IS IT A GOOD IDEA TO ALLOW UNDERAGE KIDS TO DRINK AT HOME?

I've often heard parents say they'd rather their kids drink at home than someplace else. The logic is that at least they're safe at home and parents know where they are. They're not someplace unsafe, or driving impaired. It all makes a certain amount of sense.  

But ...

If you're a parent and are wondering whether to serve your kids alcohol at home, here' s some interesting American research:

Four years of US government data shows that most underage youth get alcohol from home, and about a third were given it by their parents or guardians, according the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

Drawing on data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) conducted annually 2006 through 2009, SAMHSA estimated that about 709,000 U.S. adolescents ages 12 to 14 currently drink alcohol.

Over 44,000 teens ages 12 to 14 participated in the surveys - about 6 percent said they drank alcohol in the previous month.

Nearly half of the youth surveyed either got their alcohol from a parent or guardian (about 30 percent), or from home (about 16 percent). The rest got it from an unrelated adult or another underage youth.

All that is really just telling us what we already know - teens are drinking alcohol in large numbers. And they're getting a lot of the alcohol they're drinking at home. But is it a good idea to give them alcohol and to support them drinking it at home?

Here's a really interesting finding that makes one wonder:

"People who begin drinking alcohol before the age of 15 are six times more likely than those who start at age 21 and older to develop alcohol problems," said SAMHSA Administrator, Pamela S. Hyde. "Parents and other adults need to be aware that providing alcohol to children can expose them to an increased risk for alcohol abuse and set them on a path with increased potential for addiction."

The message?

If parents and other adults can find ways of encouraging kids to wait as long as they can before they start drinking, the better off they will probably be. That's why educational, support and prevention programs for children are so vitally important for their future health and happiness.

Not only do they help change a family's legacy, but these programs can be of direct benefit to children. If a child has the predisposition - genetically, socially or psychologically - to developing the disease of addiction, delaying first use is a sure-fire way of helping him or her avoid getting it. 

Here's another way of looking at it: there are many risk factors that come into play when a person comes down with the disease of addiction. One of them - and it's a big risk factor - is early first use.
Many times I've stood in front of large groups of people who are in inpatient treatment for addiction and asked to see raised hands in answer to this question: 'How many of you had your first drink under the age of 14?" 
The hands raised usually made up from two-thirds to three-quarters of the audience.

Not a scientific survey to be sure, but it gives one pause when trying to decide whether allowing and encouraging kids to drink at home, where they are certainly safer than in a bar or in the bush, is really such a good idea after all. 

  

CHOICE IS PART OF THE ILLNESS

Virtually every time I read an online article or blog about addiction and its effects on relationships - and readers are invited to comment - I see the same statement - always by different people, but the choice of words is eerily the same. They stridently proclaim: 

Addiction is not a disease, it's a choice!

Sometimes this opinion is accompanied by dismissive comments about people who've made the choice to use drugs or drink too much alcohol - but always the core belief is that those people are stupid, weak, morally corrupt and generally not worth the time it takes to vilify them. The commenters also make it clear that the 'disease model' is abhorrent because it absolves weak and morally corrupt people from personal responsibility for the consequences of their actions - it absolves their useless and irresponsible parents to boot.

I must confess that I don't follow their logic. I ask myself: how does one compare a disease to a choice?

Of course using alcohol or other drugs is a choice. What else could it be? Using alcohol and other drugs compulsively, repeatedly, chronically, dangerously, thoughtlessly and sometimes fatally is always a choice.

But that doesn't make addiction - or whatever other name the illness  goes by: alcoholism, chemical dependency - not a disease.

Sorry, I don't get the connection between a person making a choice to do something and that choice negating their illness.  

The choice itself is sick. And it is incidental to the illness. 

It's like saying the choice to smoke cigarettes means a person with lung cancer doesn't really have lung cancer.

Again, I must confess that I'm bewildered. Is there something I'm missing that would provide a logical conclusion to this widely-held belief that seems so nonsensical to me?

It is a belief that is, after all, at the core of how we treat chemical dependency and its devastating effects on families, communities and societies.

It is a belief that prevents healing at all kinds of levels

SECRETS PROTECT ADDICTION

I couldn't say this any better than someone working on freeing herself from a sick relationship with an addict who was refusing to get better:

"I had a headache – maybe because my head was too full of thoughts? I felt better after talking and getting stuff out of my head and into the open.

Secrets can make us physically sick!"  

Whatever secrets we carry - in the name of privacy, dignity, self-reliance, shame, or loyalty - weigh us down and distract us from our true nature.

Guarding secrets puts us on guard, we are tentative about revealing anything about ourselves and our loved-ones.

Secrets spawn lies to protect them,  and lies create more guardedness, isolation and mistrust.

I like this saying: Always tell the Truth. That way, you don’t have to remember what you said.  ~ Mark Twain

And this: Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the Truth. ~Benjamin Disraeli
 

WHAT ARE CODEPENDENCY AND ENABLING?

Here's a comment by a person struggling to understand their part in a relationship with an addict:

 Today I learned that codependency can mean ‘loss of self’. … I always thought it meant, well, I don’t know what it meant, really, but I didn’t think it was something so personal or close to me. I thought it was more of a ‘personality type’ rather than a personality loss! 

Helping people who have lived with and loved an addict (alcoholic, chemically dependent - same thing) has been impeded over the years by the success in popular self-help books of concepts like codependency, enabling and so on ...

Why?  Because the terms have become overused and misunderstood - so much so that, according to some definitions, it would be hard to find anyone on the planet who isn't codependent or an enabler. 

But these concepts are still useful because, properly understood, they describe the real experience of living with and/or loving an addict.

Family members make so many accommodations adapting to the addict's every need that they lose themselves. In other words, they spend so much energy focusing on their relationship with the addict that they lose relationship with themselves. That's codependency.

Enabling is simply the inability, or the refusal, to allow another person to experience the consequences of their behaviour.

These are learned behaviours, and they are always at the service of addiction - even though that is certainly not the intention ....

And, since they are learned, they can be unlearned.

GUILT AND SHAME ARE NOT THE SAME THING

Everybody's got a secret, Sonny

Something they just can't face

Some folks spend their whole lives trying to keep it

They carry it with them every step that they take

'Till some day they just cut it loose

Cut it loose or let it drag 'em down ...

- Darkness On the Edge of Town

Bruce Springsteen

Addiction loves secrets, the bigger, the nastier, the better. All the more fertile ground for shame to develop.

[Although we use them interchangeably, shame is different than guilt .

Guilt is a feeling about something I've done. I feel sorry, but even if making amends is impossible, I don't give up on myself. I see myself as a good person who made a mistake. Guilt can be a learning experience. 

Shame is a feeling about who I am. When I feel shame I feel a certainty that I am not a good person - that I am a mistake. Shame is more than a feeling, it's a deeply held belief. It strikes to the core of who I believe I am, what I'm worth - usually not very much.]

...Where no one asks any questions

Or looks too long in your face

In the darkness on the edge of town.

- Darkness On the Edge of Town

Bruce Springsteen

Compulsive behaviours, acting our sexually or with alcohol or other drugs, overeating, gambling all spawn shame. Someone who feels a lot of shame sees no reason to take of themselves - why not drink or use? It feels better than ... living with myself.  Shame and addiction - an inevitably downward spiral.

Shame grows with secrets, and addiction loves it.

Addiction is really happy when a whole family keeps a lot of secrets - and feels a lot of shame ...

Addiction is protected and nurtured when there are secrets in a family - families that keep secrets in the name of loyalty or for the sake of appearances are addiction's refuge.

There's where we stumble, right?

We don't speak up about our loved-one's drinking or using out of misplaced loyalty to them and the family ... we keep quiet because - what will people think of us? ... it will ruin his career ... or ... everyone else's kids are doing really well ... or ... things like this don't happen in this family ... or ... 

Members of families keep quiet and feel alone. And addiction thrives.

We keep quiet and rescue, control, protect ... all meant to make things better only lead to deeper unmanageability.

You're as sick as your secrets is a well-known slogan in recovery circles.

But if secrets make a person and a family sick, how do we get healthier? How does a family regain some sense of spontaneity and fun?  

Unload our secrets. If we surrender to reality and speak up, all that is shamed-based scurries for cover like cockroaches caught in the beam of a flashlight.  

To unload our secrets we just need someone to talk to.  

POWERLESS AND HELPLESS: PART ONE

The words we use when we talk about addiction and addiction's affects on relationships are hugely important. But sometimes our use of words makes it difficult to sort through the complexities of this devastating relational, human problem. 

The words I want to draw attention to are helpless and powerless.

In everyday life the experience of feeling helpless and being powerless -  are very different things - even though we use words interchangeably. But to do so diminishes both our experience and the spiritual reality of being human. 

OK, let me begin to explain, but I have to acknowledge that this is a sublime topic - and what I'm going to say here barely scratches the surface:

Powerlessness is a profound spiritual reality, while helplessness is a learned behaviour. 

What I mean in everyday language is this: being powerless is a fact. We experience it all the time. There is no escaping powerlessness. But the truth is, we are never helpless - it's a belief based on a false assessment of things. It may seem strange to say, but we always have a choice. 

Powerlessness is an acceptance of a reality - a surrender to reality if you like. When I am able to accept my powerlessness in some situation, my choices multiply. In others words, I can begin to see alternatives rather than bumping up against something repeatedly in exactly the same way. I can begin to see a problem differently and then make decisions about what I can do about it.

Helplessness on the other hand is the belief that no matter what I do, nothing will change. When I believe I am helpless in a given situation, I am convinced that I have no choice - usually based on my experience in other situations - but to do the same thing in all situations. 

 Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.

For the addict, or the people who love the addict for that matter, this difference is crucial. Most of us confuse powerlessness with helplessness - and will fight against accepting what we think is helplessness, sometimes to our dying breath.  We believe that to give in is to surrender to despair.

But when I drink too much or have become dependent on other drugs, my real struggle is against powerlessness, and that can be a great tragedy, because the struggle doesn't have to be. As I said, accepting powerlessness is an acceptance of reality - and when that acceptance occurs, there is relief, and peace. Accepting powerlessness means, paradoxically, that I can relax and enjoy my life because I don't have to fight against my drinking or using.  I can give up the fight and use my energies for more creative things. I can turn away from a relationship that is killing me (with alcohol or other drugs) and find joy in relationships that have meaning (friends? spouses? children? ... ) When I accept powerlessness my choices open up for me.

Of course the difference between helplessness and powerlessness is important far beyond the experience of addiction and its effects on relationships. But learning to understand the difference is a big part of our spiritual path. When we do learn and begin to live in the difference our experience of life and relationships change. 

When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. (Wayne Dyer)

We are powerless over many people, situations and things that we encounter every day. But we are never helpless. We can always do something different, even if what we do is as simple and as private as changing our attitude. 

In the context of the struggle against addiction and it's effects on relationships, understanding the difference between powerlessness and helplessness saves lives. When we accept our powerlessness, the next step is learning to accept help, and that's difficult for the self-reliant, defiant and grandiose. 

This difference is an important subject, so I'll come back to it next time with some illustrations from everyday life. 

ADDICTION IS A RELATIONAL DISEASE: REVISITED

As much as cultures, communities and individuals hate to admit it, some people can't control their use of alcohol and other drugs and need to stop using them. How to accomplish the stopping is the challenge - and, when you consider the disease closely, it's really about how relationships need to change.

Addiction (or alcoholism, or chemical dependency) is a mysterious and complex disease, and our rational, scientific brains don't do well with mystery and complexity.
It is a disease of the whole person and all of his or her relationships. In other words, it is a pervasive, relational illness.
That means no one who is in relationship with the addict (or alcoholic or chemically dependent person) is unaffected: family, friends, co-workers, employers, employees ... 
And the closer the emotional connection in the relationship, the greater the impact, the deeper the hurt.

Here's another way to look at addiction as a relational disease:

The disease does not lie solely in the substance (the drug of choice) - in other words, the issue is not how addictive the substance is ... 

Nor does it lie in the person (the addict) - the issue is not solely about an addictive personality or addictive genes ...

Addiction is in the relationship between the person and the substance.

To put it in terms we are comfortable with: the brain chemistry of the person connects with the chemical makeup of the substance to form an exclusive, passionate,pathological and lethal relationship. 

The relationship of the addict to their drug of choice is their primary, most important relationship. It is an emotional, love relationship.
Every other relationship in their lives - including children, spouses, parents - is secondary.
And, every other relationship is at the service of their relationship with their drug of choice.

Now it gets really complicated and mysterious - and devastating to children and families:

Deep down, loved-ones, friends and so on, know that the addict's relationship with his or her drug of choice is more important than they are. They also know deep down that this relationship is putting the addict's life and relationships in great danger.  

So, loved-ones do everything they can to protect the addict from the consequences of their behaviour (this is what enabling is). They keep quiet and keep secrets.  They get into control mode, they compromise their personal values. They take responsibility for the disease and feel guilty about it .... and so on. 

They become obsessive and compulsive about their protecting and controlling behaviour - so much so that they lose themselves in the relationship with the addict.

Losing oneself because of complete emotional focus on others is the best definition there is of codependency. 

Over time, people hurt by someone else's addiction make so many accommodations and adaptations to the person that their behaviour and attitudes begin to mirror addiction itself.

Codependency mirrors addiction:

The addict's primary relationship (addiction) is with their drug of choice - it's a relational disease.


But it's also relational because the people who love the addict have a drug of choice too -  the addict. 

Putting it more bluntly: the codependent's drug of choice is the addict.   

Recovery means that relationships need to change:

The dance of  addiction and codependence - the symbiotic relationship of mutual benefit and dependence - continues for years, even over generations, until at least one person in the relationship decides to stop dancing and take responsibility for themselves and their own behaviour. 

Someone in a family decides that their life will no longer be at the service of addiction.

It could be the spouse, one of the children - even one of the parents.

It could be the addict.

People hurt by addiction need to learn how to recover their relationships with others - but especially with themselves.

The work of recovery is all about relationships: 

People in recovery are, above all, working on themselves (relationship with self), and taking their growing sense of responsibility and emotional maturity into their relationships with others.

The process of growing up emotionally cannot start too soon - especially when addiction has embedded itself in a family. 

Growing up emotionally. Seems like a good topic for next time.

Comments? dalemacsblog@gmail.com