"Helping"

"Helping"

Counselors and therapists and those who try to help the addicted heal will always tell you that addiction is not only a disease but also a family disease.  The first time I heard that addiction was a disease, I, like many others wasn't sure that I bought it and I certainly didn't buy the concept that the family had an illness as well.  Over the course of living in recovery I have come to accept both.
As I have said before, I knew once I had relapsed and driven the kids while I was drunk, that I was desperately sick.  I had a disease because I would never in my right mind have put my children in danger.  Frank and I have lost a child and I know the value of life on a level that is deeply ingrained, so I can now say, yes, I have a disease and it is deadly.
But the family members of the addicted?  How are they sick?  They are the ones trying to do the right thing and help, so I don't get it and it seems unfair to label the ones who have suffered the slings and arrows of our self-centered and reckless actions.  The addicted leave rubble in their wake and the family is left to clean it up so why would be say they are also sick?
Now I understand.  There is a chaos in the lives of these families.  Parents and spouses of people in active addiction are stuck in a cycle of attempting to maintain some semblance of normalcy amidst the chaos.  They are on point 24 hours a day living on adrenalin trying to save us from ourselves and protect us from danger and pain and the very real possibility of death.
If an addict/alcoholic is blessed enough to embark on a life in recovery, the family members are certainly happy, but understandably wary.  One of the most common side effects of addiction in a family is the loss of trust.  How do the heroes in the situation learn to trust again?  I don't have an answer to that and sometimes it isn't possible to rebuild but I do get that it is a massive and seemingly unsolvable problem.
What I now see certainly to some level within my own family units but also on a larger level among the families of the people that I know in recovery is that the family members find it so hard to drop their guard and they often try solving problems they should never and been responsible for or that are no longer there.  It is possible for the families to become addicted to the chaos as well.  If you live so long in a state of war, how do you re-integrate into life as a civilian again?
I think this may be harder for the parents of addicted children.  How do you detach with love and allow your child to sort things out on their own if in the past their own thinking led them down a path of destruction?  How do they relax and now allow this person to assume the helm once again?  I can say from the view point of the more commonly labeled "patient" in the situation, it can hamper the process of recovery and it is often attempting to solve problems that are no longer there.
During their loved one's active use, parents and spouses have often enabled their loved ones and enabling an addict is only making it worse.  It is contributing to the problem and in some cases it is akin to signing their death warrant.
How can seemingly helpful behavior be destructive?  How can you go from seeing yourself as a hero to being told you are a part of the problem and not be shattered?  It is a paradox like so many others surrounding this disease.  Many family members will balk at being told this reality and simple refuse to accept it.  I have heard many parents on family weekends at rehab say emphatically and with bluster that they will always be there and do everything that they can for their child.  They will wear this statement like a mantle and say it like a battle cry.  But if they and the addict could step back and take a look at the situation from a distance what would they see?  They might see a shell of a person in, say in their thirties, without a job, without a relationship because their significant other has had enough.  The addict may have lost custody of children.  Their parents have swept in a picked up the pieces, are paying their bills, giving them a place to live, doing their laundry and even giving them money for drugs and alcohol because the addict will be sick and intolerable without them.  When the addict acts out and goes on a binge, the parents drop everything and sweep the city looking for this adult runaway and worrying themselves sick only to have the addict return and cycle through this insanity over and over again.
 In so many of these cases I wish the addict could see how pathetic their behavior really is and I wish the family could see how futile and harmful the "helping" really is.  The bravest actions would be for the addict to face themselves and begin to take responsibility for themselves, seeking the professional help they really need and frankly grow up.  The even braver thing lies at the feet of the families.  They must learn a nearly impossibly counter-intuitive act of detaching with love.  The family will ask but what if they fall again?  What if they become homeless?  What if they get hurt or they die?  The fact is that the addicts are already dying, they are just dying more slowly and the family members "helping"them are doing just that, they are helping them to die.  It is awful to write and it is awful to read but it is true.  The only thing to be done is guide the addict to professional help and if they don't opt to go then the family has to stop "helping" so they are forced to hit bottom and no longer have any options.  It is all part of this sad and insidious, emotionally and mentally charged, fatal disease.
I just hope for family members to find peace and to learn to take care of themselves as that is the strongest and bravest thing that they can do.