Every addict and/or alcoholic wakes up every morning with this bag of pain hanging over his or her heart by a rope that is so tight that it only allows the sufferrer to take short shallow breaths. This pain is a 'mixed bag of goodies, but unlike a pinata that yields treats when it is broken, this one just sort of exudes misery like a foul vapor up into the nostrils. 

Through the years the addict has, through trial and error, found ways to loosen the rope, and sometimes to even take the bag off and hang it around the neck of anybody nearby. This is why it is so hard to be around addicts...they are constantly trying to shift their pain to you, and they have evolved amazingly clever and subtle ways to make this sick transfer.

 If you are in any level of proximity to an addict, keeping that bag of pain off of your own neck is impossible...at least without  help from others who have 'been there and understand. We Al-Anons, Nar-Anons, and Adult Children of Alcoholics are the others. We meet regularly and share our experience, strength, and hope. We spend hours discussing this subject, which we call DETACHMENT.

After many years of attending meetings, we have come to identify three distinct phases of detachment which are as follows: detachment with hatred, detachment with indifference, and detachment with love.

There is no shortcut through this process for somebody who has spent decades having the bag hung around their neck by another's disease. However, an important point that needs to be made here is this; even detachment with hatred is healthier for both the addict and the codependent than no detachment at all.

What am I saying here? I'm saying please;  reach out and ask for help from the rest of us. We are meeting every week in community centers, churches, coffee shops, libraries, homes, and sometimes just in a circle out under a big oak tree in the sun to help each other. Call 1-888-4AL-ANON or click on www.al-anon.alateen.org to find out when and where there is a meeting just for you!

 Ken P.

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What, me addicted?

   Addictive behaviors work. They provide temporary relief for intense physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual agony. We co-dependents have our own favorite addictions.

   To most of us, the word addiction brings to mind images of down and out souls whose lives are lost to drugs and alcohol. But that group actually represents only a fraction of the population whose lives are hampered by addiction. If we must do the numbers, it is generally accepted that about 10% of the U.S. population is addicted to alcohol alone, throw in other substances, and you get to about 15%.

Please consider this startling figure, however.

   Beyond the 10%, for every individual addicted to alcohol alone, there are four others who are intimately close to that person who are addicted to them!

   Because of the sick payoffs from rescuing alcoholics (see addictive agents #2, #4, #7, #8, #9, #11, #14, #15, #16, and #17 listed below), and because an alcoholic cannot survive without being propped up by those four other people (some call them co-dependents, some call them co-alcoholics), alcohol being swallowed by only one person soon creates a sick system where everybody pays a monumental personal price. Everybody in this system has to live in a state of powerful denial. In other words, as I write this, I am describing over half of the U. S. population!

The following excellent definition and listing of addictive agents is taken from Serenity, A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery. 

"Addictive agents are those persons or things on which we form an excessive dependency."

    1. Alcohol or drugs

    2. Work, achievement, and success

    3. Money addictions, such as overspending, gambling, hoarding.

    4. Control addictions, especially if they surface in personal, family, and business relationships

    5. Food addictions

    6. Sexual addictions

    7. Approval dependency (the need to please people)

    8. Rescuing patterns toward other persons

    9. Dependency on toxic relationships (relationships that are damaging and hurtful).

   10. Physical illness (hypochondria)

   11. Exercise and physical conditioning

   12. Cosmetics, clothes, cosmetic surgery, trying to look good on the outside

   13. Academic pursuits and excessive intellectualizing

   14. Religiosity or religious legalism (preoccupation with the form and the rules and regulations of religion, rather than benefiting from the real spiritual message).

   15. General perfectionism

   16. Cleaning and avoiding contamination and other obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

   17. Organizing, structuring (the need to always have everything in its place).

   18. Materialism.

    How did you do? If you are a relatively healthy person, physically, emotionally, and mentally, you will list about eight of these. If you are a co-dependent, you might suffer from some or all of them!

If you read something here that gave you one of those life-changing awarenesses, PLEASE...go for help. It it readily available right near you in your community. Just call 1-888-4-AL-ANON to learn about finding a meeting, or visit www.al-anon.alateen.org

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But still, there has to be another, successful way to be in recovery without the religion or the 12-step.  There are addiction treatment centers that offer treatment methods as an alternative to the 12-step, so there's got to be aftercare adopting a similar philosophy.  I think any way that paves the path to recovery is awsome and should be embraced, but it's curious to me why I never hear about any alternative measures to recovery.

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our staff are active members of a 12 steps program ranging from 1-30 years of recovery, which are available 24 hours for the residents. And fully understand the needs of the individuals. Please feel free to contact us. We are available 24 hours a day.

thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to read this letter. 

For more information please contact:

Dino (310) 901-6290     Email: dino_herrera@yahoo.com  

Mary Lou (310) 351-2757    Email:  memories727@yahoo.com

Fax (310) 397-4816

http://www.soberlivingla.net/

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2. I need to stop viewing myself as a bad person trying to be good, and recognize that I am in reality a sick person trying to get well.

3. Fear is projecting within my own mind the bad things that I think may happen. This is not necessarily the truth. This is very probably NOT the way things really are!

4. I need to especially be on guard for the old sick methods so deeply engrained in me by other not-well people that allow me to continue self destructive ways. Rationalizations such as "...everybody does that," or "...I was just trying to be helpful," or "but I always had only the best of intentions" are no longer valid.

5. Our flaws did not come because of the addict. We already had those flaws long before we even met the addict.

6. We must discard the position that how we look when we suit up has any importance. What is important is that we suit up and show up...physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. This is a private process. It is between you, a single trusted other human being, and God.

7. Your personal inventory absolutely must be balanced between your weaknesses and you strengths. When you have been hurt a lot because you have gone too far in tolerating unacceptable behavior, you can pass an invisible line where you no longer have self respect. When businesses do inventories, the debts and liabilities portion is not the major focus. You have stock, credits receivable, reputation, and worth beyond what you know at this moment. In AA parlance,

"God don't make no junk!"

Find an Al-Anon meeting at 1-888-4-AL-ANON or www.al-anon.alateen.org

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The Non-existent codependent

   There are three "flavors" or types of codependency identified by professionals in  the field of addiction. The first two were identified and described in two earlier posts. These are, in brief, what I called "the codependent in charge,"  and the "super-denier."

   The third type of codependent is the most pitiful. This person needs somebody else in the scapegoat-blustering- abusive role in order to be complete. This codependent thinks so little of themselves that they only exist as a reflection of the other person. I call this flavor "the non-existent codependent.

   I once heard a counselor refer to this person as the spider on the mirror. If the addict is the spider and the codependent only the reflection of the spider in the mirror, the reflection has opted out of making any life decisions. The reflection just reacts to every move of the spider, never taking the risk involved in making personal choices or decisions. The dependency is so complete here that, should the spider walk off of the mirror, the reflection disappears!

   Given those dire consequences, the name of the game for the codependent is doing everything necessary to avoid being abandoned. There is just no limit to which the reflection will go to accommodate the behavior of the addict. Public humiliation at the hands of the sick person, especially when that person is "in his cups" is common.

   This role is often favored by Al-Anon women. Women still do not make equal pay for equal responsibility on the job in America. It has been my observation through the decades that a woman is much more likely to stay with an alcoholic husband (or wealthy alcoholic father) for financial and security reasons than is a man. Most men will leave the alcoholic wife (usually to go and find another one that he can dominate), where most codependent women will stay with an addicted man as long as he continues functioning well enough to support the family. This is why her bottom so often comes when he loses his last job. For everyone there is a different bottom...a different "last straw," be it infidelity, loss of health, domestic violence, incarceration, or bankruptcy, but for the codependent whose very identity depends upon the addict that bottom is likely to be a very low one.

   Because these behaviors developed over a long period of time it is not reasonable to expect them to disappear overnight. Detaching from our closest family members is the most difficult detachment of all. We love these people, and they love us. These are the people who cared for us when we were helpless, who loved us when we were not so lovable. They gave birth to us or married us and bore our children. We shared Christmases, birthdays, paychecks and colds with them. We changed their diapers. However, even in the face of all of this history, we can only recover from our sick dependencies upon them when we do the hard work of changing ourselves from the inside out.

   Most truths come to us through other people, such as parents, teachers and preachers. Other truths, however, come to us from personal experience, and those are always the most profound. One truth that came to me early in my program is this one; you never harm another person by growing yourself.

Heard at a meeting; "I feel guilty feeling joyful while my alcoholic wife is not."

   Here is an important  point; you are half of every relationship, so when you grow you make the sum of the relationship greater. Some will just not go with you. Some are not willing to grow, some do not know where to start, and some never even think that thought because they believe that they have already arrived and that they are perfect!

   I have seen multiple means of making the break from family members in order to grow. Some have to sever the relationship altogether for a period of time. Some can continue the relationship on a shallow level and then allow the depth to come another day. Some have to accept the fact that the other person is never going to change. These are hard truths. The good news that comes to us through recovery is that change is possible. Change in thinking, change in behavior, change in attitude...all of this awaits the recovering individual who is willing to put forth the time and energy necessary to effect that change!

   If you recognize yourself in this or any other codependent role, PLEASE go for help. Al-Anon is free, it is in your community, and you can find a meeting in a matter of moments through the Al-Anon World Service Office. You can reach Al-Anon at 1-888-4-AL-ANON, or through their excellent web site at www.al-anon.alateen.org.

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   Unfortunately, addiction is progressive. That is, it starts at a seemingly innocent level and then slowly grows until it takes the addicted person's everything, including their body, mind, soul, bank account, relationships, career...and respect. Psychologists studying the members of families suffering from addiction cannot pinpoint the exact point when true respect is replaced by false bluster, but they know that it eventually happens. The addicted person has to become a bully because he or she senses the loss of their genuine respect from others (and even themselves) in time to their disease. Unfortunately, the other members of the family, being human beings themselves, respond to the abusive bluster in various predictable ways. 

   A common response for a man is to answer in kind. How many times have I encountered terribly successful men in their careers who go home and react like irresponsible teenaged boys when forced to interact with an abusive addicted teenaged child or wife? He may be the beloved senior manager at the office, but, like Rodney Dangerfield, he "gets no respect" at home! The children witness the disrespect shown by the addicted wife, for example, and then they begin losing respect for both parents. In order to survive, since loud profane abusive behavior seems to work so well for the parents, the children sometimes join in the fray.  At this point, the family members are no longer members of a family. They each devolve into an individual organism trying his or her best to survive in a threatening environment.

   We have many tools to reverse this downward spiral, but none of us is strong enough to reverse what took years to develop. We need the daily support of others who have experienced recovery. For me, as a corporate man who lived out this whole scenario, it took many meetings and sponsors, but by the grace of God I was healed by those tools and the Al-Anons who taught me how to use them.

 If those of you reading this can relate, or know of a family with an addiction in their home where this process is taking place, please direct them to Al-Anon or Nar-Anon for help. It is available every day at meeting throughout the world!

Al-Anon is at 1-888-4Al-ANON or www.al-anon.alateen.org

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The  roles are:

The class clown draws attention away from the pain and dysfunction at home by entertaining others. This child is "cute." He or she is always truly immature, but plays up the immaturity to draw attention away from the big people who are the dangerous dysfunctional addicts. Inside this child is filled mostly with insecurity.

The disappearing child adopts other families and stays away from the fray at home, or disappears into his or her room and does solitary activities such as building models. This child is an extreme introvert. He or she is quiet and withdrawn, always avoiding social interaction. The favorite escape for this child is withdrawal into a fantasy world.

The scapegoat child acts out, gets into trouble, and gains attention while deflecting attention away from the addicted parents. This child is constantly in trouble. There is open defiance of authority, with anger the favorite escape. This child is most likely to sport an outrageous personal appearance utilizing whatever is currently "in," At the beginning of the 21^st century this is typically various body piercing, tattoos, the so-called "gothic" look, or maybe brightly colored spiked hair.

The hero child is the child who fantasizes that if he or she accomplishes enough, then the whole family will be "OK." This child is overly conscientious, conforms to all rules from authority, and constantly strives for approval. In spite of being a high achiever, the hero child always feels inadequate.

The Super enabler is the child usually closest to the addict emotionally. This child is the family "workhorse." Typically, if a daughter, this child assumes the household chores left undone by both the addict and the codependent. If a son, this child is constantly trying to protect his mother if the addict is his father. Inside he or she typically has low self-esteem, and there is much unexpressed anger. The favorite fantasy and role is that of the martyr, and this child is the one most likely to be presented to members of the medical profession because another favorite attention-getting device for the super enabler is hypochondria.

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Feelings of guilt and remorse frequently occur after abortion and sometimes alcohol and drugs are used to medicate these feelings. Medicating bad feelings for an extended period of time can lead to addiction. Thus it can also be concluded that abortion can lead to addiction.

There is no way to know how many addicts decide to have abortions or how many people become addicts as a result of abortion. What we do know is that there have been 48 million abortions in the last 35 years and if you believe that life begins before birth, then there have been 48 million deaths as a result of these abortions. Even if you don’t believe that life begins before birth there are still 48 million women and close to that number of men who have been profoundly impacted by the abortion decision. I suspect that the percentage of this group who became addicts is much higher than it is for the general population.

I know that abortion is a very contentious issue with less than half the population feeling strongly about pro life and more than half feeling the same passion about pro choice. While the nation is divided between the pro life and pro choice positions, I don’t believe that the pro life group wants to curtail women’s rights in general nor do I believe that the pro choice group thinks abortion is a good thing. I believe that the majority of us would like to see abortions reduced or even eliminated except in rare cases.

So if you are in agreement that something should be done to reduce or eliminate abortions, please visit www.40daysforlife.com.

This web site provides information on a program designed to reduce abortions through personal prayer, prayer vigils at abortion clinics, where information on alternatives is provided, and public outreach to increase the awareness level about abortion and its impact. Daily updates on the success of the program are provided after registration. Unlike other efforts to reduce abortions where aggressive and sometimes violent approaches are employed, this program is dedicated to prayer and to helping the women with unwanted pregnancies find an alternative. The results have been remarkable and many women have chosen other options resulting in fewer abortions and most likely fewer people becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol.

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