Busy Weekend

My weekend has been consumed with preparations and plans for bath crashers weekend. Buying materials, organizing tools and refining my plan.

Mom wimped out on me and went to the lake to see her sister's house that was struck by the Branson tornado. Tornados Get Personal

On Friday I spoke to students at Shawnee Mission West High School. Plus, the local news interviewed me for the evening news. I'm not much of a television personality. The most important thing that day was the students.

The students were fantastic. From my point of view they were very intent on my story. Everyone was paying attention and many shared stories and ask questions. I put business cards on the counter near the door. The students are free to take them if they want. It is very emotional for me when I see students purposely go over there to take a card with them. The cards have the blog address, my e-mail, and my personal phone number. The hardest part of these talks are between classes. Students come up to me to tell me about their own family experiences, it breaks my heart but I see so much strength in these students. It takes guts and heart to talk to a stranger about addiction.

I guess it is impossible to know for sure if I have any impact on these young people but for myself I believe.

The news anchor interviewed me in the hallway before one class then they shot video of me speaking to the students. Of course I was not happy with what I said or how but I'm hard to please. They posted on the station website an article written by Mark Clegg, KSHB about our experience and my talks. Father Blogs About His Son's Drug Addiction To Help Others Avoid His Family's Pain

Bath Crashers

The excitement and anxiety is building. The weekend of May 5th we are planning to do a home version of Bath Crashers at my Mom's house. (this is the house I was raised in)

As many of you know from past posts my Mom has Alzheimer's. She is OK enough right now to stay at home but she is also getting more frail. The biggest issue is her bathroom. She lives in an old house built in the early 50's and the bathroom hasn't been changed since the house was built except for a little cosmetic tile and wallpaper. The weekend of May 5th Alex, my son-in-laws, brother, two nephews and myself are going to crash her bathroom. It will be expanded and made handicap accessible.

I've been working on the plans for a couple weeks and this weekend I am buying all the materials to have on hand like they do on TV so we can keep the project moving.

It's important that we get this done in the time we scheduled. The disruption for Mom that weekend is going to be pretty bad and I know she will be confused so Darlene and the girls are going to try and keep her occupied by going hairdresser and all those kind of "girl" things.

My philosophy is "All Hands On Deck", the more hands the better.

Another School Presentation

On Friday I will again be talking to students at a local high school. This time it is Shawnee Mission West High School. I have four classes to present.

As an added twist to this one the local NBC station, KSHB 41 is sending a crew to cover it and Mark Klegg the anchorman is suppose to be there to interview me. Be sure to watch on Friday night and see me stick my foot in my mouth and generally come off as a fool.

How Did We Get Here? Guest Blogger: Lisa

The question haunted my every waking moment.  It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  I had moved from planning a high school graduation party to shopping for my son’s first rehab.  What about college?  What about all the other kids in his graduating class who were moving on to a new chapter in their lives?  What about those hopes and dreams I had carried for my child for 19 years?  How did we get HERE?

I simply had to have an answer to that question.  I thought I had done a good job as a parent raising my two children.  I had scaled my work schedule back to part-time when they were growing up to spend more time at home with them.  I volunteered in the preschools and schools they attended, helped with their extracurricular activities, attended Church with them, sent them to Church camp each summer, chaperoned their events, vacationed with them as a family, shared family meals with them every evening and helped with homework.  How did we get here?

In time the question changed.  How do we fix this?  Surely if I read books, attended parent support groups, found the right counselors, doctors, recovery coaches, rehab programs, aftercare groups, halfway houses and sober living establishments we could find out what to do to put this all behind us and get our lives back on track.   Now it didn’t matter how we got here if we could just find a cure.

That was three years ago.  Today I don't ask those questions.   There are no answers.     

Today I have come to a place of acceptance.  I have been affected by my son’s addiction.  I wish it had never become a part of our lives.  To question, however, why it happened, or spend time trying to control it is a waste of my time and energy.  Instead I have accepted it as a part of our lives.  I can live my life torturing myself in an attempt to find answers to questions that do not exist.  Or I can live my life accepting the reality of what is.  And along the way I can learn from every life experience. 

My son's life has not unfolded as I had planned, and I cannot see into his future.  His life will continue along on its journey.  I do not know what the path ahead will look like.  It will be different than I had imagined it would be.  Perhaps it will turn out better than I ever could have hoped for. 

 Today my son is again in rehab.  Today is a good day.

 Lisa

Guest Post???, Anyone

Today I am going to offer our blog up to anyone that would like to guest post.

I know many of you have your own blog and share your thoughts there and I feel privileged for the opportunity to read your postings.

I am also sure there are others that have not made the step to write their own blog but I'm sure you have some very valuable insights and experiences we would love to read. This is the time for readers to become writers.

Please, share your wisdom and experience. E-mail your contribution to: teamplayer@aol.com

A couple rules:
Guest bloggers can remain anonymous or be public, your choice
Links will be available to your blog, website or e-mail address if you choose
No commercial advertisements
Good taste must be used.
Appropriate language and content for our community
You will NOT be graded on grammar but be sure to use spell check
One paragraph or one page, it doesn't matter

Another Request

Becky Vance, Regional Director - Field Operations and National Director - Parent Ambassador Program for The Partnership at Drugfree.org is looking for a parent and teen to be interviewed about marijuana use and the prevailing attitude towards marijuana usage today by young teens. This is not a TV interview. 


If you are interested in taking part in this opportunity to help many people please contact Becky at: Becky_Vance@drugfree.org.

   

17 Quotes

Cathy over at Treatment Talk.org has a very good and interesting post on her blog If you haven't seen it I would recommend taking a look. It is 17 quotes from various blogs and books about Recovery.
How to Recover: 17 Quotes of Experience, Strength and Hope

News About Making OXY Unabusable

I just read this news article, Scientists Work to Make Prescription Painkillers Unabusable.

Inside I want to scream, "IT'S ABOUT F'ING TIME!!!!!"

But, I am learning, today is better than tomorrow and being grateful for today is better for me than being angry about yesterday.

Happy Birthday, Quite a Difference

Today is Alex's 24th birthday. This one is so different that you could almost consider it abnormal, he is clear and sober.

Last year he was clear and sober but in jail serving his 6 months. So his birthday came and went behind bars. All the years before, I guess, around 7 years he was in some stage of active addiction. there is nothing normal about an addicts birthday, it seems like they celebrate by increasing the drama of the day. Bet you all know what I mean.

The best story of Alex's birthday while he was active was what I wrote last year, April 11, 2011.

Mom and dad get to celebrate with him this year. Don't know what we are doing yet. Haven't made any plans the family celebration is scheduled for Saturday. Our celebration is one done privately inside ourselves.

Where there is life there is hope.

200,000

I just noticed on my counter I have over 200,000 hits. Thank you all so much for your support.

Waco, TX

I received this e-mail and am posting it for any of you that may be in the Waco, TX area.

Hello,

I'm a reporter at KCEN TV in Waco, Texas. I'm currently working on a story about prescription drug abuse awareness and came across your blog. I was wondering if you could let your readers in the Waco, Temple, & Killeen, Texas area that I'm looking for a family to interview. I'm hoping they can tell me what it's like to help a loved one recover from prescription drug abuse or what the addiction can do to their loved one and family. You can tell your readers to e-mail me at akenney@kcentv.com

Thanks so much for any help you can provide,

Amanda Kenney

Persecution of People

As parents of addicts we all understand the symptoms and consequences of addiction. We see our children involved in illegal activity and then ultimately prosecution for the crimes they commit. It is easy for us to see and understand the symptoms of this disease and recognize what is happening with our addicted loved ones. These thoughts are not about prosecution for crimes. There are consequences to ones actions. Fitting the consequences to the actions is another article for another day.

My point today is about persecution versus prosecution.

It is easy to marginalize someone or a group when they don't fit into our view of the world and how it should be. Most of us can relate to persecution when we think about racial, religious or persecution of peoples with different backgrounds. History is full of examples that we remember or learned about in school. In hindsight, we all wonder how did so many people allow this happen to so many people?

Addiction is an epidemic in our nation and the world. A recent study estimates that over 10% of the US population is involved in addiction in some way, either active or recovery, that is over 30 million people! My point is not to argue the numbers, my point is that it is a real problem and it's not getting fixed doing what we are doing today.

Not so long ago I remember as a nation we persecuted people in this nation because they contracted a disease. In the 1980's we became aware of people with a disease and the lack of understanding of that disease lead us to persecute a massive group of people. What did we think in the '80's when we saw letters strung together, HIV+ and AIDS. Does the name Ryan White ring a bell? We persecuted the person instead of dealing with the disease.

I feel this is where we are today with addiction. Too many people are feel more comfortable with persecuting the person versus understanding the disease.

There has been progress in treatment for HIV+ and AIDS. There still is no cure or vaccine but no one can argue that there has not been serious inroads into treatment for these diseases.

Research and treatment for addiction is painfully slow. For a while we have had a chemical treatment, methadone. More recently there have been other chemical treatments such as Suboxone. There have been many alternative behavior modification models developed. Separately, in the 1930's the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step model was designed and has helped millions of people with alcoholism. AA has proven to be the most successful model to help alcoholics worldwide. NA, Al-Anon, Nar-Anon all adapted from AA likewise has helped millions. In my opinion even with all of this we are not where we need to be.

Until there is a more enlightened and educated population I believe we as a nation will continue to struggle with the epidemic of addiction.

Persecution of the addicted will not cure the disease of addiction.

Kansas City Area Readers

Here is a notice of a seminar in Kansas City Area. If you are interested details are available at the link.

A counselor from Adolescent Center for Treatment in Olathe will be a guest speaker about the growing trend in Bath Salts. 

Stand-Up Parenting Special Event: PARENTING IN A CHAOTIC CULTURE

Jayhawks Live Here

As many of you know if you have been reading in the past in our home we are Jayhawk Fans. It's not the football, tennis, baseball or any other collegiate teams that matter it is Jayhawk basketball.

During this time of year Jayhawk basketball is not a game.........  

IT IS A LIFESTYLE!!!!!!

Are YOU prepared for tonight's game? I'm ready, got my t-shirt on, it's the one I was wearing when we beat Roy's Boys at North Carolina, picked it up from the chair in the bathroom on Saturday night and put it on when we were playing the overconfident braggarts at Ohio State, got it on today. I know some of you are wondering, NO, it hasn't been washed! You think I'm crazy? (don't answer that)

To all you UK fans out there reading this, ______________________. (leave it to your imagination)

Of course there can be only one winner. You can tell where my loyalties lie. I wish the best for all those players on the court tonight. I just wish the best a little harder for those that understand that KU is the proper order of initials for a basketball team.

ps.: I EXPECT several ROCK CHALK JAYHAWK, GO KU in the comments.

Observations of a Weekend

Just a few quick observations from this weekend that may not be much but mean a lot to me.

• My mom turned 82 years old on Thursday. We had a house full of family on Sunday to celebrate her hanging around to be with us.
• Grandkids 6 months old and 3 years old really like to be pushed in a swing by Grandpa.
• My son is planting a garden????!!!!
• On Sunday mornings when our youngest daughter was 3 she would stare at me while I was sleeping until I woke up and she would remind me it was "Donut Day". Her 3 year old daughter knows Sunday morning is "Donut Day".
• You know Spring is here when you are mowing the grass on Saturday afternoon.
• Kansas Jayhawks, Final Four
• Last Fall our air conditioner compressor went out. We have not fixed it yet. Our windows are open. I forgot how nice it was to open windows instead of switching the thermostat straight from furnace to air conditioner.
• Re-building the carburetor on an old lawn mower to give to Alex. Pulling the starter rope and it started perfectly on the first pull.

Answers -- Anonymous

Another question came in a comment to my St. Patrick's Day post. Feel free to ask questions of me, it keeps my thoughts going. The writing subjects seem to be non-existent in my mind lately other than to say again Alex is doing well, Mom and Dad are doing well and that there is life after addiction.

Anonymous ask: In a previous post you mentioned that you didn't do the 'god thing'. It seems obvious that you found support from your blog, but I'm curious about Alex. Did he follow a 12 step program that asks you to believe in a higher power? Does he currently participate in a recovery program, have a sponsor, go to meetings, etc? My own son does not like the traditional AA route and believes he can succeed in recovery without that -- that's why I'm curious what helped your son.

This is a difficult question to answer. I learned a while ago that his recovery was his to manage. The more involved in his recovery I got the more I screwed up everyone.

To provide context to my answer I must give you some important background.  When we were new to this and he had been to rehab we reminded him to go to meetings, we drove him to meetings and we went to meetings and we kept track and counted how many meetings he attended. This was us trying to force our idea of recovery on him. I even regularly told him I didn’t think he was serious unless he was attending meetings and working an “active” recovery program. Of course by active I meant one that I could monitor and observe. I was all about controlling this disease and forcing it out of my son.

Not until I gave up trying to control him and his addiction could he take control in whatever manner he chose.

The difficult part of this question is for me to try and speak for my son. I really don’t know what he does to manage his recovery. I don’t know about his belief in a higher power. I don’t know of a sponsor in his life. Truthfully, I don’t ask these questions of him and he doesn’t ask about my recovery.

I can tell you what I observe. I know he has a girlfriend that he loves and she loves him. I know he loves her daughters. I know he loves his son and he is a good father. I know he is not perfect but he now works on living a life of honor as he was raised. I use the phrase, ”I know” because from his observable behaviors and words, these things are self evident.

NA and 12 Step programs have saved the lives of millions of people across the globe. There are spin-off programs in church’s called Celebrate Recovery, there are partner programs like Nar-Anon. I believe these programs are wonderful. In truth, when someone comes to me for help, either parent, addict or loved one the first resource I mention is NA and Nar-Anon. I have tremendous respect and admiration for these programs and the people they have helped. However, one size shoe does not fit everyone.

Your son must find the shoe that fits. I really don’t know what my son does to keep from using again. It is his process to manage. The most you can do at this point is to provide a model for your son. Seek what works for you and work it. When you are healthy his methods will make more sense to you. And, if he relapses, you will still be healthy and be in a much better position to help him when he needs help and encouragement.

This question also gives me a chance to expound on what has helped me. You are right in your observation this blog is my principle recovery model. But it is not the only thing. Comments and questions play a huge role in my recovery. I learn from each person that reads this and writes. I learn from the many blogs I read each day and comment to those others in this club. My recovery includes all of those parents that privately email me or call me on the phone with questions and can barely talk through the tears, these parents teach me. My recovery program is talking to students at schools every chance I get. My recovery involves being a Parent Ambassador with The Partnership at Drugfree.org. Most importantly my recovery involves listening.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

Saturday was a wonderful day in Kansas City for a parade. This is the first time I had been to the St. Pats for 20 years. In the past it was pretty much just a reason to watch a parade, drink a lot and watch people on floats and marching while they were drinking. Quite a while ago they cleaned it up and they actively work on not allowing drinking by parade watchers and parade participants. It has become a decent day out for the family. Of course afterwards there are areas of town that you can over indulge in spirits but I'm no longer part of that group. That was when I was younger and dumber, from the looks on the local news they have found many others in that stage of their lives.

It was great being in the parade. A big thank you to my brother-in-law for inviting us to join.

Everyone but Erica and I rode in the truck. We walked the whole parade. I have no idea how many thousands of people were there but the sidewalks were 3-4 deep all the way with most of the time it was 7-8 deep.

Just too much excitement for Brooke. She crashed half way through the parade. When we got to the area where the local TV station was broadcasting the parade live Brooke got her time on TV. They ran up to the truck and had her all over TV and she was even on the local news. Too bad she slept through it all. 

I don't have any other pictures yet. Darlene had the camera. This is just one I took with my iPhone running up beside the truck.

Answers -- Anonymous

This is the last of all of the questions. So as not to make the post too long I split them up and answered each day. I'm answering them in the order they were received. This is not a one time thing, if you have a question feel free to post and I will add it to the list. 

Anonymous ask: In my job as a social worker in an inner city pediatric clinic, I talk with preteens and teens daily. I have an opportunity to talk with them casually about substance abuse. I'd like to do some prevention work with them. What can I say to them that they may actually hear and remember? All suggestions are appreciated.

In my talks with high school students here locally I believe what has been most effective is sincerity and honesty. I don’t try to threaten or scare I just lay out the facts. I don’t keep harping on the just say no stuff, they have all heard that before. I don’t go into the legality of drugs because they all know that they are illegal. My whole discussion is centered around if you make a choice to try this then here is what you will become and what you will do to the people you love.

I try make it clear that they have a choice in the beginning to try but after that, choices begin to disappear. Before you know what has happened the drugs own you. It seems powerful to the students when I speak of being owned by a drug and a dealer. You essentially become a slave to the drug and dealer. You will do whatever it takes to obtain your drug. You will lie, steal, harm others and prostitute yourself to obtain your drug. You are OWNED by your drug and dealer.

You can view my entire presentation to students on youtube. I have links on a previous post. Feel free to watch them and use whatever may be effective. http://parentsofanaddict.blogspot.com/2012/02/you-ask-for-it-you-gottem.html

Good Luck, just don’t stop talking to these young people. They need adults with honest and real information in their life.

Answers -- Annette

I will answer all of the questions. So as not to make the post too long I am going to split them up and answers will follow on each day. I'm answering them in the order they were received. This is not a one time thing, if you have a question feel free to post and I will add it to the list.


Annette ask: How have you reconciled Alex's right to privacy as you blogged about his addiction and shared his story at schools? Did you have his permission, what about while he was in active addiction?


The privacy thing went out the window when his name was plastered across the front page of the paper of our little town. It was for some minor crimes here in our hometown but in a small town anything is news. It wasn’t like we were famous but most people in our community knew us. I was very active in local politics and with the schools. Darlene was in the schools all the time. His sister was a school leader and very popular. Alex was very popular when he was in school. Privacy for all of us was an illusion, at least it was in the beginning. In the beginning of his addiction and on my blog we tried to hide everything and that didn’t do any good.
            

Alex went with me once to talk at his old high school. He did great but he had been clean only about 3 months and he told me afterwards it was just too hard. For a while he tried blogging, he knew about my blog and he knew it had helped me. But he said writing wasn’t for him; that was a couple years ago. And, at that time he was trying recovery but relapsing.

In my mind all of those horrible things he did while he was actively using were symptoms of the disease. I've had many of my elderly relatives come down with Alzheimers disease. At times they have done things that would make your hair stand on end some even violence against family members. I was not ashamed or embarrassed of them, I loved them and they had a disease that had some very harsh and terrible symptoms. I have gotten to the point that Alex’s symptoms were nothing more than an indication of another terrible disease.

I compare the symptoms and stigma of addiction today to those that were HIV+ in the 1980’s. At times as a nation it seems we did all we could to destroy the person without understanding the disease. Remember Ryan White? No matter if it is addiction, HIV or any other disease some will choose to vilify the person and never seek to understand the disease, that is their loss.

Answers -- Cathy

I will answer all of the questions. So as not to make the post too long I am going to split them up and answers will follow on each day. I'm answering them in the order they were received. This is not a one time thing, if you have a question feel free to post and I will add it to the list.

Cathy ask: Recently you commented on Barbara's blog that when Alex was first in recovery you experienced "convoluted dark thinking" for a long time. I feel like I am in that place myself. My son has been in recovery for 3 months now but I can't seem to move forward. I tend to spend a lot of time reflecting/dwelling on the last several years of living in "crisis mode" 24/7. I'm in a pretty rough place. How did you move forward from that way of thinking? Thanks

A big part of getting over it is time. We build walls and had our shields at the ready to protect ourselves from that addiction monster. Every time I would see him or talk to him my thoughts would be of suspicion and anger. That’s a bad way to live for him and me. The key for me getting over it was dropping everything he had done wrong to me. I knew how much he owed me in cash for bail and everything else. I knew what he had stolen. I knew how he had torn things up. I knew how much he had hurt the ones I love. I was waiting for my apology and payback.

Finally, I realized as long as I held on to all of that hurt pain and anger I was not going to move forward, even though he was moving forward. When I was sure I wanted to get better I told my son I was proud of him, I believed in him and I wanted the past to be in the past. That’s how I was able to let go. I had to face my fear (my son) man to man. 

After all, I knew what he was capable of and if he went back to that place I had decided that I couldn’t travel that path with him in the same way I did before. So if I wasn’t going there again there was no use to continue living in that place. Besides you miss a lot of good when you are living in a bad place.  Here is a post I wrote last November about what I learned about how to be with Alex. It took me a long time to get to that point and even longer to be able to put it into words. http://parentsofanaddict.blogspot.com/2011/11/parents-and-recovery.html

About those walls and shields we build to protect us from the bad; it was like I imagined that I built a huge stone castle and I was living within the walls. For self protection I put our addicted son outside those walls. But in time I had to learn that the same walls and shields built to protect myself kept me from the good too.