Self-interest

This may surprise anyone  familiar with my socialist tendencies, but I like self-interest.
Enlightened self-interest, that is.
I wrote the other day that somewhere in the vicinity of 31 million Americans identify as being in recovery from addictions. If you look at the popular vote in the last presidential election, you'll see that the winning candidate received about 4 million more votes  than the loser. And as usual,  the total vote was  only a little more than a third of the total of eligible voters.
But that's beside the point, which is this.
There is an enormous amount of political power available right now, if recovering people are willing to grasp it.
Think of the possibilities. 
Every serious presidential candidate having to take a position on issues that involve recovering people.
Issues like availability of treatment, sentencing inequality, police brutality targeting addicts, discrimination and social prejudice. The list goes on and on.
In 2008 recovery meant rebuilding the country during a time of economic disaster.
In 2015, Recovery could be the banner under which recovering individuals join together in a spirit of enlightened self-interest.
It's time.

The Truth Hurts

Two news stories thriving online have to do with politicians in disgrace. Certainly nothing new about that. Both have to do with mayors, one in Toronto, one local, in Marcus Hook.

Both involving booze and sexually inappropriate behavior. 

Stories like this are as old as time and always appeal to that side of us that loves to see a spectacular wreck. 

Think about this, though. 

What's it like to be the father or the daughter or te spouse of one of these guys. What's it like to live with this kind of crazy, self-destructive behavior day after day. 

Because many of us do. The families of addicts and alcoholics learn to live with a lot. 

And have the scars to show for it. 

Pajama Life

Oh sure, the holidays are great. But not as great as taking the week off between Christmas and New Years. You get to laze around, eat, watch movies, eat, ruminate over the past year and meditate on the new year ahead. 

And eat.

Did I mention that?

Some people like to make resolutions. I don't. I feel guilty when I break them, and I always do.

I used to make a resolution to quit drinking. I made it every year. Never did, though.

I wonder what would have happened if I had made a resolution to drink more?

Anyways....My plan for the next few days is to share some of my thoughts on the year past and the year to come.

Let me hear yours.

Too Important To Fail

The kid with the black eye showed up for group, as usual. He had tried to pour his dad's bottle of liquor down the kitchen sink drain. Dad had caught him in the act.

Dad wasn't happy, hence the black eye.

This wasn't the first time, but hopefully it would be the last.

My experience working with children from families with histories of addiction and alcoholism, has been frustrating, illuminating and sometimes terrifying. It has also been rewarding, beyond anything I could have imagined.

Each week, somewhere between six and ten young teenagers meet with myself and co-facilitator Lacey Chandra Macauley to share their experience of living in in a family dominated by the disease of of addiction.

There are sad stories, angry stories, frightening stories and sometime bizarrely funny stories.

There are tears, sorrows, joys and fears--some shared for the first time--in an environment that puts the lie to the addictive message "don't tell anyone." Here, it is safe to tell.

The group was originally funded by a small grant, but in this economy, grants have become scarce. The funding ended years ago, but the group does not. It continues to run during the school months, at no charge.

I believe that it is too important to let it fail simply because money has dried up. Miracle of miracles, this year some funding came through the Delaware County Office of Behavioral Health, (Division of Drug & Alcohol) that has allowed Lacey to come to this group and be the valuable asset that she has been to other groups in Delaware County. She is a most welcome addition.

So, we begin another year of Children from Addicted Families Group. There will be sad stories, but there will also be warmth and tolerance and support. There will be scary stories, but there will also be reassurance and hope. There will be black eyes, but also some help for them to heal.

Please support us.

If you have a young teenager you feel would benefit from this group, please contact us:

Ken Williams  484 431 2931   kenwilliamscac@gmail.com

Lacey Chandra Macauley   484 444 0412   lmacaule@holcombbhs.org

Rough Justice

Drug Court seemed like such a good idea when it came to my little corner of the world.

It took me, and a lot of other people-helper types, by surprise. Delaware County hasn't been known, to put it very mildly, for its enlightened attitudes toward issues of mental health and substance use disorders. But it was a start, right?

The fundamental concept behind Drug Court is that the court acts as a supercharged big brother, empowered to mandate everything from incarceration to rehab, utilizing an in-your-face approach in weekly sessions to make sure that participants are staying on the straight and narrow, as well as compliant with the treatment programs with which they are involved. 

Great idea, isn't it?

Sure, when everything goes smoothly. Which it rarely does in the world of substance use disorders. Then we end up with messes like this:

A 19 year old male is picked up with three of his friends in a parked car, smoking pot. A cop sees one of them throw a blunt out the window, and they are busted. The boy holding the stash gives it up, and the sharp District Attorney realizes that the way the pot is packaged, in little plastic envelopes or "dime bags" means that he can be charged with trafficking, even though the amount is minimal and there is absolutely no indication of any drug dealing going on.

The 19 year old is terrified; a trafficking charge is a felony and carries serious jail time. He doesn't want to go to jail. He pleads guilty to a felony in order to get into drug court and avoid jail time. 

Happy ending?  Not.

Anyone who has worked with young people, knows exactly what I am going to say next. Treatment of young adults is complicated. They struggle, they fail. They take two steps forward and one step back. 

But, you'd figure that a well-trained drug court with a addiction counselor as an advisor would know that and plan accordingly, right?

Wrong. Oh they cut him a couple of breaks, alright. But when that didn't work, the judge decided he had enough, and sent the boy to jail.

To the State Penitentiary at Graterford, for a year and a half.

Six months longer than the District Attorney asked for. 

So, the end result is a boy who is not even legal drinking age is doing a year and a half in a maximum security state prison for smoking pot with his buddies in a parked car.

Enlightened, isn't it?

Give a damn.

Of the stories I reposted from other sources this week, two really stand out in my mind. The first is the profile of my good friend Barri Pepe and Myra's Place, the center she founded for abused, addicted and traumatized women. The other is the story of Jenna Lord, the young woman who disappeared, only to be found dead by her family in a vacant lot in Camden.

The irony, of course, is that Barri founded Myra's Place for young women like Jenna. But for one tiny shift in circumstance or the whims of fate, Jenna could have gone to Myra's Place instead of that weed infested lot in Camden.

Of course, we can never know. Mysteries have truths buried in them, and this mystery is exactly that kind. I could write for pages about all the factors that create tragedies like this but the truth is so simple it hurts.

We need more places like Myra's Place.

We need to begin to take addiction seriously as an epidemic in this country that is destroying a generation.

We need to treat addiction like the illness it is, and stop trying to cure it with jail.

We need not to wait for someone else to do something.

Barri & Myra

We need to give a damn.

Keeping it simple on Independence Day

Nothing gives us blogger types a case of ego inflation like a holiday. We think deep thoughts (or think we do) and feel compelled to share them whether you like it or not. So this year, let's keep in simple.

Aside from being our National Birthday, the day on which we set standards for ourselves that continue to challenge us to this day, it is the Summer Holiday. We celebrate with parades, barbecues and fireworks. For people in active addiction, with the exception of the presence of flammable material and explosives, it's pretty much business as usual. For people in Recovery, however, it presents some challenges. As always, on holidays, the everyday rules are suspended and permissions are granted. There 's nothing wrong with that, except that for some in early recovery it presents some unique situations.

Let me break it down:

1. Your Recovery is your own responsibility. Don't assume that anyone understands addiction, especially a bunch of people involved in their own festivities. If it's hard for you to refuse an offer of a drink or a drug, maybe you would do better to go to a meeting than a barbecue.
2. Watch the temptation to tell war stories. I'm not talking Valley Forge, here, I am talking about glorifying binges and other addiction related behaviors. Euphoric Recall is dangerous for recovering people, because it allows the mind to do essentially the same thing that drugs do. Pain is dulled and pleasure is enhanced. The funny story is only funny when divorced from the painful realities surrounding it. The wild, drunken beer run isn't quite so funny once you acknowledge the kids in the back seat. So keep it real.
3. Remember the support available to you. All those numbers in your cell phone? No, not the guy with the Oxycontin connection--you were supposed to get rid of that! The numbers that you got from all those great people at the 12 Step meetings? Now's the time to use them. Phone Therapy has been one of those mainstays of the 12 Step programs from the beginning. A phone call has made the difference between disaster and relief more times than anyone can count. If you think, should I call? Call.
4. Plan B. You know what that means, right? Plan B is what you use when Plan A doesn't work. It's the strategic retreat. It's making sure that you have an open back door and a ride in case the situation turns out to be a lot more difficult than you expected. Remember that a strategic retreat has won many a war. If the going gets tough, the tough get going, right? Plan B is the way you get going alright--right out the door!

That's the short list. Talk to other clean and sober people and you will have 10 ideas for every one presented here. Independence is the freedom to choose. It's self-determination.

Let this be your Independence Day.

Hiatus; brief

I am dealing with some health issues that are probably going to interrupt the ongoing dialog for a little while.
Hopefully.
Talk with you soon!

The Lie

The first time we learn that we can consciously manipulate the truth for personal gain, we have no idea  what we are doing, what the consequences are and what negative, even evil, power has now entered our lives.
Children usually work at lying, they tell those obvious and broadly transparent fibs that do little to conceal the truth. The turned over cookie jar, spilled milk, messed pants or broken glass give it away pretty quickly. The lie, "I didn't do it!" Or even simply "Nothing!" are comical. Fortunate kids are corrected, and the reason is explained. Not so fortunate kids are stroked and even benignly encouraged. Kids from really dysfunctional families get both, and are left to try and figure it out.
The really dangerous lie is the one that is believed. That's when we learn to lie. Because the believed lie carries something terrific with it; the believed lie carries power.
I don't remember the exact year or grade, but I remember this: it was during Lent. Holy Week, to be specific. My class was in church for one of the solemn services traditional to the Catholic Chirch at that time of year. Some of the other boys and me, bored at the length of the service, began to clown around. We got loud. It distracted the priest, who said something from the altar. This was an unheard of rebuke in the late 50's and early 60's, and we knew that hell was coming as soon as the rite was over. You could see the nuns already shaking their heads and feel the tangible atmosphere of fear and doom that filled the church like the scent of incense..

We were instructed to stay after the service. The priest came out and asked "who was laughing?" No one spoke. He had someone bring out the crucifix, a big crucifix, with an agonized, bloody Christ on it. One by one the nuns brought the boys up to the crucifix and the priest asked "Were you laughing.?"
Everyone gave it up. They cried, they shook, they sweat and they admitted that they were laughing.
Everyone except me.
I hated to be kept after school, I hated detention and I especially hated boredom.
And, I had the idea in my head that as long as I didn't give in, they couldn't do anything to me. I mean, I knew that they could carry on and slap me around, which was common in those days, but they couldn't really do anything to me.
So I lied. When he asked if I was laughing, I said "No."
And they did holler and shake me and slap me. They made me kiss the cross and asked me again. My peers looked at me with hate in their eyes, and I lied. They took me around to all the grades, and  the crucifix, and asked me in front of all the other kids, and I lied.
And finally, they let me go.
Over the Easter break, every other boy had assignments to write (The Apostles Creed, 100x), convent basements to clean, parents to answer to (because they were called, of course.)
I read comics and played basketball.
I felt on top of the world.
I felt powerful.
I had lied, and was believed. I figured I had pretty much damned myself to hell, so what the heck. Might as well be out for me.
Obviously, this was not my last lie.
I lied about it the first time I drank alcohol, and I lied about it the first time I smoked pot and I probably lied about it when I popped my first pill or took my first hit of dope.
I lied to spouses, children, employers, landlords, friends and lovers.
It took me a dozen years to find my way to recovery and another forty years to find my way back to God.
I don't lie today. I don't lie because I really believe that my recovery and my connection to God can be easily severed, because both are truth and lying kills the truth.
Because every time I lied, I hurt someone. Starting with those kids writing the Apostles Creed who looked at me as a friend and then felt stupid and betrayed as a result of my actions.
Anyhow, a lot of my young clients seem to have the same disease I had, and we talk about it. They might say, well I don't know, I don't want to get clean and sober.
I say, then let's just work on telling the truth.

Resolutions

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Remember those New Years' Resolutions?

How are you doing with them? The promise to stop smoking at midnight on New Years Eve?

The resolution to exercise every day?

The commitments to walk more, eat less, and clean all that stuff out of the hall closet?

Chances are, not a lot has happened. It's understandable, because the very behaviors we often seem to be the most eager to be rid of are the ones actuallly most diffucult to change. Why is this? Because as bright as we van be about some things, we remain downright stupid about how people change.

If it was as easy as making a resolution and setting a date, then change would be simple and easy. We'd say, here's what I want to change, and have at it. That's how we like to think about change. Every family has a story about Uncle Joe who drank for twenty years and then saw the light. That was that, never touched another drop. Or Aunt Lucille, who ran on Newports and coffee for forty years, then had that cancer scare and never touched either, just like that!

That's how we tend to think about change. And that's part of what makes change difficult. It's a process, not an event. The Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucille stories are impressive, and often true. They are inspiring, but do very little to suggest a model for change. and the reason may be genetic. This link explains more.

No kidding, those pesky genes may well be playing a part in the process of change. It appears, according to some current research, that scientists have linked genetics to difficulty stopping cigarette smoking. It seems that some of us have "easy" genes and some of us have "tough" genes. If you are blessed with easy genes, then guess what? You quit smoking just like Aunt Lucille. If you have "tough" genes, though, quitting is likely not to be a walk in the park. You'll try, fail, have some success, try again, and so forth. Eventually, you'll quit.

I say that with a degree of confidence, because I quit smoking almost three years ago, and I was no Aunt Lucille smoker. I smoked in earnestr for over 40 years. My first serious attempt to stop smoking was in 1977 and I finally made it to non-smoker in 2007. None of this is delivered so that I can pat myself on the back, or eexpect you to. If anything, it indicates that I am a very slow learner with some seriously stubborn genes. But it does say something about a different way of looking at change.

• We think about change before we change. It took a lot of thinking about being a non-smoker before I was ready to try it, even for a day.
• Support counts; shame sucks. Having people in your corner who want to see you change is great. You can tell who they are because they always say, I know you can do this.  If they don't, and especially if they talk a lot about what you "should" do and "should" have done, watch out. Especially if the person telling you what you "should have done" is you!
• Perseverance usually trumps everything else. If you keep trying, you will achieve your goal. It's that simple. It's no coincidence that the greatest fellowships for helping people tto change use the motto "One Day At A Time." That's a way off keeping things very simple: just keep trying to do your best every day.

And if you do, you will change. I promise!

A Disgrace

Image via Wikipedia

"The national data released today confirms that untreated alcohol and drug addiction remains at pandemic levels, with 23 million Americans suffering from the disease, approximately the same number that suffers from type 2 diabetes," said Victor Capoccia, director of the Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap initiative. "But you wouldn't know it from the way our country responds to the problem. Only one in ten Americans affected by addiction is treated, as opposed to four out of five people with diabetes." --Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)

This can't be okay.

We have had "wars on drugs"; we have had "just say no"; we have had boot camps; we have had zero tolerance policies.

Not one of them, frankly, has been worth a damn. Like the man said, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is a definition of insanity.

Let's try a little common sense.

1. Get serious about the fact that we are talking about a disease. Not bad habits or behavior. Not a lack of "will power". Note some personal weakness, but a disease. An illness. A malady. Like cancer. Like heart disease. Like schizophrenia. A disease.
2. Make treatment available on demand. No crap, no managed care nonsense, no nothing. If you ask for treatment you get it. Plus, let's look at some of the highly successful ways of getting someone into treatment, like intervention.
   
3. Let's redefine the role of the Criminal Justice System. Is there any other illness in which the courts take such an active interest? Criminal Behavior should be where the courts come in, and rightly so. We are all responsible for our actions, and have to face the consequences. But, let's not criminalize the fact of the illness itself. It does nothing more than to force the addict further underground into a subculture promoting ever more anti-social and deviant behavior. Someone commits a crime--robs a store, shoots someone over a drug deal or during a theft, then they deal with the law and accept fair punishment. But regardless, if drugs are at the heart of the crime, then treatment has to be a part of their rehabilitation. Somewhere along the line, we forgot that most of the people in jail are not hardened criminals, they are excellent candidates for a second chance.
4. Listen to families, they want help and they want to help. Families need education in addiction and help to deal with the devastating consequences of addiction. Substance Abuse Treatment, unfortunately, is not family friendly. Not that there are not exceptions, but where I live, there is exactly one (1) family education program run at no cost. In case nobody noticed, that's not enough.

Addiction is an individual's nightmare, a family tragedy, and national health emergency. The limitation of treatment to the point were less than 10% of individuals impacted by the illness are receiving treatment, is a national disgrace.

We are so much better than that.

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The Sacred And The Profane: Spirituality in Recovery

I was having a cup of coffee the other day with Grateful John. He said that he was angry with his daughter over her arrest for drunk driving, and described what options he had. It went something like this:

"I wanted to bust her blanking face in and slap some blanking sense into her but my blanking conscience kicked in and told me to call my blanking sponsor. I did, and he said to pray on it. blanking pray? I'll blank pray, I said. But I did, and I asked my Higher Power to take the whole thing over because I couldn't blanking deal with it. I had to turn it the blank# over to God as I understand Him and get out of the blanking way. I'm not ready to deal with that, I look at her and see myself, my own blanked up excuses and I get angry, not at her. At me for being a blanked up father because of this blanking illness. Thank God I called my Sponsor"

Only he didn't really say blank

I am not thinking that Grateful John is likely to be helping the Pope draft his Christmas Encyclical this year, but I do believe that his faith and trust in God, and his willingness to do God's will, are as strong and valid and true as any more pious, and less profane individual's.

This is a good example of the way that the sacred and the profane co-exist in the 12 Step Programs. As my Uncle Jerry the Bartender, sober over 30 years in AA, once said, "a lot of us aren't exactly Choirboys when we come in."

It's true. It's also true that very few addicts and alcoholics seek out the 12 Step programs because they feel a sudden need for spiritual growth. Addicted people go to meetings out of fear and desperation. Sometimes desperation for something that will work and fear that they have found it. The illness of addiction so utterly takes over an addict's life that in a pathetically perverse paradox, the thing destroying them (the addiction) feels like the only thing that makes life bearable. To threaten the addiction with recovery is like threatening life itself, and every corrupted survival mechanism kicks in. Addicts come to their first 12 Step meetings in fight or flight mode.

And yet, there they are, usually hanging right on the wall, or in case someone missed them, read out loud at the beginning of the meeting:

The Twelve Steps of Narcotics Anonymous
1. We admitted we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

It doesn't leave a lot of room for doubt that this is a spiritual program with a Higher Power at the heart of it.

So, how does the world of the active addict and the world of the spirit co-exist?

Pretty Good, actually. Ask Grateful John why he's grateful?

(More to come)

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Do The Right Thing.

Image by Leonard John Matthews via Flickr

Sometimes, you just have to do what's right.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine, Stacey Gill, approached me with an idea for a group for kids from families with substance abuse issues. I was skeptical at first, but eventually realized the importance of doing something to help some kids before they got into trouble.

Also, as anyone who knows Stacey would agree, she can be very persistent.

Anyway, with the help of a grant through the Healthy Communities Initiative and the County Office of Behavioral Health, we got this little group off the ground, and for over a year some kids were able to come to a safe place to talk about whatever was on their minds without fear of retribution or resentment. They laughed, cried, played games, learned meditation and stress management techniques, and got a snack. They learned about addiction, family roles, skills to help survive in an addicted family. It became a very rewarding group to do.

Until I got the news last week that because of the budget crisis in Pennsylvania, no one knew when or if the grant would be renewed.

Now, I know that there are more inportant cutbacks and shutoffs than Stacey and my little group. I have talked to out of work fathers and mothers whose unemployment has been held up, families who are waiting for some relief in the areas of health care and fearful of cuts in school programs and vital public services like fire departments and police stations.

Against that backdrop, how important can one little group for Children of Substance Abusing Families be?

Well, considering that kids from families with drug and alcohol problems are more likely to become addicts themselves, to get arrested, to have unplanned pregnancies, to contract STD's, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis and the variety of illnesses related to cigarette smoking, not to mention the fact that their kids are at higher risk of addiction and alcoholism, maybe more important than one would think.

At any rate, Stacey and I have decided that it's too important to shut down. So, we aren't shutting it down.

Grant or no grant, funding or no funding, this group is going to continue. Every Thursday, 4:00 to 5:30 PM, Stacey and I will be doing the group at Ken Williams' Recovery, 300 W. State St., Media PA 19063.

We won't charge for it, and we won't get paid. It's not that we don't care about that, neither of us are independently wealthy, but as we are faced with hard choices these days, sometimes the choice is, simply, to do the right thing. And the right thing is to stand by our words. We told these kids from families of chaos that we would be there for them, so there we will be.

And the snacks are on us.

The Art of Intervention Part II

The Drama Triangle, as Karpman described it, is an ongoing, series of rigidly patterned behaviors, driven by unfulfilled needs. See http://www.karpmandramatriangle.com/ for more information on the Drama Triangle, including an excellent piece relating the triangle to classic alcoholic and addicted family roles.

At any rate, if we use the Drama Triangle as a starting point, we see the roles to which we are relegated in the disease of addiction. We become reactive; our actions dictated by the behaviors of the sick addict. We can scold, extravagantly rescue, feel abandoned and guilty. We can experience mood swings based on someone else's drug use or drinking.

We get sick. Literally.

In The Medical Aspects of Codependency Dr. Max Schneider identifies a variety of medical issues that develop as someone becomes enmeshed in a codependent relationship with an addict. http://www.fmsproductions.com/substance-abuse-videos/MedAsp/CoDep.php

Most importantly, we lose the ability to act. We can only react. We cannot act in the best interests of the addict. We cannot even act in our own best interests. We either continue in the downward spiral of emotional addiction or we run away, filled with anger and shame and traumatized by the experience.

Is it any wonder why a family member or other loved one of an addict gets butterflies and sweaty palms at the thought of confronting the addiction? Not at all. Because when we do, we are not only intervening in the person whom we love's addiction, we are also intervening in our own codependency. We are reclaiming our ability to act, with all of the risk and responsibility that implies, in our own self-interest, and the interest of the addict.

Enough to make anyone nervous!

Next--why you need a professional interventionist.

INTERVENTION: Not a "Reality Show"--Reality!

I've been doing Interventions for over 25 years and have a couple of things to get off of my chest. First of all, any comparison between the reality of Intervention as a process to help families deal with a potentially terminal illness and what is portrayed on television is absolute rubbish.

The tv show is simply one more negative stereotype of the addict as a comic/tragic figure, so degraded that others have to emotionally manhandle them into acting in their best interest. The thought that any reputable Interventionist would allow the subject of an intervention to be photographed and exploited for entertainment purposes is disgusting (and unethical.) It would be the equivalent of basing a reality show on the entertaining factors in radiation therapy, radical surgery or perhaps amputees adjusting to their new prostheses. The absence of integrity, concern for the well-being of the addicted individual is appalling.

Real Interventions are a process in which people who love someone with an addictive disorder are educated in the facts of the disease; they learn to recognize their own patterns of dysfunction, such as enabling. The empowered family then learns positive confrontation--addressing the addict from a place of love and appropriate concern. It takes a few sessions, but it is extraordinarily effective.

Oh, and did I mention that it doesn't cost a million bucks, either? The truth is that Interventions are well within the means of most families, and scholarships and arrangements are available for families in need.

At any rate, if you need any information on real Interventions, please email me at KenWilliamsCAC@gmail.com.

Love & Peace