drinking and drugging was upsetting them (to put it mildly). We seemed to share the same symptoms. Upon hearing the frog in boiling water story, it clicked. As the heat turned up, my reaction was to normalize and cope with increasingly bizarre and unacceptable behavior. There were “incidences” that were escalating, but I casually excused it – “Oh, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” As time passed, no matter how bad the chaos and insanity really was, I did not feel the temperature rise!
Eventually, with help, I realized my inability to control them (denying the temperature change) and that I was going to boil to death. My rescuing behavior created an environment that made it easier for them to continue. I was hurting not only them, but myself and others around me too. It was time to jump out of the pot!
Posted in 12 Step Program, AA, Addiction, Co-dependency, Family Disease, My 3 Sunz Tagged 12 step, addiction, co-dependency, family disease
By My3Sunz on November 6, 2012
Trying to manage addiction is like willing a train to stop. No matter how hard I concentrate on it, the train is moving with or without me. Depending on my location, I either get run over, passed by, moved or left behind. Ultimately, addiction moved on but I lost who I was and what was really important to me. I remember my job’s demands were accelerating parallel to the addiction progression in my family. I was traveling several weeks a year away from home and I looked forward to leaving. I fantasized that if I could move far, far, away, the problems would go away. But the worry never left, nor did the problems when I returned home. I could engulf myself in long term projects to avoid feelings of failure as a mother. I heard a speaker at a 12-Step meeting say “everywhere I go, there I am!” and another said “nothing like Arkansas in the rear view mirror!” It made sense, intuitively; running away would not solve my problem because I was somehow connected to it.
At some point I had to face the reality. This was not going away or going to get better unless I decided to do something different. I had to make some changes, but how? Joining a support group with similar circumstances and seeking professional help was a good start. When I started to put the focus on myself and stop waiting for others to change, my life started to get better. My decision to change my behavior versus running away from the problems in my life was frightening at first. But overcoming this fear of unknown was worth the risk of continuing as is. Get on! Get off! Move out of the way…Do something within your control.
Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction, Change, Control, Fear, home, My 3 Sunz, Substance Abuse Tagged 12 step, change, substance abuse
By Ricki Townsend, NAADAC on October 23, 2012
Ricki Townsend, Family Counselor and Board Certified Interventionist, is a Parent Pathway Expert. Please feel free to ask Ricki or our other experts any questions you might have about chemical dependency or your role in relation to someone with a drug abuse problem.
When addiction comes into our lives, we are so unaware of what to do.
A crisis comes, we have a blowup, and then we kiss and things go good again, and then another blowup happens. Eventually, this is how we get used to living our lives. Unaware of the craziness it brings for all of us.
It’s the “I am so sorry”, the “I’ll do well”, then the craziness starts up again. Or the arrest, manipulation and lying. We want to believe this time will be different.
It is almost like we live our lives believing in an unconscious awareness that our lives depend on them. If they are happy, if they are doing the things that we know leads to a great life, then we can be happy.
After the blowup (or what I call the long sit down), they start to behave as we want. This “they” can be a husband, son, wife etc. It doesn’t’ matter, it all has a sameness to it.
When they start to “behave” then we feel we can breathe again. We go along with a false sense of security that they are now on the right track. In most cases it is a false belief. They will only last so long, because no one can pretend to be who they are not. The drug or alcohol behaviors literally start sneaking back in. Another crisis comes about because we start getting resentful that they are not doing what they promised they would do. What’s really happening is they are not able to take away our fear.
How do we handle this??
WE take back our life. We start our own recovery on a daily basis. The same thing we are asking of them, but this time we do it ourselves. We “do” things every day: Therapy, support groups, Al-Anon, even a couple of open AA meetings regularly. The latter shows us how recovery can happen. We put down strong boundaries. We finally ask them to leave or we leave the situation ourselves and take up residence somewhere else. All of these things we do respectfully.
We cannot control another human being into being what will make us happy. At a healthy level, addiction is like seeing someone drive away after a visit, lovingly waving goodbye at them…WE have no control over them making it home.
Posted in 12 Step Program, AA, Addiction, Boundaries Tagged boundaries, change
By My3Sunz on August 24, 2012
For a mother in a recovery program for co-dependency, sometimes unconscious triggers for relapse happen by outside influences to close to my heart. The ultimate one for me came when my sons’ girlfriend announced she was going to have his baby. My thinking went immediately to the bleak future. My thinking said I should be involved – they are not capable of raising a child! These projections were a result of my fears and rewarded as “mother knows best” as I took control and became in charge.
Back in my disease, hard lessons were soon to come to my way. I could no more control the “mother” of my future grandchild any more than I could control addiction. I am powerless! I had choices: to participate in the agony of involvement – or, to release myself from the crazy behavior emanating from the source and feeding my fears. Choosing option 1, involvement to the max, I became troubled by the deception and lies. And I kept wondering why I dismissed signs that something was amiss.
Thank goodness I was not alone – with the help of my 12-Step program, talking with my sponsor and others, I was able to discern what I had control over and what reality was. And I even got lessons from my Higher Power to help me Let Go of the future and be present in the here and now.
Ultimately, I was able to accept and let her go. There wasn’t going to be a grandchild and possibly never was – to this day I do not know the truth about that and that’s OK too. All I know is when I detach the better I am. I can accept the disease but I don’t have to participate – in fact, keeping a healthy distance from my loved ones has proven to be the best countermeasure for all my troubles.
Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction, Co-dependency, Control, Fear, Higher Power, Letting Go, My 3 Sunz, Powerless, Recovery, Relapse, Sponsor Tagged 12 step, co-dependency, Fear, higher power, recovery
By My3Sunz on August 14, 2012
Unthinkable things sums up what happens to parents of drug addicts, at least in my world. Take for example, the phone call I got from a police officer of a special fugitive division. He’s looking for my son and wants my help. He knew my name; he knew all my family members’ names. We talked for 30 minutes about the perils my son faces – he’s concerned, he says. The last time he relapsed – pulled over for a traffic violation – he bolted. This “excites” police officers and the conversation turns to the dreaded, unthinkable – the likelihood that my son might do something that causes a police officer to fire his weapon. He might overdose, be killed by another junkie, and a host of other things. My mind already conjures up the worst case scenarios -these events are happening daily in my community. “You could rescue your son,” he threatens with fear. He suggests luring him in with the promise of money; they would wait around corners in undercover gear.
This puts me in a strange, but familiar place. It reminds me of a time when I held onto the pseudo-belief that I have a lot of power and control over my son. With my own recovery from the family disease I know better. This is bigger than me and it’s not my business. Besides, there are always more outcomes than he presents – we don’t know. If I do these things, and my son was harmed as a result, would I be able to live with myself? If I don’t do the sting operation and my son is killed on the street, would I be able to live with myself? Do I really have that much power?
For now, I will encourage my son to get help as I have always done, knowing this is his life and I’m not in control of it. That’s if and when I hear from him – he does not answer my calls either. Today I have a Power, greater than me that will guide me to a sane position. The perils of drug abuse, addiction and the disease related crimes by young people are unthinkable. And they progress. And their family, who love them beyond measure, can not save them with that love.
Posted in 12 Step Program, Addiction, Control, Fear, Higher Power, Love, My 3 Sunz, Relapse, rescue
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