Drug Rehab Center

Geoff Thompson, MA, CCC

Geoff Thompson, Program Director for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, discusses the nature of suffering and how to make sense of bad things happening to good people.

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC

Cathy Patterson-Sterling, Director of Family Services for Sunshine Coast Health Centre, talks about setting consequences for broken boundaries and the importance of “living in the gray.”

By Geoff Thompson, MA RCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

The main thing about alcohol and drugs is that they alter our states of consciousness. As obvious as this is, it is amazing that few people bother even talking about it.

What we read and hear about is that people use because of depression, anger, problems in the family, problems at work, trauma, and so on. In reality, there are many ways of dealing with these problems. The vast majority people don’t turn to drugs for relief. In fact, they cannot imagine that getting drunk or loaded regularly is even a reasonable possibility.

When we do addiction research, we discover that addicts use drugs when then are sad…but they also use drugs when they are happy. They use drugs when they are angry…but they also use when they are not angry. They use drugs when they are depressed…but they also use drugs when they are not depressed. And so on. Lots of people who suffer from addiction grew up in a chaotic family, and lots of people who suffer from addiction grew up in a stable family. We also know from research that those with addiction problems struggle with boredom and loneliness and the feeling that life just isn’t all that interesting or exciting without the substance and the lifestyle that goes with it.

We seem to talk about everything except the obvious: some people take substances because they like the feeling they get from being intoxicated. Whatever this feeling is, it is more appealing than being clean and sober.

Most addiction treatment programs do not talk about the drug experience. They argue that talking about the high promotes drug use. Others don’t talk about it because, frankly, they are not familiar with what the experts have reported. Still others think that it is just plain deviant. But at Sunshine Coast Health Center, we believe that it provides a clue into why intoxication is so appealing for the addict. It offers a clue to the drug’s power, beyond just calling it a disease. 

So what is this altered state of consciousness? What makes it appealing? This month we’ll have a look at what the experts and addicts tell us about the experience of intoxication.

This is very important information for recovery. Understanding the appeal of intoxication helps us understand what recovery is all about.

Part One — William James and Making Sense of Mysteries

Alumni of Sunshine Coast Health Center may recall workshops discussion on William James’ book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, which had a profound influence on Bill Wilson, the driving force behind the creation of Alcoholics Anonymous. 

James was one of the most influential thinkers in the last one hundred years. He was fascinated by how the human mind works, including different states of consciousness. He even studied various drug-induced altered states, convinced that such knowledge would help us understand what it meant to be human. 

Intoxication by sniffing nitrous oxide (laughing gas) provided James with one example of why drugs are so powerful. When someone is high on laughing gas, says James, the person gets a “tremendously exciting sense of an intense metaphysical experience.” What he means by this is that the person seems to find answers to the mysteries of life, the big complicated questions. How do we explain good and evil? What is the meaning of my life? Intoxicated, the person with spontaneity and ease sees “depth beneath depth” of insight. “Normal consciousness offers no parallel.” In fact as the high goes away, the person “is left staring vacantly.”

About alcohol, he talks of a sense of “reconciliation [of seeming opposites]…which seems silly to lookers-on” but which is a key part of its temptation. He describes, what he calls, this reconciliation of opposites from personal experience. While intoxicated, James says that he wrote down opposites—God and devil, good and evil, life and death, ecstasy and horror. He said that they came together with “infinite rationality,” that he could see the logic that unified them.

Twenty years later, James would write that the power of alcohol is its power to make the imbiber feel that he has touched a higher reality. Grass is greener, jokes are funnier, and even total strangers can be instant friends.

James was fully aware that sober people would dismiss any idea that a drunk could find any profound meaning while intoxicated. But James was serious about this idea. The altered state of consciousness allowed the drunk to be conscious of a reality that sober people were blind to.

James had no doubt why nitrous oxide and alcohol had such great appeal. Imagine the feeling of firmly understanding some of the mysteries of the universe, of seeing some of the hidden ways in which you, me, and the world are connected. Sobriety, in comparison, can be rather lifeless and boring.

Part Two — Freedom to be Yourself

Here are some things that addicts said to researchers about what it’s like to be high on crack cocaine:

“I felt like Superman. I got to move mountains.”

“It was the feeling that I had been searching for.”

“It’s not like the personal joy of climbing a mountain…and you finally make it to the top. It’s not like finishing a…marathon…you got that super high, that rush or whatever. The high from crack is higher, more intense than those feelings.”

“It’s like the world world, life is beautiful. I feel great. I have a lot of ideas. My mind just opens tremendously. My mind is like really fast and I think better. I feel good. I feel life is wonderful. I can do anything.”

These are quite amazing statements. The researcher, Joaquin Trujillo from the US Department of State, was interested in understanding what the appeal of a crack cocaine high is. He concluded that crack gave the user the feeling that he or she could be human.

What he meant by this is that the addict had the freedom to be him/herself. They described this feeling of being free from shame, free from the pressures of responsibility. Some described this freedom of being “numb” to negative and uncomfortable feelings.

At Sunshine Coast we often talk about being true to the self (so does Alcoholics Anonymous). This freedom to be oneself, to feel comfortable in your own skin, to feel comfortable in the world, is what many people tell us is the appeal of drugs. 

Part Three — Connecting with the Universe

Feeling at one with the universe—this sounds like some bad Hollywood movie about the 1960s, with everyone talking about cosmic consciousness.

Psychologist Jonathan Diamond describes our desire for drugs this way: it is “not only to escape pain that humanity turns to drugs, it is for communion with God.” And this idea was, of course, Bill Wilson’s brilliant insight into why alcoholics drank — and became the baseline for Alcoholics Anonymous.

And it is also the conclusion that the Government of Canada arrived at in its famous 1971 Royal Commission on the Use of Non-Medical Drugs in Canada. Here’s a paragraph from the interim report:

“Modern drug use would definitely seem to be related…to the collapse of religious values…. [T]here is definitely the sense of identification with something larger, something to which one belongs as part of the human race.”

Even if this statement did not come from the federal government, it’s a remarkable conclusion on why people use drugs.

Furthermore, former clients of Sunshine Coast know from their time with us that this is one of the key conclusions that the Nobel-Prize winning addict-playwright, Eugene O’Neill, also came to.

Being at one with the universe means that you feel connected. You don’t feel as if you are an outcast. You have that wonderful feeling of belonging. And if you have the feeling that you belong, then you must also have the feeling that you are important because this is where you are meant to be.

Part Four — Sunshine Coast Clients

in this article we’ve been examining how scholars have looked at the experience of being intoxicated. Each example provided in this article showed that addiction is powerful because of the positive feelings that drugs provide.

At some point during treatment at Sunshine Coast, clients are asked to recall a time when they were high or drunk. Then clients are asked what they got from the drug experience. Of course, a typical answer was, “nothing!”, however, staff learned to be skeptical of such a response because one of the truths about human beings is that everyone does everything for a reason.

When we talk deeply to clients about the drug experience, we always find that drug use was not merely escaping pain. There was some big payoff. Some typical things we hear from clients are:

“This is the way I was meant to feel.”

“It gave me a break from always having to do things for other people. Got rid of all the stress and worry, so I could do what I wanted.”

“I could think about things that fascinated me.”

“I loved how fast I could think…I could make sense of things.”

“I loved listening to music stoned. It filled me up.”

Conclusion

One of the keys to recovery is to have these experiences that make life worth living, but without the drugs. And that takes time and practice. There can be no sitting back, expecting that life will somehow magically come alive; people in recovery have to work at it.

The thing for people in recovery to remember is that all this is and was inside you from the start. You just needed the drugs to bring it out. Now, in recovery, you have to find a more natural way. But, as people with good recovery will tell you, it gets better.

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA, RCC
Director of Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Center

PART FOUR OF FOUR

The Transition From Addiction Treatment To Adulthood

Some parents are concerned because when their adult children complete treatment, they have no resources. For example, many adult children do not have jobs, living accommodations, or assets. In such situations, it is not recommended that parents have their adult children move back home with them because it is very easy to slip back into the cycle of rescuing, managing, and over-functioning. Furthermore, if parents are going to provide support or a step-down transition out of treatment then there should be an objective agreement drafted with accountability conditions. Parents need to be careful that they are respecting the adulthood of their children and do not use agreements as a way to further manage their children. These agreements would be worded in a format similar to a tenancy contract. Also parents need to first consider their emotional as well as financial limits before they move to the stage of negotiating a contract of support with their adult children. The following steps below are very helpful in this process.

Steps involved in creating a transitional support agreement:

Step #1. The parents have a conversation with each other to discuss the reality of how much they are prepared to spend emotionally and financially to support their adult child to transition out of treatment. The parameters of emotional and financial support are discussed between the parents.

Step #2. The adult child explores options around what they will do post-treatment (ie. living accommodations, job, etc). Adult child also examines how they can choose a plan whereby they are able to express their adulthood as well as independence while also meeting the requirements included in the plan.

Step #3. The adult child and parents meet with or without a counsellor to discuss different options around transitional support after treatment such as options for living, working, and so on. The adult child may also consider the results of a career assessment in their examination of options.

Step #4. Parents share the the limits of the support they are willing to provide emotionally and financially. Accountability measures may be discussed as well as an examination of what will occur if the adult child does not maintain recovery and has a relapse. For example, financial support may cease or there is an expectation the adult child will return to intensive counselling and/or residential treatment. Individual circumstances may vary widely for each family.

Step #5. The parents and the adult child examine how they can be respectful of each other’s adulthood on both sides. What will the relationship look like in recovery? What type of support does the adult child need in recovery?

Managing the “Worry Monster” During the Transition To Adulthood

One of the greatest challenges for parents of adult children is managing the “worry monster.”  Even if adult children are doing well post-recovery, parents can easily be consumed by their anxiety about the future. There are three common emotions that can cause parents to enter back into a rescuing cycle and take back the gift of adulthood that they are offering to their adult children. These emotions include:

Fear- Some parents worry that their adult children cannot succeed and that bad things will happen. As a result, such parents fall back into patterns of over-functioning, rescuing, and managing. Parents can worry that their adult children are around “bad influences” and in an attempt to clear away bad friends or other negative factors, they end up returning to managing their children’s lives.

Guilt- Some parents feel badly for choices they have made earlier in life like divorcing or working long hours. Perhaps such parents were not able to give their children all the advantages needed while growing up. As a result, parents may try to compensate now and out of guilt they will undermine the progress of independence which is necessary for their children’s adulthood.  For example, parents may, out of guilt, make their adult children’s lives easier by paying off debts and not allowing their adult children to be responsible or accountable.

Parents need to remember that guilt is an indulgent activity that selfishly meets their own needs while undermining the progress of their adult child’s independence. We can only change our current, not past, actions. Furthermore, we may be overestimating the impact of our past mistakes and, instead, transferring all of our unresolved emotional issues into guilt. This guilt is actually one of our own emotional areas for growth and may have nothing to do with our children.

Pity- Some parents have a deficit-focused view of their adult children. For example, there are parents who believe their children are “special” or incapable of being adults because they always make bad decisions. Secretly, parents may even pity their children because these individuals have ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder), Generalized Anxiety Disorders, or are challenged in some way. In such cases, parents may position themselves as being the strong high-functioning people in the relationships and they would lose their own identities if they were not in a position of helping their adult children who they presume are weak.  The challenge in these situations is for parents to “re-write” their stories of who they believe their children are in life and to move from a deficit-focus to noticing all the strengths and abilities in these adult children. Remember what we pay attention to grows!

If parents experience this roadblock and start to undermine their adult children’s independence then they may wish to explore in their own healing journey of who they are outside of their children’s challenges. Sometimes parents who end up bonding in crisis can enmesh their identities with their children so addiction then becomes a catalyst for people on both sides to grow as well as positively transform out of this crisis.

Conclusion

The parenting journey is one of the most valuable and rewarding experiences in life, requiring great faith and tremendous courage. We applaud you in your healing!

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA RCC
Director of Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Center

PART 3 OF 4

What Is The Gift Of Adulthood?

As our children mature, it is natural for we as parents to transition from the role of authority to one that more closely resembles being a trusted friend. It is a time where parents allow their children to grow into adults. As our children grow, so do we as parents where we can reclaim our own lives and return to some of our interests that were put on hold in order to raise our families.

Some of us parents, however, may hesitate to hand back to their adult children the responsibility of living independently. The reality, however, is that adult children who are developing responsibility for their own lives probably will struggle and their decisions, while not always perfectly executed, never fail to provide valuable life lessons.

When little toddlers learn to walk, their first steps are always unsteady. A few falls are inevitable. It is by falling and failing, however, that humans come to terms with reality which, in the case of a toddler learning to walk, is gravity.

Similarly, our adult children are also dealing with the realities of life such as paying the bills, embarking on a career, and finding a life partner. During this time, we as parents need to remember that, beyond providing words of encouragement and the occasional steadying hand, the bulk of the work remains with our children.

Will our adult children accept the challenge? Some will embrace this opportunity while others will do so kicking and screaming. In the case of the latter, it behooves us as parents to listen as objectively as possible, acknowledge our parenting mistakes when necessary, then support our adult children to face the most pressing challenge currently awaiting them in life.

Along these lines, here are six recommendations for parents who are supporting their adult children  as they begin to embrace their own adulthood:

Letting Go Tip #1 – Accept the Consequences

Accepting consequences is the very essence of learning personal responsibility. Any attempts by we as parents to remove negative consequences is a step backward for our adult children. 

If we are invited into solving our adult children’s problems then there must be an accountability measure in place. For example, if we loan money then there needs to be a repayment plan or a condition in which money is provided for schooling so long as the person is passing courses, staying sober, etc.

Conversely, we should be quick to give our adult children credit when credit is due for making the right decision. Our adult children may not also recognize their accomplishments so, by recognizing these, we as parents can encourage additional positive consequences in the future.

Letting Go Tip #2 – Look Past Short-Term Setbacks

There is no such thing as failure when our adult children assume greater personal responsibility. After all, personal responsibility is a verb, not a noun. In other words, personal responsibility is something that adults do, not something they possess. A mistake today will teach us how to get it right tomorrow. Furthermore, as a parent, it is important to remember that our adult children’s setbacks are not reflections on our character or our parenting skills.

Letting Go Tip #3 – Provide Emotional Support

As parents, it may be difficult to watch our children struggle through the process of learning personal responsibility. However, this doesn’t mean that we withdraw all support. Emotional support is something we all need, particularly when it is provided by a family member. Financial support is a poor substitute compared to the humanizing, empowering effect of emotion support.

A good metaphor to remember is to “walk alongside” our adult children rather than “walking ahead” to clear away problems or challenges that lie on their path. Walking alongside our adult children may sound like, “Wow! That is difficult. I wonder how you are going to deal with that” or “Yes, that does sound stressful. What did your recovery team tell you to do about that?”

Letting Go Tip #4 – Listen First, Hesitate Before Giving Advice

Further to Tip #3, emotional support sometimes means taking the time to simply be with our adult children and listen. All too often, we instinctively want to help our children by giving advice. However, when we listen we also provide the opportunity for our adult children to come up with their own solutions. When we listen in such a way that supports our children to come up with their own solution, we are practicing active listening. Active listening is much more rigourous then passive listening, which typically involves waiting for our turn to speak with little regard for the speaker.

We as parents also need to remember that what worked for us in the past may not always solve the current challenge facing our adult children. So, giving advice not only prevents active listenting, it may even be the wrong advice!

The next three tips are further along in the process of developing personal responsibility and are intended more for us as parents than for our adult children:

Letting Go Tip #5 – Hesitate Before “Collaborating”

Similar to our instinct to giving advice, we as parents instinctively may want to collaborate with our children. The truth is, however, that our children may prefer to work without our involvement. Although this may sound similar to Tip #3, the difference is that our adult child is no longer coming from a place of need but, rather, is fully engaged in the creative process.

For example, our adult children may become excited about post secondary education so we as parents rush out and get the course calendar and fill out the application forms ourselves in fear that our adult child may lose motivation. In essence, we have actually created the opposite effect by dampening their spirits. Instead, as parents we may need to give our adult children the space to create their own dreams.

Letting Go Tip #6 – Allow our Children to Choose Their Own Path

Each of us have our own unique path in life but sometimes, as parents, we may have difficulty accepting the chosen path our children. Examples include when our children choose a life partner, entering post-secondary education, or embarking on a career. We may have our own expectations of having a son- or daughter-in-law with similar values, socioeconomic status, religious perspective, etc. We may hope that our child carry on the legacy of the family business or entering an esteemed profession such as medicine, law, or engineering.

When asked for advice from the many admirers of his work, famed mythology expert Joseph Campbell advocated that we “follow our bliss,” meaning that we pursue our dreams no matter what others think. Mr. Campbell insisted that when we follow our dreams we are embarking on a heroic path of personal freedom. The path is not always easy, but Mr. Campbell promises a life infinitely more rewarding.

The business world abounds with individuals who followed their dreams and created profitable businesses that started out as mere hobbies, artistic pursuits, or crazy ideas. As parents, we provide a great service to our children by having faith that, they too, have the potential to join the long list of successful entrepreneurs or entertainers that followed their dreams.

Letting Go Tip #7 – Avoid Living Vicariously

Once our children have embarked on their chosen path, we may one day come to the realization that our children have actually exceeded our own accomplishments. While many parents are content to continue to provide the emotional support that, in part, contributed to their child’s acheivements in the first place, others may feel threatened by this success. 

For example, we have all attended amateur sporting events and have observed parents who seem just a little too obsessed with their sons or daughters winning at all costs. We may cringe when they holler at the referee, or berate their kids for not playing hard enough.

Similarly, we as parents must also learn to separate our own dreams from those of our adult children. Deep down, successful adult children may stir our own insecurities and failing to take notice of these insecurities can lead us to react out of jealousy and actually prevent us from embracing our own personal responsibility.

In part 4 of The Gift of Adulthood we conclude this series of articles by examining the transition to adulthood.

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling – MA, RCC
Director of Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Center

PART TWO OF FOUR: THE COST OF RESCUING

There are a number of long term consequences if we as parents with adult children remain in rescuing cycles. These short- and long-term consequences can be viewed both from the perspective of the adult child and the parent.

Consequences for the Adult Child

These include:

Short-Term – A Sense of Entitlement

When we micro-manage our children’s lives it is not surprising that they learn to depend on us to solve their problems. When adult children become incapable of making decisions for themselves they are no longer equipped for life. And, since independent living is a fundamental aspect of personal growth and well-being, adult children are often left frustrated and resentful. Then we as parents, after working so hard to protect our children, become the unwitting targets of this resentment.

Thus, a vicious cycle forms where adult children increasingly expect more but, conversely, show less-and-less appreciation for what they receive. This behaviour, in a word, is known as “entitlement” and is often characterized by an inflated sense of being special, an attitude that life is unfair, and that the world owes them a better existence.

Oftentimes, when we as parents try to break this sense of entitlement by refusing their demands, our adult children may resort to “hostage-taking” – threatening more problems, even self-harm if their demands are not met.

Long-Term – Failure and Disappointment

Our society is not designed for people who walk around feeling frustrated, resentful, and entitled. Companies have little patience for employees who can’t work within a team, particularly if they are quick to blame others for their mistakes. Attracting the opposite sex can also be difficult for adult children when potential suitors learn they are unemployed and living at home. George Costanza of Seinfeld fame is a hilarious portrayal of the over-protected adult child who muddles his way through work, friendships, and relationships. The reality, however, for the “Costanzas” of the world is, sadly, nothing to laugh about. Such individuals endure a life-long struggle with a world that is mostly indifferent to their demands. Without some form of intervention, entitled adult children remain blind to the fact that, in life, we often need to give in order to receive.

Consequences for the Parent

These include:

Short-Term – A Loss of Identity

Playing the role of expert manager in the lives of our adult children is often reflected in our own behaviour. For example, we may make decisions for them, routinely suggest a correct course of action, and are always there to remove even the smallest obstacle that may arise in their lives.

Over time, our adult children can become an extension of our own identities – we may lose our sense of self. This “fusion” of identies leaves little room for our own lives. For example, a simple question such as “how are you?” may leave us speechless or we may end up complaining on and on about “our” problems which are actually not our problems at all but those of our adult child.

Another feature of losing our own identity is that we become unable to connect with our own emotions. On this emotional rollercoaster, our highs and lows are no longer our own but, rather, those of our adult child.

Long-Term – Enslavement

In the long run, when we play the role of rescuer, our own goals, dreams, and ambitions can be sacrificed in the process. We may feel it’s best to forego a vacation or even our retirement for fear of what may become of our adult child. We postpone (sometimes indefinitely) our dreams, hoping that, one day, our adult child will be able to stand on their own two feet.

The difficulty is that we cannot place our lives on hold waiting for our adult children to learn how to live independently. Moving forward and reclaiming our lives from the chaos of someone’s addiction is a conscious decision. If, starting today, we do not start the process of reclaiming our lives, we stay in this pattern of enslavement.

As parents, we must recognize that it is not just our adult children who feel compelled to maintain the status quo. Needing to be needed gives us all of us a sense of purpose in our lives and is part of what connects us as human beings. So, as a parent, we may fear that we are no longer important if our adult children start taking personal responsibility for their lives.

Therefore, assuming that we want to stay connected to our adult children, the challenge then becomes to create a new relationship whereby there is mutual adulthood – parents and their adult children spending time together out of love for one another, not fear of the unknown. As a mother in Family Program once said: “I cannot imagine who I am or what I would be doing if my son was not always screwing up.” The journey for this mother was to reclaim her life and to give her son the gift of his own adulthood.

In part 3 of Parenting and Addiction: The Gift of Adulthood, we examine further the gift of adulthood, the transition to adulthood, and overcoming adulthood’s most common roadblock – the “worry monster.”

By Cathy Patterson-Sterling, MA RCC
Director of Family Services
Sunshine Coast Health Center

In this 4-part series, we explore the dynamic of addiction in the family. How parents interact with their adult child struggling with addiction is an important element in restoring their own well-being and healthy, sustainable recovery for an addicted family member.

PART ONE

When raising children, we as parents have two primary responsibilities: 1) Keeping them safe and 2) nurturing them with love.  Protecting our children from harm and providing them with a loving, supportive homelife are both critical if we hope to have our children grow to become responsible, contributing members of society.

Similar to how physical pain tells us to pull back from a burning candle, fear instinctively tells us when we or our children are in danger. Fear is a powerful emotion and obviously serves a critical role. Unfortunately, fear can also unknowingly prevent us from lovingly nurturing our children towards personal growth. Fear can trump love.

When our children are still toddlers or pre-adolescent, it may be perfectly sensible to wade in, take control, and problem-solve on their behalf. As our children grow into adulthood, however, this same tendency to over-function and expert manage can have real and long-term negative consequences. The adult child addicted to drugs and/or alcohol is an excellent case in point.

Managing An Adult Child In Crisis

When we find our child actively struggling with addiction, we as parents are often motivated to take action out of fear. For example, we may pay their rent for fear they might end up homeless, or we may buy them groceries for fear of them becoming malnourished and vulnerable to sickness. If our adult child is charged with impaired driving we may pay for an expensive lawyer out of fear for the negative impact that comes with a criminal record.

Out of fear, we learn to tolerate their destructive, often illegal, activities at home. Crack smoking  or binge drinking in the basement becomes the lesser of two evils so long as it means they remain under our watchful gaze and away from places frequented by desperate, dangerous addicts, prostitutes, and criminals.

As an addiction progresses, we as parents may become little more than ATMs – knowingly providing money for drugs or alcohol in exchange for peace of mind. We know it’s not right but we comfort ourselves with the knowledge that it could be worse – at least our children are not dead from overdose, violence, or suicide. Money then becomes the last tenuous thread keeping the family together.

As parents, we may assume that part of our job is to keep our children free from pain. The reality, however, is that when parents protect their children in this way life then the opportunity to learn from the experience (and mature into adulthood) vanishes. Unfortunately, parents who don’t address this unhealthy dynamic may eventually find that their children physically reach adulthood but are emotionally stuck in childhood – incapable of living independently or assuming any real responsibilities. *

(*) Note: John Bowlby writes extensively on this topic in his classic book, ‘Attachment’. See the Recommended Reading section below.

Resilience: A Loving Alternative to Parenting out of Fear

It may seem obvious that the older a child becomes the more difficult it is for a parent to remove all potential sources of pain. However, fear often makes it difficult for a parent to think rationally when their adult child is self-destructing from drugs or alcohol. Fortunately, there is research showing the effectiveness of fostering resilience – the positive capacity of people to cope with life’s challenges – when it comes to raising children. ** While resilience can’t prevent painful events from occurring, teaching our children to courageously face life’s twists and turns put us as parents firmly back on the path to lovingly nurturing our children towards personal growth.

(**) Note: Resilience has been extensively researched in psychology. See the Recommended Reading section below.

Conclusion to Part One

For most of us, when we are hurting others or ourselves, internal ‘alarm bells’ are there to tell us we are making poor choices. When an adult child struggles with addiction, pain and discomfort serve as motivators that can lead to positive change. However, if we as parents fail to allow our children to take full responsibility for their own, often self-inflicted, life challenges then we end up muffling these inner voices that are advocating for greater personal accountability.

Paying the rent or buying groceries for your child may help them maintain a quality lifestyle but it removes any incentive to change a lifestyle that obsessively focuses on drugs or alcohol. Having our adult child face the consequences of missing the rent or experience the hunger pangs from having no groceries may seem like harsh punishment but it may also be the first steps on the path to recovery. This is the ultimate freedom of adulthood – the power of choice. As adults, we get to choose our actions and live with the consequences whether these decisions are good or bad.

Here’s a good question to ask yourself: “Am I basing my parenting on a foundation of love or fear?”

In Part Two, Cathy elaborates on what she means by the ‘gift of adulthood’ and what the costs are of habitually rescuing the adult child.

Recommended Reading

Bowlby, John (1983) Attachment: Second Edition (Attachment and Loss Series, Vol 1)

Brooks, Robert (2002) Raising Resilient Children: Fostering Strength, Hope, and Optimism in Your Child

Neufeld, Gordon (2006) Hold on to Your Kids

Modern war and major disasters such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina have highlighted the horrendous effects of psychological trauma. Here are some rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): 23 percent in regions in Israel that have been shelled, 40-70 percent in Gaza, 17 percent of US military personnel, 44 percent in high school seniors in Kosovo five years after hostilities ended, and 30 percent in New Orleans after the hurricane.

Many of these poor souls have turned to alcohol and other drugs to deal with the impact. New research is helping us develop new ways to treat these clients with co-occurring disorders.

The Impact of Trauma on the Brain

Trauma imprints itself in the brain’s memory system. Stress hormones that accompany the emotional intensity of trauma activate the amygdala, which in turn activates other subcortical structures in the limbic system, the primitive, ‘non-thinking’, part of the brain. In other words, emotion mediates how memories are consolidated. The precise mechanisms involved are still debated, but neuroscientist James McGaugh says everyone agrees that “Stronger emotional experiences make for stronger, more reliable memories” (2003, p. 327). Memories of a wartime fire-fight or a collapsed building may intrude repeatedly in a survivor’s daily life or lead to nightmares. Survivors appear to be sensitized that even a door slamming or an image on television can trigger the intense experience. As psychologist David Myers says, “It is as if they [the memories] were burned in” (2010, p. 342). Even months or years later, traumatic memories are so clear that victims recall the event with remarkable detail.

To understand the power of trauma on the memory, think back to 9/11. Chances are that you remember what you were doing on September 11, 2001. But do you remember what you were doing September 11, 1999? Myers reports a study in which victims of car accidents, rape, and other traumatic incidents were given either a placebo or propranolol, a drug that blunts memories. Three months later, half the placebo group and none of the propranolol group experienced stress disorder. “Weaker emotion means weaker memories” (Myers, 2010, p. 342).

Trauma and Drug Use

Statistically, there is an association between addiction and trauma, though much more work is needed to discover what the precise link is. Some say that those suffering from trauma are more vulnerable to addiction; the earlier the trauma, the stronger the association. This may be due to the impact of early trauma on the brain’s development. Others say that the addicted brain makes people more vulnerable to PTSD. Some suggest that traumatized people are more vulnerable to addiction because they want to medicate their condition. Still others say that those with trauma who are addicted to substances are not medicating their pain, but using substances as any addict does—to relieve boredom, despair, guilt, loneliness, and a lack of a sense of belonging. And so on.

Treatment

Traditionally, scientific treatment for trauma and addiction has relied on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). Among the most the most famous for co-occurring additions and trauma is Lisa Najavits’ Seeking Safety (2002) program. But many are questioning whether CBT and traditional psychotherapy are enough. One of the more controversial figures advocating a new clinical approach is Bessel van der Kolk (2005). He has suggested that because trauma affects structures in the brain’s limbic system and inhibits key functioning in the ‘thinking’ brain, that body-oriented and self-regulation therapies may be more effective than traditional talk therapies alone.

Based on brain-imaging techniques that show traumatic memories appear to be mediated or moderated by the limbic system, some trauma experts are using techniques that integrate the mind and the body. James Gordon (2010), head of the college of mind-body medicine at Saybrook University, works with US soldiers and local residents in Gaza, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Gordon’s mind-body approach focuses on client strengths, builds resiliency, and balances the sympathetic nervous system’s fight or flight response with the parasympathetic nervous system’s relaxation response. Initially, after creating a safe environment, he follows a three-step process: shake, breathe, and move to music. Strange as the idea may first appear, this body-work frees participants sufficiently to deal with the trauma. They often break down sobbing during this somatic process, able to talk about what happened to them. Othre clinicians use EMDR and OEI, various types of body-work, forms of psychodrama, and other cutting-edge techniques.

Today, little of this trauma work is applied in the addiction field. But there is great hope that as addictions clinicians become more familiar with trauma, that their traumatized clients will fare better.

References

Gordon, J. S. (2010, Jan 19). Trauma and transformation: Healing the wounds of war and other disasters. [Workshop]. College of Mind-Body Medicine, Saybrook University, San Franciso, CA.

McGaugh, J. I. (2003). Memory and emotion: The making of lasting memories. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Myers, D. G.. (2010). Psychology. New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Najavits, L. M. (2002). Seeking safety: A treatment manual for PTSD and substance abuse. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

van der Kolk, B. A., Roth, S., Pelcovitz, D., Sunday, S., & Spinazzola, J. (2005). Disorders of extreme stress: The empirical foundation of a complex adaptation to trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 18(5), 389-399.

By Geoff Thompson – MA, CCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

One of the beneficial things to do in recovery is occasionally to pause and reflect on how your life is going. Many in recovery are busy, doing this and that, and never take time to think about their progress, how far they have come from where they were.

With this in mind, this article will pause and reflect on the second anniversary that Sunshine Coast has been offering the online support program for its alumni. We’ve mentioned dozens of recovery topics from relapse prevention techniques to dealing with family members to discovering spirituality.

With more than 100 topics covered, what are the major themes that the online program has pursued? What are the most important, according to our alumni and research? Which topics seem to have the greatest impact?  

To be honest, we don’t know for sure. But pooling all the information, here are four. We’re not sure if these are the top four, but they’re close. 

We know that addicts suffer horribly because their do things in their lives that do not match what they truly value and what they truly believe. What has been controlling them is the substance. And we often find that those in early recovery are still being controlled by outside forces: family, financial crises, and so on. The secret to this dilemma is written on the AA chip: “To thine own self be true.”

Of course, being true to yourself doesn’t mean that you get to do anything that you feel like doing. You live in a world over which you have little control. This is our second topic: How do you take control of your life in a world that dictates everything from how fast you can drive your car to the fact that you will die. No matter how much you may want to play basketball in the NBA, if you’re 5’2” it’s not going to happen. That’s just the way the world is.

Our third topic reminds you that the key to happiness is to live a personally meaningful life. If you are living a personally meaningful life, then the byproduct will be that you are happy. You don’t even have to work at being happy; it just comes naturally.

The fourth topic is about suffering. Sadly, many people think that living the good life means not suffering. All those advertisements telling you that suffering is not necessary and can be avoided are wrong. If happiness depended on lack of suffering, then no one would be happy. Everybody suffers. So what’s the trick to dealing with suffering?

The fifth topic is on putting it all together.

Theme One—You are the author of your life

You are the author of your life. This is also backed up by research on recovery. In fact, it is likely the most important factor in your recovery, although in psychology we use terms such as “intrinsic motivation” or “internal locus of control.” Basically, being the author of your life means that it’s your job to figure out how to live your life.

You have one life to live, so how do you want to live it? That’s the bottom-line question that faces every human being. There will be no thunder-bolts coming down from the heavens to save you; you have to make choices.

You have lots of options. You can, for instance, become one of the crowd. There’s great benefit in this. You’ll be accepted, and you’ll have less conflict in life. But, of course, you likely won’t feel very good. In previous articles, we talked about the great psychologist, Rollo May, who said being one of the crowd was the single greatest reason why people suffered in the 20th century. People agreed to be part of the “herd” because they had such a desperate need to feel ‘part of’ that they were willing to give up what they valued and believed. Eugene O’Neill called them the “spiritual middle-class: how petty their dreams must have been.”

Similarly, you can live your life by avoiding things that make you uncomfortable. If you’re worried about being hurt by someone close to you, then you don’t have to get close to anyone. If you’re filled with worries about finances, you can choose to stay at your job even if you really don’t like it. If being around family makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to deal with them.

Another option: You can choose to be a victim of life. ‘If only I hadn’t had such a lousy upbringing….’ Or ‘My family should stop treating me as a kid’. Or ‘It’s unfair that I got this disease….’

The choice is yours.

Theme Two: Ask Life what it demands of you

Viktor Frankl told us that unhappy people go about the universe demanding that others or things be a certain way. ‘My parents should be fully supportive of me in my recovery’. ‘My life would be so much better if my boss weren’t such a jerk’. ‘I’d fall in love if only I could meet a rich supermodel who would adore me’. ‘I’d be happy if only I had a million dollars’. And so on…

The problem with this approach is that people and things just do what they do, regardless of what you want. The only thing that gets accomplished by demanding things from life is that you get isolated and miserable. Studies of people with cancer, for instance, have shown that those who do not accept the reality of their illness will suffer more than those who do. As strange as this may seem to you, many people who have learned they are HIV+ have said that the diagnosis shocked them into realizing how precious life is.

Bill W. said that a key to recovery was to “Live life on life’s terms.” Frankl’s version of this was “Ask life what it demands of you.” This is the opposite of demanding that others or things be a certain way.

Here’s just one small example:Many clients at Sunshine Coast tell us they have problems making decisions because they don’t want to lose out. “I’ll have a couple of lovers around; that way, if one dumps me, I have a backup.” “I don’t know what to do because I’m afraid of making a bad choice.” People who operate like this have not yet figured out reality. It’s simply part of the rules of life that whatever choice you make, you will lose out. If you choose one lover over another, you lose one. If you choose school over work, you lose the paycheque. If you work on Saturdays, you may miss your son’s soccer game. This is reality.

(BTW, not making a choice is a choice. When you don’t take control and choose, reality eventually steps in and makes the choice for you.)

Theme Three: Happiness means living a personally meaningful life

This is, of course, Viktor Frankl’s theory of human happiness. As we mentioned last month, psychology is torn between whether the key is to live a hedonistic life (do what makes you feel good) or to live a meaningful life. At Sunshine Coast, we go with Frankl.

We often ask questions to Sunshine Coast clients to help them begin the process of figuring out what is meaningful to them. Why would you bother going through the irritation of cleaning up? What is it about your life that you are willing to fight for it? What makes you want to get up in the morning with energy and passion? Of course, most clients struggle with these questions, but they are fundamental to recovery.

As we’ve mentioned many times to our clients, happiness is what recovery is really about — which means that living a meaningful life is what recovery is all about. So many people run into trouble because they believe that the goal of recovery is abstinence or going to three AA meetings each week or eating right, and so on. These goals hardly equal living a meaningful life. You have to keep your eye on what makes you feel fulfilled, contented, alive. The big picture in your life. 

Theme Four: The problem of suffering

Suffering is one of those things that people have been trying to make sense of for millennia, and we’ve touched on this idea in several online programs. At Sunshine Coast, we help clients find ways to eliminate unnecessary suffering due to their addictions, but we also try to help them make sense of their suffering in a new way.

Shifting how you look at suffering is important for recovery. Modern research is showing that your life will improve if you can find meaning in suffering. It is through suffering that people often transform and discover how to live a fulfilling and vital life. In fact, it is usually because of suffering that we change how we live.

The first part of transforming suffering is to accept it. One of those truisms in life is that sh*t happens. Remember that old saying (about 2100 years old, actually): It’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you deal with it. For the rest of your life, there will be lots of things happening to you that are not so pleasant or unexpected and really irritating. You may be hurt by a lover, find yourself in a ridiculous lawsuit because of a disgruntled person, be the victim of a scam, break your leg while skiing, find that someone has broken a promise to you, realize that someone lied to you, and on and on.

The second part of transforming suffering is to rise above it. Psychologist Paul Wong who developed the therapy model we use at Sunshine Coast, and who is suffering from cancer, told us last summer: “I’m thankful that I’ve suffered so much in my life.” Suffering had taught him to stick to his values regardless of outside pressure. It taught him how beautiful life could be. It taught him that he could be a role model for others who suffered but who did not know how to handle suffering. And so on. Paul has not avoided suffering—he’s risen above it.

Theme Five—Living the good life

Here’s just one of all the fellows who went through Sunshine Coast: After his fourth time hitting bottom, Harry (not his real name) decided that he had to do something with his life. In his first time at Sunshine Coast (third treatment center), Harry, a senior citizen whose wife passed away recently, was in rough physical shape. He learned how not to live his life. After treatment, he went to AA but found it boring and had no feeling that he really belonged there. He lived along and didn’t have much contact with his kids. The only real contact was with his alcoholic neighbor. Six months later, he relapsed.

When he came back to Sunshine Coast for his second time, he figured out that he needed a reason not to quit drinking. So he put together an impressive plan for how to live a full life, in spite of his physical ailments, age, and loss of his wife. We hear from Harry every once in a while—he now has a couple of years of sobriety and tells us that he is doing well.

What had happened? I would suggest that Harry finally realized that if he wanted any sort of life, he’d have to make it happen for himself. He had to fight for his life, which meant that he had to believe that he was worth fighting for. He used his creative intelligence to figure out how he could live in a way that made him feel satisfied, and he put all the pieces together. He returned to AA, but this time found a home group where he felt he fit in. He started to volunteer at a place that he felt he could contribute his talents. He made a schedule to meet with his kids. 

Not that everything was easy or worked out for Harry. When he screwed up, he learned from it. He fought through the cravings, knowing that he was quite capable of this. He didn’t say ‘F-it’ and give up when he was having a bad day. He didn’t blame others or his health or for his misery. He had a mission to live a better life.

By Geoff Thompson, MA CCC
Program Director
Sunshine Coast Health Center

We are relational beings, which means that we were born to live with others. The evidence for this seems overwhelming. Some psychologists believe that we are ‘hardwired’ for relationships. Our brains are designed to be with other people. A famous psychologist, Roy Baumeister, argues that the reason human children take so long to become independent—compared with any other animal—is that they have to learn how to live with others.

As you know, one of the worst dynamics of addiction is that it isolates the user. Loneliness is a feeling that all addicts have. This isn’t just the feeling of boredom because you have no one to go out with on a Friday night; it is a deep and intrusive feeling that you are separated from the rest of the world. As one client put it, “I used to go out on the street and see people smiling and wonder how they could be happy.” Of course, using drugs usually gets rid of the feeling, at least temporarily.

So, one of the keys to recovery is to feel connected with others. This is a human thing, a natural yearning of individuals. It’s a big part of what gives us meaning in life, what makes us happy.

The old Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said that without friends no one would choose to live, even if he had money and health and fame. We know that one of the worst punishments for people is to deprive them of the community of others (ostracism). Being ostracized is considered the worst punishment. In China, for instance, someone who goes against the prescribed behaviors is often ostracized. Posters with the person’s face and name tell people in the community not to talk to the person. In some religions, being excommunicated is a grave punishment. And a few centuries ago, being banished from the land was considered a fate worse than death.

Being shunned by others or excluded from a group increases activity in the part of your brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. This is the part of your brain that is also stimulated when you feel physical pain. So some psychologists have argued that when you feel shunned, you feel the same “emotional unpleasantness” that you endure when you are in physical pain.

And psychologists have discovered—to their great surprise—that many computer users feel ostracized when they are ignored in chat rooms. The name they’ve given this is “cyber-ostracism.”

Psychologist Bruce Alexander observed that addicts need to hang out together. Because they have distanced their clean and sober family and friends, they find a sense of belonging with other users—not an ideal situation but better than nothing.

An interesting fact is that we know from research that when we feel loved and supported, our self-esteem rises. On the other hand, if we don’t feel support of others, then our self-esteem is low. This is useful knowledge for counselors because if someone tells us that he has low self-esteem, he is also telling us that he does not feel connected with others. He’s missing an essential part of what he needs for recovery.

Part One: Group Therapy at Sunshine Coast

If you are an alumni of Sunshine Coast, you know that we use a lot of group therapy. There is a reason for this. Addicts tend to be lonely, feeling as if they don’t belong. And this, of course, means they have low self-esteem. The idea of using group, rather than relying exclusively on individual therapy is, in part, to help clients in early recovery regain a sense of belonging, to realize that there is nothing wrong with them, that they are not different. And a nice by-product of this is that the client’s self-esteem improves.  

As well as connecting with others, group therapy is also a good way to get to know yourself. It is one of those peculiar things about humans that they gain most of their self awareness not from figuring out things for themselves but by getting feedback from others. Some of you may have learned about the Johari Window. According to this psychology model, we are blind to some parts of ourselves; others, however, are not. They see things that we don’t know about ourselves, and group therapy provides the opportunity for us to learn about this blind side.

But group therapy is more important than simply learning about our blind side. Irvin Yalom, the guru of group therapy, says that you can know yourself only by getting input from other people. Who you think you are as a person is based in great part on how others treat you. (By the way, that’s one of the main reasons why those who feel loved have good self-esteem.)

Part Two: Sense of belonging

The internet has become part of our natural need to feel related to others. Those entering college report that they spend from one to five or more hours each week on social networking sites, such as Facebook. If you understand the importance of relationships to human beings, then it’s really no surprise why these sites are so popular, not to mention text messaging.

Eugene O’Neill, the great addict-writer, said that the reason he got loaded was because he never felt a sense of belonging in the world. He never felt part of… until he got drunk. His solution was to find a sense of belonging, to feel part of something, but without the need for the booze. Although he knew nothing of AA or addiction treatment, he figured out one of the key dynamics of recovery—it’s important to feel a sense of belonging.

If you were a client at Sunshine Coast, you remember we talked constantly about getting a support group. Many people in early recovery don’t pay as much attention to a support group as they should. But if you realize that this is a natural human thing that is necessary for happiness, it might help you understand just how powerful being supported is—and why it’s worth the effort to find a group of people. Those who have support networks have people who can listen to them and treat them as important people. The sense of being listened to is important for everyone but particularly for those who are in pain.

Part Three: Feeling connected with others

At Sunshine Coast, we define addiction with the great psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, who said that addiction was a response to living a live that was not particularly comfortable, which seemed to have no direction, in which you felt you did not really fit in. Frankl called this living a life that had no personal meaning.

One of the important things to recognize from Frankl is that addiction is serving a specific purpose for the addict. It allows him to exist in a world in which he feels he does not belong. In other words, addiction is a substitute for living a meaningful life.

The solution to addiction was, for Frankl, to live a life that feels personally meaningful. If you live this life, then the addiction serves no purpose. And this is one of the things we’ve been discovering about recovery. Those who are living lives where they feel are worthwhile, where they have good self-esteem, have little interest in getting loaded—the drugs no long serve a purpose.

If we had to pick one reason why alumni of Sunshine Coast slipped or relapsed after treatment, it would be hard to find a better one than difficulty in relationships. The alumni who have had slips often call us up. Inevitably, what triggered the relapse was a situation in which they no longer felt comfortable in a relationship (or they were still feeling isolated and alone).

Part Four: The good and the bad of relationships

In this article we’ve been talking this month about relationships and their importance for living the good life. And when you are living a good life, one where you feel a sense of belonging, then drugs lose their power.

But not all relationships are necessarily healthy ones.

We have a natural need to find a sense of belonging. Studies of the modern ‘gangs’ have shown that they are appealing only for those who are lost or who don’t feel they fit in with regular society. Around the world, terrorists find a ready supply of disciples in third-world ghettos and among the displaced. So, we can find a sense of belonging in family and community or we can find a sense of belonging with gangs or fanatical movements.

One of the sad things about gangs is they demand that the members follow a code or set of rules of behavior. Many gang members have to go against their values or beliefs in order to be part of the group. We’ve talked before on the online program about people who give up who they are—what they value and believe—in order to fit in with a group.  This is a recipe for suffering. Of course, it tells us how important it is to find a sense of belonging. But it’s one of those sad things about people that we can be so desperate that we are willing to give up our identity to belong. 

Another example of this is abusive relationships. When the fear of being alone is greater than the fear of abuse, many people stay in abusive relationships. We’ve seen over the years that many clients stay in relationships that are not healthy. They seem afraid of standing up and saying, ‘This isn’t working out’. And we’ve seen over the years that some clients have many relationships on the go at the same time. Their thinking seems to be, ‘If this one doesn’t work out, I always have another one ready to step in’. What this tells us is just how great the fear of being alone really is.