legna

Hello friends,

Since my wife relapsed I have spent a good deal of time in Nar-Anon and while I have taken a great deal of positives away from this immersion, I'm left with a nagging question that continues to poke and prod.

I'd preface this by stating that I am an addict in recovery (twenty-one years clean tomorrow, woo-hoo) and as a result, have a very good idea what addiction looks like. I'd also like to say that everyone has the right to set a boundary, expect that your loved ones will respect that boundary and take whatever measures are necessary and/or best for you when and if that boundary is crossed. If anyone wants to have a relationship in which they place a zero tolerance policy on any and all drug usage, that is their right.

The nagging question I have is...well, I've heard so many stories of drug addiction in the last two months or so that don't look anything like drug addiction to me. Certainly there are those whose loved ones are addicts by any measure but I just have no idea what to make of the mother who comes to a meeting in complete and utter hysteria about how she caught her fourteen year old sneaking a beer from dad's garage cooler and then, after sending him to the top addiction treatment center in America he came home, seemed like he was doing okay for a while but then (now that he's sixteen) he brought home this girl he met at school for dinner and on the moms way back from the bathroom, she decided to go with her gut and go through the girls jacket pockets and found some marijuana residue on the lining of the inside pocket and so she went in and threw them both out of her house and told her son he cannot come back until he agrees to home drug testing and stops seeing this girl. She is beside herself because he chose this new girlfriend over his mother and a drug free lifestyle.

That story is real. It is obviously (please, please tell me it's obvious) a case of (at the very worst) mistaking experimentation for addiction. I'm not sure that I, with more experience with drugs than most pharmacists, could differenciate betwee marijuana residue and Twix residue on the lining of an inside pocket of a coat. Again, I'm using the most farout example that I have seen in that last couple of months but this is not unique where I am anyway.

Anywho - if it were my sixteen year old self - I wouldn't come home either. Not because I was choosing drugs over my family, but because I am choosing sanity over insanity. Like I said - obviously an extreme case, but I'd say at least twenty-five percent of what I hear at meeting does not resonate with me as being addiction. In those cases, to me, it looks like teenagers being teenagers and instead of the issue being over texting at the dinner table and the teenager repeatedly getting caught texting in their lap while trying to hide their phone under the table - it's become about drug and alcohol experimentation.

I am not suggesting for a moment that drug addiction is not something that folks shouldn't worry about. I know better than most the horrors down that road and can understand why someone might react very strongly to even experimentation - but have any of you seen cases where you are thinking to yourself... 'I think they might be overreacting a little'?

Please don't shoot - it's just a question...

Hanna

I can't say I have seen anything like that in person, but I know it exists.

In some ways I think it is a good exercise when we have to hear different scenarios and just keep our mouths shut instead of giving feedback. Hard to do sometimes but when I can do it, I grow.

My brother has this way of nodding his head an saying "That's right" even when he doesn't agree. He started this after joining NA. It's really pretty humble when he does it and humbling to watch.

cynical one

Sounds like she’s there because HER life has become unmanageable and she now is taking the opportunity to work on her own issues. She might be overreacting, but there might be more to the story and what is driving her reactions.

Vale

legna,

Your writings are as powerful as they are thought provoking!
21 years clean? I am in awe.

I,too,see many people in my life who go "single subject" and literally
BORE THE CRAP out of anyone within hearing range.

The funny thing about that is:before they were....

1) affected by addiction
2) got some form of cancer
3) etc

.....they didn't give a rats ass about the subject.Once it DID blast them
to smithereens----it's ALL they can talk about.

(and I DO mean ALL!)

Some of my observations about human nature are when people
get dirt on
others----a certain subset of said people just LOVE that.Just look at the popularity
of celebrity gossip.Hell...ALL gossip!Addiction is,perhaps,the greatest 'gotcha' known
to man.When the person I cared about got nailed by this affliction---the facebook
comments were VERY illuminating..."I never trusted her","I knew she'd crater",etc.

What addiction did was give them license to 'go public' with their worst.
When people get dirt on others they NEVER,EVER forget it.

I don't say this as some resentful underling scowling from the bottom rungs of loserville.
Personally,I cannot imagine trading my life with any other---I got everything I
wanted and then some.
But I don't like seeing people hurt for no reason.

We come here to share our hurt at being hurt by addiction.We share what works and
what doesn't.But there is a whole big,wonderful world out there---full of interesting,
fascinating and worthwhile people/things/events that have
NOTHING to do with addiction.Every kid who experiments is not going to turn into a
'raving drug addict'
(a classification tactic that cleanly and semipermanently banishes said person from
the real game & competition of life).

What truly scares the crap out of people of substandard character----is that the
human spirit can INDEED rise above (and conquer) incredible odds.That a kid CAN stumble
a bit but STILL make it to the stars.Not
every kid,and certainly not every time.It is a MUCH more comforting worldview to
classify,denigrate,smirk,and gossip.


Which is why,when somebody like you comes along with 21 years clean----
and writes so well with such easy flowing syntax and style-----it irritates said persons.

So.......writing in defense of the low,my answer to your question is NO.One toke,
one beer,one ANYTHING--------and they are irrecoverably and irreparably damaged
(forever!!!!!!)

We all know in our secret souls that this is BS. We want to know the unknowable.
(Why this kid makes it and that kid doesn't).But those mysteries are ones we are not privy to.

Drugs are dangerous.They can snare.They must be respected for their capacity for
destruction.......but they are not the whole story of the human spirit.

I suspect the background stories of their lives have a very great deal to do with their
adaptability,damage tolerance,and perseverance.

The bottom line of what I have observes is that nature abhors a vacuum. In the
person I knew there was an emptiness.Nothing captivated her being.She had nothing
that motivated,enthralled,or that she was very good at.Her common lament was that
she "wished she had a talent".

The emptiness was the problem.Not "drugs".

Deep,serious,and barrier destroying introspection cannot be made into
a vanilla formula in some magic 'rehab'.But I think they can introduce the

TOOLS necessary for THE PERSON to take a serious look at THEIR OWN being.

allforcnm

Slightly OT but I was reading on another forum here and the discussion was about Reese Witherspoon & that arrest issue. Some immediately jumped to the conclusion that both her and her husband have alcohol addiction issues.
I mean maybe, but we cant judge on one instance if it is an ongoing problem, or just a bad judgement call that night. I do think often people jump to the worst conclusions based on their own experiences. I also think people sometimes get led down a certain path because in emotional situations it is easy to jump on the badwagon with everyone else, assume the worst when maybe it is not true in their case.

legna

Thanks very much. I'd like to tell you that I laughed out loud when I read this. I was thinking, "YOUR in awe? I'M in awe! lol"

This is it! This is the basis for that uncomfortable feeling I get! Thanks so much for pointing it out to me. Telling a well adjusted, or even a relatively well adjusted, young person that he or she is a raving drug addict does put them in a very dark box. I know the mother is suffering from real or imagined fears but I find myself feeling even more sympathy for the child.

How can telling a non-addict child that they are an addict be less damaging than a million other things that child protective services would remove a child for? I wouldn't hesitate to say or do something if I saw the mother (or father) physically and repeatedly striking their child...but this becomes someone elses problem? Hmm. Need to think more on this, thanks again for the food for thought.

AnvilheadII

legna, objectively I do see your point....yet at the same time I was once a 14 yr old kid who started acting out, experimenting with drugs, alcohol and sex and I wish to HELL that my mother would have noticed. but by then she'd really kinda lost interest in hands on parenting and just left me to own devices.

I watched my own daughter like a hawk, I knew where she was at just about every minute of the day, she didn't get a lot "free" time to just go roam around - it was either home or school or sports or dance or a supervised activity. I think she was like 14? and she started this creepy penpal thing with some "guy" and I intercepted one of her letters and slammed down the KYBOSH on that right quick! she had a couple friends she met thru the YMCA summer camp program, one boy, one girl and she couldn't understand why I would not let the boy sleep over??? sorry, ain't happening.

i'd rather see parents overreact than underreact. i'd rather see parents concerned, involved and setting boundaries than just turning a blind eye and letting them "experiment" - not in THIS day and age....not with all the synthetic crap available, not with the DXM thing and the huffing and how easy heroin is to access these days. too many kids are just thrown away.

did ya know, they have an app that will tweet a parent if their toddler's diaper gets wet? and kids pj's that interact with a kindle type reader for bedtime stories? geezus. what happened to sticking your finger in there to see if it's wet or not? what happened to taking the time to READ to your child? so I actually applaud the mom in the alanon/naranon meeting worried about her kid and trying to do what's right.

Ilovemysonjj

As a Mom of a 23 year old addict, I too wish I had reacted when the "experimentation" began, but as a recovering addict (in the 80's and early 90's), I thought he was going through a phase. I think there are scars for many of us who tampered with drugs and we sooooo want to make sure our children don't waste too many months or years of their lives by taking experimentation to the next level.

LoveMeNow

As a teenager, me and all my friends experimented quit a bit. I did not become an addict and I really don't know why. My mother was concerned enough to find me a therapist. I was furious, i resisted and I rebelled even more.

However, something happened to me during this time and especially when my mother broke down and cried....saying she didn't want to lose me to drugs. Shortly, thereafter, my love of smoking pot turned on me. I know longer "enjoyed" it all. Was it God, guilt, therapy, or love for my mother that caused this dramatic change or all, I really don't know. But, today, I am thankful I had a mother who cared enough to try and make a difference.

When I found out my kids were experimenting too, I showed concern as well. Whatever path they chose, because I now know I am powerless, they will know I did my very best to lead them down a different path.

IMO, drugs are like playing Russian roulette. No one really knows who is going to walk away and who isn't. So just don't play it!!

Vale

The problem with Russian Roulette is there are 5 empty chambers---each one drawing
the 'player' in closer.....as a predator lures its prey.

Addiction is the hammer falling on the sixth.

incitingsilence

So very sad. To me, such a severity in the reaction, will have an opposite effect because kids push back. They are running on bullet proof and my parents know nothing and are never right, and while they need parents and boundaries they don’t need fuel. And if anyone provides the best fuel it is parents.

And I could share my own fair share of the most heart wrenching stories, some similar to this. Some far worse, the children who become addicts to get their parents attention because the parents spend every waking moment focused on the addict child, this one haunts me the most.

I am huge on watching, looking at behaviors, grades, and the normal responsibilities for the age the child is. It is in that, that will show the most truth….and as I watch I treat as normal, capable. Huge thing, never break their trust, do not lie to them ever and always respect no matter how much they **** you off, it goes a long, long way.

One of the real legit issues is the drugs now aren’t the drugs of the 70’s and 80’s and it makes it hard, pot is much stronger, heroin is accessible and acceptable with all the snorting now, all pills are so easy to get and on and on …. for any teen to play around with, it isn’t so much a game at times.

And I would tell a total opposite story as andvil. I wish my mother didn’t notice and left me alone.
DXM ( robo tripping ) and huffing, strange you mentioned them, they were absolutely my favorite desperation , oh **** I am punished again, drugs, much worse than the alcohol and the pot, on every level.

Kindeyes

Hard to know the full story there, legna.

At 16 my son was found with drug paraphenalia (pipe for weed) on school grounds at a sporting event in the evening. He was immediately expelled from school. He'd never been in trouble before. Got high average grades. And bam. Expelled. The police were called, he was cited, and we were called to the school. It was a pretty scary experience for all of us.

His driver's license was taken away (by the DOL) and he was put into "the system". He was required to go to a court ordered IOP and we, his parents, were required to go to a class weekly (accompanied by our son) to educate us about drugs for six months.

My reaction wasn't so much about the fact that he was smoking pot (could have been experimental) as it was to the expulsion and legal issues that lasted half a year. (We did get him back into school in about ten days after jumping through all of the legal hoops we had to jump through). The charge was expunged (supposedly) when he turned 18.

This was just our experience....and yes...our son did go on to become an alcoholic and drug addict (meth and heroin--he is now 31 and in recovery). Was it the reaction of "the system"? Was it my concern/reactions/behaviors about his activities after this event that caused him to slip further into this disease? I don't know....and never will.

We all have our stories. I simply can't judge another based on the fact that their loved one isn't "as addicted" as my son (or even addicted at all). Addiction starts somewhere. I smoked pot as a young person....but the small (very minor) consequences weren't worth it to me and I stopped. Not everyone does. As the mother of an addict, my fear was real.....when he was 16 smoking pot, getting expelled from school, and throughout the progression of this disease.

We get all kinds of people through our Nar-Anon meetings....and just like with the addict......I meet them where they are in their own process and do my best not to judge. There are certainly some that cause me to internally roll my eyes but I believe they are there to learn and understand....and ultimately....that's a good thing. Being in those rooms may be just the ticket they need to let go and let God.

gentle hugs
ke

Anaya

Good points. Keeping eyes and ears open and setting boundaries sure can't hurt.

A former classmate of my son's died just a week or so ago from a drug overdose...and there are many other distressing stories in recent years (my family not exempted) of drug and alcohol-related behaviors of young people and not-so-happy endings.

pravchaw

Great topic. I did not know about my son's MJ addiction until too late. He was a "B" student in high school, very lazy and feckless but we had no clue about addiction.

My son was arrested when he was 18 as his car was followed and stopped by the police and a relatively large amount of marijuana was discovered. There were 4 kids in the car. He told us the pot belonged to another kid in the car. I believed him and got him a lawyer, who after several thousand dollars managed to get him off (with some minor community service).

Once he went to University (living on campus) and started failing his courses we started to realize the extent of his addiction. He spent the year in a haze of booze and pot failing the year. He then changed universities and programs did OK for a year but relapsed last year with the same consequences. He is now again attempting recovery.

While in recovery he told us that he had started using MJ when he was 13. Sometimes we wish we had the knowledge to notice the signs of addiction (laziness, late hours, tickets for underage drinking, bad friend circle, lack of goals, ambition etc.) and taken aggressive action. But we were too busy with our own lives and careers. I think education on drugs for clueless parents (like us) in an important topic.