Originally Posted by ISOHumility

Man's search for meaning by victor frankl

Originally Posted by Sunflower10

My husband is a voracious reader. When son was in 30 day detox, he gave him Passages, . It is just a popular novel. However, son gave it away to someone who needed it worse. Yesterday, he got it back. It was sad. The person he gave the book to sent it back to him. My son was awaiting the arrival of that other person, and had told him that, if the book was returned, he would know the fellow changed his mind and checked out.
I'm sure it was hard to see that book again. He had felt so good when he had talked the guy out of leaving once before, and given him his book. I agree, don't give him a book related to the situation. The recovering person is getting plenty of that type info from the facility.

Originally Posted by hello-kitty

If you are an addict, ANY excuse is a good excuse to use. You don't need an excuse to use. Even a single word can get your mind running. Because of that (based on my personal experience), I would never give an addict a book called TWEAK. In early recovery, just that word could have sent me off the rails. It would have made me think about the high and got my stinking thinking going. Early in recovery, I couldn't watch shows about drugs or addiction. I couldn't talk about it. All I could do was pray that I'd stay clean and focus on the next 24 hours. I can only speak from my experience. Whether or not someone believes in something (or "does" something), does mean it's not a real experience for someone else. For what it's worth.

Originally Posted by incitingsilence

I already knew the answer

If one wants to use they will use, they won‘t need an excuse, might use lots of things as one but you know as I do that it is ********. You just want to use, you most likely already did before whatever triggered you, you just were looking for something in your head to justify it…or at least that is what I learned about myself.

But in the end life itself is a trigger, and you gotta learn your own from the get go, this child needs to learn his, keeping things away from him or any addict isn’t healthy. Shifting situation, making things safe, or deciding what is good or bad for him to keep him free of triggers won’t help him. The sooner he learns the better equipped he will be and set his own safety nets as he should. I tend to be real big on not taking the learning away.