Family members of people who become addicted to drugs often make things worse for themselves and the addict by unwittingly serving as enablers, actually preventing or prolonging any attempt at recovery.
That’s a key point made by Mike Leatherwood of Jonesboro, a certified life coach who helps families overcome drug addiction, in a presentation to the Out of the Dark coalition during its quarterly meeting last week.
Out of the Dark is an organization founded three years ago by attorney Charles “Skip” Mooney to combat drug abuse, especially among young people. The coalition is a support group for the main organization, which recently elected Leatherwood to its board of directors.
Leatherwood told more than 100 people at Thursday’s meeting there are two intervention types for drug addicts. One is formal intervention, which often is seen on reality television shows and usually involves a tense situation.
His coaching, however, includes informal interventions, which take more time and involve working with family members as well as the addict.
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He pointed out that “a lot of families get to a place where they are bankrupt — financially, emotionally and spiritually bankrupt.” In that way the addict takes everyone down with him.
The parents of an addict are often hit the hardest, he said, because the first instinct of a parent with a child in trouble is to “step in front of the bullet” and take it for the child. That can be the worst thing to do because it keeps the addict from having to face the consequences of his or her conduct.
As an example, he told of a situation with his own daughter, who has had a drug problem and was facing a $1,000 court fine. She couldn’t pay it so she called and asked him to loan her the money. He had to refuse because he knew it would only encourage further problems.
Leatherwood drew a pyramid chart to illustrate his point. At the top are the “rescuers,” usually family members who step in to help an addict who gets in trouble. That help may be in many forms, such as providing money that may be used to pay a fine or otherwise ease the consequences of the bad conduct.
In that way the rescuers move down the chart, becoming “enablers” — allowing the addict to continue the same conduct.
“When you’re using drugs,” he said, “you’re going to be a pathological liar. They’ll say anything to get what they want. That’s what they’re turned into until they face the consequences. They are going to continue to use … until such time as recovery, institutionalization or death occurs.”
At the bottom of the chart, when the addict’s conduct has resulted in severe financial and emotional damage to them, the family members begin to feel persecuted by their loved one (“Why are you doing this to me?”) and suddenly refuses to enable. In this way 100 percent of rescuers become victims of drug abuse. The addict may react by feeling unloved or by lashing out at the family members.
At this point the addict may become homeless, and without help this condition can be fatal, especially for the alcoholic, Leatherwood said.
Eventually the family members may decide they were wrong to refuse to help and go right back to enabling. Then all go down the same road together, and the ending is always bad, he said.
As an intervention coach, Leatherwood’s first task is to help the family get better first. Without that, the job of helping the addict with recovery is much more difficult.
The addict is not likely to seek recovery until he or she “hits bottom” — which means the pain from the consequences of addiction becomes so great that the person is willing to surrender to someone else’s instructions for recovery.
“Everyone is forced into recovery,” he said. “No one gets out of bed, raises the blinds and says, ‘It’s a beautiful day today. I think I’ll go to recovery.’”
Throughout the process, Leatherwood stressed, relatives of the addict must take care of themselves first. For the addict there is no guarantee of success, but an informal intervention, he said, provides the best chance of survival.
Out of the Dark is a unique organization that Mooney and his wife Jill founded after reading a newspaper article about five young Jonesboro residents being hospitalized due to drug overdoses at a party. He and his daughter then wrote an op ed piece for the The Sun, inviting comments from others, and received such an overwhelming response that he decided to form an organization.
Since then, the organization has grown in size and influence, and nine chapters have been established at Jonesboro area schools.
For more information: http://www.outofthedark.org.
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Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.