MIDDLE AGED BABY BOOMERS AND ADDICTION

A woman enters my office disheveled, thin, mid forties, with hollow eyes.  It is as if the sparkle in her eyes ceased to exist a very long time ago.  She tells me she has been drinking and is using methamphetamines.  I am not surprised to hear this because lately my practice has been filled with middle aged baby boomers seeking help for their serious addictions.  Whether it is alcohol, cocaine, crack, methamphetamines, pain killers, heroine, or smoking marijuana, many have crossed the line into addiction.  Their lives have become unmanageable and they have lost their ability to control their use.  Some believe they can just cut down, but as addiction specialists, we know it is impossible once you have crossed that invisible line into dependency.   One of their defense mechanisms is "denial" so they can still continue their love affair with drugs or alcohol.  Addiction is the only disease that tells them in the most insidious of ways, "I don't have a problem or disease."  It can be very difficult treating someone who doesn't think they have a problem.  However, on some level this particular woman who landed in my office may already know an issue exists, but can't bare to admit it. 

So what brings this middle aged woman into see me with such desperation on her face?  Her husband has told her if she doesn't stop using, he will leave her and take the children with him.  She tells me she can't imagine not using meth. "It gives me energy to deal with my four kids and keeps my weight down."   I am sure it might be hard to believe that someone in middle age, a soccer mom and a wife feels this way.   It is no longer teenagers or urban minorities taking the lead, although there still is an epidemic of young addicts out there.   These  all American business men, stay at home moms, career women and even the elderly  are filling the treatment centers and therapists offices and some, never make it.   In a recent study, it was revealed that drug deaths from illicit drug over doses had risen 800 per cent since 1980.  One of the fastest growing abuses is pain killers with suburbia filled with these individuals.   It has long been known that there are many reasons for the abuse, but for the middle aged the reasons may be not only the genetic predisposition, but as a buffer to numb the pain of divorce, un-employment, an empty nest, retirement, trauma or illness.  Depression may be one of the biggest culprits to addiction, with it being the highest amongst the ages of 45 to 60.

The "free love" generation of "sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll" has taken a turn; many would have never expected drug addiction to be their legacy.  Often long standing drug abusers find when the marijuana stops working; they often go to stronger drugs.  For some it is losing their children, a job, a spouse, or homelessness that leads them to seek help.

If you think you have a problem or know someone who does, contact a therapist, psychiatrist, and or chemical dependency counselor to assess the problem.  You can also call one of your local alcohol or narcotics anonymous offices for resources.    There are 12 step meetings going on all day every day.  However, if the addiction or alcohol abuse is serious enough, a detox, a residential treatment center, or a dual diagnosis program may be the best treatment.  A dual diagnosis program works with patients who have not only an addiction, but a mental illness, as well.  The detox may be medically necessary and should always be assessed and treated.  Some of the signs of chemical dependency  include tolerance,  which is a need for increased amounts of the substance to get the desired effect,  withdrawal symptoms, a persistent desire to cut down or control the substance but can't, spending lots of time obtaining the substance, continued use despite psychological or physical problems.  And finally, social, occupational, and or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of the substance use. 

There are many professionals out there to help. Just like the women who entered my office confused and ambivalent, a first step was taken in her battling the disease and beginning the recovery process.   

A graduate of USC, Sherry Gaba, LCSW, is a Licensed Psychotherapist and Life Coach who specializes in alcohol and drug abuse, divorce issues, single parent support, couples, families, and adolescents.  Her website is http://www.sgabatherapy.com/ and she can be reached at sherry@sgabatherapy.com or 818-756-3338.  She has offices in Agoura Hills, California.

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Men are confused. We are taught early in the game a basic lie. We are taught as little boys that emotions (yes, I'm goanna talk about the "F" word here guys, feelings), are bad and WRONG. We therefore confuse emotions with faults (short-comings if you are a 12-stepper, sins if you are many Christians).

As a man in al-Anon, a 12-step program for people who are being adversely effected by somebody else's drinking, I have listened to men speak during meetings about how hard they are working to overcome such feelings as fear, guilt, and...heaven forbid...ANGER!

‘Ya think that they will ever really eliminate those feelings's...is that gonna happen? Is that even desirable?

Here are some questions to ponder; if feelings are sins, why did God make them a part of us? If we had no feelings, what kind of beings would we be? If anger is a short-coming, then how could the only perfect man who walked the earth (Jesus) show it so obviously and so often?

So here is a way to live with this conundrum. Suppose feelings and emotions are perfectly normal acceptable experiences for men. Suppose feeling them, expressing them, and accepting them for what they are is all OK. Suppose these feelings only cause moral problems when we make the wrong decisions about how to express them or how we allow them to dictate our behavior choices!

Life might be a lot easier for us (as well as for those who have to live with us) if we just gave ourselves permission to be healthy emotional men who acknowledge to ourselves and to others that we have feelings. Heck, we might  even get so "out there" that we are able to admit them out loud to another trusted person (even another man), and then let them go until another one happens along. If I feel honest anger toward another person and I have the nerve to tell him or her so, and if I am ready to deal with whatever reaction that person has to my honest anger we might even engage in some conflict. Wow. Wait a minute...is that a sin too?

And here are the two huge payoffs if I do this:  first,  I form more honest relationships with everybody around me, and second, I don't have to stay "stuck" playing my only feeling over and over again in my imagination. Let me make this so simple that any man can understand it. Guys, ask yourself this question as you finish reading this; how many decades of internal peace have you sacrificed to being mad about something that your Dad did or said when you were only ten years old?

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Love the Addict, Hate the Disease.

   A wise counselor once told my wife and I "...it's hard to hug a porcupine!" Addicts and alcoholics are like porcupines. Their decades of consuming known depressants render them irritable and negative. Their addiction has been used to avoid facing and solving life's problems, so they have hampered their own maturation process, because maturity can only happen when a person faces a difficult painful situation, and then grows enough to solve it after demonstrating enough humility to ask for help.

   However,  loving those who are hard to love is what we are admonished to do. That is a major goal of many religions, including Christianity. We Christians are supposed to become more Christ-like, and loving those who persecute you is  His specialty!

   Let's explore this. Our 12-step life is rife with seeming contradictions. On the one hand, we are taught not to accept unacceptable behavior lest we fall into the trap of enabling by not standing up for ourselves against those who would abuse us. At the same time, we are told to develop acceptance, to release resentments, and to "...fake it ‘til we make it." If you can tease out this distinction...the distinction between the soul of the person exhibiting the unacceptable behavior and the behavior itself, then it IS possible to do all of this. In a sentence, learn the love the person but hate their disease.

   Some personify evil as the Devil. Some just think in terms of negative influences in the universe, or the yin and the yang. In Texas they just say "...what goes around comes around." But I have learned that negativity is always promulgated by the diseases of addiction, alcoholism, and codependency. That negativity will take away life, dignity, finances, physical health, emotional health, marriages, relationships, and spiritual growth. Like a virus, these diseases eventually destroy everybody and everything.

   Somehow, someplace inside, every person sooner or later has to make some basic decisions. These are decisions such as am I going to be a leaner,  or a holder upper of others who lean? Am I going to put forth the personal effort to grow toward self-actualization, or am I going to take what appears as the expedient path (of least resistance) and resort to blame, escape through addictions, lethargy and personal stagnation?

   In the program we learn that these do not have to be lofty questions. Sometimes it is even easier to take the high road than the low one. I have seen people put forth extra effort to lie (maybe just out of habit) when telling the truth was actually easier! I wonder out loud here questions such as how often is misery optional? Maybe we have more choices than we realize. Maybe we sometimes choose pain just because it is familiar. Maybe there are better ways to live. Maybe the people who tried to grow us up into adults tried to make us in their own image, and maybe that image wasn't too healthy!

   If you have a need somewhere inside to dig deeper, to live a more meaningful and more examined life, you might seriously consider joining others with like needs. Sneak off of your mundane merry-go-round just once and slip into an Al-Anon meeting some day. There you might be amazed to hear an in-depth discussion for a solid hour on some subject like personal serenity. You can find a meeting near your home by calling 1-888-4AL-ANON or accessing the website http://www.al-anon.alateen.org/.

   Then again, you might just want to stay where you are. No problem. Just keep up the conversation with the guy on the bus.

   "Hey man, how ‘bout those Patriots?"

Ken P.

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   This post is strictly for experienced 12-step people. Most others will not understand it.

   After taking the first three steps, beginning steps 4-9, the "clean house" steps, is not a matter of choice if you are at all committed to recovery. It is just not possible to stretch to a higher level of consciousness if you are burdened beneath a half of a lifetime of shortcomings.

   The fourth step inventory presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pause in your daily life of coping with the tyranny of the urgent to pause and peer carefully back at every situation that caused you to evolve into the person you have become. Few people ever have the chance to take responsibility for what they have done or not done with their life in the middle of it!

   Responsibility is the exact opposite of blame. Responsibility looks forward to eventual betterment of the self, blame looks backward, searching for anyone who can be blamed for every negative outcome.

   Taking the fourth and fifth steps, writing out a searching and fearless moral inventory of yourself, and then admitting your shortcomings to yourself, to God, and to another human being is not easy! It requires a huge reservoir of trust and faith, and it feels like the first time you jumped off of the twenty-five foot platform at the pool. It is scary, exciting, and at the same time freeing. As Al-Anons who have enjoyed the "cover" of an alcoholic whose behavior was so obviously bad for years, we find it especially difficult to take that plunge and take full responsibility for our own stuff. A low performer will blame a poor life outcome on anything other than themselves, and alcoholics make the handiest scapegoats.

   But here is the irony. There is a direct relationship between the level of responsibility you are able to accept for your own life outcome and how much real control you have of your life in the future. In every area of your life where you take full responsibility, be it responsibility for your finances, your relationships, your physical and mental health, your moment to moment happiness, or your spiritual connection, that area will become more free. Peace of mind comes only when that past is acknowledged, accepted, and eventually corrected in areas where you fall far short of what Your Creator had in mind when you were made.

   You were not made with negative behaviors and emotions. You had to learn them, and anything that can be learned can be unlearned. We love children for their innocence, for their spontaneity, and for their whole-hearted joy in just being alive. We were all that way once, and we can be that way again.

"...you are to become as little children."

   By taking an honest and open fourth step inventory, you tease out your own responses to the situations life gave you, not focusing on the situations, but your reactions to them. You are forced to locate those tough areas from your past where you have always hung tenaciously to innocence...where there is absolutely no way you are going to accept any credit for what happened.

   In other words, you have to find the areas where your attitude has always been something like this; "...but who wouldn't react that way. Look at what she did to me! Look at the way she ruined my life. If I hadn't had to marry her, I could have...", or "...I was the victim here...It wasn't my fault, or "...but my Dad abused me, we were poor, we were the wrong race, or religion, or political party."

   All judging of another person will eventually lead to isolation and loneliness. A judged person has a strange power over us. If we have judged them they own us! We have chosen to be offended. We have used what the psychologists call "identification." We have attached ourselves to that person with a smelly attachment cord, and their garbage has been pumped into us. That is why so many Al-Anon meetings are led on the topic of "detachment." Detachment is the deliberate severing of that dirty cord. With personal strength, we don't need to take in their negativity. If they have been rude or hurt us in any way, then that is their stimulus. We still have ultimate control over our response. Everything is dependent upon your response to a situation, not to the situation itself!

   For an elegant description of how powerful this kind of control is, read Dr. Viktor E. Frankl's classic Man's Search For Meaning in which he describes how people in Nazi concentration camps were sometimes able to find a measure of personal freedom even under the most appalling of circumstances. Dr Frankl's logotherapy, which is the heart of his theory, states that human beings are searching, not so much for pleasure in life, as for meaning.

   So, to summarize, it is in those areas where you cannot or will not accept responsibility for your part in what lead to the poor outcome that are precisely the areas blocking you from finding the meaning in life for you. Identifying them, first, and then actively working to dig them out like weeds and eliminate them is an exercise allowing personal growth to restart in a stagnant life. It is only after you have identified these things during your fourth step, admitted them in your fifth, become willing to have God correct them in your sixth, asked God to remove them in your seventh, listed those harmed in your eighth, and then resolved to go forward during the remainder of your life actively making direct amends to those people that will you be freed from their poison.

   It ain't easy, but it's worth it!

Ken P.

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The Serenity Prayer

    We 12-step people say the Serenity Prayer's first few lines thousands of times, before most meetings, and in our hearts so often when faced with one of those inevitable difficult situations life hands us. 

   But how many times have we heard the entire work, as written by Reinhold Neibuhr in 1926?

   When you hear the prayer in its entirety you see even greater depth, and you see where it is at heart a Christian poem. Some program people stubornly ignore the Christian underpinnings of the 12-step programs, but if you read any work that tells the history of the AA program you come face to face with the Oxford Group...the powerful Christian movement from the 1930's which spawned the steps themselves.

   In 1991 I wrote original music for the Serenity Prayer.  As a song, the prayer was recorded by a good friend in her home studio. When I sent copies of the recording to the publishing inductry, Christy Misty in Ft. Worth, Texas, offered me a contract, which I signed. The song was sent to various radio stations throughout the world, even in the "homemade" form that you can hear here, and it enjoyed "air-time," with ASCAP reports coming from as far away as Australia.

   After 36 months without the company scoring a "cut," (i.e., recording and release by a major artist), the reversion clause in the contract returned the publishing rights to me. If somebody someday hears this, records it, and any revenue is generated we plan to use a portion the funds to help build a safe half-way house for young people here in our county, which is desperately needed.

    Hope you enjoy my version of The Serenity Prayer! 

Ken P.

 The Serenity Prayer

                                   copyright 1926, Reinhold Nebuhr  

                                      music, copyright 1991, Ken P.

God grant me the serenity...

To accept the things I cannot change...

Courage to change the things I can

And the wisdom to know the difference...

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace,

Taking as He did, this sinful world,

As it is, 

not as I would have it,

Trusting that He will make all things right

If I surrender to His will.

That I may be reasonably happy

in this life, And supremely happy with Him,

forever in the next.

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 No Pair is an allegory that condenses a lifetime into a  poker game.  The "dealer," in the story (and usually in life on earth) is the Devil. The reader (or listener) may not believe in a devil, but anybody who experiences this earthly existence  has experienced temptation.

   Joe F.,  my neighbor and friend in the mid-'80's, taught literature and writing in a southern university.  Joe wrote this allegory first as a poem and he asked me to write music to enhance the feeling of his work. The result was this song. As a Christian, Joe believed that the only chance we have to overcome the Devil's constant temptation is to accept Jesus.

   I hope you enjoy our song, and that it invokes some serious thought.

Ken P.

No Pair

                                                              Copyright 1988, Lyrics by Joseph F.

                         Music by Ken P.

A rough game of chance, in front of my eyes.

But I didn't know I was playin' with lies.

The deal-er blew smoke as he dealt us out five.

With-out ev-en lookin', I told him I'd try!

(Chorus)

No Pair, No Pair.

Not One card the same.

I passed up on passin',

 It's me I can blame.

The stakes kept on climbin', 'til somebody called.

I knew in a moment I surely would fall.

My bets had run hay-wire, my bluff was all gone,

For winner take all, and winer had won.

No Pair, No Pair.

Not one card the same,

My mind must have left me,

Oh where was my brain?

How much had I wagered; how much had I lost?

How much did I start with; how much would this cost?

My throat hit the floor with my heart stuck inside,

The life I was livin' had gone up and died.

No Pair, No Pair.

Not one card the same;

I'm sick and I'm scared,

I know the pain.

Then God said "Look here, there's more than you know,

"For Jesus I sent with my grace to bestow.

"I knew folks would gamble and run up a bill,

"But if you so choose, your sins I for-give.

No Pair, No Pair.

Not one card the same.

I don't make no dif-ference,

The Lord's gonna reign!

No Pair, No Pair,

Not one card the same.

I'm hold-in' ace high,

The Lord's gonna reign!

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   Recent figures show that 40% of those who walk into an Al-Anon meeting, however, never return. There are multiple explanantions for this, but a common one is that, though ours is a simple program, it is far from an easy one. Spiritual growth only comes after an investment of a great deal in meetings, honest introspection, release of ego, etc., and few are willing to pay that price.

   This is why I am writing this post this afternoon. The following list is only partial. It does not include the usual payoffs that most of us think we want (like money, prestige, praise, power, or even self esteem). These payoffs are deeper, more lasting, and much more fulfilling. If you are willing to pay the price, these can someday be yours. For those of us who have paid it, we would not trade any of the usual earthly rewards for them. After experiencing something like real serenity, everything else just pales by comparison.

Here they are:

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.

2. Frequent attacks of smiling.

3. Feelings of being connected with others and nature.

4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

5. A tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.

6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

7. A loss of ability to worry.

8. A loss of interest in conflict.

9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.

10. A loss of interest in judging others.

11. A loss of interest in judging self.

12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

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