Addiction is for Everybody

How would you react to learning someone you know has an addiction? What would you do? How would you do what you think needs to be done?

I became aware several years ago my youngest son is addicted to meth-amphetamine. How did I become aware? First, noticing the weight loss. Second, his speech patterns and the thinking errors demonstrated by him when he talked. Third, his emotional responses to his perception of stressful situations. Fourth, his behavior patterns.  The four reasons are not prioritized. They are just four reasons in no particular order. And then I put it all together to come to an irrefutable conclusion he was addicted.

Knowing your son was addicted and doing something about it was a much longer time frame. First and all requests suggesting treatment to him got the emotional/cognitive juices flowing and the thinking errors flowed. Absolutely not.

My studies in my master's program and my professional life as a Child and Youth Care counselor provided me with addictive behavior patterns, thinking errors and emotional responses.

The hardest aspect of dealing with an addict is waiting for them to hit 'bottom.' 'Bottom,' for those who are not familiar with the term is the point in the addict's life when they realize they absolutely do not want to live the rest of their life as an addict. It is a crucial time point in the addict's life. The person realizes their quality of life as it is being experienced is horrible, yucky, stinky, and generally all around bad. The X factor in predicting one's hitting 'bottom' is it is different for each individual addict. We all have a 'bottom.' As an example imagine someone smoking some pot then walking into a grocery store and suffers an anxiety attack, which leads them to swear off all drugs forevermore. The other end of the 'bottom' spectrum is death.

I recently asked my youngest son to move out and not come back. He, of course, counted this as rejection of him the person rather than the addict. The addict is not the person. We, who have personally experienced addiction, all can attest to the change we witness as the addict succumbs more and more to the addictive lifestyle. My personal experience with former addicts is they can overcome their disease and recreate their lives more positively. Oh yes, I must mention there are false 'bottoms, too. The addict says, "oh yuck, I hate my life" and they seek treatment, but it doesn't take, and x amount of time later they are using again. I pray, and look forward to my youngest son hitting his bottom and seeking help, but I hold fast to the reality his bottom may not be life affirming. He could die.

Having my son around for a few months gave me the chance to observe him and the way he lived his life. One thing looming large in his lifestyle was how chaotic his bedroom was. It was a physical manifestation of his internal organization. Really it was a mess. The worst example of an adolescent's bedroom. My son is 36. His older brother and I cleaned out the bedroom. We learned more as we cleaned, finding court documents and arrest records. His arrest record was for very minor offenses, but there was a court record regarding possession of a packet of methamphetamine. The arresting officer did not show for court so the charges were dropped. I hope this court experience does not lead him to think he can continue to get away with criminal activity in the future, but criminal thinking errors are insidious

Addiction, though, can present a very different face than my son's addictive lifestyle. Recently, while cleaning out my youngest son's bedroom, I came across a packet of a prescription drug. Somehow holding the packet in my hand brought to mind the behavior of another friend. Since my first encounter with my friend I had always been in awe and at the same time suspicious of their ability to go to bed late and get up early. All the behavior patterns I noted above with my son came to mind as I stood there holding the packet. And there were significant deviations from those patterns. My friend is a professional in a stressful job. They get up and go to work each day, sometimes staying late to catch up on the day's' demands. My friend had mildly complained about their sleep patterns, going to bed late and waking early. I thought they were one of those people who can get by on minimal sleep. I am not one of those, I generally need between 6 and 8 hours and sometimes 9 or 10 when good quality sleep has not been available to me the past few days. I recall one morning I woke up early with some issues hot in my brain. I decided to seek an outside opinion regarding my early morning wake up call. I composed a message to my friend. It was just after 5 AM. My iPad tells me when someone is reading a message. I was surprised. I expected a response sometime later, but they indicated they had awakened around 4:45 and were 'coasting' until get out of bed motivation hit them. I was somewhat astounded by their early wake up call. I know their work schedule allows them to arrive at work anytime between 7 and 9 AM, but waking up so early after going to bed so late makes me a bit suspicious.

My friend as indicated previously is a professional. Their life style presents as fairly normal. In this particular instance my perception, looking from the outside in, was they led a very busy life. Almost every evening after work was spent being somewhere, various kinds of activities or standing weekly dates spent with friends. The weekends were just as busy, going here and going there. The chaos my son's room was in did not apply to my friend. Their home was clean and comfortable. No obvious indication of an inner chaos.

The major clue for me was the sleep pattern. The current nickname for people who use methamphetamine is 'tweaker.' The derivation of the nickname was a mystery to me until my oldest son gave me some insight. As I understand what was explained to me, the term 'tweaker' refers to how they sleep. When using dangerous stimulants the brain is super charged and the body follows what the brain tells it. What happens to tweakers is the body tires after many hours and they lay down to rest. The brain continues to be stimulated while the body rests. Deep sleep is rare as the brain keeps working and what is achieved is a false rest, so to speak. My friend's reference to 'coasting' after the alarm went off says to me the brain is working, stimulated, while the feeling of weariness keeps them in bed until the moment when they have to get up or the brain's function is so hyper they simply cannot rest any longer. Another factor is tweakers often sleep with lights on and music playing in the background. Either one of those can keep me awake not to mention both.

Years ago I became familiar with the term maintenance drunk. It describes the person who could drink all night, get up and go to work, have a 3 martini lunch, go back to work until quitting time and then continue drinking all evening, repeating the sequence over and over for years on end. My friend is a maintenance tweaker. I do not know how long they have been operating as a maintenance tweaker, but their description of their previous life indicates it may have started as far back as high school. Possibly sometime in their life they realized they could get by with minimal doses of a stimulant parsed out in specific doses. My friend's source is a doctor who has prescribed Sudafed for a sinus issue. I cannot speak definitively about prescribed dosages, but I believe the 12 hour capsule is standard issue. Take a pill in the morning and the sinuses are not plugged for the next 12 hours. Suppose one decides the sinuses are clogging up again before the 12 hours have elapsed. A second pill is taken and the evening's activities are met with a full head of steam and breathing is ostensibly not a factor. Oh sure, they are stimulated well into the evening and tiredness is not felt until midnight or so, but deep, restorative sleep is not to be achieved.

During the time of our friendship I have never noticed my friend having a sinus problem. One morning I stopped by and they stated their sinuses were clogged up and they needed to take a Sudafed. My inner response was, really, I hadn't noticed any indication their sinuses were clogged at all. You know, the voice pitch is changed because the sinus cavity is full and the sound cannot resonate as fully as normal, or the afflicted person is blowing their nose vociferously, or some other indicator the nose has a problem. My friend seemed normal to my ear.

And now I ask the original questions again.  What would you do? How would you do what needs to be done? My son's situation has been handled. I asked him to leave. He has not communicated with me since the day we dropped him off where he had parked his broke down car. My other friend, the maintenance tweaker, is a totally different course of action. If I were to confront them they can easily refute my allegations. All they need do is point out they are meeting their obligations. My evidence is circumstantial at best. I see patterns of prescription abuse where they do not. I could take the issue to the immediate family. I wonder about my credibility with the immediate family. The family members are best positioned to monitor use. Checking the prescription to see how fast the pills are being used would be a concrete way to determine if my perceptions have any validity. How receptive would the family be to hearing my allegations let alone doing the follow up to determine their validity?

And thus is how one deals with proven addiction and suspected addiction, maybe.