Parents Call

One of the most intense aspects of my job as CEO of TLC is calls from parents and family members. The voices at the other end of the phone are seeking reassurance, seeking answers, trying to understand the mysteries of addiction. And there are no easy answers for these callers. I simply share with them is my own experience of many years of addiction and 20 years of running a recovery program. I do my best to give them hope.

I  encourage them to keep their distance, to be tough. Many feel they're somehow responsible because their loved one has an addiction. They may be expressing guilt for some perceived breakdown in their parenting skills.  Some of them say "I don't know what I did wrong." I point out that whatever happened years back, their loved one is currently an addict or alcoholic. Trying to make up for the past does no good in the present when an addict is busy drinking or drugging and on a downhill slope to nowhere.

There is a heartbreaking website set up by the mother of an alcoholic.. Her love for her son shows in every word she writes. She chronicles his various relapses and talks about her efforts to help him. She's torn apart because he can't get sober, yet she keeps picking him up and dusting him off, trying to save him one more time. I'd like to tell her of my experience: I didn't get sober until my parents and everyone else quit helping me. Only when I had absolutely no one to pick me up did I realize that I must be the problem. Only then did I finally get sober over 20 years ago.

Today I have an alcoholic family member in my life who's been in and out of sobriety for the past few years. I apply the same advice to my relationship with him that I give to others. I don't want to hear his whining about how everyone else is the problem. I don't care how his wife treats hm, how his boss treats him, and how sensitive he is to perceived slights. Until he gets off  the drugs and alcohol, and starts living by some principles of sobriety he and I won't have much of a relationship. I don't need the drama of a practicing alcoholic in my life – even if I'm related to him. While he may have resentment for a long time because of the way I've treated him – he may one day thank me because I've helped save his life just like someone helped save my life by being rough on me so many years ago.