The Paradox of Grief & Gratitude

Written by MARR on August 20, 2020. Posted in MARR Articles, Resources.

“Grief and gratitude are kindred souls…each pointing to the beauty of what is transient and given to us by grace.” – Patricia Campbell Carlson

Some of the most powerful and potent truths of life are held within paradoxes. Like this one: grief & gratitude. If you are in the process of grieving, gratitude may be the last thing you want to think about. It may even spark feelings of anger or frustration. You may think: How can I be grateful when I have lost someone or something that was so important to me?

The “Right” Way to Grieve

When we experience loss, whether it be that of a loved one, a relationship, a life we once lived, or even a part of ourselves, grief is a common emotion. We feel a deep sorrow or emptiness, because something that was once an important part of our life is now gone. It is important to accept all of the complex emotions that come with loss. Grief is a universal experience, but that does not make it any easier to understand or navigate.

After years of extensive work with terminally ill patients who were near the end of their lives, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously outlined the five stages of grief as it relates to death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But these are not meant to be an exact roadmap, nor do they always occur in this order. Everyone experiences grief differently, and we may go back and forth between these stages, or skip some altogether. There is no “right” way to grieve. We are allowed to feel intense emotions. We are allowed to acknowledge the pain and the feeling of hopelessness.

Grief often comes as a result of things that we cannot control: sickness, accidents, or other people’s decisions, to name a few examples. We cannot control whether or not we grieve. However, there are parts of the grieving process that we can control.

As the Serenity Prayer states, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” When we can begin to make a distinction between the things we cannot change and those we can change, there is simultaneously a declaration of powerlessness and power. There are some things we can change–even in the midst of grief.

We get to choose how we cope with our grief. If we do not allow ourselves to grieve externally, grief that is trapped inside will likely become even more consuming and destructive. As we begin to walk the path of grief, there is the possibility of using negative coping mechanisms like isolation, using drugs or alcohol, and other self-destructive behaviors. Then there are positive coping mechanisms like counseling, connecting with loved ones, meditation, or a practice of gratitude.

Grieving with Gratitude

In times of intense grief, gratitude probably does not exist naturally. It is something that we must choose to practice. Cultivating a practice of gratitude in a time of grief can be a powerful step towards taking control of your own thoughts and actions. As outlined in our previous article, Gratitude | The Opposite of Addiction, practicing gratitude can have positive effects on mental health, connection in relationships, and the brain itself. But especially during periods of grief, gratitude holds a distinct power.

It may seem counterintuitive at first, being grateful during a time of pain. And if you have never had a gratitude practice before, it may feel like exercising a new muscle–very unnatural at first and most definitely sore at some points. Although the grief will not disappear, gratitude can radically change the grieving process by reframing the way you think about your own experience. Now let’s consider a few ways that gratitude may shift our thoughts and experience.

First, it may be helpful to note that the sheer fact that you are grieving may be a reason for gratitude, because if you are grieving, you had something to lose. Whether it is a person, a relationship, or a part of your life, you experienced something that was so important to you, that its absence is painful. Could we consider being grateful for that experience, even if it is in the past now?

Second, gratitude can be a way of fully experiencing the present moment. When we notice things that are here right now, we become more grounded in our own reality. Becoming present is not meant to lessen or erase the past, it is meant to help us move through our hours, days, and months mindfully and stay aware of what we are experiencing. Grief can often become a blur of time and reality as it pulls the rug out from under us and we try to remember how to navigate through our lives. Gratitude exposes things that are happening right in front of us that we may not otherwise notice.

“I am grateful for the sunrise today.”

“I am grateful for the people who are here to support me.”

“I am grateful for the body that carries me.”

Third, gratitude can transform your connections with others during the journey of grief. Grief is often accompanied by isolation, mentally, spiritually, and physically. It is natural to feel like no one can understand the feelings of loss and emptiness that we are experiencing. But as we stated earlier, grief is a universal experience. Anyone who exists long enough will experience loss and grief at some point. And although everyone has unique and individual experiences of grief, there is common ground to be found. If we allow gratitude to keep us grounded in the present, we may look around and see people who are ready and trying to support us.

If we choose to really engage in the journey of grief, we will probably even find people who have experienced pain that is very similar to what we are feeling. And all of a sudden, grief doesn’t have to be quite so lonely. We can see someone who is a little ahead of us on the journey, and it might bring a semblance of hope. And as we go, we can look back and guide those who are behind us, letting them know that the future is brighter than they can imagine right now.

A common experience of grief is an inability to imagine what your life might look like in the future. It can be so difficult to picture yourself being content without having whatever it is that you lost. Gratitude can help transform that; not all at once, but just the slightest bit each time we practice, by allowing ourselves to see that there is still good happening around us. And then eventually we might see that there is still good happening within us, walking hand in hand with our pain.

Gratitude is not a medication for the pain of loss. It is not meant to end your grieving or make you forget. It is a shift in perspective, and nod of your head and your heart towards what was good and what is good.

Women & Treatment: What gets in the way?

Written by MARR on August 20, 2020. Posted in MARR Articles.

Lauren Davis, MS, LPC, Director of Admissions
Kristen Render, LMSW, Assistant Director of Admissions

When it comes to getting treatment for substance use disorder, women are generally more likely to be faced with obstacles and are overall less likely to seek treatment than their male counterparts. This is true nationwide, regardless of sexual preference or marital status, although heteronormative family structures do perpetuate it. At MARR, our Clinical Assessment Team observes this trend every single day. We see, on average, more than twice as many admissions to our Men’s Recovery Center compared to Traditions Recovery Center for Women, even though the structure of these two programs is very similar.

We hear from family members and loved ones every day who are all facing the same challenges in getting treatment for the women in their lives. This may not be your experience, but it is important to acknowledge this overarching trend and some of these specific obstacles, especially if you have a female loved one who may need treatment for substance use. Knowing some of these barriers up front can foster more productive conversations in the process of considering treatment.

Common Obstacles

Oftentimes in women, it is not as obvious that a substance abuse issue exists. Women are generally more open and honest about things like depression, anxiety, disordered eating, and medical problems than men are, so substance abuse is often masked by these other issues. These struggles are also generally more accepted and deemed as more “normal” in females. It is normalized for women to suffer from anxiety or disordered eating without getting treatment, but when men are suffering from the same issues it is deemed a more pressing issue.

Due to the barriers to accessing treatment, it typically takes women longer in their disease before becoming willing to enter treatment. In that time, women tend to develop stronger skills of being secretive and manipulating those around them. Many of our female clients enter treatment with personality disorder symptoms that result in excessive manipulation and difficulty regulating their emotions. Women are used to just saying, “It’s okay.” They quell the worry of those around them and they even convince themselves that they do not need help. Even if a female client begins to acknowledge her suffering, it is often so radically minimized and delusional that it is difficult to determine whether she even sees it as an issue.

Women also often hold and internalize a lot of shame. Oftentimes in addiction, this shame grows and manifests as denial, both for themselves and for their families. The family members of women that we talk to have often spent months or even years feeling like they are walking on eggshells. Families are scared of how the women they love are going to react, afraid that they will be met with anger or intense emotion that they won’t know how to navigate.

Women are also more likely to have suffered from some sort of biological trauma in their history. They may have had a physically, sexually, or emotionally abusive relationship that led them to using substances. They also may have suffered from reproductive issues like infertility or miscarriage . While these traumas may have initially led them to start using, they often become a justification to loved ones: Just leave me alone because I am dealing with ___________. And families silently allow the substance abuse to continue because they feel pity or guilt.

One of the biggest obstacles for women getting into treatment is the dynamic and well-being of their household. The thought of leaving their children for any period of time can be a huge strain on women. If they are the ones taking care of the household–cooking, cleaning, watching the kids–they question how these things would be maintained in their absence. Also, families are often less likely to spend money on treatment for a woman if she is not working, because they do not have the incentive of trying to preserve a job and an income through treatment. However, if a woman works and runs the household, this turns into a different challenge, because the family would be losing income as well if she left for treatment. These obstacles are all a reflection of this reality: women tend to not put themselves first. They prioritize others, even when it ultimately means not getting what they need to be healthy.

Family dynamics often pose a huge challenge to women getting treatment as well. In general, families are more dependent on women to maintain a sense of normalcy, and therefore less likely to push them to get treatment. In heterosexual relationships, husbands tend to have some level of codependency with their wives and are not often willing to hold boundaries and push them into treatment. Families are more willing to accept a substance abuse issue in a son or husband than in a daughter or wife. Substance abuse issues in women are often written off as stress, anxiety, or depression.

COVID & Treatment

In the past six months, COVID-19 has changed a lot of things in our society, including the dynamics of entering treatment for substance abuse.

For many women, this transition has caused a lot of stress and has created an environment in which they can no longer keep up with everything that is being asked of them: being a full-time mom, a teacher, and possibly still keeping up with their own career. The normal busyness and “go-go-go” schedules have ceased. More time at home has created more stillness and caused women to sit with feelings of discomfort that they have ignored in the past. In many cases, this leads to an increase in drinking or using as a way to cope with all the feelings that are emerging. In other cases, their “hiding place” has been taken away–with spouses and other family members at home, their substance use becomes more noticeable or obvious.

On the flip side, we are seeing that COVID has actually created some unique circumstances that are allowing some women to enter treatment who otherwise would not have done so. Having a spouse or other family member at home consistently lessens women’s fear of leaving the household, because someone else will be there to take care of it. A halt in social obligations and activities has actually created space and possibility for many women to consider taking a break to go to treatment. Before, the thought of being away from home for three months may have caused a lot of shame, guilt, and embarrassment, but this shift in social obligations makes it a lot more feasible.

What’s Your Story?

These dynamics and examples are not relevant for every family, but it is important for us to recognize some of the overarching trends that we see happening every day in the families that we work with. If you or your loved one is experiencing something different, we will walk with you through your unique circumstances, regardless of your history or family structure.

The most important thing to know is, regardless of your journey, you are not alone. Our Clinical Assessment Team is here to support you and walk with you through the process of getting the best treatment possible, even if that’s not at MARR.

Getting yourself or a loved one into treatment can often be a messy and complex process, but it can also be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Substance Use and Addiction in College

Written by MARR on August 17, 2020. Posted in MARR Articles.

Sophie Gruber
Communications Intern
MARR Addiction Treatment Center

Drinking at Bible Study and Getting High at Hobby Lobby

Before Bible study, the other day, my friend and I were sitting in the car waiting for our other friend to arrive so that we could all walk in together. While we were waiting, my friend mentioned that she was craving wine, which is nothing too out of the ordinary. My concern peaked, however, when she commented on how easy it would be to sneak wine into the event in a water bottle. I thought, “Why would you want to be getting drunk during Bible study?”

Around the same time, I went to Hobby Lobby with a friend of mine, and we spent about two hours looking for very specific things she wanted for her room. Later on, she apologized for how long we spent in the store and informed me that she had smoked weed beforehand. This was surprising to me because she was acting how she normally acts while we were in the store. I then realized that she was acting “normal” in the store because she is high most of the time. I started to not even notice when she would smoke because I was so used to seeing her doing it.

In fact, frequent drinking and marijuana use is so common in college, that turning these things down in social settings can be stigmatizing. For example, I went through a period of time during my sophomore year of college when I stopped consuming alcohol for a few months to help my mental health. I noticed that almost every time I drank, my mental health would worsen, so I stopped. It quickly became clear to me that college students don’t know what to make of someone their age who doesn’t drink. My peers would urge me to go out with them and would call me “lame” or a “buzzkill” when I declined. People questioned me every time I said that I wasn’t drinking. It was a foreign concept. Drinking is so normalized in college that anyone who doesn’t participate is seen as the anomaly.

When Does Partying Become Problematic?

For all of college, alcohol has been a part of my routine. I never saw this as a problem, because everyone drinks in college. I have always viewed college as a time to drink, party, and make mistakes. However, the more I pay attention, the more I start to notice the tendencies of myself and those I surround myself with. Finishing a whole bottle of wine every time I have a get-together with my friends isn’t healthy. Getting so drunk that I throw up every time I go to the bars isn’t normal. Going to class the morning after a party still drunk isn’t normal. Unfortunately, for the majority of college students, it is.

According to the Partnership to End Addiction, half of all full-time college students (3.8 million) binge drink, abuse prescription drugs, and/or abuse illegal drugs. Almost one in four of the nation’s college students (22.9%, some 1.8 million) meet the medical criteria for substance abuse or dependence, which is over two times the proportion (8.5%) of those who meet the criteria in the rest of the population.

When my internship at MARR began, I was excited to learn more about addiction. I have addiction in my family, so I thought I knew what it looked like. However, the further I got into my internship, the more I found myself questioning things that I had previously perceived as normal.

When I was still in the bubble of college life, I never thought twice about going to the liquor store multiple times a week for whatever events we had to go on that week. Sometimes, I would have a wine night for Bachelor Monday, a sorority social on Tuesday, go out for Karaoke Wednesday, and then hit the bars on Thursday. That’s four nights out of my week focused around alcohol, four mornings going to class hungover. But it was fine because that’s just what happens in college, right? Through my time at MARR, I’ve been able to take a step back and question the actions of myself and my friends. I began to ask myself a lot of questions- Is it normal to drink this much in college? Are these just examples of college students being college students? When does normal college drinking or drug use cross over into addiction? I wanted to explore these questions more deeply, so I interviewed one of our counselors here.

Bob Day is a primary counselor here at MARR. His role involves treatment planning for clients, as well as facilitating group and individual therapy. Since he is one of the younger primary counselors, he mostly works with younger clients and has seen first-hand what addiction looks like in my age group.

I was interested in finding out when people are crossing the line from normal college drinking and recreational marijuana use into addiction. “Binge drinking is woven into the fabric of college culture,” Bob stated, “But what I see here with the clients at MARR is that the negative consequences that come along with their drinking and drug use are happening faster.”

A lot of times this difference doesn’t show up until after college is over. Bob mentioned that most people are able to adapt to slowing down their drinking after college, but some people cross that threshold going through that process and aren’t able to cut back. That’s where it becomes an addicting behavior rather than simply college behavior.

This behavior not only applies to alcohol but to drug use as well. Marijuana is widely used among college students, and from my experience, is just as normalized as drinking alcohol. As I mentioned previously, I have friends who smoke casually every day. It’s seen as normal because it’s “just weed” and is believed to not have the same negative effects as other drugs.

When I spoke to Bob, he mentioned that people who had been smoking regularly before coming to MARR will express that they are experiencing withdrawal symptoms, but will be told by others that what they are experiencing isn’t real because of the belief that marijuana doesn’t have those effects. This can be invalidating for the person experiencing the symptoms. In reality, withdrawal symptoms will arise they will just be different than those of other drugs.

It may be helpful for people in or coming out of college to notice whether they are having trouble cutting back or stopping smoking to make sure they are not crossing over into exhibiting addict behavior.

Social Media and Substance Use

Communication on social media contributes significantly to how college students think about substance use. In general, I have noticed a lot of normalization of alcohol and drug use across different platforms.

Discussion and representations of substance use vary across platforms. For example, on Instagram, you won’t really see videos of someone blackout drunk at the bar, but you’re more likely to see things like that on someone’s Snapchat story. Tik Tok is a different story, however. There are almost no boundaries to the types of videos posted on Tik Tok. I’ll be scrolling and see an informational video about politics, and the next video could be a group of friends doing mushrooms. I follow one person who posts things like “drinking every day until Chipotle has good queso.” This content is entertaining, but it has the potential to minimize the risk of alcoholism

This is one of the negative aspects of social media. We use it to get a glimpse into others’ lives, and oftentimes, their lives involve substance use. I’m in no way saying that college students need to get rid of social media; rather, I’m pointing to the reality that their ideas of substance use are likely going to be shaped by what they see on these platforms.

While some users might be promoting drinking or drug use, I’ve seen a lot of people using their platforms to promote recovery. People will create videos or posts saying how many days sober they are, and the comments will be flooded with support and encouragement from others in recovery and the general public. Things like this can encourage people who are on the fence about seeking treatment to take the next step and get help.

What College Students and Parents Can Do

Interning at MARR has opened my eyes to thinking more critically about substance use and when it potentially crosses over into substance abuse. For college students, it’s difficult at times to tell the difference between experimentation and when that crosses into problematic behavior, but as Bob suggested, watching for mounting consequences and the ability to discontinue or decrease use when necessary can be key indicators.

I think it’s also crucial for college students to be aware that social media images and videos are curated representations of college life. They only show part of the story. Hitting the bar Thursday night can easily leave out failing a Friday midterm.

Some partying in college might just be that. Or it might be the beginning of more damaging and problematic tendencies caused by the disease of addiction. Regardless, being aware of the patterns of addiction will allow college students and their family members to be more aware of what they are looking at. I have personally found that MARR’s resources are a good place to start to get an education on what to look for.

How Sexual Fantasies Can Connect to Our Traumatic Past

Written by MARR on August 17, 2020. Posted in MARR Articles. 1 Comment on How Sexual Fantasies Can Connect to Our Traumatic Past

By Rick McKain, MAC, LPC

What’s the Connection?

Men who struggle with intimacy in relationships often entertain consistent and unrealistic sexual fantasies. From my experience working in this area, there is a reason why many of these men fantasize the way that they do. Their sexual fantasies are often failed attempts to resolve trauma that they carry around with them from childhood.

I covered some of this information in the article “Sex, Drugs, and Intimacy Issues,” which I wrote for the last New Meanings magazine. The article generated a positive response, and I was asked to write more specifically about how childhood trauma relates to sexual fantasies, and how our clients unpack these parts of their history in the BBR (Building Better Relationships) group that I lead.

As I mentioned in the last article, the BBR group started out of a need to address sex addiction with some of our clients. Over the years, it has evolved into a supportive 12-week therapeutic group that addresses issues beyond sex addiction to intimacy in general. It is an optional part of treatment here at MARR, and men volunteer to participate if they identify relationship struggles and are willing to address them.

As part of this group, participants complete and share two very significant exercises with the group, a life story exercise that helps identify trauma and an exercise looking at their sexual fantasies. These help provide a key to understanding their intimacy issues. Though intensive and difficult at times, these self-examinations viewed together can lay the groundwork for closer emotional intimacy with their partner and a stronger recovery going forward.

I help the clients map how their deep-seated pain connects to the unhealthy coping mechanisms they’ve developed. This provides these men with new information about themselves and a road map to begin resolving these traumas so they can meet their needs in more healthy ways.

Trauma Exercise

Over the course of over 20 years, every single man I have worked with as a client at MARR is dealing with the trauma of abandonment on some level. And many are also dealing with the trauma of emotional invasion to varying degrees. The purpose of the Trauma Exercise is to pinpoint specific examples of when these types of harms occurred.

The clients look at their past trauma and share them with a group. By the time they’ve gotten to this phase in their treatment, they have certainly looked at and discussed some of this material before, but likely not in as much detail as is asked for in this exercise.

All the participants in the BBR group are at least 90 days sober, and as a client at MARR, this means that they have already done a First Step Exercise, a Life Story, and usually a 4th and 5th Step with their sponsor. Through these exercises, they have shared painful and difficult aspects of their story with their community members, peers, counselors, and sponsors. In all likelihood, some healing has even begun to take place related to their trauma and their capacity for intimacy.

However, the purpose of the Trauma Exercise is to really zero in on relational, sexual, and trauma history to see how these things played a formative role in shaping the way the clients view themselves and others.

In the Trauma Exercise, each man creates a timeline of events, beginning with his early life and his descriptions of early memories of his caregivers. As part of the timeline, he records painful stories about his sexual history, as well as instances of abuse or boundary violations. The exercise also includes recollections of profound disappointment, betrayal, deep embarrassments, or crises.

If this is done well, this timeline takes multiple hours to complete. In sharing the results with the group, the participants tell a version of their life story, which allows them to see that although the details may differ, many of them struggle with many of the same core difficulties.

Part of the purpose of this is to expand our idea of how our past has shaped us. For example, abandonment trauma is a broader category than most people realize. When we think of abandonment, we often think of a father or mother leaving the home, or perhaps not being around at all. This can certainly cause abandonment trauma, but abandonment can occur more subtly.

For instance, abandonment trauma also occurs when parents might be physically present, but not be emotionally available for their children. Parents don’t do this intentionally. Often, they are unable to discuss their own feelings because they were not taught how to do so. As a result, they might not be able to provide the mirroring, empathy, sense of belonging, and nurturing that every child needs to develop a stable emotional life and healthy sense of self.

An easy way to define abandonment trauma is to think of it as what didn’t happen in childhood that should have happened.

The other main type of trauma is invasion trauma, also referred to as “emotional invasion.” This usually consists of harmful messages, whether verbal or non-verbal, that got through to the person at a young age, and provide unhealthy modeling and experiences that become the familiar patterns of acting out later in life

In addition to physical abuse, Dr. Mark Laaser points out that one of the most common ways emotional invasion happens is through “put-downs” and verbal abuse. These messages can be yelled or screamed, sometimes with profanity. The message can be direct, as in: “You’re dumb, stupid, and/or ugly!” Sometimes, the message can be indirect, as in when you overhear, “I regret the day he was born; he was a pain then, and he’s always been a pain.” Emotional invasion can also come in the form of a question: “Did you screw up again? You’re always screwing up! Do it right this time, if you can.”

A simple way of defining invasion trauma is what did happen in childhood that should not have happened.

Sometimes, these violations are simple traumas, meaning that they can be traced back to isolated, life-disrupting events. Other times, they cause more complex traumas, related to repeated trauma or abuse or to repeated, subtle messages received from parents or others that they were not worthy of time, attention, and acceptance.

Regardless of the cause, the takeaway the person holds is: “I am unworthy of time and attention” or at the other end of the spectrum, “I am unworthy of having autonomy and reasonable boundaries.” This exercise helps us see where these ideas first started to take root and how they have shaped the clients.

Sexual Fantasy Exercise

To treat these deeply held negative beliefs, men often develop an active sexual fantasy life. These idealized scenarios are often attempts to resolve these traumas and soothe themselves into believing they are “man enough” or just “enough” to handle life.

We start out this exercise with the understanding that the fundamental problem in regards to sexual fantasy is not one of willpower. Most of the men I have worked with have tried, oftentimes very strenuously, to stop the problematic sexual fantasies. Whether their fantasies actually leads to infidelity, activity inconsistent with their values, a pornography addiction, or just an inability to connect with their partner on a deep level, it is something they are usually actively trying to stop, but failing to.

In the fantasy exercise, participants are asked to inventory, without judgment, the extent that sexual fantasies are part of their daily life. As the activity continues, they are asked to describe their ideal sexual fantasy in a non-graphic and straightforward way. They complete this part of the exercise as if they are to describe it like a newspaper reporter. They also share the end result of this exercise with the group, which helps to destigmatize their experience and relieve them of some of the shame they likely carry with them as a result.

It’s important that this exercise allows the clients to see and describe their fantasy objectively. This objectivity allows them to start to see their fantasy life as a symptom and response to a series of losses and traumas that they experienced in life.

Linking Their Trauma and Fantasy

I tell the men in the group that by understanding the fantasy, we can start to understand the trauma and vice versa. To help them with this, I closely read both of these exercises and give them a written synthesis of how I see their specific traumas and fantasies informing one another.

I explain to them that the objective isn’t to figure out a way to stop fantasizing. Many of them have already tried this and failed. Rather, the goal is to find healthier ways to resolve the trauma. Ultimately, healthy relationships and healthy trauma resolution will free them from fantasy.

In the synthesis I write for them, I highlight the specific ways their trauma created a vacuum. I also help them see the connection between this vacuum and the specific “magic” person and situation they have created in their fantasies. This person and situation typically embody perfect nurturing to the client by treating those sore spots of their negative self-image.

This process is not meant to lay blame on our caregivers or create resentments. We must avoid these tendencies. Rather, the purpose of the work is to give the clients the space to grieve what was missing. Emotional healing takes place when we accept that we can’t return to the past and get the love and nurturing that we needed when we were younger. Even if the people who abandoned them are more available today, it can’t make up for what was missed in childhood. Accepting that means that they must grieve the loss.

The written synthesis of their trauma and fantasy helps them to see how their trauma has fueled the energy for their sexual fantasies. In presenting their individual reports to the men at the end of the group, I stress that they can heal from these wounds. But healing takes time, and they may need help. I highly recommend that they take the information that we have gone over to an individual therapist for them to continue to work on. It is a lot to process.

Moving Forward

This work is meant to allow space for grieving and growth, and, if done thoughtfully, this type of trauma work will not create a sense of victimhood. In fact, such understanding offers us increased capacity for empathy, forgiveness, and intimacy.

As part of wrapping up the group, the men create a Mission Statement where they decide what direction they want for their life going forward. Through this, they get to see that they are not defined by past hurts. They then are on firm ground to use the difficult parts of their past for healthy growth and connection with others in the future.

As the A.A. Literature so beautifully states: “No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we can use our experience to benefit others.”

In other words, no matter how great the hurt received or inflicted on others is, I firmly believe that with proper healing there is always a way for good to come from the past when it is truly embraced and understood.

Addressing Addiction in the Home Workbook Addressing Addiction in the Home Workbook

Recognizing When We Are Enabling Our Loved Ones

Written by MARR on August 17, 2020. Posted in MARR Articles, Resources.

By Todd Valentine, LCSW
MARR Addiction Treatment Centers

This article is excerpted and adapted from a chapter “Enabling, Rescuing, Controlling” of Addressing Addiction in the Home: A Family Workbook. For the full text along with the worksheet exercises, please visit www.www.marrinc.org/workbook to purchase your copy.

Good Intentions, Bad Outcomes

Loving family members and friends don’t intend to support the progression of their loved one’s illness. But addiction is both subtle and powerful, and the family members’ best intentions to help their addicted loved one frequently get co-opted in service of the disease when the family members become codependent.

Many codependent behaviors fall into three broad categories of “enabling,” “rescuing,” or “controlling.” These actions often appear to be helpful and supportive, and if the loved one was not at the mercy of his or her addiction, the same actions might actually be loving and supportive. However, addiction radically changes family dynamics, taking good intentions and turning them into bad outcomes.

It’s important to look at the most foundational principle for loving someone with an addiction: Just as the addict or alcoholic is powerless over alcohol and drugs, family members are powerless over whether or not their loved one continues to use or drink.

Ultimately, the addicted person’s recovery from substance use is their responsibility, just as the family’s healing is their own responsibility.

There are two primary reasons family members enable their loved one in his or her addiction: they want to help, or they are afraid.

What is Enabling?

The term “enabling” is used in the context of problematic behavior (in this case, addiction) to signify dysfunctional approaches that are intended to help but, in fact, may perpetuate a problem (in this context, addiction). A common theme of enabling is that third parties take responsibility, blame, or make accommodations for a person’s harmful conduct (often with the best of intentions, or out of fear or insecurity, which inhibits action).

There are two primary reasons family members enable their loved one in his or her addiction.

Family members want to help. As mentioned above, the disease is very good at turning our good intentions into bad outcomes. You may reach out to your loved one to help, but the disease turns your intentions against you and your loved one. In some cases, we are talking about behaviors that may work fine and even be helpful in healthy relationships.
Family members are afraid. When fear grabs ahold of a family member, it is very difficult not to respond. It is normal to think: What if they don’t pay their phone bill, and I can’t reach them? What if they don’t pay their rent and end up homeless? What if they are in physical danger? What if they die or hurt somebody? The next thought is: I NEED to go do something.

It’s also important to remember that addicts are experts at catastrophic thinking and building up worst-case scenarios. By being around them, we are trained in that habit as well. It becomes difficult for us to distinguish what is true from what isn’t.

It might be that taking action is helpful, but, oftentimes, it is not. That is why family members need the support of a 12 Step Fellowship of their own, like Al-Anon or Nar-Anon. People in these communities will help you distinguish between when action is helpful or just another means of getting pulled into the whirlpool of dysfunction again.

Rescuing the addicted person from consequences may seem to work in the short term, but, ultimately, it sabotages the natural learning and human development process.

What is Rescuing?

Rescuing is a specific type of enabling that impedes the addict from learning that behaviors have consequences.

Some examples of rescuing loved ones are as follows::

Preventing cars from being impounded
Bailing them out of jail quickly without a treatment plan in place
Paying off debts so their credit is not affected
Paying a phone bill so their phone is not cut off
Calling in sick for them
Repairing their cars
Paying tickets and other legal fees

Rescuing the addicted person from consequences may seem to work in the short term, but, ultimately, it sabotages the natural learning and humans development process. Natural consequences are some of the best teachers we have, and removing those distorts the addicted person’s sense of reality. We all have two primary ways of learning: intellectual learning and experiential learning. Intellectual learning, like reading a book, may be helpful in pointing us in the right direction and giving us an idea of what to do. But the real learning, most of the time, seems to come through experience. Learning through experience requires emotional risk that allows the lesson to take root more deeply.

If the addicted person does not experience the consequences of poor choices and the sense of fulfillment that comes with emotional independence, it puts that individual at a disadvantage when it come to really grab hold of a new life of independence and usefulness. If the family continues to rescue, the addict begins to rely on the family to do so more and more, knowing that inevitably the rescuer will be there to save the day.

A more compassionate way to respond to those you love might be to allow them to face the consequences of their actions, even when it will cause them pain. When relationships become centered around rescuing behaviors, it usually takes a lot of support for family members to disentangle themselves. Throughout this process of building healthy boundaries, the person who has been enabling the addicted loved one must learn to sit with the addicted person’s discomfort as well as their own.

Controlling behaviors might get short-term results, but the pressure exerted to get these results ultimately strain and in many cases break the relationship.

What is Controlling?

Controlling is another type of codependent behavior in which family members manipulate the addict in order to control their emotions. When the enabler tries to use emotions or threats to dictate what the addict must do, the enabler is trying to control the addict.

Here are some examples of how family members attempt to control the addict:

Using anger to make the addict feel guilty
Using guilt to try and stop the addict’s behavior,
Using threats like “I’m leaving you” to change the addict’s behavior.

Using your emotions to attempt to control the behavior of the addict does not ultimately work to bring about long-term change. You might get short-term results, but the pressure exerted to get these results ultimately strains, and in many cases, breaks the relationship. Rather, it fuels the anger, resentment, guilt, and shame already present in the addict, as well as fueling the frustration, disappointment, and sorrow present in the family member.

If you’re beginning to recognize that you might be someone who tries to control other people there are two main things to be gained by stopping. The first is becoming an emotionally healthier person. The second is becoming someone who can have healthier relationships. There is a third possible benefit as well. Though there are no guarantees, the addict may trust the family member more than he or she would if the family member had continued trying to control him or her. If the family member keeps trying to control the at-risk individual, that individual may not be able to trust the individual at all.

Boundaries are loving and provide freedom to the loved one, whereas threats are abusive attempts to control the loved one.

When we are trying to set boundaries, it is important to ensure that we are not actually threatening the person we care about instead. Boundaries and threats may look similar, but they are profoundly different.

Boundaries are loving and provide freedom to the loved one, whereas threats are abusive attempts to control the loved one. And there is only one thing that separates a boundary from a threat: follow-through.

If a family member says, “If you come home drunk again, you are out of the house” but then fails to act once that happens again, then, it is a threat. If a family member says that and then follows through, then, it is a boundary.

People in active addiction are used to being threatened and have become adept at detecting when the other person will actually follow through or not. When family members attempt to manipulate with a threat, the addicted loved one often sees through the threat and is actually manipulating the family members right back. A lot of times, this whole process has become so automatic and unconscious, that neither side even realizes that they are doing this.

When setting boundaries you may feel you are being cold or uncompassionate toward your loved one, but in actuality refusing to continue to enable them is the most loving thing you can do for them.

Breaking the Cycle Requires Some Help

Enabling, rescuing, and controlling are relationship patterns that have been well established between you and your loved one over the course of years.

The addict’s invitations to enable and your impulse to rescue are difficult to see in real time because they have become so normalized. It will feel strange to push against these patterns to try something different. When setting boundaries family members may feel they are being cold or uncompassionate toward your loved one, but, in actuality, refusing to continue to enable is the most loving thing you can do for them.

For all these reasons and more, it is crucial for family members to get support from a 12 Step Fellowship that will help them in their recovery from the family disease. Just like your loved one, you are going to need help not to fall into old patterns and to find a sponsor to work the steps with you. It is by working the steps that we truly change our perspective.

Clear boundaries are the parameters that allow us each to fully become ourselves and to move past codependent patterns that harm one another to loving actions that are supportive and life-giving.

There are multiple fellowships that use the 12 Steps to focus on the relational aspects of this disease, including Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, Codependent Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, and Recovering Couples Anonymous.

Just like the 12 Step Fellowships for the addict or alcoholic, as the family members get healthier, they then find opportunities to support and help others. They will also get the opportunity to support people who are not as far along in their recovery from the family disease. By seeing their codependent behavior in others, they are reminded of where they were early on in their recovery process.

Remember, you are ultimately powerless over whether or not your loved one continues to use or attempts to manipulate you. Their recovery is theirs. Your recovery is yours. Clear boundaries are the parameters that allow us each to fully become ourselves and to move past codependent patterns that cause us to harm one another to loving actions that are supportive and life-giving.

The Importance of Being Ordinary

Written by MARR on August 17, 2020. Posted in MARR Articles.

By Matt Shedd
Host of Stories of Recovery Podcas

Ego-Based Spirituality

When we commit ourselves to a path like Twelve Step Recovery, or any other spiritual tradition focused on serving others, it can be easy to unconsciously begin to apply the same ego-based mindset of competition and self-aggrandizement that we were previously living by to our new way of life.

Since we know we are supposed to be “spiritual” now, we may start to think along these lines, without even realizing we are doing it: “I’m going to devote all my attention to really increase my spiritual growth. I’m going to be doing more service work for my church or community than anyone else. People are going to recognize me as the best A.A. member in the group and citizen in this community.”

As mentioned before, this usually happens unconsciously. The ego can be a resilient shapeshifter. Right when we think we’re getting rid of it, it has the ability to morph into a different form and attach itself to something new. It can even secretly prop itself up with the same tools we are trying to use to minimize it. The ego loves to dress itself up in spiritual terms, all the while pulling our attention back into self-obsession, paranoia, and constant comparison. In this way, spirituality or religion can be the perfect cover for the ego to keep thriving unchallenged.

In short, we can sound pretty good when we talk about things like “compassion” and “self-sacrificial love,” when really the same competitive, self-seeking attitude that governed our lives previously continues to guide our thoughts and actions.

Since we usually don’t realize we are doing this, it can be helpful to have a community to draw attention to our blind spots. For those in recovery, this comes in the form of a sponsor and their recovery network who they stay in touch with regularly. And for our clients at MARR, this accountability also comes in the form of their community members and the counselors.

Pride in Reverse

But being “the most spiritual” person isn’t the only way the ego hides in plain sight. Perhaps just as common is the tendency to overindulge ourselves in guilt and self-pity.

On the surface, constantly putting oneself down can look like humility, but in fact, the A.A. literature tells us this is just a different form of self-obsession. And it can be just as harmful.

In contrast, the ego’s tendency toward grandiosity, Twelve Steps, and Twelve Traditions describes the other end of the spectrum. When we are in this position, we have merely become victims of “pride in reverse.” We get to a point where we have “self-pity oozing from every pore,” which we then “inflict on everyone around us.” Self-loathing and shame can become so consuming that we don’t have any time or attention to be helpful or available for anyone else.

This tendency is not unique to people with substance abuse issues. Thomas Merton, a 20th-century Christian thinker, and writer, also recognized this tendency for people to separate themselves in their religious life by inordinately putting themselves down. Merton recognizes this as a false sense of humility, a “pathological inferiority” and “self-love in reverse.” We do this because we secretly want to be the best, but being angry that we are not the best, we’ll settle for being the worst. If we buy into this, our ego can at least celebrate that we’re different than everybody else.

What Merton says is really needed is “renouncing the spirit of competition.” In this, we find actual humility, which ceases to focus on the self as a point of concern and opens the opportunity for the community.

The Freedom to Be Ordinary

Neither end of this spectrum is helpful in recovery because, in both cases, we are in competition with our brothers and sisters. These comparisons cut us off from community life. Twelve and Twelve describes both of these ego extremes in the following way.

“Our egomania digs two disastrous pitfalls. Either we insist upon dominating the people we know, or we depend on them far too much…We have not once sought to be one in a family, to be a friend among friends, to be a worker among workers, to be a useful member of society. Always we tried to struggle to the top of the heap or hide underneath it.”

If we renounce competition and just accept ourselves as another member of the community, the workplace, or the human race, this is, in a sense, a very radical approach to interacting with others. Such an approach is profoundly counter-cultural in a society that is dominated by comparison and competition.

Whenever we are around somebody who has surrendered herself to not trying to stand out in any way, we feel a sense of relief around that person.

There is no sense of competition or defensiveness in the air. That person has nothing to prove and is not trying to get anything out of us. They are usually willing to step up if that is helpful, but it is not something that they need to do in order to feel good about themselves.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief in the presence of such a person. She is the type of person we want to be around and have in our community.

Like any other addiction, the solution to comparing ourselves to others ultimately resides in the community.

If we can be healthy members of a community, “fitting ourselves to be of maximum service to those around us,” as the Big Book says, we find that we have all the resources we need to live under any circumstances.

We can realize we no longer need to distinguish ourselves as the best or the worst but are profoundly okay with being just another ordinary human being.

Paradoxically, by accepting our ordinariness and renouncing comparison with others, the uniqueness of our personality can emerge. We are finally free to be who we really are because we are not caught up in trying to measure up.

There is something beautiful and revolutionary in being this type of ordinary.