Discussion Blog
Latest Discussion Blog Post
What Is Our Role? Underlying Feelings and Beliefs We Have About Our Loved Ones
Like many of us who have Loved Ones struggling with SUD, Allies member Binnie knows that trust is a delicate matter. Can we trust our Loved Ones to take care of themselves? Do we believe they have the capacity? Or do we think they’re so damaged that they can’t function without our stepping in? Isabel Cooney reflects on how trust is explored in a recent Allies podcast, and offers her own insightful take on this vital subject.
Discussion Blog Posts
She’s On the Street with a No-Good Boyfriend
Keep your focus on your Loved One. Leave the boyfriend out of it when talking to them. You will create a wedge between you if they believe you are against the partner. It’s hard to not want to blame the partner, but doing so creates more obsessive thoughts for you, and doesn’t solve your Loved One's situation.
She’s Across the Country and Wants Us to Bail Her Out
You will need the jail’s help to decide what is best. If they won’t help you, I actually think staying in jail until February may be the safest answer for you and for her. Your daughter has been on a drug run. There are consequences for this. She has landed in jail, which is not the right place for her, but she's made some bad decisions and this is where society has put her.
He Has A Triple Diagnosis—Where Do I Start?
Allies member frankstr's son has a triple diagnosis: PTSD, SUD and most recently, blindness. Where does he start? When seeking to help a Loved One with multiple diagnoses, pursuing treatment for the issue they are most willing to work on is a viable strategy.
She Secretly Struggles with Bulimia & Alcohol
There is a difference between someone who is legitimately unaware of the effects and dangers of what they are doing, who doesn’t have, or has not experienced, behaviors of healthy living…and someone who has. peepsandklucks has a high-functioning daughter who secretly struggles with bulimia and alcohol, refusing all treatment. Mom wonders about striking a deal: treatment in exchange for co-signing on a house…
He’s Chipping on Heroin While Taking Suboxone
Ivy2015 is riding the spiral of addiction and recovery with her son. Just when it feels like things are improving, there's a backslide. How can she get more treatment for her son, who takes Suboxone but also continues to occasionally use heroin?
She Uses the Car Both for Therapy Appointments and to Score Drugs
mizkitty's daughter made good progress with treatment, then sober living, but has relapsed fully. How to figure out the specifics of housing and car arrangements, when a Loved One uses the car both for recovery supports and to procure drugs? Housing and transportation can so easily become enabling, when the Loved One uses. Rewards need to be easy to give and to take away…
The Abuse Has Become Unbearable
From the description, it sounds like your son suffers from serious mental illness. For you and for other Allies families dealing with serious mental illness, I’d like to suggest you also look at the work of Dr. Xavier Amador. His work with families of those with serious mental illness is in line with CRAFT, and specifically addresses the issues of resistance to treatment and the relational stance a family member can take to de-escalate conflicts.
He Thinks Pot Is His Wonder Drug
Vandy's son feels like pot is the answer to his problems (OCD, anxiety…) but Mom can't help notice his motivation evaporating. Her son may have stumbled onto something that really helps him. Now what? Mom can't keep babysitting or micromanaging this 21-year-old. Could he agree to coming home once he is no longer high?
How Do I Deal with the Constant Lying?
As a parent, we want them to explain what they are doing. In becoming a partner, an ally, of someone with an addiction issue, you want to leave them to themselves; let them feel more responsibility for their actions. Don't ask for a full account—you won't get it anyway. See if you can step away from this dynamic a little. Make it your goal to let it pass by when you hear dishonesty and respond instead to her demeanor: sober or not.
She Refuses to Discuss Treatment
It's gridlock. After a series of failed relationships, mother3's daughter is spiraling downward. She acknowledged her problem before and accepted treatment for it…but now she refuses to discuss it, and seems depressed, in addition to mood swings.
He Doesn’t Think He Needs Any Treatment—He’s Out of His Mind!
Please don’t give up on your son. Leaving Houston and staying sober for three months in your home strongly suggests that 1) he knows he has a problem and 2) he has motivation to address it. Whether or not he "admits" to having a problem or needing help is beside the point. These are not useful conversations to have with him.
He’s Abstaining from Substances but the Gaming Persists
Gaming is in part about relationship—a group of peers—so asking him to stop gaming is also asking your son to walk away from feelings of belonging and friendship. To hold the line of reducing use of every kind, he needs help: therapy, a community of non-users, alternative activities that begin to fill the hole left by abstinence.
We Need Help Rewarding Our Son Who Smokes Pot Daily
Sounds like you restricted his cell phone use in response to his pot use. He responded by staying out all night. But, all of this moved him to go talk to the school social worker. These things are rarely smooth, but the trend is in the right direction. The general “rule” is to meter out rewards for non-use…rewards that can be given and taken away day to day. It’s not easy.
Tough Love?
When it came to managing life around my addicted Loved Ones, much of the advice I was given centered around the term Tough Love. “You have to give tough love.” As if it were simple. As if it weren't tough already. But I’d fought so hard with the situation by then that I was running out of energy and ideas. Tough love, I was told, was the only hope I had left.
He’s Heading Home & I’m So Anxious
We have followed your situation now for years. You are so strong. You deserve continued peace, especially in your home. Pull in help, such as the folks at Baystate. Work on a plan. Let your son know he is not coming home, and if he does, it is night by night, with the support of a medication-assisted clinic.
It’s Like a Cosmic Flaw Awaiting
Allies member 228 published a comment that explores his and his family's experience with his son's addiction and rehab. Guilt and remorse, about what he could or should have done differently, continue to plague his thinking. However, he shares a technique he's started using when catastrophic thinking appears, to balance out the negativity.
He’s Avoiding Me & Using At Night
1delapisa wishes her son would just listen to her for 10 minutes but he hides out and sleeps all day to avoid talking. She is tired and frustrated and unsure of how to help him. Between the Adderall he snorts, the street-bought suboxone and his total lack of participation at home, she's ready to kick him out—and next week would be ideal, as he's planned a trip…
He’s Not Really Living—How Can He Get Unstuck?
There are questions in Learning Module 3 that will help you sharpen your skills at observing your Loved One. To the degree that it can be known, try and get an idea of their patterns of use and non-use. You want to match your behavior to their patterns. CRAFT is about what you can do, how you can change your behaviors and your communication in such a way as to shift your Loved One’s habits.
He’s Back in College But Is Still On Shaky Ground
The bar you set may be unrealistically high in terms of your expectations. Individuals don’t stop all addictions at once. They test out reducing use in different contexts, thinking it is easy, but finding it actually a good deal more difficult. Chances are, your son has the best intentions but will find it very difficult to meet the goal of total abstinence from all his subject issues, all at once.
He’s Clean From Opiates But Really Struggling
This mom is determined to help her son, in recovery from opioid addiction since last December. He continues to struggle, from symptoms related to Lyme's disease, misuse of benzodiazepines, chronic fatigue, and perhaps depression. He recently told her "I have lost the tenacity to live."