Archive Author: Victory Center

The U.S. National Library of Medicine defines a traumatic experience as “an experience that causes physical, emotional, psychological distress, or…

There’s a fine line between supporting a family member in their addiction and enabling a family member in their addiction….

Most of us would do anything to help our loved ones, but we feel a sense of helplessness. There are many ways that people with good intentions are actually displaying enabling behaviors which in turn harm addiction recovery.

There is a drug epidemic in our country, and as a society we need to work harder at showing the possible outcomes of drug use and abuse. Drug abuse is rarely attractive. It is messy, it destroys lives and it shatters dreams. Fortunately, the recovery community has been working tirelessly to educate the public. Addiction does not have to end in misery and woe. There are treatment opportunities and remarkable 12 step programs that have proven results. It is time to stop allowing the social acceptance of drug abuse to become the new norm.

A 2008 article by the National Institutes of Health (“Introduction to Drug Misuse”), defined drug misuse as “the use of…

The disease of addiction does not care what socioeconomic status you belong to, or how successful you are. It is a deadly disease that will destroy everything in its path if left untreated. It can take weeks, months, or years for the destruction to become full-fledged, but it can and will happen with reckless abandon. With continued use, addiction consequences become increasingly severe.

In recovery you can create genuine relationships and friendships that can last a lifetime. There lies a network of people in the recovery community who want to see each other succeed. There is nothing more enjoyable than going out to eat with a large group of people in recovery, which many groups do on a regular basis. Trust me when I say that laughter is inevitable.

Early on, when family and friends cave in to their fears about losing their beloved addict, expectations about loved one’s addiction recovery are trumped by efforts to keep them alive and out of trouble. We pray that our addict will live to see the light of day and miraculously stop drugging and/or drinking. In the meantime, family members make personal sacrifices, putting out fires  in an effort to manage the collateral damage that accompanies the disease of addiction.

A recovering addict’s commitment to living sober involves a willingness to re-interpret and re-construct many areas of his/her life and relationships. New boundaries, changed roles, and enhanced insight about the cycle of addiction enter the landscape. Even the vocabulary is different, often peppered with words and phrases from 12-step programs or therapy. The challenge for the addict is to maintain sobriety. The challenge for friends and family is figuring out how to support a recovering addict, rather than monitor or attempt to control his/her sobriety. Like they say in Al-Anon (the 12- Step program for family and friends of alcoholics), “It’s simple, but it’s not easy”.

Living with a prescription drug addict means a life of mood swings–a roller coaster ride which, without recovery intervention, can often lead to incarceration, or even death.

Approximately 6 million families are living with a prescription drug addict with a third of new addicts being 12 to 17 years old, an increase of 300% in the past ten years.