Today will be different…
No conversation with a guest. Just me, Margaret Swift Thompson sharing about the cunning, baffling, and powerful family disease of addiction.
There are so many parallel experiences that the people who have the addiction share with the family members. Such as denial, isolation, increased tolerance, and the solution.
My observation having served this population for a few decades is that the services for the family side of this disease are seriously lacking.
Thus I have launched my business, Embrace Family Recovery LLC to help fill the void and offer coaching to people who love someone with the disease of addiction.
We will work together to establish boundaries, develop a healthy support network, and role model family recovery out loud believing that doing this is a much more effective strategy than ever telling an addict what to do.
Reach out to me at https://embracefamilyrecovery.com/
Fill out the Work with Margaret page
https://embracefamilyrecovery.com/work-with-margaret/
we can schedule a complimentary discovery call.
See full transcript of the episode below.
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. A place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host Margaret Swift Thompson.
Welcome back. Today April 4th 2021, is my birthday. So, I’m taking the liberty of doing something a little different. Today it’ll just be me.
For those of you, new to the podcast I am a person who’s had the privilege of working in thin a few ways in the ways that it manipulates everybody like a masterful puppeteer in the way that it is not cared for in the same way as other illnesses for example if we had a case of loving someone who had cancer our society would say jump in do everything care for them loved them pay their bills cook their food do whatever is necessary to make life easier for them so they can focus on e field of treatment for people with addictions and their family members for 22 years. I have loved my work and have valued all the people who have crossed my paths on a professional level and also those who were clients, who have taught me so much about this disease.
My passion definitely lies with the family members probably because that’s how I entered my own recovery. Having loved someone with the disease of addiction or compulsion as they called it. And having found no solutions within my own skill sets to cope in any healthy way, and navigate the residual effects of lack of trust, fear, resentment, worry, and my fear was if I didn’t find some tools to help me, I would go down a path of continuous self-destruction with other ill people who I would choose as fixer uppers. Because that was me. I was somebody who wanted to help and heal and fix and I think that was greatly led by the fact that I hadn’t done my own work to heal myself.
We know in the research and the studies that one in 10 people in the United states over the age of 12 have the disease of addiction. Just think for a minute how many family members that must be who are also battling this disease within their family system.
Let’s take it a step further how many employers are dealing with the people who can’t make work, are preoccupied whether it’s because they have the actual illness of addiction or they have a loved one who is suffering in the illness of addiction.
Extended family. This is undoubtedly a generational disease just think of the numbers if one in 10 have it, how many of you have a family that’s smaller than 10 people generationally speaking. Cousins, Aunts, grandparents. The disease can skip generations.
The disease can not show up clearly in families but the effects of the disease in the prior generation absolutely can. For example, if within a family unit one of the parents has the disease of addiction and the other parent takes on the classic role of caretaking, fixing managing, controlling manipulating. Trying to get that person to stop. Any children under those two parents were raised by the disease of addiction, and its ways of navigating the world.
You often see that pattern follow through the children and if they aren’t themselves addicted, they were spared the genetic predisposition to the disease of addiction. Maybe they partnered with someone who has it.
A classic example while working in a family program at Hazelden Betty Ford for many years I had the gift of seeing people who’d come back for reunions. I also had the chance to see people who came back for a second time through the Family Program. When they left the first-time, they left with their partner who was the identified patient. They came through the family program and they would say “Oh my gosh I’ve learned so much I’m going to go out and do this.” They would leave an in about five years they’ve come back with a new partner who had this disease also. Do you think they look for someone with the disease of addiction? No!
What I think happened is, and you speak to them. it’s pretty obvious what happened. When the person left the Family Program, they did not continue their recovery. The relationship fell apart. Because they hadn’t done their own work to understand how they had been changed by this disease becoming a part of their life, subconsciously they end up in a relationship with someone with similar patterning.
I believe this disease changes the infrastructure of how we cope in the world. And as a result, it changes the way we interact with people and who we’re drawn to. I can tell you that I was not comfortable in peace and serenity until I worked my recovery program of Al-Anon. To learn how to tolerate it. Because you know what I was a darn good crisis person. I knew how to handle any crisis situation my grandmother nicknamed me Hurricane Margaret ’cause when I’d show up in town something was going down. That wasn’t something that I felt badly about, I thought it was a skill that was serving me well the problem is I didn’t like looking inward so I would use anyone or anything to stop me from having to look inward and deal with the pains and harms and hurts and things that I had been through and never dealt with effectively.
When I talk about one in 10, this is what led me to the family side. Not only my passion through my own recovery in what I was gifted which started in a Family Program at Hazelden Betty Ford in 1996. But also, because I feel the family members, and the children, are the most underserved of this population affected by this illness.
You might have caught on that I call it a disease and illness, because it is. It is a no-fault disease. That people struggle with, especially when you love someone with it and you’re living with it active in your home.
Why do I say it’s no choice disease, because I don’t believe anyone, ever chooses to be an addict, they would never sign up for that suffering, that pain, that self-loathing.
I have a friend within the profession who used to say “who here hasn’t auditioned for the part of addict or alcoholic?” In other words, who out there listening to this has never touched alcohol or some sort of drunk at some point on their life story? I tried my first alcohol at 15. I was spared alcoholism. Though I have my own addiction to food which predated ever trying alcohol and yet I denied it until I was well and truly working in the profession of addiction. And could no longer deny what I was doing with food was exactly what I was treating my clients for, when they were doing it with alcohol or drugs.
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When someone is at the mercy of a substance or behavioral addiction that supersedes every other need they have. So, for example if I’m an alcoholic, my hierarchy of needs are changed by the progression of this disease and the first thing I believe I need to survive is alcohol. It supersedes my need to sleep, eat, sex. And the reality is, the disease will manipulate the person who’s addicted to doing whatever necessary to get that drug or chemical or behavior to be OK.
There’s a spiritual disconnect. I would say the substance or behavior the person is addicted to has become their higher power. No room for a relationship with a higher power, and the higher power of their addiction is very destructive to their self-worth their self-love.
You know I hear a lot of angry family members and I was too. I was hurt, I was angry. Why weren’t they honest with me? How could I have not seen it? And the reality is. The addict’s self-worth and self-loathing is so beat up by this disease. A visual of that that I like to say, or a description of that is when family members say to me how do they not know I’m hurting? How do they not see the pain in our children’s eyes? How do they not see and feel the anguish we’re under? And my explanation for that is, when a person is in the throes of this disease and they come to enough conscious awareness of the pain caused to their loved ones. The disease takes him right back down with using again because it’s too painful to even face. And so back under they go. Avoid, deny, blame.
The disease is baffling in that it tricks the person who has it into thinking they don’t have it. And the way that that is done most masterfully is making it everyone else’s problem. “I’m not hurting anyone. If my wife wouldn’t nag. If my husband wasn’t so angry. If my children weren’t so busy. If I could get rest. The disease will use anyone, take anyone hostage to require a person who has the disease to use.
I use the disease as a separate entity from the person, and I do that purposely. Because in order to recover as an addict we have to separate ourselves from the disease to allow ourselves the chance to find health and wellness. And let people in who know better than we do how to get help. The same is true for family members. If we want to heal from the effects of the disease in our family, our job is to separate our loved one from their addiction. Set boundaries against their disease but love the person. Take care of ourselves as the priority rather than fixating and focusing on everything they’re doing. Making things better, changing things, controlling things, manipulating things. Those don’t help the person we love suffering with the illness. They help the illness get stronger and that’s what’s so baffling about addiction.
It’s unlike any other progressive, chronic, and potentially fatal disease. In a few ways, in the way that it manipulates everybody like a masterful puppeteer. In the way that it is not cared for in the same way as other illnesses.
For example, if we had a case of loving someone who had cancer, our society would say jump in do everything, care for them, love them, pay their bills, cook their food. Do whatever is necessary to make life easier for them, so they can focus on their recovery and treatment. This disease, that can’t work. If we do those things for the person who has the disease of addiction they don’t get well. The disease gets stronger. And there is nothing more painful and scary than watching someone we love slowly committing suicide. Slowly drinking or drugging themselves to death. Slowly eating themselves to death and not being able to intervene. We can’t manipulate them well. We can’t control them well. We can’t educate them well. We can’t love them well. The recovery journey of someone with the disease of addiction is an inside job. It is theirs to do.
So then you’ll say to me as family members, well what do we do? We just stand back, let it happen?
Absolutely not. That is why I have started my business Embrace Family Recovery, because there’s lots we can do as family members. First, it’s getting honest about the effects of the disease on us. Our denial is as strong as theirs is for a long time. Our level of preoccupation with the person with the disease is through the roof.
An example of that might be in a family system where one of the adult children or teenagers has this disease. The other children in the family feel like they’re invisible, because all conversation focus is fixated on the person with the disease of addiction. Is that conscious? Do we mean to do that? Do we mean to neglect other loved ones? No! It’s the way this disease works in the family members. It consumes us. Our thinking, our fears, our worries. I have so many family members who’ve come to the program where I’ve worked or worked with me individually who said I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t relax if I heard of an alarm go off or the phone ping or the door open or the ice go in the machine, I woke up. I couldn’t stay sleeping. I was so fearful and worried all the time of the next bad thing to happen, and how I could stop it, how I could fix it. Did that fix anything? No, and it only hurt the person who is experiencing this level of preoccupation,
It is so parallel to the person with the disease, who cannot stop thinking about their next use. When someone would sober up in the morning and say to you. I’ll never do that again, they meant it, and then that disease starts talking to them and preoccupying them with the thoughts of how it could make them feel so much better. And all bets are off. Broken promises.
Isolation’s huge on the family side. Where do I go? Who do I talk to? How do I do this? But I can’t tell anyone because if they find out they’ll judge my person. They’ll think they’re bad because unfortunately we still as a society stigmatized the disease of addiction as a moral issue.
I sadly just lost my mother. Her symptoms were dementia, she had protein amyloids in her brain. Did anyone say “wow Susan, what did you do to make this happen?” Absolutely not! My mom had an illness that sadly, deteriorated her life and took her far too soon. People with addiction have an illness that is destroying their life physically, emotionally, and spiritually. My hope is one day we as a society will truly internalize this as a no-fault disease, and if we are so fortunate to be spared the disease of addiction in our lives or the lives of people closest to us. We will say thank you. But not judge those who do have it.
I’m well aware that this disease is described as cunning, baffling and powerful and that’s not just limited to the person who has the substance abuse disorder or other behavioral addiction. That is absolutely the way it feels for someone close to that person. when the rational side of them tells them to do A, B&C and it doesn’t work. And then they try EF&G that doesn’t work. And they can’t find a place to go to help them understand how to take care of themselves and still love the person, but not be destroyed by their disease.
I launched embrace family recovery because I wanted to come alongside family members and help them navigate this insanity that they live in. Help them find some strategies and tools to recover with grace and dignity. Help them to stop feeling like they’re taking hostages or being taken hostage by the disease of addiction. That may sound dramatic to those of you who don’t want to see the truth of how this disease hijacks the entire family system. But I’d encourage you to listen as these podcasts move forward and you get to hear I’m different guests that come on or go back and listen to prior episodes.
The patterns are very clear it’s an all-consuming illness when your loved one has it, and though each person may have individual nuances in their story. When we listen to another person’s story and family recovery, it’s hard to deny the parallels that we all experience. The patterns that exist in all of our experiences. That’s the hope. Stop doing this alone. Allow people to come alongside you who understand this illness and have some separation from your specific situation. And can help you find a different path forward. That is less painful.
Please reach out to me email, me go on my website embracefamilyrecovery.com and fill out the Work with Margaret page. Tell a friend they don’t have to do this alone if you feel like you can’t help your friend because you don’t understand this illness, suggest they reach out to someone like me.
I wish everyone healing and peace. When it comes to this disease of addiction it robs us of joy, whether we have it or we’re watching someone who has it. I know my recovery has given me joy back. Probably more than I thought I deserved and I’m so grateful for that and I wish that for everyone listening who might have been touched by this disease.
Join me next week when I get the absolute privilege to have a conversation with Sandy Swenson who is an author. And is an amazingly wonderful human being who cannot do for her son, though she may want to. But she does offer so much to other people out there who have loved ones with this disease, in the hopes that it will one day find its way back to her son. When he’s ready for help.
Please find resources on my website embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you.
