How to love an addict… Part 1

Posted on July 24, 2011 by

The obvious answer is, very carefully. The less obvious and more practical way is to know your boundaries, and be a consistent source of positive options. For someone that is living with a loved one who is an active addict or alcoholic this can be pretty hard.

The addict…

I have heard that we (addicts) can be hard to deal with sometimes, that we may challenge you and try to manipulate you, while at the same time making you feel responsible for our actions. We have been known to lie about our use and about how bad things really are in order to protect our relationship with drugs or alcohol. This is what it is like to have a relationship with us, even when you really love us and depend on us, this is what you will get until we stop.

Because of this it is important for you to know your boundaries when dealing with us. If you think you can change us by trying to prove we are lying, catch us in our lies, stand in our way, or stand up for yourself, you are wrong. Arguments, promises, and sincerity are our specialty and we can make you doubt yourself anytime we want in order to protect our right to use.

The family…

As a family member or friend all we want is to understand. To understand why, how, when, what, and where to go for help. Because of this we look to the one person who should be able to give us those answers… our loved one. We look to them as though they can help us help them. By not understanding who, and what we are dealing with we can become part of the problem very fast.

When we are trying to love an addict we are trying to help them figure out there addiction and we are getting involved in their life and their problems, because we love them. If we are going to get involved in their addiction we need to have personal boundaries. Otherwise it is very easy to get sick right along side of them. Once that happens we become incapable of actually helping them and our love becomes harmful.

So knowing your boundaries is a very important part of loving an addict or alcoholic. The words tough love get thrown around as a solution to loving an addict and I feel as though that is the wrong way to  phrase the right way to deal with this situation. Tough love is a tactic to help someone learn a hard life lesson. Boundaries are designed to help you become stronger in a relationship you want to keep, or a way to protect yourself from one you don’t.

There is no one size fits all solution to loving an addict but be assured that this approach will work for anyone who is willing to change. First, learn about the issue your loved one is having. Second, learn how you can and cannot help. Third, redefine your relationship accordingly by creating personal boundaries.

We all want to help, and we all want them to stop suffering, sometimes the hardest thing we can do is love them the right way by staying strong and offering them real help…

To be continued…

By Michael Wilson

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Heart over mind…

Posted on June 18, 2011 by

When you’re struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it’s just as hard as what you’re going through.

– Dear John

What is heart over mind or mind over heart? We deal with many situations, and challenges on a daily basis. Each of those challenges takes both to overcome. Most of us who are dealing with a loved ones addictions are ruled by our emotions at first. Love… the love we have causes us to ignore the things we see, and know to be true. Looking at a situation that is as clear as day to someone else may be fogged with emotion for you.

As an addict or alcoholic my goal would be to use your emotions against you to protect my ability to continue to use. Your mind will tell you that you are right and that I am actually doing what you think I’m doing. But when I open my mouth your heart will shut those things down and cause you to doubt yourself. For me heart over mind or mind over heart are not options when dealing with addiction.

A balance between the two is what helps us get through the rest of our daily challenges and decisions so why not with addiction. If you are ruled by your mind and you never let emotion play into your decisions you would be cold and calculated and that’s no way to deal with a loved one. If you are ruled by your heart you may make more of a mess because you will be led by the manipulation and will become a slave to the addicts desires and stay sick with them.

I can’t say what the right balance is for you, but listening to others who share similar challenges can open your mind and your heart and allow you to see your situation for what it really is. Feeling stuck in your situation, isolated, and confused can be very common and without stepping out of it and talking you may never find that balance. It feels unnatural to step away from someone you love in their time of need, but sometimes your mind needs to catch up and see the situation from another angle if you are going to have any impact at all.

The statement “I just know in my heart of hearts that if I stop doing what I’m doing he/she will die” is a good sign that you are too close to someone’s addiction and you may need to step back and let your mind catch up with your heart. If you have completely turned your back on a loved one or shut them off emotionally you may need to give your heart a chance to catch up to your mind.

The fog of your heart can definitely prevent you from helping your loved one so please understand that the same way addicts and alcoholics need time to let the fog clear before they can change and get well, you must too… I believe that by sharing your story and talking about your challenges you give your mind the chance it needs to catch up and you increase the chances that you may one day be able to see how you can help your loved one…

By Michael Wilson

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Possible outcomes…

Posted on May 23, 2011 by

So ive been thinking…

The gift of desperation, such a hard gift to give to someone you love. I mean to give someone the pain they need to get well, that sucks. When I talk with some people about getting out-of-the-way I can see the fear growing inside them thinking that they may have to let their loved one suffer before they can get well.

I was going over some workbook exercises with a family the other day and I was surprised by someones answer to an exercise. The exercise was to list some of the ways their loved one has made them feel. Now I am used to hearing the bad, but I was pleasantly surprised when I heard a positive response to this exercise.

Your addiction makes me feel hopeful, was the response I got. At first I was shocked until I heard the explanation. Your addiction makes me feel hopeful that you will feel whatever you need to feel so that you can rebuild your relationship with your higher power. Now that is refreshing. Imagine that a positive result from such a negative situation.

It can be so easy to get caught up in the negative aspects of our loved ones choices but forget that sometimes they need to experience what they need to experience in order to move forward and become who they are going to be become. If we rob them of the experience are we robbing them of their positive outcome as well.

Some would say no because of the fact that people can overdose and die, but for others this can be a positive way to look at such a dark situation. We can put positive resources in front of our loved ones over and over again but unfortunately if they want to, or maybe need to, continue a little longer to reach their future who are we to stand in the way. If I had not been able to experience my life my way you would not be reading this blog right now…

Written by Michael Wilson

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Loving them to death…

Posted on May 2, 2011 by

What a great book title that would be…
Anyway, I know its been awhile and I apologize to my faithfull readers. I am in Maine this weekend with my boys on vacation taking a break. Unfortunately the roaring silence of nature is unsettling the good natured city boy in me and keeping me up late at night thinking about work.

So I have spent the weekend fishing, hiking, making smores, and generally just enjoying my children. But as always I can’t help but think about my job and what would happen if one of my boys turned to the dark side and how I would respond. Pretty crazy huh?

I hear people throw the word love around quite a bit and I try to think how far would love make me go and what would I do in the name of love. Would I refuse to accept the reality of the situation I was in and pretend that I could change someone who did not necessarily want to change… yup I sure would… would I sacrifice my own well being for theirs… yup I sure would… would I ignore other family members and consume myself with that persons situation in the hopes that I could save them… again, yup I might.

I would do a lot in the name of love. But would I really be doing all that for love. Sometimes I think I would be doing those things more for myself than for them. Like if I didn’t do them I would feel like a bad parent or something. I truly believe that loveing someone means doing what is actually best for them, and I don’t think smothering them with selfish love would help. Especially while I am masking it with the explanation that is is in the name of love.

Child, parent, sibling, spouse, or friend its all the same. We are talking about free will here and I know how hard it can be but doing what’s right in the name of love can be so much harder sometimes than doing what “feels right”.
I think we really can love someone to death.

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Get out of the way…

Posted on April 11, 2011 by

Getting out-of-the-way. It sounds so simple, right?

Unfortunately for some parents and family members it is one of the hardest things to do. It is in an addicts nature to be an addict. Harsh but true. I mean we all want to think that our loved one might be stronger, smarter, or just different and that when they tell you they can take care of it, that they can. It really is in an addicts nature to think, behave, act, and perform like an addict.

With that said, I want you to imagine yourself sitting in a lang hallway looking at your loved one. Behind them the hallway stretches as far back as you can see, but behind you is unknown to you, you can’t see the end of the hall, only your loved one can. Here you are, you and their addiction. Out of love you try to help them manage their addiction and you are trying to help get them to move backwards to a place that you can see behind them before this addiction took hold. You want things to be better. Unfortunately by doing this you are actually doing them a disservice.

The place that they need to get to is behind you or better yet on the other side of you but you are in the way. You are constantly preventing this addict from being an addict because you can’t stand to see it. I know it’s scary because you don’t know how long the hallway behind you is but sometimes to help your loved one get well, you must first get out-of-the-way and let them be an addict.

I often say that there are ways to help not only your loved one, but also yourself, well this is one of them. Probably the most difficult, but also the most beneficial to everyone involved. I know that some addicts and alcoholics need to reach a certain level of desperation in order to seek out help with their addiction. The problem is that sometimes there are just too many family members in the way for them to reach that level of desperation.

Again, it’s in an addicts nature to be an addict and if they never feel like an addict because you are standing in the way, why would they stop?

Written by Michael Wilson 

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Meet my ex-wife… Part 3

Posted on March 27, 2011 by

Well this is the epic ending to this trilogy… Thanks for waiting…

So when we last left our hero he was in prison, doing 2-3 years upstate. Taking a little time off from the life. So why did I go back? Well for the sake of not writing a full novel lets just say that this was a pattern for me. On again and off again. I went back for love. Love for the drugs, love for the lifestyle, love for the game, love for the lie that gave me comfort, love for the false sense of control that these things gave me.

I went back for love, obsessive, compulsive love. The kind that has you waking up next to someone you swore you would never go back to, the kind of love that makes you ignore all the people who love you and have helped you break free from your relationship, because they wouldn’t be able to understand why you have gone back. The kind of love that makes it impossible to have any other relationships in your life.

So I have been trying to find a way to mend and repair this relationship that has clearly become something that defined me in my life. I want things to be ok between us. I enjoy the time we spend together but hate the abuse. I hate that I can’t just be happy with the way things are. I hate that I always have to take it too far. I really believe that I can make it work. So I try different things, like taking time off, trying different drugs like alcohol or prescription meds so that I don’t feel like such a drug addict.

Clearly it had become a problem at this point and wouldn’t you know it, everyone except me can see it. At 24 I got myself into a nice secondary relationship with the soon to be mother of my child. We did drugs together and everything was fun and fine until she got pregnant. I was in no condition to raise a child, or keep a family and that became apparent to everyone real fast. Over and over we broke up and fought, her and I and me and my drugs. I kept “trying” to stop by coming up with master plans to do it on my own, and she kept getting let down because, let’s be honest, my plans sucked.

So detox after detox, and incarceration after incarceration had left me as a broken man until around age 29 when I was sitting in Middleton jail for the last time. I had been arrested for the same charges I was already on probation for and was looking at another stretch which unfortunately I was prepared to do. I was a veteran to this life and jail felt like home. It was safe, by that I mean I was safe from myself, I couldn’t really make things any worse. I had lost or given away everything that meant anything to me, and this is where it ends.

I came out of jail and of course just because of who I am I had to go back to her one last time to see if it was the same, and I hated it. I hated her. There was no more love, only disgust, memories of pain, and guilt, memories of the horrible things I had done and the fun I had doing them. It was very confusing for me but it worked. I felt nothing for her anymore. Or so I thought…

It never really ends, she was my first great love and we were together for 16 years. Although it was off and on she was there at all times, in my mind and in my heart. She was there when my son was born, she was there when I was enjoying my happiest moments, and during the sad ones. I can never forget the time we shared and I will admit some of it was fun or I would have left years ago. This relationship turned out to be the most destructive thing in my life, but I wouldn’t be who I am without it.

I have learned through all of this that it is important for me to have a healthy fear as well as respect for how powerful that addiction was for me, and to never forget what I have gone through. Just like with any other relationship, you can keep going back for the same abuse from the same people if you forget how the other ones were. If you forget about the pain and frustration youve felt during your previous relationships you wont be able to recognize it in your current relationships.

I keep that memory alive by talking about it, and you help me by reading about it… Thank you…

-fin-

By Michael Wilson

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Meet my ex-wife part 2…

Posted on March 18, 2011 by

So there I was, 18 years old, sitting behind a dumpster at Dunkin Donuts in Brunswick Maine trying to sleep. It is freezing out and all I can think about is how selfish my father and his wife are for throwing me out and making me homeless. I had moved to Maine to get away from my relationship and to try to do something with myself. Clearly that didn’t happen.

When I got up here everything started out fine but eventually I started to fall right back into my relationship with drugs (my ex-wife) and this time I was aggressively pursuing a future together. I got arrested and was forcefully removed from my living situation and moved out to Portland. Being homeless did not deter me from enjoying the lifestyle, by that I mean I hustled, lied, cheated, stole, and generally raised a ruckus in that city.

Eventually the city rejected me, and through a series of arrests and a little jail time (my first real experience in jail) I ended up selling enough drugs to get back to MA. I was on the run and had long red hair down to the middle of my back and didn’t even resemble the kid who had left to go to maine. Over the next year I had odd jobs and even some unhealthy relationships with women, one of whom I was now living with. Heather was an old friend and we began a very unhealthy relationship alongside my existing relationship with drugs.

Heroin wasn’t my drug at this point but it fell in my lap and I couldn’t help myself. I was working, selling drugs and living with my girlfriend Heather and life seemed ok. We paid rent, smoked pot, and watched the cartoon network, life was good. Then my friend Brian gave me a bag of heroin for a ride to Lynn. I brought it home and got high alone in the bathroom. Now I thought I was in love before… This topped anything I had tried before and soon Heather and I were hooked.

Love; I keep using this word to describe how I felt about drugs. I think love is about being able to be yourself around someone, and have complete trust that they will always be there when you need them, and make you feel safe. I felt all of that and more for Heroin. I had found my soul mate. Now Heather was pretty cool too, but really it was Heroin I got up for everyday, Heroin that eased my mind, Heroin that soothed my soul.

19 now and I have just been arrested. They kicked down our door and raided my house looking for drugs. I was handcuffed to the toilet and sat there for six hours waiting while they found everything I had and set up most of my friends. At the end they walked me out the front of my building in Salem and into a crowd of clapping neighbors. Clearly I wasn’t as popular as I thought I was. They were happy to see me go. I went to the police station for the weekend and continued to rack up charges, like attempted escape.

I spent the weekend physically withdrawing from heroin and was brought to court. I saw some friends in the holding tank and we laughed and joked about my situation. Upstairs in court I saw my family. They showed up but no one was bailing me out. WTF… I couldn’t believe that there was no lawyer, no bail, no nothing. Who do they think they are not helping me. 2-3 years upstate. Plus 2 years probation. And this is where my ex-wife and I take some time off. Almost three years we didn’t even speak to each other. Three years of no contact. Why did I go back? Love…

To be continued… (don’t worry, only one more to this trilogy)

By Michael Wilson

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