Letters to the Editor
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To the many concerned and scared parents and others drawn to this article:
Be sure to read the posts by Jim, moppin’thefloor, Juliebird, and especially ladyedith. Their comments align pretty well with what is known about addiction and its successful treatment (although moppin’ is a bit harsh with parents and underestimates the importance of pervasive, structural stressors outside the home that also contribute to addictive behaviors).
If you are helping someone find effective treatment, ask directly whether the program is based on the disease model, 12-Step, or requires AA/NA participation. If the answer is “yes”, keep looking. We know that this approach is at best ineffective and most likely does harm. The real function, in fact, of these programs is to keep individuals comfortably ill and dependent by disempowering, by normalizing substitute addictions (like nicotine or food) and by enabling escape from the difficult task of addressing the underlying issues driving addiction.
Ask about approaches known to be effective, like Matrix, cognitive-behavioral, motivational interviewing, and especially integrated treatment (“dual diagnosis” or “co-occurring disorder” programs), which treat the issues that addictive behaviors are secondary to.
Finally, put yourself in the addicted person’s place, and ask yourself whether it would seem helpful to be shamed, punished, or “confronted” for what you are experiencing.
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Nic is normal now?
Sorry, guys, but I heard the NPR Terry Gross interview with David Sheff and his son Nic. Nic is either terribly immature or a total imbecile. Every other word out of his mouth was "like" or "uh" or "ya'know." I think writings by a man whose son is so far off the beam and/or by the son himself are useless — or worse. They delude other Americans with notions of salvation.
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Everyone's right...
You're all right. There are SO many of these stories. And, if you're sick of them, don't read them. And many of us NEED to see what others do and how they cope and that things still MAY turn out well. The moment that defined everything for me in MY version of this story is the day I stood in my kitchen - the kitchen in which I had made a thousand grilled cheeses and hundreds of gallons of Koolade for my troubled, addicted son - and handed him $20 knowing he would buy drugs because I didn't want him to steal it. I could write a book around that moment, but what I chose to do was share my story with other parents to help them. And sometimes it did.
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It is a disease
I have friends that adopted two children, a boy who had a drug addicted mother, and a girl whose mother was a young college student. Guess which one is now a drug addict and which one is in the marching band and competes in regional gymnastic competitions?
Good parenting is an important part of keeping your kids off of drugs, but that doesn't change the fact that there is a genetic predisposition.
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I guess drug legalization would fix all of this?
Hmm you see it's not the fact that it's a criminal act, or the things people do to GET high. It's the things they do WHEN they are high is the problem.
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The damages of meth
There can never be enough written, or spoken, about the devastation meth causes. Not only does it destroy the user, it also destroys the loved ones. As far as my kids go, I was one of the lucky ones. Neither of my kids ever took a drug stronger than pot or beer. My son is totally drug and alcohol free at the age of 30 and my 35 year old daughter drinks a beer a night. But meth destroyed their lives just the same. My late ex husband was a meth addict and dealer. He was emotionally unstable and abusive. My daughter left home at the age of 18 and made it on her own. My son was a hurt and confused kid. He dropped out of school in the 8th grade; spent half his young life in juvie and no matter what I did, I could not get him on the right path. When he was 19 he went to prison for a burglary. I think his behavior was a call to his Dad for a little attention. When he got out, he drifted between Tulsa and Atlanta for several years, finally settling in Tulsa with his Dad. That's when the second round of trouble started. He was caught delivering meth for his Dad and sent to a work center, with a second felony on his record.
Last June 26th my ex husband died at the age of 61. Meth had destroyed his heart but he couldn't give it up long enough to get on the transplant list. He was arrested for selling several times and eventually forced to retire from the post office because of his felonies. We were married 29 years before I just couldn't take the damage the meth was doing to all of us, and in 1998 we were divorced. An entire family was destroyed by meth.
There aren't enough words to tell how bad meth is. Maybe this is the story of a little upper middle class prince with self indulgent parents. That's not the point. The point is that no matter where you are or who you are, meth is the killer of so many good things.
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I just glanced through Entertainment Weekly today....
...there's a big fat article on father and son, shilling their books. Son comes right out and admits he can't say he will never use again. So really, what is the point in writing this stuff? There's no 'cure'. There's no success story here. There's no insight that hasn't been perceived by the walking dead and their relatives umpteen times before. Maybe they're just trying to make money to put aside for junior's next inevitable 'slip'.
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Addiction
The classification of addiction as a disease is a controversial one. It may help others feel better about a long-standing, destructive addiction, and it may help people obtain affordable treatment via health insurance by labeling it as such, but for many, the label creates a handy excuse to continue to use the substance. I hear people saying now that they know they are diseased for life, there's little point in stopping. It's a weak excuse, but the minds of addicted people will take whatever loophole is available and run with it.
People are coerced into treatment all the time. In California, for example, Proposition 36 provides treatment dollars for individuals who have committed crimes in conjunction with their substance abuse. Although statistics are incredibly suspect in this field, it has been demonstrated that those who are coerced into treatment do just as well as those who voluntarily seek treatment.
Contrary to popular belief, 12 step programs are not the only groups available to support people who wish to stop their destructive behaviors. Recent research suggests that it is very important that the support system fits in with one's own way of conceptualizing the world. People from less dominant religious faiths have trouble with the religious aspects of AA, as do those who are atheist or agnostic. Many states now require that people be given a secular alternative to 12 step programs, which do exist but are not yet as well known or as widely available. Just as a sampling, Women for Sobriety, Secular Organization for Sobriety, LifeRing, and SMART Recovery all offer useful materials and support for those who want it.
People also take issue with the concept of powerlessness. The choice to stop these self-destructive behaviors rests with the individual alone. Addicted people frequently lose sight of the fact that the choice is always there, and empowering people to make wiser choices is a tough but effective struggle. The problem is not lack of will power so much as ambivalence about the process. In the morning, the user is utterly convinced that their use will stop today, but by nightfall, that desire to stop is essentially gone. It's not withdrawal symptoms or anything else that makes this difficult; ambivalence about drug use is the hardest thing to conquer of all.