Support for the Family of Addicts – Are You Enabling?

Struggling to get a family member in to an addiction program in Los Angeles? It’s time to consider that your enabling may be standing in their way. Enabling is simply the act of providing resources or opportunity to make living in the disease simpler for the addict.

Often, when family and friends believe they are “helping” an addict, they are actually allowing the disease to take firmer hold. So, what’s the difference between “helping” and “enabling?” Helping is simply doing something for someone that he or she incapable of doing themselves. Enabling is doing stuff for another person that they can and should be doing themselves . Enabling means one thing – that is the addict ultimately avoiding the consequences of his or her actions. As long as the addict knows that no matter how badly she or he screws up, someone will be standing by to pick up the pieces, it is quite easy to deny that a problem even exists. Only when the addict is forced to face consequences, will the addict realize that they have a serious problem which requires drug or alcohol addiction help.

Enabling includes things such as paying bills, excusing behavior and providing them with shelter and food. Ask yourself the following questions, to learn if you’ve been unknowingly contributing to the addict’s problem:

Have you ever called in sick on behalf of the addict.

Do you avoid conversations about the addicts behavior because you’re afraid you’ll “upset” him or her?

Have you ever bailed the addict out of jail?

Have you ever paid the addict’s household bills or loaned him or her money?

Have you finished a project, job or homework for the addict?

If you answer “yes” to any of the questions, you’ve been enabling your loved ones addiction. Preventing a person from the consequences of their actions is not helpful to that person in the long run. Allowing an addict to hit rock bottom may ultimately save their life. Standing firm and no longer enabling the user won’t be easy. Read recovery testimonials California, and lean about how former addicts have overcome their addictions and are leading happy, healthy lives thanks to California rehab centers. The sooner you stop enabling, the sooner they’ll know they have a problem that needs to be faced.

Making the Decision to Seek Alcohol Addiction Help

Making the decision to change everything and go to a drug rehab in California isn’t easy but will be one of the most rewarding you ever make. Maybe right now, everything feels hopeless, your career and family aren’t what they could be, you’ve destroyed them or you’ve never created those things for yourself. Maybe you have thought that you didn’t deserve them or have tried but only been brought down again and again by the forces of your addiction. Now you’re ready for alcohol addiction help.

When you walk through the doors of one of the residential treatments centers California has to offer, you will be surrounded by professionals who understand and are able to help you end your addiction and the vicious, self-destructive cycles that go along with it. In groups, you will undoubtedly learn that you are not alone and discover that the way you are feeling and the seeming utter futility of life is something most alcoholics and addicts have in common. When you make the decision to change, and embark upon the road to recovery, you will begin to see a new hope in your life everywhere you turn.

You will be able to build new relationships and repair some of those you have harmed in your addiction, you will be able to grow in your chosen career path, choose a new one or begin the one you have always wanted.

Once you make the decision to walk away from drugs and alcohol and into a life of recovery, you will have the freedom of CHOICE because you will no longer be a slave to your addiction.

How to Change Your Life – Help for Alcohol Addiction

Looking for California alcohol rehab? If alcohol addiction is ruining your life, you’re doing the right thing. Scientific studies have shown, time and again, that the odds of getting sober on your own – and staying that way – are slim. The battle against alcohol addiction cannot be waged with willpower alone.

Start by having an honest conversation with your family or loved ones. Sit down with them and let them know you’re ready to get sober. Chances are, they’re more aware of the extent of your problems than you realize, and will respond with caring, concern and relief. Don’t make up excuses. Don’t put the decision off and plan to figure out the details “later.” Don’t procrastinate. Find some rehabs that take insurance, and get ready for your wonderful new life to begin.

Although it is true, for relatively small percentage of people people, attending 12-Step meetings is enough – most addicts need more help. Your addiction didn’t happen overnight, and there are no short cuts to recovery either. Some alcoholics, such as those with inextricable family or work commitments, join outpatient programs.These programs closely monitor and test participants for drug and alcohol to make sure they are not using between sessions. They can work – but for most, an inpatient 30-day rehab program (or longer) will be required. This stay in a neutral environment free of temptation helps people break free from destructive patterns and change their mindset from that of an addict. Participants gain insight about the root causes behind their drinking – maybe for the first time – and learn a great deal about themselves and others.

During your stay in residential treatment centers California, your relationship to alcohol will shift. It will no longer be the center of your universe and you will come to face the great costs you have paid to maintain that relationship. Eventually, your attitude about yourself will begin to change and you can start to develop the self-respect and enjoyment of life which will carry your sobriety forward.

Sound good? Contact us. Find out how great life can be! Get alcohol addiction help now.

Expectations and the Alcoholic Addict

“Resentment is the “number one” offender.  It destroys more alcoholics than anything else.  From it stem all forms of spiritual disease, for we have been not only mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick.”   The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 64

From where do resentments come?  What makes them such an integral part of our spiritual sickness?  How might we overcome them and why should we?

If we consider situations that disappointed and/or angered us, and subsequently take a look past our immediate emotional reaction, many times there is an unfulfilled expectation lurking in our respective backgrounds.  Perhaps we aren’t even aware of said expectation.  For some reason, in some way, someone or something didn’t behave as we thought they should.  Something in our exchanges with others, or lack thereof, has left us angry and/or sad where we may have been, instead, hoping for the best possible outcome and/or response.. Expectations can easily become resentments and resentments for the alcoholic and/or addict can be not just damaging but actually fatal.

Why is that?  An expectation is a preconceived notion as to what’s going to and/or said to happen or, conversely, what did not occur; be it a phrase from someone who jittered bugged into our  life and jittered bug right on back out, with no warning. This scenario might leave us particularly perturbed and since that feeling can be overwhelming, there are many reasons it becomes the answer to what keeps us mired in our spiritual sickness, which some of us think we can compel and dispel on our own.  More often than not, given we cannot control people, places, and things, our remembering this key issue becomes paramount so we can be relieved of forming new expectations and/or resentments.

Instead of connecting with our Higher Power, we have, in essence, given that expectation/resentment all the power and we immediately neglect our relationship with that Higher Power of our understanding.  Our resentments become our guiding force, our God, in which we bow and cater to throughout our day.  With that, there are times when, say sitting through a long meeting at work, everyone might head out for a beer afterwards in order to process and unwind.  Alas, we cannot join them in a relaxing-post work beverage.  If we are seething with resentment and replaying over and over again the very moment from which our sense of betrayal stems, we open ourselves up to being eaten alive.  Lo and behold, in the very next frame in the moving picture of our live, a “forget this” may come our way and without the ability to not only actively recall our past, we throw our caution to the wind and pick up a drink.  What else might give us that ease and comfort, quelling, albeit temporarily, that feeling of resentment which might now be residing inside of us.

All in all, our expectations becoming resentments becoming something to “drink over” can lead us straight to the grave.  They are not to be taken lightly.

The Bottle is a Symptom

When we first start on our path to sobriety, we’re never sure of our footing.  What do we do with ourselves, with whom do we talk, how do we behave?  As we begin, we may hear things along the lines of “Keep comin’ back.” or “just keep showing up.”  We don’t really know or understand what our actual problem is, only that we don’t know how to act in the world when we’re separated from drugs and alcohol.

At the start, it’s easy to believe that our problem is the drugs or the alcohol however, that’s not the case.  The bottle is a symptom.  Our problem begins long before we take the first drink.  We start hearing the term “mental defective” and maybe that angers us.  Who is anyone to say we are, as we think we’re hearing, not right in the head?  Now, with that said, we have to take a step back and look at the truth of our situation.  We used alcohol and drugs because, in addition to liking the effect they produced, they eased our way in the world; at least we thought they did.   Why did we need an “easing” into the world?  Could it be that we didn’t think in the same way as others?  Could it be that we couldn’t see past the end of our own nose, to take into account what others needed?  Maybe it was that our skin and our souls didn’t feel quite like they fit one another and that trying to edge ourselves into the world while feeling so disconnected & separated from ourselves and others tore at us.  What does that say?  We may want to look at the idea that the problem of the alcoholic centers in his/her mind.
The further proof of that is when alcoholics have “gone back out”, meaning, after being sober for a period of time, they opted to try to drink again.  The thought process may have been along the lines that they could now drink like normal men and women.  Many times, when this happens, there is a strange mental blank spot, and an inability to truly recall the nightmare that ensued after we took the first drink.  The recollection of that incomprehensible degradation from which we suffered at our lowest point is suddenly absent from our consciousness as the glass, the bottle, the pipe, the pill, etc hits our lips.

All of this reinforces the idea that we have a skewed thought process.  Even when we know drinking and/or taking drugs doesn’t *help ease our way* any longer, we keep trying.  We are not in our right minds when we are drinking and we need to learn a new way of thinking, a better way of acting, and a more mindful way to be present and available in the world.  We must shift our actions so that our thoughts can shift and when our thoughts shift, our actions reflect that.  Our ideas keep us beholden to where we are.  Where do our ideas live?  They live in our minds.  If we aren’t thinking correctly how can that be dubbed anything less than being mentally defective?

The Alcoholic and Control

“Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way.  If his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.  Everybody, including himself, would be pleased.  Life would be wonderful.” – The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 60-61

How many times have we believed that if a person would only act exactly the way we think they should, complete a task the way we think it needed to be done, and say everything just the right way, it would all turn out to be nothing short of perfect?  Haven’t we thought if a particular place would only accommodate us in the way we believed we deserved, thinking ourselves to be an unknown member of the Royal Family, our treatment would allow us to then be beneficent?  Hasn’t frustration wound us up when something didn’t go just our way, causing us to retaliate and behave with venomous attacks or passive aggressive, backhanding comments?  Don’t we speak through gritted teeth and forced smiles sure that everyone and everything, everywhere, would only do our bidding, as we so believe it is meant to be done, we could successfully function in the world?

Time and time again we try to arrange and manipulate situations to some script we have secreted away from the rest of humanity.  We try to feed lines to others, believing them to be at our bidding and perform our play as it is written in our heads.  We try to create scenarios where we become the victor, the hero, the savior, the good guy, the white knight, et al.  While attempting these superhuman feats to dominate the world around us, believing that the only option is the option that serves us the best, we fall flat and sink further with every move.  Our self-serving, controlling attempts cause others strife and consternation and that’s on a good day.

One of the key lessons that can be learned while in a California drug rehabilitation center is the understanding that we cannot control people, places, and/or things.  It is a lesson that we encounter and relearn over and over again, in a multitude of ways.  There are times when it can be difficult to hold to this concept.  More often than not, we find that it is imperative for us to actively place this tenet in our new-found life so that we may, in fact, be available and of service to others, not as we believe they should be, but as they actually are.