Addiction is hard, it’s hard to live with an addict, it’s hard to recover from addiction as well. Watching an addict go through the shame and guilt while they are recovering can be a sad process; knowing they’re struggling with their recovery makes you sensitive to the hurt and shame they’re feeling. As a parent you want to comfort them, you are so happy they are not using anymore, you feel it’s over now, you want to let them know it’s all OK when you see them hurting… but it wasn’t OK… it wasn’t OK to steal my credit card and spend close to $1000 in four hours…it wasn’t OK to take our families TV and trade it for drugs (TWICE!)… it wasn’t OK to steal from my car or my purse or my house…. it wasn’t OK to steal from your grandparents… it wasn’t OK to call me a whore or your father an asshole… it wasn’t OK to beat the window out of my car, put holes in our walls, break furniture and light fixtures in our home….it wasn’t OK to end up in jail for multiple charges that caused damage and hurt to people and businesses… and all sorts of other behaviors to feed your addiction were not OK either. What is OK is that you are hurting as you recover and thinking about what addiction did to others, more importantly though, what it did to you. I don’t feel we should dismiss feelings of hurt because of what they did while using; feeling shame and remorse for past behavior is part of recovery. We shouldn’t worry this process will cause them to relapse, it may, relapses are part of the process as well. Help them through the shame and guilt but never tell them it was all ok or not to think/worry about past behaviour; they need to know the effects their addiction had on loved ones. They need to know they can recover and make amends in time; let them know you believe they can do it and help or encourage them to keep going when they get down or even after a relapse.
We know Christopher is soaring now compared to 18 months ago; we know he’s trying hard to recover but there are times the old behaviour shows its head. There are times that old habits formed in active addiction still come up; it will take a while to break learned behavior. Christopher’s addiction started in adolescence, fairly serious by 16, and continued until he was 26, that’s a crucial emotional, social and life skills learning period for most young adults. Think about how much you learned between 16 and 26, a lot of growing happens during that time, growing that gets stunted when youth get off track and heavy in to hard drugs, not to mention the effects on the chemistry of the brain.
It is true on the caregiver’s side as well, learned behaviors are hard to stop. There are times you will wonder if they’re lying or feel you shouldn’t leave valuables like a wallet or purse out in the open. There haven’t been holes in the walls, things gone missing or calls to the cops in our house in well over a year now but I still wonder at times ….will that return? Will we go through that heartache again or are we done with that part? It’s hard to let go of worries you had for soooo long…. again, that’s OK, all part of recovery. You can’t expect to fix what took the better part of a decade to break in just a year or two. The whole family needs to recover from one person’s (although it is rarely just one per family) addiction and deal with what it has done to family relationships.
Addicts in recovery even after a long time has passed will still call themselves an addict. They understand it is a disease that could come back at any time. It could be triggered by trauma; it could be triggered by flashbacks or guilt or shame; it could even be triggered by something good happening when you feel celebratory; it could come back easily just like my cancer could come back; are there things I can do to prevent it coming back? … sure …and there are things addicts can do to ensure they stay healthy and in recovery from their disease. Peer support has proven to be one very successful tool for both people in recovery and cancer survivors. Whether one on one with a peer mentor or in peer support groups like AA or NA, evidence shows if help and support are provided by someone who has been where you are then you are more likely to benefit.
People who are starting the recovery process find it hard to imagine what is next, to imagine where their lives will go, they forget how to live without being high and it’s scary. I don’t want to diminish what a big step stopping to use is but that is just one little step in the recovery process; the work and dedication that comes after to really start healing from this disease is very difficult. Relearning how to live and feel without your high, making amends with those you’ve hurt, finding new passions in life, trying to find new things to do with your time, repairing relationships with loved ones, being patient while others learn to trust you again, accepting there will always be stigma and judgement from some individuals, etc… the commitment to recovery is a whole lot more than stopping to use, it is exploring yourself, figuring out who you are now and analyzing why you used in the first place. The work has to continue for a lifetime, there’s no “I used to be an addict”.
We tell Christopher this all the time… “I know you feel like you’ve ruined a lot but you are only young, not even 30 years old yet, you have your whole life ahead of you and we’re going nowhere, we will be there to support you and love you always.” Hopefully knowing we will be there helps him now as he struggles with the early stages of recovery.
Over Half Way 