Monday, July 7, 2008

Tough Love

After loosing the battle of addiction with Jani I have questioned and blamed myself for many mistakes and errors. When you first realize you are in a fight for the life of your little girl you turn anywhere for help or answers. The yellow pages are empty in the comfort department for the loved ones of addicts. Somehow paying the huge amounts of money the addiction specialists demand temporarily gives you a direction.

One of the biggest regrets I have as I ponder my experience during the last year of Jani's life is listening to addiction counselors about tough love. There is a fine line between facilitating an addiction and loving an addict. I do not believe this includes rejection of your loved one until they stop using.

I often wonder how many addiction counselors would follow their own advice to the death of someone they love. Refusal to accept any use or behavior that leads to use is an intense approach. But it can be done without shutting out the addict from the support system they need. This may mean not providing any housing, food, or transportation as long as your loved one is using. But they have to know you can still love them and are excited to see the old person buried by the addition.

Bill W. founder of A.A. framed a powerful 12 step process to aid in the recovery of addiction. 1. Admit you are powerless over your addiction. 2. Realize that a Higher Power can restore your sanity. 3. Turn your life and your will over to God. The addict has let the need to use replace God in their system. They have to know that God still loves them and will help them. The first way to help them to this knowledge is to help them know you love them. Like raising children, there are no hard rules that work for everyone when dealing with an addict. They can recover, don't give up.

More Side Effects

As an addict struggles through the disaster in their life left by drug use they have many obstacles. After the physical withdrawals end they see themselves scarred mentally and emotionally. Now the need to alter how they feel now is valid, instead of the contrived excuses they used during their use. Medical knowledge about this problem is limited. One side effect that receives little attention is the devastation of hormone production by the addicts system. They don't just feel broken emotionally and mentally, in a very real sense they are.

Doctors can run blood tests and do a hormone panel that shows where the levels of a variety of natural body chemicals have ended up after the addict is clean and detoxed. For instance a 25 year old recovering addict who had this done found that his testosterone levels were almost at 0. This hormone gives men and women the drive to get up and do things, (not just sexual motivation, but any kind of activity).

After having the hormone panel done bioidentical hormones can be used to supplement the addict's natural hormone production and aid in rejuvenating it. The effects of this can help in the healing process. Instead of the terrifying worry that the addict has broken their system and will never be normal again they can get legitimate help. Besides the rejuvenation of normal feelings it helps many addicts to have something to take to feel better, something that will help them instead of just numbing them.

A little doctor shopping may be necessary to find one who deals with natural bioidentical hormone replacement. A recovering addict can feel normal again. It won't happen all at once or from one pill or another, But from within, born in desire to get their life back. It can be done.