Busting Addiction and Its Myths SafeHouse Rehab Thailand

In this podcast, we discuss the impossibility of escaping the here and now.
We learn that:
1. It’s common for people to be constantly thinking about something other than the reality of the present.
2. There is a huge difference between planning for the future and living there. 
3. There is ultimately much joy in living in the moment regardless of a person’s circumstances, but it takes commitment and practice.

In this podcast, we examine why the truth is so elusive for family members of alcoholics and addicts.
We discuss how people who have an addict or alcoholic in the family:
1.   Deny the very existence of the disease.
2.   Become too ashamed to admit the truth to themselves.
3.   Ultimately need to confront the truth in order to heal.

You’ve probably heard the term “enabler”. It’s one that’s often charged with judgment and stigma. That’s because one feels accused of aiding and abetting addictive behaviour and it doesn’t feel at all fair because you do what you do out of love. More than a role, enabling is a dynamic that arises in specific scenarios. People who engage in enabling behaviour behaviours aren’t the “bad guy”, but their actions have the potential to promote and support unhealthy behaviours in others.

In many cases, enabling begins as an effort to support a loved one who may be having a hard time with life at the moment.

If you think about it, it would be hard to find a person who is completely aware that they are engaging in enabling behaviour and go ahead and do it anyway.

Enabling behaviour is the invisible ally of the addiction. Denial, minimising, excusing, explaining, covering are well-intentioned or unconscious.

But it is mis-guided because it simply feeds and prolongs the unhealthy behaviour.

Love has this wonderful ripple effect, emanating its warmth and power from you to your family and well beyond, and it seems miraculous in its infinite ability to heal.

Think for a moment about unconditional love: loving someone regardless of what they look like, what they do for a living, how much money they have, or whether or not they are doing what you want or expect them to do.

This kind of total love - the unconditional kind – is put to a severe test when it comes to loving someone who is a substance abuser. When you think about it, it’s almost impossible to invoke unconditional love when the abuser abuses not only drugs, but also causes needless pain and worry on the entire family. They, not the addict, bear the consequences.

There is no use in trying to leverage love, as in: “If you loved me, you wouldn’t be doing this.” Addiction cares only to feed itself. Love has no influence over it.

We often tell parents of addicts that even though their actions were often based on love; even though they thought they were doing the right things, their actions were well-intended, but they were misguided.

They were acting on the illusion that they had some control over the trajectory of their loved one’s disease while also not recognising that protecting their loved one from the worst consequences was simply feeding the addiction.

It was the highest form of enabling: feeding the addiction by providing shelter, food, money and the freedom to come and go. With zero consequences. 

When you are talking to a full-blown alcoholic or addict or one who is both - and the list of cross-addicted people is growing – you might not be too surprised to learn that they speak an entirely different language than you do.

An example: an addict is confronted by his mum who says that he has a big problem. The addict doesn’t hear that. He thinks to himself that his mum is the problem because she stands in the way of him getting more dope.

When an addict or alcoholic does something that is reasonable, don’t get your hopes up. It’s more likely than not to be a coincidence, for every once in a while, he does make a good decision. Every once in a while, he has a good day.

After I sobered up, I used to say: “When I was drinking, every once in a while, I had a good day. Now that I’m sober, every once in a while, I have a bad day. Not that I drink over it, either.”

The brains of alcoholics and addicts, when they get to that stage, have changed and will never entirely be the same.

A well-known actress, comedienne and TV producer was once asked what made the essential difference in her highly successful life. For those old enough to remember Lucille Ball, she answered as follows:

 “All my young life, I was told I was a no-good show-off. My self-esteem hovered just above zero, until I was told by a good friend that my first job was to learn to love myself first and everything else would follow.

I had to overcome the toxic shame that was imposed upon me by others and learn that I was a person who was lovable by others and above all, by me myself.

I had to care for myself as If I were caring for my dearest friend. Then when I showed myself the same love that I would show my dearest friend, I was filled with Love and became able to love others, to trust them, to give of myself with no thought of return. My love became unconditional. So, no matter what, I could love you even though I might find what you did was terrible. “

So that’s the problem with those who love an addict or alcoholic. They, the caregivers, have developed self-hatred because of their inability to control or “fix” their addicted loved one.

They have yet to appreciate the value of self-compassion, perhaps have lost their own identity in the co-dependency of the relationship, so there is no one there to love.

Addiction is known as a family disease because addictive disorder causes addictive behaviour on the part of everyone in the family.