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Addict In The Family: Stories of Loss, Hope, and Recovery, by Beverly Conyers
PDF Download Addict In The Family: Stories of Loss, Hope, and Recovery, by Beverly Conyers
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About the Author
Beverly Conyers, MA, is an editor and freelance writer who lives in New England. She is also the author of Everything Changes and The Recovering Heart
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 2The Stranger You Love All addicts' stories are heartbreaking in their own unique ways. But if you hear enough of these stories, you begin to realize that they are also distressingly similar. They follow a predictable pattern of experimentation, addiction, and eventual loss of everything most of us hold dear, including family, home, job, and personal values. Addicts become estranged from the nonaddicted world and seem not to mind when they are reduced to circumstances that would be intolerable to almost anyone who is thinking clearly. My own daughter was a prime example. A heroin addict at age twenty-three, my daughter and her boyfriend, a fellow addict, were evicted from their apartment for not paying their rent. In the four months they had lived there, their apartment had become almost uninhabitable. The filthy bathroom contained a phone book that they used for toilet paper. The living room was a chaotic jumble of dirty dishes and soiled clothing and bedding. The bedroom floor was covered with animal feces from their cats and ferret. They eventually moved in with friends for a short time and then to the back of their car, a small station wagon. By that time they had lost or sold most of their possessions. Only a few items of clothing and some bedding remained. My daughter always wore the same long-sleeved shirt stained with sweat; the cuffs and sleeves were speckled with dots and streaks of blood. Her shoes smelled like rotten meat. Yet when I confronted her about her situation, she insisted that nothing was wrong. "A lot of people live in their cars, Mom," she said, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "We're going to get a new apartment next week. This is not a big deal." She denied the addiction outright. As sickened as I was by her situation, I did not fully realize that I was dealing with someone who inhabited a different mental world than my own. Only later did I begin to see that we shared no common ground, that it was impossible for us to communicate because she had lost touch with everyday reality, and that my daughter had, in fact, become a stranger. Most families of addicts experience similar feelings about their loved one. They say such things as "I don't even know who he is anymore" and "I look into her eyes and it's like there's no one there." One mother of an addict said to me with tears in her eyes, "What a terrible disease this is. It takes away our kids." People sometimes claim that addicts have "lost their souls." What they mean is that the addicts no longer seem to care about anything but their drug of choice, that they have become untrustworthy, and that their value system seems bizarre or nonexistent. Families experience a tremendous sense of loss as they see their loved one, who once possessed certain defining characteristics such as a good sense of humor or a strong work ethic or an affectionate nature, lose these positive traits. Indeed, individuality deteriorates as the addict takes on behaviors that are typical of other addicts, behaviors that are aimed at achieving one end: the next high. Recognizable addictive behaviors, present to a greater or lesser degree in most addicts, emerge as addiction takes hold. They are the result of a subconscious process in which new thought patterns are adopted to facilitate addiction. Addicts do not consciously decide to change their behavior. Rather, the process of change occurs at a deeper level, a result of the marvelous human capacity to adapt to altered circumstances. The addicts, not realizing what is happening, begin to think and behave in ways that may have been foreign before the addiction took hold, but that now seem natural and even necessary. Their brains have been biologically and chemically altered. Families generally sense the changes in their loved one but do not fully appreciate the depth of those changes. They may continue to treat the addict as they have in the past, only to find their interactions with the addict increasingly confusing. They cannot find any solid ground in the changed relationship as the addict begins to exhibit a disturbing repertoire of addictive behaviors. Foremost among these addictive behaviors is denial. Denial It is not uncommon in our society to hear someone described as being "in denial." This condition is generally understood to mean that the person in question is unwilling or unable to face the truth about a particular circumstance. Who among us hasn't been in denial about something, whether it's our relationships, our diet, our spending habits, or some other troubling aspect of our lives? Many families of addicts, including myself, deny their loved one's addiction for a long time before circumstances force them to face it. Denial seems to be a natural human response to situations we are unready or unable to cope with. When applied to addiction, however, denial is taken to the extreme. Denial permeates all of addicts' thinking, blotting out reality and replacing it with a twisted perception that everything is other than what it is. The denial is most obvious when addicts are challenged to evaluate their own situation. They immediately deny that they have a problem and insist that they can control or stop their use of alcohol or other drugs whenever they choose. Denise, a secretary whose seventeen-year-old son was hooked on heroin, described talking to him about the problem: "At first he said I was crazy, that I was imagining things. He kept telling me to leave him alone. He was really angry. But a friend of his had told me he was addicted, so I kept after him. He finally admitted to snorting heroin 'a little bit' at parties and things like that. He acted like it was nothing. Then he started stealing money from my pocketbook. All that time I was confused because I felt things were bad, but he kept assuring me he had things under control. Then he sold his guitar, and I knew I couldn't go along with his denial anymore. I forced him to see a counselor. I found out he was shooting up four times a day. Even then, he still insisted he could stop anytime he wanted." Peggy, married to a police officer hooked on cocaine, faced a similar experience. "He was spending every cent he made on cocaine," she said. "He stopped paying the bills, stopped buying groceries, so I had to take on all the household expenses. I kept threatening to walk out on him, and he kept saying I was crazy. He didn't have a problem. He was just fine. You know something? I honestly think he believed it. I don't think he had a clue about what was happening to him." The pattern of denial that Peggy and Denise confronted is typical of most addicts. Denial is the mental mechanism that enables addicts to give up more and more of the things that are truly valuable in life in favor of an artificial and fleeting sense of well-being induced by a chemical. In other words, denial is the foundation of addiction, the fertile soil in which it grows and flourishes. Denial provides the comforting delusion that everything is all right, smoothing the way for addicts as they wind deeper into their downward spiral. A truism about addicts is that they will always deny their addiction or, if forced to admit it, they will minimize its depth. They consistently say such things as "I can stop any time I want" and "I only use it occasionally" and "I don't need help—there's nothing wrong." Even when everyone around them knows that addiction is destroying their lives, addicts will deny that they have a problem. The depth of their denial does not stop there. As addiction takes it inevitable toll, addicts will also deny the severity of the consequences. Even as their world crumbles around them, as everything of value is stripped away, they will claim that their losses are not of much consequence. Their entire belief system is altered by the power of denial. Jerry and Teresa, who had recently celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary, described their horror as their only daughter endured one tragedy after another without apparent concern. Their daughter was a nurse, a single mother in a committed relationship with her child's father. She became addicted to prescription drugs and lost her job. Soon afterward, she was arrested for forging prescriptions, then for shoplifting, and finally for prostitution. Over the course of several years, she spent many months in jail and lost her car, her apartment, and most of her possessions. Her boyfriend left her, and ultimately she lost custody of her child. "It wasn't until we were awarded custody of our grandchild that I finally realized just how sick her thinking had become," Teresa said. "As she was being led off to prison and we were raising her child, her only comment was 'Well, it's only for nine months. I don't see what you're making such a big deal about.' Nine months! Nine minutes would have been too long for me to endure a situation like that. But she didn't seem to get it." The power and importance of denial cannot be overstated when it comes to understanding addiction. Even when addicts are facing life on the streets or incarceration, they will deny that addiction is the root cause of their troubles. Their perception becomes so distorted by denial that they may be truly unable to comprehend the disaster that has befallen them. + + + Behaviors that are Symptomatic of Addiction In my experience, denial, dishonesty, and manipulation are the behaviors most fundamental to addiction. They are the behaviors addicts call on time and again in the all-consuming effort to get drugs, use drugs, and conceal the addiction from others. These behaviors become like second nature, helping the addiction take r...
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Product details
Paperback: 184 pages
Publisher: Hazelden Publishing; 1 edition (August 26, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 156838999X
ISBN-13: 978-1568389998
Product Dimensions:
5.4 x 0.5 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.8 out of 5 stars
225 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#42,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
I bought this book based on other people’s reviews. When you have a loved one struggling, you want to help and do something to ease their pain. I know you have to be careful in what is considered helping and being an enabler. This book breaks it down well with helpful tips for the addicts loved ones. I refer to it in my head often when dealing with my brother. The main tip that I refer to often is the chapter speaking about getting too wrapped up in the addicts life and neglecting your own. It’s easy to go down that path because you love them and it’s hard to watch them struggle but the author is right when they say you have to live your own life and the only person who can truly change an addicts life is the addict himself/herself. I agreed with all the tips in this book, they felt right even though it can be difficult to accept them. I feel comfortable following these tips, knowing it’s the right thing to do (or react or not react) when I am supporting or speaking or listening to my brother. I feel more at peace and cry a lot less when I refer to this book and I don’t dwell on my brothers problems as much as I used to but I do try to reach out to him and be positive and be a happy/stable influence on him as much as I can. I do not down talk to him or tell him what to do. If he asks for my advice, I give it to him....in a positive way.
As a newcomer to dealing with a loved one with an addition, I really needed this book to help me understand and navigate through. I thought that it was a lack of willingness on the part of an addict to want help. In a small way, desire to get clean is part of it, but reading this helped me look at the bigger picture. Most important, it help me remember I only have control of what I do, and navigate my feeling durning the process. Very well written and very helpful.
If you have a family member or loved one who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, and you don't know what to do about it, then you should definitely read "Addict in the Family: Stories of Loss, Hope, and Recovery" by Beverly Conyers. You may ask yourself: Did I cause the addiction? How could I have been so blind? Is there any hope? How can I help him/her get well? Is it possible to find peace of mind? Family members of addicts have very few choices to make and all too often it's the wrong ones. "Addict in the Family" can help you make the right choices. Families are the hidden victims of addiction, and they endure much mental anguish, guilt, and shame. Much of the suffering is rooted in the false belief that the addict has only himself to blame and that he could cure himself if he really wanted to. Despite all the begging, pleading, threatening, reasoning, and bribing the family members do, the addict will usually persist in his destruction. There are several informative chapters about the nature of addiction that includes tips on how to recognize the addict's chief tools: denial, dishonesty, and manipulation. These tools allow the addict to get drugs, continue using drugs, and help conceal the addiction, which absolutely cannot exist without these three behaviors. There are also biological explanations for why the addict can no longer experience the normal pleasures of life, and I like the way Conyers uses the example of Pavlov's dogs to explain how certain people, places, and things can trigger intense craving in the recovering addict. And Conyers explains why the family member must seek recovery also. Most family members falsely believe they shouldn't have to do anything because they are not the one with the problem. But the prolonged stress and constant worry and shame can affect the overall health of the family member. They've been found to suffer from a long list of physical and mental maladies and in the end can be just as sick as the addict, and therefore, should work the twelve steps of Al-Anon. As the author points out, if changing habits, attitudes, and desires were only a matter of identifying the problem and fixing it, then there would be no need for the self-help movement, psychoanalysis, addiction treatment programs, or books like this one. Too many families suffer because of this disease and know next to nothing about it. And they often make the wrong choices in an attempt to fix a problem that can't be fixed. Getting educated about addiction is a must if families truly want to help themselves and their loved one recover. Conyers, who is also the mother of a heroin addict, can guide you through the minefield of addiction to real recovery with this informative and insightful book.David Allan ReevesAuthor of "Running Away From Me"
This book is probably the best book you can read when you have a love one who is addicted. It helps you understand some of the things that go thru an addicts mind. It helps you learn how to cope and understand how you help and hurt the situation. Obviously for personal reason this book got our family thru hopefully the worst times in our lives.
I have not only read this book but brought many copies to give to other parents suffering with a child with addiction disorder. This short,easy to read book tells OUR story as parents suffering with a child devastated by a heroin habit. The author help us understand the nature of addiction as a disease and not a moral shortcoming. It helps to know what one is feeing as a parent ( grief, lost, fear ) is not unusual and we are not alone. It also explains we can not fix our kids ( even though every fiber in our soul feels we can and must) and guides us to seeking help ourselves. I did just that and now facilitate a parent support group for parents dealing with the current opiate crisis. I always recommend it to new members and they are always grateful. Thanks you Bevery Conyers.
This book has been by my side throughout the blossoming of my son's addiction to heroin. I have been a fierce advocate and crisis intervention worker for over 15 years and still didnt have what I needed when this disease came to my front door unwelcomed and uninvited. This has been to say the least, the most crippling disease leaving a devastation in its wake that extracts the very life out of people including family members and friends of the addict. There is no way around it...a thief of mind body and soul. Love is the only rule..stay close and never give up. You are not alone. Please sign my petition to get Casey's Law passed in NYS. Go to change.org and type in Michael Nozzolio Pass Casey's Law
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