I woke up this morning and walked out onto the patio and took a long deep breath of fresh air. The sun was coming up, the grass is turning green and the long cold winter is finally behind us. The smell of spring and new life is in the air.
Five years ago I entered a long term rehabilitation program; my life was a mess and I never though it possible that years later I would be happy and healthy or even still alive.
Today I am a productive and active part of society, the long term program that I went through taught me how to handle life. It taught me how to live in the present and not get lost in my past. It taught me that no matter what I had done in my past it did not have to control what I would do in the future. I owe my life to that program and to the caring people that stuck by me through those horrible years of addiction.
The past is history, the future is a mystery. Living in the moment is a gift; that’s why they call it the “present”.
As parents you do your best to raise bright, ethical and responsible children. You watch them grow from toddlers to teens and sure we all scratch our heads and say his "mother or father (which ever the case is) must have taught him that…" but over all they seem to be alright and well adjusted.
When you start to notice he or she is acting strangely you think to yourself it’s just a phase he is going through, it will pass. You turn a blind eye to the sometimes obvious signs of addiction because that could never happen here. We go to church and we’re the ideal hard working family. Our son or daughter could not be abusing drugs. The day comes and it is impossible to ignore any longer. He’s been arrested or in an accident or comes to you and says Mom, Dad "I need help." Your heart stops and you can’t believe what is going on. How could this happen? What is the rest of the family going to think? What are they going to say at church about us?
You try to make a decision on what to do. As a parent you do not want to over react and you do not want the embarrassment of everyone knowing your son or daughter is an addict. So you hide it from friends and family and set strict rules for him to follow. You start by taking away the car or whatever measure of control you think you can enforce. Then maybe some counseling or something like that and you convince yourself that everything will be okay, maybe he just got off on the wrong track or he was hanging out with the wrong kids. Yes, that’s it - the wrong kids - that’s the problem. You use any excuse to stop the pain you are feeling over "what did I do wrong"? How did we fail as parents so badly?
Well the story goes on but the thing we all have to realize is that addiction knows no bounds. Addiction has no prejudices. Over the past 20 years I have seen addicts from all walks of life; big cities, small towns, the son of a Police Chief, the daughter of a pastor, collage graduates from Ivy League schools, 13 year olds to 68 years olds. You name it, every boundary has been crossed, even Drug Addiction Counselors can not always protect their children from the throws of addiction.
The best advice anyone can give is when you think something is wrong pay attention. An addict will always say everything is fine, "no problem here" - and as parents we want to believe that. But if you feel something is wrong or your child is acting strangely, it’s because they are! If your child lives at home, go out and buy a drug testing kit from the pharmacy and ask him or her to take it. If they throw a fit and say "that’s bullshit, you don’t even trust me" -do not feel like you have hurt the situation because if they had nothing to hide they would smile and take it willingly. Do not let them manipulate the situation and make you feel like a traitor. You are trying to save their life.
Finally, do not let your embarrassment over what someone else is going to think stop you from getting the right help the first time. If your kid has a problem with drugs or alcohol do not take it lightly. Call a professional that has been through this situation before. Do not follow the old saying they have to hit bottom before you can help them. Prison and Death are the rock bottom for an addict. Family support is important for recovery. Getting away from their home turf so they can focus on their recovery and not call someone to pick them up every time the have a bad day is also crucial to successful recovery.
When you’re dealing with an addict who will not admit he or she has a problem or is not willing to recieve treatment, then a intervention is needed. There are nearly as many intervention services as there is Addiction-Treatment facilities, and like treatment facilities not all of them have high success rates. You need to know where to turn when it is time for an Intervention.
First, you need to have an addiction treatment facility picked out and be ready to admit your loved one after the intervention is completed successfully. Second you need to find qualified intervention services. While a pastor, priest or a local counselor may be willing to help, you usually only have one shot at a successful intervention so it needs to be done by qualified intervention professionals. You can always have your local priest or support network attending with you and the intervention professional.
A qualified intervention service with high success rates will not only work with the addict, but will spend the day before working with the family. They know the Intervention is going to be more difficult on the family than the addict, and they have to prepare the family for worst case scenarios. This can not all be completed in just a few hours before the intervention takes place - like some Interventionists will try to do.
If you are looking for an Intervention Professional or Addiction Treatment facility, call us @ 1-866-599-7342.
As a recovered addict I can tell you my family called me the master manipulator for many years. I not only manipulated money from people but I also manipulated forgiveness and trust from people that never should have forgiven or trusted me.
Over the past five years as an Addiction-Treatments Counselor I have talked to countless families that told me “he (or she) is the best manipulator ever. He will tell you what you want to hear and make you believe he does not even have a problem”.
This is not an individual trait to your son or daughter, it is part of the addiction. Addicts normally do not hold steady jobs and usually can not support themselves so they play on the sympathy of others. They will say and do whatever it takes for someone (especially parents) to get money, food, a car, a place to stay. For parents this often turns into enabling the addict. If you continually give into the manipulation and give them the things they need/want you are enabling them to continue the life style they are currently living and in the addicts mind you are saying its okay to live this way.
I am a recovered addict, an addiction treatment counselor and the parent of a 20 year old son. I do understand that turning away your son or daughter when they need help is something very difficult indeed. As a parent you are there to help your kids but if you enable them to continue living this way you are actually killing them. Imagine if you gave your son or daughter just $20.00 (for gas they said) and they overdose with it, or they kill a family because they were drunk driving. You have to be strong and not enable the addict even when they are the “master manipulator”.
For more information on this subject please call the professionals at:
Close your eyes. Now imagine you have had a really bad day. Not just a bad day at work but I mean like you caught your spouse cheating on you, or a death of someone really close to you. You need someone too talk to, someone that you have known for along time and you can really confide in. You call your best friends and they don’t answer. You slowly make your way to their house and the car is in the driveway but no one answers the door. You walk away thinking my life is falling apart and I do not even have a friend to talk to or just sit with for a while. You go home and sit in your house alone, beaten, with no one to talk to just you and the four walls closing in around you.
When an addict goes into treatment they will make up every excuse you can imagine in order to leave or even get kicked out- one of the main reasons for this is fear. Fear that their best friend (drugs and Alcohol) will not be there to support them when they complete the program. Fear of burying themselves they are thinking I will never go back to my life, I am burying the old me. They will even go though a grieving process of mourning the lose of their old life. They are sad and scared and angry they need to self medicate to make them selfs feel better. They cannot see they need to learn a different way to cope with life, the life they have been living is the only life they know.
This may seem strange to people that have never walked in an addicts shoes, but when I finally recieved the help I needed to end a 15 year Drug and Alcohol Addiction I went through this process. At first I was scared but I was in the right Addiction-Treatment Center and over the next 3 months they help me understand why I was scared and how to live a better life then the one I left behind. I realized that I had not lost my best friend, I had lost the dead weight off my back and I could finally start to live a productive and full life.
I have been an Addiction-Treatment counselor for five years now and have seen this over and over. If you have a loved one that is in treatment and they are telling you all the reasons they need to come home you need to be strong. If tough love got them there, then you you to continue on with it. Be firm with them and do not let them manipulate their way back into your life with out the treatment they need.
I went into long term, addiction treatment, six years ago for a cocaine problem.While in the program my wife delivered me divorce papers.Looking back, it was the best place I could have been to receive such horrible and lonely news.All these years later, the woman I was currently engaged to, and in love with, delivered me “break-up news” in a very messy and abrupt way.While I am very depressed and broken hearted and devastated, I have not and will not use alcohol or drugs to deal with this pain.I have to go through the pain sober and clean this time around.What I learned in a long term inpatient treatment center are the life skills and knowledge to face pain and life on it’s own terms – to confront.
For years my family sat by waiting for me to hit bottom before they begain to seek the Addiction-Treatment they knew I needed. It seemed everyone they talked to said the same thing “He has to hit bottom before he can get help”. Well every time I would get into trouble or overdose they would think okay this is it, he has “hit bottom”. Unfortunatly I didn’t realize that should have been my bottom, I never stopped, I would get out of jail or out of the hospital and start all over again and they would still be waiting. Finally they decided they had to step in, it had been 15 years of hell for them to sit by and wait for me to make a decision that I was incapable of making. I was being discharged from the hospital after another near death experience, my parents came to pick me up as they had done so many times before, but this time they had all my bags packed and did not take “no” for an answer. They brought me straight to a long term rehabilitation center. That was over 5 years ago and if they had not told me this is it, you will die if you do not except the help we are offering I would not have stopped then either. I knew they where right and I did except the help, but I never would have asked for it or addmitted that I had “Hit Bottom”.
The only reality that an addict can see is that they cannot live without their drugs, being sober is a reality they cannot face. If you are waiting for an addict to “Hit Bottom” you need to start looking for a cemitary plot because death is “Hitting Bottom” to an addict.
Please do not wait for a loved one to hit bottom, there are alot of great drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers out there that do not believe in this out dated thought process. Call a referal source for addiction-treatments like my parents did and let them guide you to the best center for your specific needs.
Drug abuse is intertwined throughout our society, rural areas are as deeply impacted as large cities. People who fight to legalize drugs are ignoring the cost of drugs on society.
Drug users are three times more likly to be involved in on the job accidents, are absent from work twice as often, and incure three times the average sickness cost of a non user.
Virtually all experts agree that there is a strong link between teen age suicide and illegal drug use.
The connection between the crime rate and illegal drug use is also well known. In New York City eight out of ten men arrested for serious crimes test positive for cocaine.
It is estimated that one out of every ten Americans went to work this morning impared enough to effect their productivity levels.
Drug abuse in the work place is costing our nation as much as $100 billion annually in lost productivity.
Over 300,000 people were admitted to the emergency room in one year with drug related health issues.
Source “The War on Drugs” (The Green Haven Press)
The doller amounts are not the only cost that comes with drug abuse, neglected childeren, spouse abuse, and broken homes are the real cost of addiction.
If you have a loved one that is in need of Drug or Alcohol Addiction-Treatments it is up to you to find them the help they need. The addict is not capable to seek treatment or to search out the best Addiction-Treatments for them self. Click here for Addiction-Treatment help.
When I was 40 years old I was at the end of a long term addiction to alcohol and drugs. On December 2, 2003 my family brought me to a long-term in house rehabilitation center, said a prayer with me and left me there in a last attempt to save my life. They put me into a program that cost more then what my Dad had made in a year when he had been working (he was retired at this time), but they knew nothing else had worked up to this point. All of the detox and 28 day programs I had been through had not given me the tools I needed to maintain any long term sobriety. Well, that was over four years ago. I am sober and living a life I never thought possible at that time. I have watched my son graduate and start off on his life. I am living with my wife of 22 years and I often think of my past drug and alcohol addiction and thank God my family looked for a long term addiction treatment center that gave me the tools I needed to have the life I am living now.
Crystal meth has become the new crack with the exception that making meth is easier than making crack The National Association of Counties, surveyed 500 law enforcement groups in 45 states, found that 58% rated meth as the number one drug problem.
Long-term methamphetamine abuse results in many damaging effects, including addiction. This is characterized by compulsive drug-seeking and drug use which is accompanied by functional and molecular changes in the brain. In addition to being addicted to methamphetamine, chronic methamphetamine abusers exhibit symptoms that can include violent behavior, anxiety, confusion, and insomnia. They also can display a number of psychotic features, including paranoia, auditory hallucinations, mood disturbances, and delusions (for example, the sensation of insects creeping on the skin). The paranoia can result in homicidal as well as suicidal thoughts.
The short term risks are significant and include death, repercussions of regular use are physically devastating and mentally anguishing. Meth addiction results in tremendous personal torment. Desperate meth users who’ve been deprived of their fix have been observed picking and eating scabs off of their bodies, along with going to the extreme of drinking their own urine in an effort to try to find enough meth chemicals to get high.
A demon drug, even in small doses it’s deadly, 99% of first-time meth users are hooked after the first try. It is also known as ice, jib, glass or speed and it has become a major worry in North America because of its increasing popularity and its devastating effects.
This synthetic stimulant is made of ghastly array of over-the-counter chemicals such as battery acid, brake fluid, floor-stripper, drain cleaner and flammable retardants found in fireworks. These are just a few of the ready-made products that make up the glass-like shards that users usually smoke or snort. Meth can also be injected, or ingested orally.
Nationwide, 7.6% of high school students surveyed in 2003 as part of the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System reported using methamphetamine during their lifetimes. Male students (8.3%) were more likely than female students (6.8%) to report lifetime methamphetamine use. Hispanic (8.3%) and white (8.1%) students were more likely than black (3.1%) students to use methamphetamine within their lifetime.
According to data from the 2004 National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health;
110 million Americans age 12 or older (46% of the population) reported illicit drug use at least once in their lifetime 15% reported use of a drug within the past year 8% reported use of a drug within the past month.
Among students surveyed as part of the 2005 Monitoring The Future study, 3.1% of eighth graders, 4.1% of tenth graders, and 4.5% of twelfth graders reported lifetime use of methamphetamine. In 2004, these percentages were 2.5%, 5.3%, and 6.2%, respectively.
During 2004, 5.2% of college students and 9% of young adults (ages 19–28) reported lifetime use of methamphetamine.
These statistics show that meth is no joke. Ninety-nine percent of first time users are hooked after their first try and the life expectancy of a person who uses meth regularly is as little as five years. A 1999 study of the methamphetamine problem reports, methamphetamine abusers were characterized as low socio economic status, less educated, relatively young white males. Today the majority of methamphetamine abusers still tend to fit that profile.
Joanna Young, national president of theDrug Addiction Helpline adds, “Illicit drug use is associated with suicide, homicide, motor-vehicle injury, HIV infection, pneumonia, violence, mental illness, and hepatitis. It is harmful to not only the individual but the community.”
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