Our Guest Bloger today is Kelly Miller. Kelly's specialty as a counselor is helping parents who are having to deal with teenage alcohol and drug abuse.

RELAPSE AMONG TEENAGERS

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Men Leave Treatment Because of Their Codependency!

     I am writing to propose some level of cooperation between professionals writing about and treating codependency and the professionals staffs of treatment centers in order to improve retention and ultimately long-term recovery for clients by providing some missing pieces for families whose lives are being ravaged by the co morbid diseases of addiction and codependency. Here is a quote taken directly from the back cover of our book written by Dr. Joseph Moons, C.P., Retreat Director, Holy Name Retreat Center , Houston, Texas;

“There is a need for this book for codependent men. In my association with the many men and women who attend 12-step retreats at Holy Name Passionist Retreat Center, the codependent men have the greatest fear and the least knowledge or understanding of their relationship with the addicted person in their life.  As the man in the family, they are supposed to have the answers and they don’t. This book begins to give some answers.”

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Overview of methamphetamine

Methamphetamine is more commonly known as referred to as crystal, crystal meth, ice, or just meth. It is classified as a psychostimulant drug of the psychoactive amphetamine and phenethylamine class of substances. It is characterized by an increase in alertness, concentration, and energy. In higher doses, it can enhance the person’s self esteem, increase libido, and induce a euphoric state of consciousness. Meth exhibits a high potential for abuse and dependency.

Recognizing the effects of meth abuse

Long-term effects – meth displays a very high potential for addiction. Chronic abuse and dependency over a long period of time can lead to amphetamine psychosis, anxiety disorder and panic attacks, depression, heart disease, and violent behavior. A psychosis that resembles schizophrenia can develop after stopping meth use and can last up to 6 months or longer.

Physical effects – includes acne, anorexia, arrhythmias, blurred vision, dilated pupils, dizziness, dry and/or itchy skin, dry mouth, headaches, hypertension or hypotension, insomnia, numbness, tremors, and twitching. Chronic abuse and high doses can lead to convulsions, heart attack, strokes, and eventually death.

Psychological effects – there are numerous psychological effects including alertness, aggressiveness, anxiety and panic attacks, concentration, delusions of grandeur, excessive feelings of power and being invincible, hallucinations, increased energy, increased self-confidence and self esteem, increased sociability, irritability, obsessive and repetitive behavior patterns, and paranoia. Additionally, amphetamine psychosis oftentimes occurs with chronic abuse and increasingly high doses.

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Stop Helping Them To Death!

     Nothing changes until something changes. If one member of the family changes, that changes the whole family dynamic. As a practicing codependent you can make the changes necessary to allow the other (s) in your family suffering from addiction. The way you do this is; allow them to suffer!

     Stop the little things first. Stop picking up after them. Stop preparing lunches in advance if you are doing that and they could be doing that for themselves. Stop “taking up the slack” every time the addict does not fulfill his or her obligations to the family. Yes, you will catch some flack, and yes you will have to experience the discomfort of not having those chores completed. Everybody will. But do not allow the flack to pull you back into the helping role.

     Next, openly ask the addict for help with larger issues, such as managing the family finances, doing the “running around” to places like the laundry, the grocery store, the post office, and the bank. In my case, I picked up eight bounced checks one weekend after working out of town all week that my now X-wife had written. I then told her that I was never going to do that again, AND I DIDN’T!  Yes, it was a hard week after I opened a new checking account the following Monday morning in only my name, but she learned that I had set a boundary, and no matter how much screaming, silent treatment, dirty looks, or jawing she gave me, I would never spend another Saturday picking up her bounced checks!

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Just A Little Willingness

Despair is the basic "affect" of the newcomer to recovery. Affect is what psychologists and psychiatrists call the basic emotion projected by a person. By the time we finally "hit our bottom" as a result of the ravages of addiction we have truly surrendered. We have given up on other people, on ourselves, and even on a God of any kind!

Recovery, from day one, becomes a matter of possibility. Possibility is just a glimmer of light flickering through the ink-like darkness of our soul. During our first meeting we experience other people demonstrating that they too walked through that door at some point in the past, that they stayed and began their own recovery process, and that IT WORKED!

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For so many who are suffering from substance abuse the question of what will it take to overcome the destructive cycle of addiction is answered through a commitment in seeking help through addiction treatment.  The difficulty is allowing oneself to truly want help in stopping the abuse of drugs and alcohol.  The sufferer must want,  first and foremost,  to stop doing drugs.  The decision to stop is not up to friends and family but the individual who is allowing drugs to control their lives. 

Taking the first step by admitting the powerlessness over drugs and alcohol is the beginning of the healing process to recovery.  There are far reaching complications and consequences of drug addiction; loss of  health loss of freedom through incarceration and financial issues are immediate signs that addiction is in control.  However, these and many  more issues can and will be resolved through  effective treatment at a drug rehab. 

The answer to what will it take to stop the cycle of addiction in one’s life is really up to the individual.  One must decide based on how they want to live.  Do you want to live trapped with nowhere to go or do you want to be free from drugs so you can be the son, daughter, mother or father you were inteded to be?   Do you want freedom from drugs enough to seek the help provided by drug treatment?  Addiction is powerful, but can be treated and overcome.  Seeking help through addiction treament  provides the sufferer and their family and friends tools for recovery and education on how to stay clean and sober. 

Referral specialists are available to help guide you to a drug rehab that will give you or your loved one the survival tools for beating addiciton.  The suffering can stop now and new life can begin.  Addicition does not have to take your health, freedom, or life.  The anwer is found in you.

 For alcoholic women there is usually one primary enabler.  This is typically a high functioning husband, a wealthy father, or a boss who spreads the work the alcoholic doesn't do among many other workers. In time these dysfunctional enablers are sucked into the alcoholism vortex because alcoholism is a disease that is progressive. It creeps into systems slowly over

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Nobody escapes paying the price for alcoholism, drug addiction, and codependency in society. Even if you are fortunate enough not to be a drinker at a level that is diseased (about 10% of our population drinks enough to hamper their daily performance) or one of the four adults who are in line daily enabling one who is (i.e., 48% of all adults over the age of 18 were either directly impacted by a diseased drinker as they grew up, or are being effected at the moment), then you are paying for the disease through higher taxes and insurance rates.

   The cost in dollars of alcoholism is almost incalculable. We have all read so many horror stories about deaths on the highway, fetal alcohol syndrome, the 88% of the incarcerated citizens who are there because they did something while under the influence, etc. that we have become numbed.

   But let's focus here on the costs to the trust and integrity within a society...something some believe is more important than even money.  Psychologists can actually measure trust within a society. Dr. Daniel Goleman, in his great books on emotional intelligence tells us that the technical term for the overall trust level in a society is its social capital.  Social capital is the sum of the goodwill and trust among the members of a society. Social capital takes in ethical values, charitable contributions, volunteerism, and such intangibles as looking out for the welfare of your neighbors, or caring for a sick friend. Interestingly enough, the three countries that have been the most successful economically on the earth (The U.S.A., Germany, and Japan) also have the highest levels of social capital.

   What is the impact of addiction on social capital? To people who attend 12-step programs such as AA, Al-Anon, Al-Atten, Nar-A-Non, or Adult Children of Alcoholics, personal honesty takes in a wide range of meaning. First, there is what everybody else calls honesty. In program parlance that is "cash register honesty." However, the sort of personal honesty involved in taking all twelve steps, or making direct amends to someone you have harmed in the past, goes well beyond what the "man on the street" calls honesty.

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As part of my continuing education as a pharmaceutical salesman covering the hospitals in a major medical center, my company had arranged for a kind of preceptor ship at a teaching hospital in downtown Chicago. I was to "shadow" a third year internal medicine resident for two solid weeks. We had three reps assigned to each resident, and that little group of four worked

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For various reasons, the members of addicted families suffer constant upheaval from frequent relocations. Moving may be related to other obvious symptoms of family instability: bankruptcy, divorce, frequent hospitalization, incarceration, deaths in the family, etc.

   But there may be other reasons. The hero-child dad is more likely than most dads to sacrifice family stability

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