Its difficult to think of something that makes you feel as powerless as watching a loved one cycle downward in active addiction. So what do you do? There are a million different opinions, but here are a few ideas. 1. Express love and understanding. NO ONE is using drugs compulsively because they are happy and content. They may swear up and down that they have a great life, but it is a terrible burden to carry. Try to separate the negative behaviors you see from the hurt and scared person on the inside. Even while you should stick up for yourself and not let yourself be abused, try to remember there is a very fragile and lost soul just out of sight. An addicted brain is a slave to a chemical and usually is far past any rational behavior. Continue to encourage that they get help, offer to help put them in touch with resources, and tell them you love them. 2. Offer resources. If a person is terrified of inpatient treatment encourage them to try some kind of outpatient, such as intensive outpatient. The patient goes three times a week for 3 hours a day. They get to go home but they are drug-tested, receive lots of group counseling, and are able to receive fellowship with other people trying to get sober. Usually they meet with a psychiatrist to see what medications would be helpful. It helps to fill the excess of free time that is so problematic for many people early in recovery, especially at night. If they resist this option, encourage an individual counselor with experience in addiction. Although counseling once a week may be far less than they need it can often be a very good start. It gives the person another caring individual who can chip away at some of the denial that keeps them using and attaches them to another support. Encourage 12 step or Refuge recovery support groups. Local meetings can be looked up by state and many times hearing other people speak about their addictions can cause people to open up. Lastly, if you have any financial or other leverage over the person use what you have to push them toward any of the above options. Ideally everyone should choose recovery. In real life we know that's not how it works. You have a right to do what you can to push them into some treatment arena. 3. Protect and care for yourself. At the end of the day the most powerful thing you can do is demonstrate how to be a healthy example of a human being. That's the most powerful leverage you have. if one person in a family is falling apart it does no one good if everyone falls apart. I know enabling is kind of a buzz word, but try not to feed the addiction. Don't give the person money. If you want to supply food or pay other bills for them temporarily that may be fine, but don't give them money they can direct towards drugs. You are trying not to give them the message that you approve and support what they are doing. It is impossible to remain objective in these situations. That is why AL-ANON, NAR-ANON, parent groups, and individual therapy are so recommended. These resources give you your own network of people to learn from who will keep the focus on you. It is incredibly beneficial to hear other people going through the same thing as you. You will also hear many whose children are in recovery and can warn you of mistakes they made. Addiction is a lonely disease for the individual and for the family. You want to find a community that understands.

Let the past be the past. How easy is that to say, and how agonizingly difficult a task? Its easy to spend years trying to ignore the past and saying that it doesn't matter. The mind is always reaching back and dragging yesterdays mistakes and regrets into the present. It makes the present and the future impossible to truly reach. Its like trying to walk down a street staring backwards. You walk into a lot of things and progress is minimal. But how do you stop looking? Usually, I think most people find the best way to release its power is to face it. Usually with help. Start with writing down the mistakes, experiences, and people that haunt you. You need a thorough catalogue. Most people find you also need another person. I believe this is where most people usually slip up. We try to force the past out of our mind with sheer will. Our mind is usually just to powerful to see things objectively, to learn what is okay to let go. There is something truly magical about sharing these issues with another human being that seems to reduce their size and gravity. In the confines of our mind the past is confusing, infuriating, and sticky. With a solid accounting we can present these issues to a close friend, a counselor, a pastor, etc. Often what we find is that just the willingness to look at them is the crucial ingredient. Once they are in the light and seen by a trusted confidant they become a little lighter. It is only in fully immersing oneself that we can transcend them, and one needs great courage and willingness for this. The irony is that the longer we dodge it the more we tend to repeat it, in long and painful circles. This is not inevitable. Gear yourself up, find the resources you need, and take the leap.

Expectations can be a dangerous thing. It seems to be a very human thing to expect things. To place some target in the future of how things will be and what it will feel like. In my opinion doing this is sometimes the only way to get there. I used to persevere through a 4 hour daily commute because I wanted to prove something. It may be more accurate to say I wanted to earn something. I had earned an administrative position at one of the best high schools in new york city, and man was I proud. Up at dawn, racing to the car, the train, the subway, the school. Looking back it was an incredible accomplishment at such a young age. That being said, it wasn't what I wanted. Sometimes if enough people think something is great it can fool you into believing its great for you. i can remember that high, where my own intuition for what is best for me is overshadowed by the feelings and opinions of others. For so long I thought achieving a prestigious position would be the be all -end all of existence. That every puzzle piece would fall into place and all insecurity or self-doubt would fall away. The problem with painting any target in the future or grand accomplishment you are working towards is "what the hell do I do now?" The hard work and dedication you used to propel yourself to this point have suddenly lost their purpose. I suppose its natural to do this to a certain extent, but it can be really dangerous. When this happened to me i stalled. I too a long and deserved sigh of relief and decided it was time to rest on my laurels. More importantly, I lost my reason to be grinding and pushing. I lost my fight. My senses shifted from the inside to the outside. Rather than drawing on my spirit and my reasons for fighting, the outside voices, comments and perceptions grew louder and closer. They were deafening. I hadnt really stopped to consider if this would be right for me. I had a new marriage, a baby son, and a responsibility to help support my family. So I blindly took the leap into a job I really didnt fit in. I let my sense of responsibility drown out my own intuition and personality. i tried very hard to fit a round peg into a square hole. I convinced myself that it would fit, eventually, and consistently stopped listening to my heart. There is a very real price we pay for that. Your feelings are trying to tell you something. Listen now or listen later! They will be heard. The result of this ignorance in my case was to slowly fade away into opiate addiction and alcoholism. I wasnt comfortable doing what I was doing, and I knew it. I tried to make myself comfortable by self-medicating. I fell away from my wife and child, my friends, everyone. That is a dark place to be. This lesson has been painfully made. I listen to myself and what my purpose is. I keep the reasons for living focused in my heart and not on other peoples arguments or opinion. Relying on your internal compass is a safer path. And as for expectations, I try to focus on the journey. Don't focus on the top of the mountain, just the step in front of you. I find there are a lot less falls that way. "

Of the list of terrible things humans struggle with, denial is right up there at the top. How the hell do you combat something you can't see? The worst part is how the sicker you are, the less you see. I remember drinking alcoholically for years, blacking out in bars and somehow getting home. Usually it involved driving. I figured that's just what everybody does. I assumed everyone woke up with vicious hangovers after every time they drank. Its just the price of doing business. I also assumed everyone drank alone as much as I did, which eventually was every night. Once people started making comments to me, i.e. "you should take it easy", or "take a couple weeks off", I had to assume there was something wrong with them. Addiction protects itself... brilliantly. When it senses a threat in the form of a parent, a spouse, a coworker, that person immediately becomes the enemy. When someone becomes the enemy of the substance that makes life bearable, I will shut that person out fast if they don't let it go. In denial your disease will show you every perfect piece of evidence to maintain control and masterly ignore anything that threatens your use. I remember concluding that taking prescription opiates 24 hours a day (without any physical pain) was a perfectly reasonable way to control anxiety. It was working for me! I felt great. I could do anything with confidence and ease. When I started getting sick, or lying for prescriptions, or stealing them from my friends and family, that suddenly became perfectly fine. I needed them, and if people understood how much I needed them they wouldn't care, at least if they were good friends. And if they weren't good friends all the more reason it was okay to steal from them. This all sounds so blatantly, ridiculously warped. When you are active in addiction it makes perfect, beautiful sense. Perhaps this will sound quite disheartening to someone struggling with a loved one. All I think you can do is encourage people to change, remind them how much you love them, and hope they can see enough damage in their lives to want to change. Many times the more aggressively you confront someone, the more they entrench in their denial. They refuse to see any problem. I've seen better results with encouraging someone to look at their life and stepping back a little. If you give people some distance and set good boundaries with them without approving of what they are doing, it can make their denial a little harder to maintain. Just remind them gently that you think there is a problem and hope they will seek help, while acknowledging they have to want it. Perhaps the best advice I can give is to protect yourself and keep living, because god knows denial can last decades. It took me about 2 decades to wake up. I hope and pray all of us wake up about all those things we hide from ourselves. Getting in your own way can take a lifetime to undo.

I know gratitude is kind of the new cliche, but it helps. It's not unusual enough for me to think I've got it tough, That my car is really kind of a clunker and wouldn't a ferrarri be nice. Then I remember there is somebody waiting hours for the bus who would be in heaven to get my car. I'm raging at my son for something silly, while somebody is bankrupting themselves for fertility treatments just to have a kid like this. I don't think I can ever really be as grateful as I should be, at least not all the time. Hopefully, I can try to remember that out there at any given moment somebody is praying for my biggest problems.