Mighty Wings Life Centre
" In the shadow of your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by"
Psalm 57.1
What happens to families when a loved one is addicted to drugs?
- Homes become a warzone
- The family’s possessions and money are stolen for drugs.
- Energy is sapped by continual worry and anxiety
- Feels guilty, ashamed and often responsible for the problem
- Become consumed with the addict and the affects of their addiction on the family.
- Centre their lives around the addict. Neglect themselves.
- Feel overwhelmed by fear of what will happen to their addicted loved one
- They go through stages of grief and loss.
- They can suffer burn-out, high levels of stress and even post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Take risks and expose themselves to danger trying to help or locate their addicted loved one.
- Continual stress, lack of sleep, and exhaustion affects their health, marriage, work, and relationships.
- Marriage relationships become strained. High levels of strife and arguing occurs in the family.
- Other children suffer neglect due to the continual drain on time and energy spent on the addict and problems caused by them.
- Often feel misunderstood and misjudged by others. Some have lost close family and friends.
- They isolate. Often they would rather be alone, and feel “who understands anyway?”
- One’s self-worth, confidence, and value are severely depreciated by the continual abuse - “What am I trying for?”
- Their lives, health, emotions, finances, etc. gets hammered
- They question themselves, “What do I have to do to have a normal life?”
- They can question God. “How much more God?”(as if drugs were dispensed from Heaven).
- One’s ability to handle life and cope with every day situations become impaired by the over burdening affects of addiction and all the stress and pain it causes
The wrong ways most families try to cope:
- Denial –“it’ll pass, it’s just a phase, it isn’t that bad, all kids experiment, it won’t happen again, etc.”
- “I’ll take control. He will have to listen to me. I’ll threaten with prison or death. I’ll scare the hell out of him. I’ll beat the hell out of him. I’ll throw him out. I’ll force him to deal with it. I’ll get in his face and make it his problem.”
- “I’ll take responsibility, he obviously can’t cope with this, so I’ll handle it.” (How much of their chaos can you really handle before it handles you?)
- “I will beg, plead, cry, bargain, explain and eventually he will get it.”
- “I will ask them to trust me and inform me of their using, and as long as I know what they are doing they will be safe.”
- “I will use with them so that I can understand them, be with them and not lose them.”
- Blame one another and themselves for the problem. Attack one another instead of confronting the problem.
- Harden themselves to the pain of what is actually happening and procrastinate making decisions
- Increase their tolerance for abuse and chaos.
- Believe if they try harder, and do more that they can keep everything together. Take on the abdicated responsibilities of the addicted person.
- Cover and even lie for the addicted person to prevent them suffering the consequences of their irresponsibility e.g. work absenteeism.
- Buy their drugs for them to protect them from their dealers, police or harm.
- Believe the lie that they could fix or handle the problem on their own and do not talk about it.
- Often obsessed with the notion that they can fix and control, they continue with the craziness and compulsively keep trying. The emotional roller-coaster never ends.
- Avoid the issues, thereby enabling prolonged drug abuse.
These efforts fail because?
- While in active addiction addicts are mostly unable and unwilling to stop. The drug has them, not they the drug.
- Nothing you have experienced has trained you to handle the stress of coping with an addicted loved one.
- You do not have the power or ability to remove drugs from their world.
- The addict was lied to, “try this, it’s cool, YOU have the power to stop when you want”. They cannot control the drug - it controls them.
- The addict is a master manipulator and will convince you that he is going to change and will get you to give him what he wants.
- Trying to control them is a set-up to failure. You can only control your own behaviour and that’s difficult enough!
- You had no idea of what you were dealing with but believed, “this is my child and therefore MY problem - it’s my job to sort this out or what kind of a parent am I?” (Strange that we don’t feel that way with diabetes, or cancer.)
- Addiction is a disease that can be successfully managed. Long term addiction often requires long term rehabilitation.
What does work?
- Acknowledge you cannot fix, control or cure your addicted loved one.
- Educate yourself about addiction.
- Get information about rehabilitation and treatment options.
- Accept that the addict is bound in their addiction and that you will probably have to intervene on their behalf.
- Get professional advice about the right treatment for your loved one.
- Ask about interventions, and what the process entails.
- If necessary remove the addict to a secure, drug-free environment whereby your life can begin to return to some sort of ‘normality’ and they can get the treatment they need.
- Restore your spirituality. Attend church.
- Fear and anxiety never stopped the problem. Do what is yours to do and hand the rest to God.
- Define and enforce boundaries of acceptable behaviour toward you and in your home with consequences attached.
- Allow the addicted person to feel the consequences of their choices.
- Join a support group. Work a 12 step program
- Talk about your problems. Receive counselling for your wounded emotions, pains, fears, the trashing of your rights and the resentments that it caused.
- Acknowledge the abuse you suffered and admit your own dysfunctional behaviours in trying to cope.
- Recognize how control has operated in your life and root out habits of controlling and enabling
- Change ‘old ways’ of doing things.
- Restore order and discipline in the family. Each member must step into their rightful roles.
- Family members need to talk about their feelings.
- Start loving your self again. Be a kind friend to you.
- Understand that God has chosen to honour and respect the free will choice of His creation with the consequences of those choices. Allow others to feel the consequences of their choices.
- Accepting their choice does not mean that you cannot make decisions of your own for your own life. Refusing to accept another’s choices sets you up to fight a war you cannot win.
- Forgive yourself for the mistakes you have made and forgive other for theirs.
- There is a way out. You do not have to tolerate abuse or a life of chaos and strife
- Recover what was lost. You cannot mend something if you do not acknowledge that it is damaged.
- In our own recovery we start to find ourselves again, our family and friends. Order is restored, concentration returns with better sleep. We even discover our lost sense of humour.
- Learn what you need to do to support your loved one in their recovery.
- Partner with your addict to assist him in following through the principles they learnt in re-hab of how to manage their addiction.eg. Strict adherence to the relapse prevention plan.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, I thank you that you are a kind and loving God.
I give my addict to You and ask You to heal me of the damaging affects of trying to control him.
Coping my way was exhausting and destructive.
I submit my life to you Lord Jesus and ask that you would heal me from the damaging affects of addiction.
Rule and reign in and through me with love, power, wisdom and strength and bring me peace.
Amen
I give my addict to You and ask You to heal me of the damaging affects of trying to control him.
Coping my way was exhausting and destructive.
I submit my life to you Lord Jesus and ask that you would heal me from the damaging affects of addiction.
Rule and reign in and through me with love, power, wisdom and strength and bring me peace.
Amen