Excerpt from "advice from an addict" Aly Birmingham Geats
" I knew my parents loved me and I had their loving support for me as a person and a needed that. Another thing I wanted was for them to listen to my bull-shit stories about why I needed money desperately and then give me that money so I could score and not feel sick anymore - I needed them to help me keep using. I didn't want them to help me get treatment and I didn't want to know about their pain - my own pain was all I could deal with and in my selfish addicted state I just didn't want to/ couldn't bear to, hear it.
I know the money didn't help me get clean and thankfully they eventually just stopped giving it to me. What I always knew even when I was completely fucking mad, was that when I'd had enough I could pick up the phone and my dad would be there. Eventually, thats what I did. "
So, Families and Friends.......It can just be a dinner, shower, bed and hugs that you offer but the hard part is when they want to go and then ask for money - for me, the answer always has to be no. If they want to move home and keep using, for me again the answer would be no. They are choices that I could feel most comfortable with but everyone has to make up their own mind on how to choose from a bunch of hideous options and you just do the best you can. There is no one answer, no one treatment, no one path that this disease takes. I know an addict has a huge advantage when they have people loving him and they know it but that doesn't mean you have to support their using. Your job is mostly to look after yourself. Look up the "cycles of change" and you will see you are both going through a process - at the same time but not together.
And trust me on these two points - discomfort is a great inspiration to get clean. Don't relieve the pressure and let them feel the consequences of their using - if there are no consequences then where is the motivation to stop using? Rehabs do work better when you really want it but every rehab you do teaches you something and may just set you up for the next time and generally there is at least one or two "next times" - don't ever loose hope. Aly
Aly Birmingham
Geats BA Psych, Cert AOD (Dist).
www.drugandalcoholinfo.com
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