The Long Good Friday

No one could call him an alcoholic.

He stopped drinking every year, for Lent.

No Windsor; no Schmidts. No ice cubes clinking in the glass in the kitchen after he got home from work. No snap and hiss of a pop-top.

From Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.

Dry.

Not a drop.

Although the house was quieter, the woman and the boy found it hard to relax. There was a tension that never found a voice.

He smoked more.

He ate a lot of peppermints. Sometimes at night the boy would hear him walking down the hallway to the stairs, and down the stairs to the kitchen. He could picture him sitting at the kitchen table, smoking.

On the weekends, watching sports, he would make the boy sit with him. He drank soda. He would hold it under the boy's nose.

Smell it, he would say. See? No booze. Tell your mother. Tell her no booze.

He would tell her when she came in from the store. The woman would say, that's good.

But she didn't smile.

The man said, I gave it up. For Lent.

The woman would say under her breath, for Lent.

Good Friday, they would go to church and do the Stations of the Cross. The man would seem distracted. When they got home, his mood would change. He would laugh loudly, and sometimes suddenly clap his hands together, and say boy, oh boy. The woman would busy herself in the kitchen. The boy wasn't allowed to go out to play on Good Friday, so he would go to his room. He could hear the man talking loudly to the woman.

Lent was almost over. No one could call him an alcoholic. 

30 Million

A story I posted Thursday from MarketWatch.com reported that 10% of all Americans identify themselves as recovering from an addiction.

That's 30 million people. Think about that: 30 million.

That's more than the combined populations of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia.

30 million votes are a significantly higher number than the winning margin of the popular vote in every Presidential election in history.

Sweden, Denmark, Afghanistan, North Korea, Switzerland and Austral; all with populations well below 30 million.

If there is enough of us to win an election, fill a city or populate a country, then how come we are doing such a lousy job of making our presence felt?

Have you heard a politician--just one politician--say anything substantial whatsoever about addiction or recovery? Have you had someone close to you need treatment for a substance use disorder, only to encounter lengthy waiting lists for treatment beds? Or ridiculous admission criteria? Or an insurance company that agrees to the need for treatment but simply refuses to pay?

And that is just one little area. Whether you think about the courts, social approbation, issues related to health and welfare--ask yourself what other special interest group of 30 million people would let itself be so rudely treated. Ask yourself what 30 million votes could accomplish.

30 million. Just a thought.

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

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.

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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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.