Help with Drugs and Alcohol
March 10th 2010 -- SusanAbundant Life Preparatory | Help with drugs and alcohol
“I’ll be at my friend’s house watching a movie,” “I decided to stay overnight,” “I’m going to take a walk” (from a confirmed “coach potato”), “We ran out of gas.” Most of us as parents could write a book called “Teenage alibis.” Many of us have fallen for them, not because of low IQ, or even insufficient EQ, but because it’s too painful to acknowledge the truth. Often we see through “lenses” that distort reality. It’s easy to do when someone you love is making high-risk choices .
At Abundant Life Preparatory we uderstand that parents want to be informed about what their kids are doing, but instead end up reeling from reactions of defensiveness, anger, and silence. Teens often display an adamant independence that frightens us because we know the risks involved in their lifestyle. They are young and so often clueless, yet display the confidence of King Solomon. We see red flags, they see green lights. We see disaster, they anticipate excitement and fun. We long to protect, they want to run. We pursue them with a fury born of desperate love, and they distance themselves from us with a callousness that both amazes and devastates. It hurts, and we pray, plead, and use “I” statements. Nothing works. We need a strategy, if for no other reason than to preserve our own sanity. After all, we have a life too, and we want to live it! We just don’t want to outlive them!
We are part of a generation of parents who are afraid of preceding their children in death. Growing up, I rarely, if ever, heard my parents express this fear. The reason seems obvious. We live in a unique age in earth’s history. It is the “no fear” generation where kids act out with reckless abandon, rarely considering long-term consequences. Both psychological and social influences have a profound effect on this. It is a culture that promotes instant gratification with no thought of tomorrow. One day I mentioned to a group of teens that wanting to do something doesn’t necessarily mean that one has to act on that feeling. They reacted as though I had spoken a foreign language.
We are living in a time where reason and conscience often take a back seat to wants and desires. But teens are not the only offenders. All of us are subtly, if not profoundly, influenced by the cultural waters in which we swim. As a result children are being introduced to substance abuse at younger and younger ages and going with their first impulse. I am amazed at the increasingly lowered age of first use! Some, it seems, are barely out of preschool! While I feel saddened as I listen to their stories, they reveal them as though they are reporting the weather. I am appalled at how normalized all of this has become, and how desensitized our world is.
As most of us are aware addiction is widely recognized as a disease process. As with all disease there are causes, symptoms and treatments. As far as I know, addiction is the only “disease” in our culture that leads to jail time and other legal complications. This is due to the havoc people wreak while using their “drug of choice.” It is a social disease. It involves other people. There’s no such thing as “I smoke a little weed in my own house. I’m not hurting anyone else.” Everything we do affects not only our life but the lives of others. If nothing else is causes people to neglect others due to the egocentric, all-absorbing nature of addiction.
Addiction also implies spiritual and emotional bankruptcy. Many believe that at the foundation of addiction is an absence of true community with God and man. Some say it is a disease of loneliness and isolation, and addicts are simply seeking connection and fulfillment. Because of this, recovery must involve fellowship and support from others and a vital connection with God.
The Abundant Life Preparatory first step in treating addiction is to arrest the disease process through abstinence. It’s simple-- if people don’t drink, they won’t get drunk or develop health and other problems. Also, when people live in abstinence they begin to regain their thinking processes, particularly the functions of the pre-frontal cortex where reasoning and moral judgment reside. This “clean time” leads them to the next level of recovery. Earnie Larsen, expert in the field of addiction, calls abstinence Stage I Recovery. Each student at Abundant Life Preparatory is at least in this stage of recovery, whether or not they choose to be.
Earnie Larsen describes the second step as Stage II Recovery. This requires a commitment to do the difficult and painful work of processing feelings and underlying issues that have been fueling the disease. This may involve grieving over past losses, working on painful relationships, and allowing feelings to surface that have been “medicated.” It also requires developing strategies for dealing with triggers for relapse and learning new coping skills. Addicts working on recovery need a caring community of people who will hold them accountable, keep them honest, and offer unconditional love and support. Most of all they need a sense of their own helplessness and utter dependence on God or a “higher power,” as the 12-step recovery programs refer to God. We as Christians know that He is the only answer.
It is important to remember that addiction is a “family disease.” No one is an addict in a vacuum. There is a powerful interplay of relationship dynamics and other issues that create “craziness” in the family of an addict. It is vital that family members become honest about their co-dependencies. The addict is addicted to the substance; the codependent is addicted to the addict. People can be a “drug of choice” just as much as any chemical substance. Family members need to take care of themselves. There is a fine line between caring and controlling. Often families need recovery work as much as the chemically dependent.
Troubled teen ministries understands that finally, there comes a day when our children will have to make their own choices. God knows how desperate we feel. Imagine how He must feel when we make unhealthy choices. And God actually has the power to force His will upon us, but His character of love must give us the power of choice. This is the way of love, however frightening the risk, and painful the possible results. May God grant us the serenity and courage to do what we can and no more, and the wisdom in knowing where that line is drawn.
Susan Maehre, Counselor
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