Leslie Glass's Blog, page 424
November 13, 2017
Gratitude When You’re Grieving
Feeling gratitude when you’re mourning a loss is especially challenging. Gratitude grieving is counter-intuitive, yet honors the ones who are gone. Two years ago, my parents died nine weeks apart. The amount of healing it takes to work through this level of grief can at times be overwhelming. During holidays it’s even more painful because of the joy I used to feel with my parents and now see others celebrating. Grieving and gratitude come together for me when I appreciate what is here for me right now.
What Is Gratitude Grieving
Struggling to stay present and aware of what’s here for me right now often trades places with feeling lost and alone. My tough exterior belies the weakness and lack of security that can isolate me from others, if I’m not careful. It’s a balancing act, and one that I’m tired of trying to equalize. It’s hard to be grateful when you’re sad as these two emotions are on opposite sides of the spectrum, yet gratitude grieving keeps you positive when you feel sad.
Gratitude Honors My Loved Ones
Let it be that my life honors them is the promise I made so that I could get out of the grief. I choose it every day. I choose to live in the present and in a way that honors how they lived their lives and it keeps me grateful for right now. It’s a simple phrase that doesn’t allow for worrying about what my life will be like in the future, instead it allows me to choose how I will live it. And it’s in the choosing that empowerment is found.
Remembering With Gratitude
My parents were extraordinary people. They provided me with not only a sense of limitless possibility, but also the ability to choose and create for myself. They fostered this remarkable gift through the example of how they lived their own lives. I’m committed to empowering others in a way that creates a ripple effect that not only honors them, but also my own path. You can too.
The post Gratitude When You’re Grieving appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
10 Signs Of Dysfunctional Families
Much has been written about dysfunctional families. At times it may seem that every family has its unhealthy elements. To understand what is actually family dysfunction, we need to examine it on a scale of 0 (no family dysfunction) – 10 (horribly sick). At times all families may experience some dysfunction, but this does not mean the family is unhealthy. The following symptoms, especially if your family demonstrates a number of these characteristics, are problematic and reveal a dysfunctional system.
Physical Abuse/Sexual abuse/Emotional Abuse or Neglect
This is the most significant problem demonstrated by sick family systems, either by abuse or by neglect. Abuse indicates active harm such as a parent sexually molesting a child, while neglect is inactive harm, such as not attending to a child’s needs of feeding, bathing, or giving love and attention.
Denial/Secrets/Lies
This category relates to such conditions as trying to hide a substance use problem, or that Dad is sexually perpetrating his daughter. This may be denial or outright lying. As is well established, “secrets keep us sick.”
Addictions
Addictions such as alcohol and drug addictions, as well as process addictions such as gambling or sexual addictions, are prevalent in dysfunctional families.
Don’t Talk/Don’t Trust/Don’t feel
Keeping secrets and hiding from outsiders is also very prevalent in dysfunctional families (and well-noted in addictive families) – don’t talk about any problems/don’t trust anyone, especially outside of the family/don’t feel your feelings. This also relates to poor communication between family members.
Lack Of Boundaries
Poor boundaries include all of the above as well as such things as the eldest child taking the role of the parent of unhealthy parents and younger children.
Poor Communication Including Ridicule, Criticism, Conflict, Mixed messages
Making fun of a family member isn’t humorous; it’s abusive. Also, dysfunctional families tend to criticize and give mixed messages that appear to say, “Come here/go away.” With these messages, the other family members don’t know what is true and how to respond (i.e., one day the parent is loving and the next day is punishing by making fun or hitting a child). These messages are inconsistent and unpredictable and cause more conflict within the family.
Lack of Love, Compassion, Intimacy
A dysfunctional family doesn’t demonstrate healthy behaviors of attention and love. There is no closeness in the family, and love may be withheld as a form of punishment. Or there may be no compassion at all.
Closed Family System
In this family, others such as extended families, friends, schools, or religious/spiritual systems are kept away in order to keep the secrets of the family. Because of this, the family members are unable to interact and learn healthy behaviors from others or to seek help from others. This keeps the family in a rigid, closed system.
Rigid Perfectionism
Perfectionism is another damaging trait in a dysfunctional family system. Family members may try to achieve perfectionism, something that can never happen. Perfectionism is an unhealthy way to try to gain control and mastery. Because being perfect can never happen, significant problems arise over a lifetime.
Denial Of Spiritual Focus
Not allowing family members to participate in spiritual activities is deeply harmful. This may include being prohibited from attending religious/spiritual services, meditating, and examining beliefs. This may also include enjoying nature, being creative, having time to play, pray, read spiritual information. try out new religious services, volunteer, and help with social justice activities.
As a family, working towards a healthier family system is always a goal. If you see yourself or your family as a product of dysfunction, look at ways to improve the health of the family. This often may include family counseling to help, or if you grew up with these rules and want help, then individual counseling or 12 step groups may be valuable, for all is not lost if you choose help.
The post 10 Signs Of Dysfunctional Families appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Emotional Pain Doesn’t Have To Be Lasting
After my 39-year old sister died, I couldn’t imagine my life without her. I cried for hours on end. Eventually, I learned an unhealthy way to deal with the emotional pain. I ignored it. Little did I know, this method of coping wasn’t clean. Instead, it created a dirty pain that led to an emotional infection of unresolved grief.
What is Clean Emotional Pain?
Dr. John Preston, PsyD explains that clean pain comes from experiencing “normal” human experiences like:
Losing a loved one
Contracting a serious illness
Experiencing abuse
Humiliating experiences
Failing at something we hoped would succeed at
Let’s say I got cut with a clean kitchen knife. The cut hurts, but if I clean the cut, it’s not likely to become infected. The cut is a good analogy for clean emotional pain. It is an unavoidable part of life.
What is Dirty Emotional Pain?
Dirty pain stems from how we handle the clean pain in our lives, and it includes:
Unrealistic expectations of how we should be feeling
Harsh judgments from others or the world on how we are dealing with the pain
Fixating on unfairness
Ignoring or mishandling the original pain
Next, let’s say I got cut again with a clean kitchen knife. However, this time, I raged. I didn’t clean the cut out of spite. My cut becomes infected, and now I have two problems: the original wound and a nasty infection. The infection is a good analogy for dirty emotional pain. Ouch and double ouch.
Dirty Pain Is Optional
Pain is inevitable. Everyone we love will eventually pass. Children leave home. Jobs come and go, and some marriages fail. How we process the pain is what makes the difference. Martha Beck’s article on Oprah.com explains clean and dirty pain as:
“The two kinds of suffering occupy different sections of the brain: One part simply registers events, while another creates a continuous stream of thoughts about those events. The vast majority of our unhappiness comes from this secondary response — not from painful reality, but from painful thoughts about reality.”
In his book, The Paradoxes of Mourning: Healing Your Grief with Three Forgotten Truths, internationally noted author and grief counselor, Dr. Alan Wolfeit writes,
“Dirty pain is the story we tell ourselves about the clean pain. Dirty pain, once identified, can be safely separated out and ignored, leaving you with more psychic energy to embrace only the pain that truly needs embracing.”
Serenity And Emotional Pain
“Should’ve been” or “Ought to” are signs of dirty pain, and they spit in the face of acceptance. In recovery, I’ve found the Serenity Prayer holds the answers to many of my problems. “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” When I participate in dirty pain, I determine the pain’s length and intensity. While my sister’s death was unfair, refusing to accept it kept hurting me. After I finally decided to face the truth, I began to find some peace in her passing.
Save
Save
Save
The post Emotional Pain Doesn’t Have To Be Lasting appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
November 12, 2017
5 Ways Food Recovery Matters
Food recovery turns out to be as important as sobriety. After two years of sobriety, I found myself 150 pounds overweight and miserable. I wasn’t eating to recover. I was eating the way I used to use substances. I’ve had food issues all my life. Now, without my trusted drugs of choice to ease my pain, the only solace I found was in food. I was sober, but binging my way into an early grave.
Bingeing Is A Food Addiction
I couldn’t understand why I was binging on copious amounts of highly processed foods: cakes, pastries, chocolate, breads, cheese. I’d spend time in meetings fantasizing about what I was going to get to eat on the way home. Sometimes, I’d leave the meeting early because I couldn’t wait to get to the store.
Food Recovery Means Addressing The Food Addiction
When I got help with food, and trained as a nutrition coach myself, I fully understood that bingeing behavior—just like addiction—was out of my control. It was my brain’s way of saying that I had a chemical imbalance, and it overrode the rational part of my brain rendering me somewhat powerless over my actions. Sound familiar? It is just the same as substance use disorder.
Certain foods can release the same chemicals as drugs. When we get sober, we simply transfer the addiction—but it is so subtle, that we don’t always realize that we’re doing it. And what makes matters worse is that we punish ourselves for it, and even label it as gluttony—a defect of character.
But, as I’ve explained, the brain is far more sophisticated than that. It has nothing to do with character defects, and everything to do with healing our whole selves by eating well. Food recovery for me has to be a holistic approach. I need to fuel my body in order to be well, and feel well. That is what gives me a lust for life; it is what helps me jump out of bed in the morning and seize the day—well, most days.
5 Ways To Eat For Food Recovery
Eat Fruits and vegetables: Foods high in nutrients–whole fruits and vegetables in a range of colors– can help speed up the healing process from the damage caused by substance use disorder.
Don’t Eat processed foods: Processed foods are anything that is packaged. Boxed or frozen meals: macaroni cheese, TV dinners, cookies, candy, sodas, pre-made sauces and dressings are all processed foods. By not eating them, you can avoid the energy spikes and crashes—which only create a craving for more. These foods are high in salt, sugar and trans fats which are not great for overall health. In fact, this food (also referred to as highly palatable) has been manipulated by scientists that much that they can override the rational part of your brain–this is why you look down and wonder how you’ve even a whole pack of cookies. Ditch cookies and TV dinners, in favor of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Eat These Good Mood Foods: Turkey, chicken, pumpkin seeds, nuts, oats, cottage cheese—contain tryptophan. This is used by the body to produce serotonin—a chemical which helps produce healthy sleep and a stable mood.
Amp Up Your Immunity: Fruits and vegetables in particular can improve immunity, thus warding off colds and viruses—or if you do get them, it can reduce the illness duration.
Eat whole, natural and unprocessed foods: They will reduce your risk of relapse due to depression and fatigue. Eating whole, natural, and unprocessed foods, your body is more likely to get both the nutrients and energy it needs to function optimally.
The post 5 Ways Food Recovery Matters appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
3 Ways To Feel Good on Thanksgiving No Matter What
Thanksgiving traditions are meaningful. This was always the most important holiday when I was growing up. The religious holidays could cause strife because my family members held a wide variety of beliefs about God and religion. Some in my family believed God was a powerful Her.
And some didn’t believe in any God at all, which enraged those who thought He was with us even in the bathroom. I remember my grandmother explaining how as a young girl (in the early days of the 20th century) she was taught to wash without touching herself. Which I always thought meant that prayers alone kept her clean. My grandmother also didn’t eat tomatoes, having been taught that tomatoes (love apples, she called them) were poisonous, and that bananas could keep you going when medicine failed. She lived to be 96, all beliefs intact.
Christmas and Chanukah were hot button holidays; Easter and Passover were hot button holidays; Halloween and Valentine’s Day were also hot button holidays. All of them presented a wide variety of potential bogs of dogma in which to fall. The last two were particular stressors for us kids because trick or treat was considered begging and sugar was prohibited. With all the things that were no-nos in my family, only Thanksgiving was absolutely pure. And always the most joyous. Love, gratitude, and forgiveness were the hallmarks of Thanksgiving then, and they still can be.
How To Find Peace And Joy In A Day That Brings Painful Reminders of All That Isn’t.
These days are more complicated for everyone. Families are scattered and often deeply hurt by separations that occur for so many reasons. Work and living far away, military service. Schooling; and sadly the heartbreaking separations, both emotional and actual, that addiction so often brings. Native Americans, who have suffered so much as a result of colonization, also find the celebration of Thanksgiving a painful reminder.
Here are some of the ways to keep the old traditions alive.
Share your Thanksgiving with others. It doesn’t matter if you gather friends from work or church or meetings or the gym, or anywhere. Sharing your table, or just being with others, can bring joy. It’s a real kindness to offer comfort to others who may also be missing a happy family as much as you do.
Remember the good times. Often we get into the habit of thinking only of what we’ve lost and how terrible that loss is. But even when the losses seem unbearable, it’s okay to celebrate the love and happiness of the past. Corny but true: Remembering happiness with an open heart can lead us there again.
Be Grateful for what is. This is the most basic, and maybe the most important, quality of recovery. When you enjoy a meal, or never miss a sunrise, or find beauty in the rain, you have something for which to be grateful. Saying thank you is the first step on the path to whatever you want to be, and wherever you want to go.
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at ROR. Sending Love and Blessing and Prayers to all who are impacted by addiction.
A Reach Out Recovery Exclusive By: Leslie Glass
The post 3 Ways To Feel Good on Thanksgiving No Matter What appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
November 11, 2017
Triggers Can’t Ruin Co-Dependent’s Pumpkin Pie
Six years ago, my mother-in-law and I had our second Thanksgiving feud. She said some things, and for the first time ever, I said some things back. The argument escalated, I called her a name, and she slapped me. Back then, I had no recovery and no boundaries. Even though she’s no longer a threat in my life, simple fall traditions take me back to that night. Instead of comforting me with warm family memories, pumpkin pie and a slow roasted turkey are triggers, stabbing me with past pain. I remember the room, where she stood. Where I stood, and the phrase that started it all.
Triggers Turn Into Reactions
Unfortunately, these feuds with my mother-in-law weren’t isolated incidents; they were only two of many scenes from a 20-year manipulative and toxic relationship.
Researchers at the University of Iowa found that memories associated with acute stress and trauma get stored in the part of your brain responsible for survival where they serve as a defense mechanism against future trauma.
Ergo, some of these triggers have been hard-wired into my brain, and my first response is to react protectively even when the danger is no longer present. So, how do I come to terms with the holidays without eradicating fall related traditions? Fortunately, in the rooms of recovery, I found some tools to help handle my past hurts:
The Serenity Prayer helps me find peace in accepting my past as something I cannot change.
I’m aware of triggers like pumpkin pie and slow-roasted turkeys. I can accept that those items are things here in the present, and then take a healthy action – like reminding myself I am safe and she is gone.
I am not my story. The things she did to me did nothing to change my eye color, my love for cheesecake, or my ability to solve quadratic equations. She didn’t change me.
One day at a time – Living in these 12 hours of today let me focus on the good things in my life now, like my wonderful family.
Everyone in my house loves pumpkin pie, and we eat it year-round. I love that it’s actually a vegetable posing as dessert, and my son loves it for breakfast. I refuse to let it be a casualty of war.
The Co-dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Pie Filling Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
2 eggs
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Oatmeal Crumble Topping:
2 cups quick-cooking oats (a.k.a. minute oats)
5 TBls butter
1/3 cup sugar
A pinch of sea salt
Hand mix the pumpkin, eggs, honey, and flavorings in a large mixing bowl. (This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to drag out your mixer.) Add the coconut milk and stir until blended. Pour into greased pie pan.
Next, place the oats, butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse until blended. Batter will start to form small crumbles. Sprinkle crumbles on top of pie filling. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Check to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife near the center of pie. The pie is done if the knife comes out clean.
The post Triggers Can’t Ruin Co-Dependent’s Pumpkin Pie appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Co Dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie Triggers Pain
Six years ago, my mother-in-law and I had our second Thanksgiving feud. She said some things, and for the first time ever, I said some things back. The argument escalated, I called her a name, and she slapped me. Back then, I had no recovery and no boundaries. Even though she’s no longer a threat in my life, simple fall traditions take me back to that night. Instead of comforting me with warm family memories, pumpkin pie and a slow roasted turkey are triggers, stabbing me with past pain. I remember the room, where she stood. Where I stood, and the phrase that started it all.
Triggers Turn Into Reactions
Unfortunately, these feuds with my mother-in-law weren’t isolated incidents; they were only two of many scenes from a 20-year manipulative and toxic relationship.
Researchers at the University of Iowa found that memories associated with acute stress and trauma get stored in the part of your brain responsible for survival where they serve as a defense mechanism against future trauma.
Ergo, some of these triggers have been hard-wired into my brain, and my first response is to react protectively even when the danger is no longer present. So, how do I come to terms with the holidays without eradicating fall related traditions? Fortunately, in the rooms of recovery, I found some tools to help handle my past hurts:
The Serenity Prayer helps me find peace in accepting my past as something I cannot change.
I’m aware of triggers like pumpkin pie and slow-roasted turkeys. I can accept that those items are things here in the present, and then take a healthy action – like reminding myself I am safe and she is gone.
I am not my story. The things she did to me did nothing to change my eye color, my love for cheesecake, or my ability to solve quadratic equations. She didn’t change me.
One day at a time – Living in these 12 hours of today let me focus on the good things in my life now, like my wonderful family.
Everyone in my house loves pumpkin pie, and we eat it year-round. I love that it’s actually a vegetable posing as dessert, and my son loves it for breakfast. I refuse to let it be a casualty of war.
The Co-dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie
Pie Filling Ingredients:
1 15-ounce can pumpkin
2 eggs
3/4 cup honey
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Oatmeal Crumble Topping:
2 cups quick-cooking oats (a.k.a. minute oats)
5 TBls butter
1/3 cup sugar
A pinch of sea salt
Hand mix the pumpkin, eggs, honey, and flavorings in a large mixing bowl. (This recipe is so easy you don’t even have to drag out your mixer.) Add the coconut milk and stir until blended. Pour into greased pie pan.
Next, place the oats, butter, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Pulse until blended. Batter will start to form small crumbles. Sprinkle crumbles on top of pie filling. Bake at 375 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Check to see if the pie is done by inserting a knife near the center of pie. The pie is done if the knife comes out clean.
The post Co Dependent’s Crustless Pumpkin Pie Triggers Pain appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Why Some People Age Faster Than Others
Ever wonder what it is about some people that makes them able to run marathons into their 70s? For the first time, scientists have identified a genetic pathway that may regulate the rate at which we age. Building on their research is expected to improve our understanding of how to keep our bodies healthy even as they grow older.
Because people want to live forever, most scientific research on the aging process focuses on longevity, meaning ways to stretch our natural lifespan. What it tends to overlook is age-related behavioral decline, which seems remiss since if we are all going to live forever we’d want to do so with bodies and brains that have remained healthy. Longevity and behavioral aging aren’t necessarily related processes; just because we extend one doesn’t mean the other gets pulled along with it.
A man runs on the beach along Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York March 2, 2015. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal
Researchers studying nematodes called Caenorhabditis elegans, worm-like creatures about 1 millimeter long, discovered two genes that appeared to have recently undergone a “selective sweep,” genetic editing due to the natural selection process. These particular nematodes are frequently used in anti-aging research because their naturally short lifespan means any changes to longevity are easy to observe. A paper detailing the research was published in the scientific journal Nature.
“Despite the considerable interest in studying natural variation in aging rate to identify factors that control healthy ageing, no such factor has yet been found,” the authors wrote in the paper. “Here we report a genetic basis for variation in aging rates in Caenorhabditis elegans. We find that C. elegans isolates show diverse lifespan and age-related declines in virility, pharyngeal pumping, and locomotion.”
So not all the nematodes aged at the same rate. Virility and locomotion, as you might have guessed, refer respectively to physical strength and ability to walk (or wriggle) and otherwise move around. Pharyngeal pumping refers to things moving smoothly down the passages from our nose and mouth to our lungs and stomach—breathing, drinking, and eating.
The researchers propose that based on their study, the pace at which we age and lose those kinds of functions is affected by the emergence of new genes, like the ones they observed in the nematodes. This makes for a big step forward in the evolutionary theory of aging, and will hopefully lead to therapies that allow us all to age a little more gracefully.
The post Why Some People Age Faster Than Others appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Even light drinkers at risk of cancer
Even light drinking could raise cancer risk, say ASCO.
I enjoy the occasional glass of wine, and I wouldn’t consider this level of drinking to be harmful to my health. But it appears I’m wrong; that seemingly innocent glass of pinot could be increasing my risk of cancer.
If you think I’m being dramatic, you’re probably among the 70 percent of Americans who don’t realize that alcohol consumption is a significant risk factor for cancer.
As a writer for a medical news website, I’m well aware that drinking can increase cancer risk. I’m also aware of the studies suggesting that moderate alcohol consumption has health benefits.
It’s highly likely that I subconsciously use the latter as an excuse for my occasional glass of wine: “It’s good for me, so why not?!”
But, as a new statement from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) — which was recently published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology — reveals, even light drinking could be putting my health at risk.
“Alcohol,” write the study authors, “is causally associated with oropharyngeal and larynx cancer, esophageal cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, breast cancer, and colon cancer. Even modest use of alcohol may increase cancer risk, but the greatest risks are observed with heavy, long-term use.”
ASCO’s conclusions come from a review of more than 150 studies looking at the link between alcohol and cancer.
What is more, the authors report that around 5.5 percent of new cancer cases and around 5.8 percent of cancer deaths worldwide are directly related to alcohol intake.
‘People don’t associate drinking with cancer’
Only 38 percent of people in the United States are actively cutting back on their alcohol intake as a way of reducing cancer risk.
“People typically don’t associate drinking beer, wine, and hard liquor with increasing their risk of developing cancer in their lifetimes,” notes Dr. Bruce Johnson, president of ASCO. But maybe it’s time that we did.
“[…] limiting alcohol intake is a means to prevent cancer,” adds lead statement author Dr. Noelle K. LoConte, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
“The good news is that, just like people wear sunscreen to limit their risk of skin cancer, limiting alcohol intake is one more thing people can do to reduce their overall risk of developing cancer.”
Dr. Noelle K. LoConte
As part of the statement, ASCO put forward some recommendations that they believe could help to reduce alcohol intake in the U.S. These include increasing the price of alcohol, raising alcohol tax, introducing stricter regulations on the sale of alcohol to minors, and incorporating alcohol control strategies in cancer prevention plans.
The statement also highlights the importance of oncologists in informing us about the cancer risks associated with alcohol intake.
“Oncology providers,” write the authors, “can serve as community advisors and leaders and can help raise the awareness of alcohol as a cancer risk behavior.”
Yes, ASCO’s recommendations could help to reduce alcohol consumption across America, but I am a firm believer that cutting back on the booze starts with oneself.
Cutting back to cut cancer risk
Earlier this year, I took part in Dry January, a public health campaign designed to encourage people to abstain from alcohol for 1 month.
I was sure that denying myself that glass of pinot would be challenging, but I was surprised at how little I missed it.
That said, my abstinence from alcohol did not last beyond 1 month, and I suspect that this was the case for many others who participated in Dry January. I was reintroduced to Mr. Pinot at a friend’s birthday party in February, and it was then that I tagged myself as a “social drinker.”
By definition, a social drinker is a person who predominantly consumes alcohol in a social setting, but not to excess levels.
If I’m honest, I can’t see myself abstaining from alcohol long-term; I enjoy a drink with my friends. However, given that even modest alcohol intake has been linked to cancer and other health problems, maybe we could all benefit from cutting back on the drink.
Cancer is one of America’s biggest health burdens. In fact, just last year, more than 1.6 million new cancer cases were diagnosed in the U.S., and more than 595,000 people died from the disease.
I don’t want to add to these statistics. So, the next time I’m out with friends and debating that extra drink, I’ll be asking myself, “Is that glass of wine really worth risking my health?”
If you’re looking to limit your alcohol intake, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provide some useful tips.
The post Even light drinkers at risk of cancer appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
November 10, 2017
9 Tips For Family Addiction
Family addiction is not isolated to one person who may be using. Addiction is passed on through generations and everybody is affected.
Family addiction is complicated. Intergenerational addiction studies examine how addictions are passed on through the generations – great grandparents/grandparents/parents/children.
Numerous ongoing studies continue to show the propensity of substance use disorders (SUD) being a family disease, not only regarding how the illness affects all members of a family, but how each generation may have an impact of the course of the disease.
How Does One Become An Alcoholic/Addict?
Genetics/biological impact (most significant cause)
Environmental factors (such as living in high risk communities and/or home, poverty, poor health care)
Peer Pressure and/or being in a relationship with someone who uses (friends, older siblings, college parties, etc.)
Historical trauma (such as the Native American population)
Co‐occurring disorders (such as mental illness or history of personal trauma)
Modeling the behavior of parents, other adults, or friends (they use drugs/alcohol so it’s normal for you to use)
Early use of alcohol or drugs (childhood and teen use make one more susceptible to addiction)
Addictive potential of the chemical itself (for example, cocaine is a highly addictive substance)
Children and Teenagers: Does a family history of SUDs affect you? YES. It can affect you in many ways including:
Family members who are addicts may affect the family dynamic in unhealthy ways (poor boundaries such a child parenting the adult, abuse, neglect, poor living situations or poverty, etc.)
The genetic history is a strong predictor of addictions in each subsequent generation.
But My Parents Don’t Use So I Shouldn’t Have a Problem:
Yes and No. If there is a history of addictions with your biological family, you are still at risk. Genetics account for about 50‐60% for you having a higher risk of being addicted ‐ even if your parents aren’t addicted. So it is very possible if you use substances, you will have a problem. Likewise, a percentage of children won’t have an addiction and can be social users of various substances (social users do not have consequences related to their use such as drunk driving,
increased tolerance, losing a job, etc.) However, as noted above, you are also at risk due to other factors such as peer pressure, the addictiveness of the chemical, etc.)
But it Skipped a Generation:
Genetics continue to influence you, even if your parents aren’t addicted. So it doesn’t really skip a generation although it may appear that way. Also, you may have other relatives such as aunts or uncles who are addicted.
Your parents may not use because they grew up in an addictive family and don’t use because they don’t want to create the same unhealthy family dynamics with you as they had growing up. In actuality, they may be prone to being addicted, but will never know because they don’t use. This is why it appears to skip a generation.
So What Should I Do?
Since addictions thrive in secrecy, you need to talk, talk, and talk some more to trusted family members or other adults such as family friends, a teacher, counselor, or spiritual mentor. Do not allow the “elephant in the living room” syndrome to take over and pretend that nothing is wrong. Communication is a must. You need to understand your family history and how it may impact you.
Secondly, become knowledgeable through your own learning. Read and educate yourself. This helps you to be in charge of your life. Do not allow an addiction to rule you; your life is yours to live and hopefully, to live in a healthy manner.
Set boundaries with others. Do not let peer pressure force you to use to be “popular.” Let others know that you’re at risk for addictions and that you choose not to use because of this.
Model your behavior on those who you admire, trust, and respect.
Socialize with others who want to live free of addiction; they really do exist.
Attend 12‐step meetings such as Ala‐Teen or Al‐Anon and Nara‐Teen or Nar‐Anon which focus on issues that children/teens or adults of addicted parents/other family members may have, or ACA Teen or ACA (adult children of alcoholics – also called ACOA) that explore the special issues and concerns about growing up in an addicted family system.
Be involved in healthy activities such as school groups, the arts, sports, clubs, hobbies, and school‐led support groups for children and teens of addicted families.
See a counselor who can help you deal with family issues, grieve, and learn healthy coping skills.
And finally, know that you are not alone. There is a lot of help out there. Seek it out.
Carol Anderson, D.Min., ACSW, LMSW
For more about Carol Anderson
The post 9 Tips For Family Addiction appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
