Okay, so I know for substance abuse education (formal not personal lol) that there is primary, secondary, and tertiary intervention. Most of us are all dealing with tertiary intervention which means intervention after something has become a full blown addiction/problem. Secondary is intervention during the experimental/abuse phases (i.e. - in high schools and college for peole who abuse substances but may not be addicted - yet). Primary intervention is for children or young teens usually and it is done before there is any abuse or addiction.
So currently in the United States, we have a program called DARE. It's typically done in elementary school. Thus far I see zero effect and they basically just talk to kids about how drugs are bad and never do them and some basic work on empowerment, saying no, resisting peer pressure...etc. I guess this emerged out of Nancy Reagan's "Just say No" campaign which obviously is obtuse and doesn't work.
What the addicts I work with (and in my own experiences) tell me is that they hear the message "Drugs and alcohol" are bad and then they try them and they make them feel good so they figure everyone was lying to them and/or that people who say they are bad just don't know what they are talking about or are big wussies that cannot handle drugs/heavy drinking.
So - What do you guys think might really work as addicts/alcoholics? Is there any primary intervention that would have stopped you from going down the path you did? What if someone had told you "Drugs are fun at first. They make you feel good and you will probably like the experience for a while. Then they slowly mess up your life, stop you from learning and growing, and you don't even see it coming." Wouldn't that be more accurate?
Would it matter? Just curious.
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
That's exactly what I told my almost 7 year old 2 days ago when he had the big question. I suppose he's been over hearing conversations.
That is almost word for word what I told him... because it is my experience.
I also told him that my body is allergic to it, and in a different way that controls me and makes me not able to stop... so it's better that I just don't start. He wanted to have an allergy to something : (
I remember feeling like that as a kid. Wanting to have a broken arm for the attention, or to be different, or whatever.
Different things like that always.
He already has all the alcoholic behaviors down pat. He's a veeeeeeeeeeeerryy sweet, caring, overly empathetic little boy who could melt your heart in 2 seconds. He's way above average intelligence, and he is very in tune with feelings and who's feeling what, and feeling out the room, and also manipulating feelings to get what he wants.
I tell him daily that the goal for the day is to do good things so he can feel good about himself, because I love him so much, I want him to have a great life.
It's sort of a mouthful - but now that he's heard it a zillion times, he will come back to apologize for something he lied about or whatever, and tells me he knows I'll be okay with him admitting it because I love him so much I want to see him do the things that make him feel good about himself so he can have a good life.
My mother was in Alanon, and must have seen warning signs in me. She tried to scare me out of it. She did a REAALLY good job! She made me watch the fried egg/brain commercials and explained that it was alcohol too - not just drugs. She literally terrified me out of drinking for probably 2 years. I was going to parties already in high school - but I was too afraid to drink and stood up to a lot of peer pressure and still became very popular and on prom court and all that jazz. I think she thought she did it! I can only imagine her disappointment when she discovered I was drinking in college.
I was a binge drinker when it was 'okay' to be. I was very responsible about it when I needed to be. Just like most of us I suppose started out. I of course, loved the feeling, and yes, quickly learned that she must have been wrong.
So the sad answer is - no - nothing would have stopped me from trying it, and since my body was allergic to it - that I believe set off right from the start.
So what I focus on now, is giving my son all the slogans, all the tools, all the mental protection that I know how. I don't care if he's heard a million times that his choices are his own, but I do hope he makes the one that will make him feel good about himself, probably the one that reflects how he'd want to be treated or whatever the situation calls for, because I want to see him feel proud/happy/loving etc etc so he can have a great life/day - and ALWAYS end it with "because I love you so much". OVER AND OVER AND OVER
Then the hardest part. Let him make the mistakes and see how he feels. Talk about how he feels. Try to remember something of my own experience as a kid to share where I felt like that. So he see's he's just normal. Then let it be. No lecture. No punishment unless he's harmed someone... then he gets something taken away or has to do chores. He will ask for this. He wants to make it up these days.
The cool thing is - since being in alanon for a few months, I was prepared for the real kicker. The other day he told me that he was going to do xy&z because he was mad at me for something, and he knew it was going to MAKE me mad and that's what he wanted, was for me to feel bad.
He told me he wasn't going to allow me to read books to him or snuggle him before bed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had to suppress my smile from ear to ear under the covers, because he's so flippin smart and manipulative BUT knows he is LOVED SO MUCH that he is using TAKING HIMSELF away and not letting me love him as a punishment to me!!! LOL.
It's hilarious, sad, cute, scary, alcoholic thinking from a 6 yr old. I was ready. I told him I will do what it takes to love myself and keep myself happy no matter what he does. If that is his choice, it will ONLY hurt him. While I will feel sad for a moment, I will move on to care for myself because I am responsible for my feelings.
He walked out.
He silently walked back in a few minutes later and we snuggled and read books and fell asleep.
I have no doubt that when my son takes in alcohol or drugs, he's going to love them.
I told Zach that the other day, but I said that I wasn't going to think or treat him like an alcoholic because I believe in a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts... and I refuse to worry about it TODAY.
If I love him, treat him like I'd want to be treated, and teach him everything we GET TO learn in this program as he grows up - I'll feel good about how I parented him no matter how he turns out. Maybe him going through addiction will lead him to AA. Maybe some day we'll get to sit in a meeting together or understand and talk about how grateful we are that we're alcoholics because we GET TO be a part of this amazing program and fellowship. Or he might die first. I'm fully aware of that, but we could both die in a car crash tomorrow so I refuse to rob myself of serenity with worry.
I think the only thing that could have changed my path was someone who taught me all about this recovery stuff as I was growing up. Loved me and supported and talked to me and shared with me that I was not bad - that they just loved me so much for exactly who I am. Took interest in me, made me feel safe no matter what I shared back.
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
The official "war on drugs" in this country is an abysmal failure, on every conceivable level - from education to enforcement.
As Tasha points out, the only approach that has any chance of success is THE TRUTH.
__________________
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. ---William James
So - What do you guys think might really work as addicts/alcoholics? Is there any primary intervention that would have stopped you from going down the path you did? What if someone had told you "Drugs are fun at first. They make you feel good and you will probably like the experience for a while. Then they slowly mess up your life, stop you from learning and growing, and you don't even see it coming." Wouldn't that be more accurate?
Would it matter? Just curious.
1st off PC, this is a great thread ...
Speaking for myself only, after many years of alcoholic imprisonment, and a few years sobriety, I have settled on one conclusion here ... ... ... YES, there is but one solution to the addiction(s) dilemma facing our society ... through my experience, a strong teaching on spiritual matters to our children will give them the best tool for abstinence ... Tasha has come very, very close to demonstrating this with her own children ...
Both my mom and dad came from alcoholic histories in their own families before 'coming of age' themselves ... however, they both were so very rooted in a christian setting and had developed such strong connections to a 'higher power' that they were fearful of what alcohol would do to them by witnessing what it did to other people ... SO ... they never drank alcohol in their entire lifetimes ... they prayed daily to overcome evil ... (And lead us not into temptation,But deliver us from evil.) ... the same as we pray here at every meeting ... they lived it ...
You ask yourself where did Pappy go wrong? ... I've asked myself that very same question a million times ... I went into the military at 18, after a year of christian college, married at 20 and kid at 22 with 'Prader Willy' syndrome ... continued to go to church till about 25 ... then I 'fell from grace', as they say ... I started leaving God out of the picture and started doing all the things I wanted to do ... and I quickly got hooked on the alcohol ...
I said all that to say this ... if we teach our kids a very strong spiritual connection to God, then they have at least 1/2 a chance of going through life with all they'll ever want without going through an addiction ... otherwise, they'll be condemned to learn own their own the hard way, the way I, and many of you, have done ... looking back at my mom and dad's lives and comparing it to mine, I see clearly today where I went wrong ... and I have to live every day now wondering whether I could have made a difference in my youngest son's life if I had taught him to be strongly connected to God while he was growing up ... maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't have drank that night and wrecked and become the quadriplegic he is today and suffered all that has come to him because of it ...
Tasha has the right approach, but I think it has to go deeper than that ... nothing will so much insure the safety and growth of a child as will their belief and faith in God ... and they will only come to know that through watching and emulating us as parents ...
Watching all those commercials with the egg in the frying pan and comparing it to your brain being on drugs? ... it made me think, but it didn't stop me from trying it ... what impacted me more was the 'before and after pictures' I found on the internet one time ... those who got hooked on meth and other drugs, and even the ones that were alcoholic, they looked like real old people though they were still very young ...
Still, the best intervention of all, is that which occurs when a person comes to know and accept God in their hearts ... only then do things change ... without that, we are absolutely helpless in all things ...
Love you guys,
Pappy
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
PC I can tell you from my personal experience that absolutely nothing anyone said to me or showed me could have stopped me in my early teens from using drugs and alcohol. It was a deep love right from the beginning, which progressed over the next 25 years into full on alcoholism. I have an 18 and 19 year old, and they don't use drugs or drink, and I think the main reason that they don't is they had to live with me being wasted every day until 6 1/2 years ago. I think most people only learn from being in it.
Ironically, I have also heard in AA about many many folks who grew up with alcoholic parents and stated they would swear "I'm never gonna be like that!!!" And then that is what they became. Cunning baffling and powerful.
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
I still contend that the 'solution' was , and is, right in front of us ... has been our entire lifetime ... it was, has been, and will always be a 'spiritual connection' ... ... ... if that connection had been made and maintained, then many, if not all our problems would never had to have been ... my parents were predestined to be alcoholics, they passed the genetics on to me, however, due to their spirituality, they never even felt the desire to even try the stuff ... ergo, they lived without ever getting addicted ... they weren't perfect, but they were a damn sight better off than many of us have experienced ...
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
I grew up with an alcoholic too - and was convinced it was cool - because he seemed so cool to me!!! Living with it for me made it obvious that it wasn't going to kill me or hurt me if I just made it to the shower and work in the morning. That was my dad's motto always - if you make it to work the next day you're fine. I watched him unhappy and pissed off all the time, but I didn't put that together with alcohol. I grew up seeing that as the cure to being unhappy and pissed off. That's when he was the funny and fun dad. Alcohol I guess was my friend longer than I knew it. hmmmmmmmmm some things are clicking right now....
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
Ironically, I have also heard in AA about many many folks who grew up with alcoholic parents and stated they would swear "I'm never gonna be like that!!!" And then that is what they became. Cunning baffling and powerful.
True, I have heard this many times also in the halls. I on the other hand am a first generation alcoholic. When I first got into recovery I asked my parents and other relatives if we had any drunks in the family tree, man was I disappointed when none were unearthed. I guess when I was new all I ever heard was that it was genetic and many had come from alcoholic families. Not me, I grew up with the Cleavers. In the end it doesn't really matter, we are all in the same place.
Hey Chris, ... I'm convinced my parents were alcoholics that just happened to never pick up that first drink ... both had alcoholics in their respective families ... but never taking that first drink, due to their 'spiritual convictions', they never activated the craving ... epoxy requires a 'catalyst' to make it work, so does alcoholism ... once activated, it CANNOT be reversed ...
__________________
'Those who leave everything in God's hand will eventually see God's hand in everything.'
I suppose it could be viewed as a cop out, but I believe the manifestation of my alcoholism was not to be denied.
I feel exactly the same way. It was inevitable.
__________________
The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. ---William James
I don't know PC, I guess we just need to be honest with them and also let them know about addiction.
I think we probably need to separate drugs and alcohol if only for the fact that the kids see parents and adults drinking, the stuff being sold in every store and TV ads etc.
They are going to take a drink at some point, I think if you tell them to never do it you lose creditiblity. Maybe just emphisize time/place and not behind the wheel.
In my younger years did a good job of warning us against hard drugs and needles, other people where smoking, poping and snorting so I joined in with the peer pressure.
I am really shocked at the number of very young kids coming into the rooms who where shooting heroin and coming from nice families in the suburbs. It was just inner city/back alley stuff when I was growing up. Never even saw it going on, would never even joke about doing that stuff.
They are dieing out there like crazy. They are coming into the rooms earlier and earlier. I guess God wants me to deal with the tertiary part, it's what I know. They keep coming in, will be there to keep the lights on.
__________________
Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
What if someone had told you "Drugs are fun at first. They make you feel good and you will probably like the experience for a while. Then they slowly mess up your life, stop you from learning and growing, and you don't even see it coming." Wouldn't that be more accurate?
Many people do not enjoy drugs. They are not fun for them at first, second or third. They don't make these people feel good because these people already feel good. They are not entombed by feelings that they feel a need to escape from. In fact, for many people, drugs interfere with their regular, normal good feelings. For me and most addicts I know, drugs begin as a solution to a very real problem. My five year old self didn't know what to do with the pain and anguish that he felt when he realized that mommy didn't love him. My six year old self didn't know what to do with the shame and guilt that he felt when the priest molested him, etc. etc. Drugs made all those feelings go someplace where I couldn't feel them and so, drugs became a solution. Many children don't have the kind of pain that needs covering up so desperately that they think putting poison in their system is a good idea.
I don't know if there is a primary intervention that would work for potential alcoholics and addicts but I'm afraid that if there were, the suicide rates would skyrocket if somehow we prevented them from looking toward drugs as a solution. Had I not found drugs, I believe that the pain I felt would have driven me to suicide. I believe that not only did drugs save my life, but the solution to active drug addiction gave me a life that I would never have believed possible.
Great thread PC one in which I hope that it urges us to get out into the community and tell our truths. if I had had a knowlegable alcoholic speak to me the very first day at the very first time I drank at the age of nine I would have been listening to someone tell me "I know what's going on in you right now and this is how it felt for me the first time also and then this is what happened as it went on." The most valueable tool that any alcoholic has is their intimate story...what happened, what it was like and what it is like now.
My first drink was at the age of nine and no I wasn't inside of an underage bar or behind a barn. I was sitting at a dinner table and my grandmother decided that it was now time that her grandchildren be introduced to "portugese red", a heady, strong, rich, sweet port which was the cultural wine of our family. I also remember after she said that, that my mother made every attempt to get her mother not to do it and used some very strong language with her mother...saying "Please do not do that to my children". I stayed in that thread all my life up until this very moment and I learned that both sides of my family were alcoholics and addicts and that it had taken both grandfathers and was surely a part of taking my natural father and it killed other family members directly and others indirectly. Another thing that would have helped if there was an earliest "sponsor" at my side is that they would have been able to describe the power of the chemical as it took my brain and emotions in microseconds and every cell in my body was traumatically affected...they could have let me know that the reason my perception changed so dramatically was because the chemical even altered my emotions and if I spoke my very first thoughts out loud they would have nodded and said "yes that really seems so doesn't it". I would have shouted "God lives in that bottle"!! because all of a sudden my black and white and gray world was full of Walt Disney color and I would never forget it and I would chase that first affect for a long long time and never ever find it again and it would nearly kill me several times and when I stopped I would be the color of yellowish/green because my liver and kidneys and bladder need to find places to store my urine when I drank because the anesthesia of alcohol would kill my need to urinate and so I just kept drinking. I needed back then...way back then...another alcoholic who could stand with me and ask..."What does it feel like now"? and after I told them they would relate and give me back information from their experiences...I needed that and/or a miracle. I almost died before I got the miracle and then I got the alcoholics who would tell me what it was like for them when they got hooked up. I didn't have comparisons when I started and I started inside of the insanity of the disease. Both sides were crazy, insane, dysfunctional and no one mentioned why...drinking and using was normal...cultural...I drank because it was there and because I could and because it was expected. No its not like milk or Koolaide or water...chemicals I hardly ever drank. I was addicted; mind, body, spirit and emotions...not a bad kid a good kid with a compulsion of the mind and allergy of the body that was thousands of years older than his culture. My research which includes college reveals that alcoholism is older that the marker date of the brith of the Christ by thousands of years and I come to understand that as a specie of animals we are genetically altered. I just heard that antropologist have found that the ancients were into child offerings and that the remains of the children revealed heavy concentrations of drugs and alcohol. I don't have any doubts any more that I was altered before I was born I don't have to research any longer. I didn't choose to be alcoholic...it chose me long before my mother and father found a warm cuddly night and the urgency to have sex.
For me the first and best and surest intervention is a recovering alcoholic's or addict's honest story. Let them know that you know and that you know that you know and that your relationship is intimate on all 4 levels...mind, body, spirit and emotions. When they sit in front of you tell your story from the family and then your first day and everyday up until the day you meet the new possibility in the disease. Let them know that they cannot let anything hide because you're so out in the open.
I've had young alcoholics and addicts not want to talk with me because they felt I could read their minds and of course we all know that all we know is our own stories and sometimes it is similar with someone elses.
My natural children were drinking in their first year of birth. Was I bad? No I was alcoholic and didn't know what the word mean't or even how to spell it if my life depended on it. I had an alcoholic sponsor the husband of my first cousin who would attempt to be a stand in father ...I lost my natural father at the age of 6 and my mother married another alcoholic 9 years younger than her when I was nine. I didn't have male mentoring except for alcoholics. Guy B was my alcoholic sponsor who was going to "teach me how to drink". In the end when I was done he never told me that he had tried AA...he held that from me and I held from him that the lessons almost cost me my life in a dark fa`le in American Samoa...in the dark, all alone with nothing by a heart beat and breath and the uncertainty that those would remain. It killed him...he got sober in 1991 and before he died we shared some love and not a drink...watching the Niners (myteam) and the Falcons (his) play another game and this time I'm sober and he's not. I watched the disease kick his ass...mind, body, spirit and emotions and I came to understand that I knew exactly what it was doing to him because it had done that to me. My greatest AA tool was and is my story.
Genetics...don't ever fool yourself that the disease cannot bridge or jump generations...it has done it for years. Several of my children have escaped the chemical and not the behaviors and thinking and choices. My eldest is an alcoholic/addict who as far as I know doesn't drink or use anymore and you cannot tell by his life. At 48 years old his family has recently disbursed to parts unknown and just away from center stage. The first time his eldest son was taken to emergency as a teenager he had a BAC of .5 he remembers only having a heart beat and a breath and nothing else. I sent him a Big Book and will email him tonight.
I guess clinically there are such things as levels of intervention. I know about DARE and have heard the same evaluation that has been mentioned here. I know that there are drug courts and DUI classes...been there done those as AA service...I know that there are speaker meetings in schools and have done those also and of course I've worked inpatient and outpatient in a large rehab....and for me the very best intervention is for the recovering alcoholic to take his/her story "out there" while the drug and alcohol industry is spending billions of dollars to make billions of dollars off of people who have already been primed for the journey. Really addiction isn't a long leap...rather it is a just a trip.
Tonight...after I react and respond to this thread I am going to contact a Hawaiian Culture Health and Wellness provider and offer AA support for the one glowing missing service they provide...alcohol and drug information and intervention. amazing!! Then I'm going to email my Grandson to see how he is doing and the great granddaughters and his spouse who comes from the disease and then I'm going to go sit with Akua...my HP and express gratitude for my sobriety and repeat that I am of service.
@Angell - are you saying that the things that happened to you would have been the cause of your suicide? That because they created so much pain for you - the only out would be to kill yourself, and it would be their fault???
__________________
Thanks for everything. Peace and Love on your journey.
@Angell - are you saying that the things that happened to you would have been the cause of your suicide? That because they created so much pain for you - the only out would be to kill yourself, and it would be their fault???
While it may appear that I am splitting hairs, the distinction is important to me and so: No, the things that happened to me would not have been the cause of my suicide. My lack of healthy tools to deal with these feelings would have led me to make the choice to end my life. In fact, I had two very real, very sincere suicide attempts before I found alcohol and drugs. My father was inaccessible physically working 16 hours a day and frankly, he never did learn to process his feelings in a healthy manner and so he wasn't likely to be able to help me cope in a healthy manner. My mother was narcissistic in the extreme and as a result was also unavailable on a number of levels.
Ultimately, if I were to have killed myself, I am uncomfortable with the idea that it is someone else's fault - it would have been my fault in which they played a part. If I had loving parents who were also emotionally mature enough to be able to deal with their own pain, then they could have guided me through mine - thereby providing me with a healthy solution. In lieu of that, I found my own, decidedly unhealthy, solution.
I have heard the sentiment I believe Angell is trying to share. Kind of like drugs and alcohol worked as a screwy coping skill for a while for dealing with some really tragic and traumatic stuff...until they stopped working and then AA was there. I don't thinks suicide rates would go up with a better primary intervention though cuz ideally the intervention would aid youngsters at risk for both addiction and suicide. Plus I also believe more deaths occur by drug overdose than those who use drugs and or alcohol until they find the solution in AA. More folks do just die...we are the lucky ones.
__________________
Keep coming back. It works if you work it. So work it. You're worth it!
