But maybe your home was dominated by someone addicted to religion, power, work, money, etc. Addiction is the same regardless of the avenue we choose to follow our addictions. I believe everyone is affected by addiction at home or work or church or whatever.

Once you learn your “role” in the addiction, you are set to respond that same way in all present and future relationships. In another post, I will write about the roles we chose in that family of origin.

Some current articles about anxiety:

Cost of perfectionism–by Pavel Somov:

“Perfectionists pay a high psychological price of anxiety, worry, depression and/or dysthymia (low grade depression) (Maxmen & Ward (1995).  According to Flett and Hewitt (2002) “perfectionists are more likely than nonperfectionists to experience various kinds of stress,” and they tend to exacerbate their own stress (p. 257).”

Insensitive children survive stressful homes and schools better–by Michael Ungar:

“While most parents want their children to be sensitive, kind, caring individuals, there’s some troubling research on primary school children that has been done by Thomas Boyce and his colleagues at the University of British Colombia (not far from the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics). Testing for stress reactivity using biological markers like cortisol levels during testing, Boyce and his colleagues have shown that a biologically predisposed sensitive child, one who is likely to feel emotional slights or be prone to anxiety, actually does better than most children when there is little stress in her environment. Give her a good home, an easy school routine, and she’ll outperform her less anxiety-prone peers. That may be because such children are also likely to be creative, expressive individuals, and those characteristics endear them to their parents and teachers. If you have a sensitive child, the good news is that as long as her world is safe and predictable, she is likely to do just fine.”

An experiment with monkeys and anxiety–by Adi Jaffe:

“A number of researchers at Wake Forest University school of Medicine looked at the social organization in 4 groups of monkeys. They then took either a dominant or subordinate monkey and put it in a cage next to a group of unfamiliar monkeys. The monkeys couldn’t hurt each other, but they could yell and scream, which they did, creating an emotionally stressful situation for the lone monkey.”

“After this stressful event, the researchers gave the monkey a chance to relax, human style: They were brought back to their normal housing and allowed to pull either on a lever that gave them food, or a lever that gave them a dose of cocaine. Want to guess what happened?”

Brain chemistry ties anxiety and alcoholism–

by University of Illinois at Chicago (2008, March 5). Brain Chemistry Ties Anxiety And Alcoholism.

“Doctors may one day be able to control alcohol addiction by manipulating the molecular events in the brain that underlie anxiety associated with alcohol withdrawal, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center report in the March 5 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.”

“The association of anxiety with increased alcohol use is a key factor in the initiation and maintenance of alcohol addition,” says Dr. Subhash Pandey, UIC professor of psychiatry and director of neuroscience alcoholism research, the lead author of the study.”

“Previous research has shown that people with inherently high levels of anxiety are at an increased risk of becoming alcoholics. In addition, withdrawal of alcohol in chronic users is often accompanied by extreme anxiety.”

“Alcoholics may feel a need to continue to drink alcohol in an attempt to self-medicate to reduce their anxiety and other unpleasant withdrawal symptoms,” said Pandey.”

“Pandey and his colleagues have discovered the molecular basis for the link between anxiety and alcohol addiction, which may help in identifying new therapeutic strategies for the treatment of alcohol addiction.”

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In taking another 5th step, I realized that I had recreated the home of my childhood.  I had the good mommy role and my husband was the bad daddy. As I stated there, he acted out his misery by having an affair and leaving me.

This experience has led me on the path of healing my childhood wounds. I was the oldest child–or rather, I was the youngest parent in that home. I took my duties so seriously that I taught myself to deny pleasure. In return, the power connected to this role of being the boss was my first addiction. One that I am only now giving up.

I believe those of us growing up in violent homes suffer from PTSD. I was particularly drawn to the definition of PTSD. Wikipedia defines it as “Posttraumatic stress disorder^[1][2] (commonly referred to by its acronym, PTSD) is a severe anxiety disorder that can develop after exposure to any event which results in psychological trauma.^[3] This event may involve the threat of death to oneself or to someone else, or to one’s own or someone else’s physical, sexual, or psychological integrity,^[1] overwhelming the individual’s psychological defenses.”

In reading about Iraq veterans and PTSD, I identified immediately with the social isolation. I have done this all my life. Although I am a loner and am suspicious of anyone not content being alone, isolation leads me to paranoia and discontent. I am learning a balance finally because I am now free to talk about all my feelings.

I have also identified the brain chemistry associated with my codependency. So I have begun learning how to reparent myself.

So, you can imagine my delight to read this post: What causes addiction? by Jann Gumbiner. Over my 33 years in addiction recovery, I have read many articles and books about the origins of addiction. I was thrilled to find in this article a mention of Dennis Thombs’s book, Introduction to Addictive Behaviors. What I identified with was his belief that we used our addictions to combat feelings of anxiety (fear) that we never learned to process.

My comment to this post:

“After 33 years of recovery from alcoholism, I am so grateful for your mention of Dennis Thombs’s Introduction to Addictive Behaviors”. It so resonates with my experience. My reaction the first time I drank was akin to finding the Holy Grail. I only ever had the same experience when I had been in labor for 33 hours with a double footling breech delivery. I remember gulping down the pain killer that they could only give me as she was through the birth canal.”

I will continue researching PTSD, codependency and addiction as I know that my addiction began when as a child, I didn’t l know how to deal with anxiety and fear. Instead I used these feelings of power over people to feel better myself.

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1.  Child Abuse Survivors: “Powerlessness”

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about this subject of late. I won’t get into any of the details of why, but suffice it to say, I’ve had a number of conversations and seen stories of people who find themselves in situations, as adults, that from the outside seem easily changeable, yet they don’t do anything to try and change things.

I’m sure you’ve all seen similar stories, whether it be the abused wife who won’t leave, the disgruntled employee who never looks for another job, or the kid who gets bullied even into adulthood. I’ve always considered these situations to be a product of fear, afraid of what worse things might happen as opposed to the hell you know and live with. Lately, however, I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t something deeper behind that fear, especially when it comes to survivors of child abuse. What I see when I dig into that fear motivation, is powerlessness.

Yes, there’s fear of the unknown in changing all of those situations I listed, and many more specific situations that I know we can all relate to, but a big part of that fear seems to come from not having any sense that we actually have the power to say no, or to remove ourselves from a situation. As children, of course, we were taught exactly that. All the while I was being abused as a child, I didn’t have the power to say no, or to remove myself. It was taken away from me, and even now, as an adult, I recognize that there are times I look at circumstances that I could change, but fall right back into feeling like I don’t have the power to do so.

2.  Writing: Overcoming Damaging Effects of Child Abuse and Rape:

Ignored

Being ignored is the cruelest way to make a point……to flaunt control…..to wield power. Not acknowledging a person can create a hurt so deep – it’s the harshest thing someone can do to another…especially if that person claims to care.
My father used to ignore me….refusing to talk or  acknowledge my presence. His silence would go on for days…sometimes weeks… shutting me out of his world….closing the door….denying me access to him. He wanted to teach me a lesson….that he was right….I was wrong…he was good….I was bad.  It was his way to force me to do whatever he wanted.
He had hurt me many times with his words and his fists – yet to be locked out of his world tore at me. It made me crazy…and desperate to make things right. I ended up doing whatever he wanted….anything just to have him acknowledge me again.

Ever since I could think, he taught me  ‘that without him…I was nothing’  and even though he beat me…called me awful names…broke my spirit – I believed I needed him to live…to breathe…to exist. I needed him to survive.

Something has changed since I wrote my story…and told the truth of what happened. Writing…voicing what I had never been able to say….changed something in me. It gave me an inner strength…a courage I didn’t have before. I’m not afraid anymore and I’m not a child.

3.  Blooming Lotus: “Need for Therapy in Early Stages of Healing From Child Abuse”

Child abuse survivors need therapy. Period. It does not matter if the abuse happened one time or was ongoing throughout your childhood. Healing from child abuse is extremely difficult, and you need a qualified therapist to help you through it.

I was determined not to enter into therapy when I first started having flashbacks about the child abuse. I was in the process of trying to adopt a child, and I feared that I would be “disqualified” if I was in therapy because I would be seen as “crazy.” (As it turns out, therapy is highly encouraged for hopeful adoptive parents and will not be held against you. You just need to have your therapist write a letter stating that your reason for seeking therapy will not negatively affect your ability to parent a child.)

I decided that I was going to do the healing work myself. The problem was that every resource I turned to began with, “Find a good therapist.” There is a very good reason for this advice …you need to work with a qualified therapist with experience working with people who have been abused because trying to do it yourself is simply too hard. If it was possible to heal through sheer force of will, then I would have done it.

If you try to heal from the child abuse yourself, you will find yourself in over your head. When you first come to terms with the reality that you were abused, you will go through a “breakthrough crisis.” For me, this felt like a pressure cooker of emotions had the lid blown off of it, and my emotions had exploded all over me. For six weeks, I truly did not know from minute to minute if I was going to survive it. Nevertheless, I was hell-bent on healing myself. I changed my mind after finding myself lying on the floor, shaking, crying, hyperventilating, and trying to decide on the best way to commit suicide. At this point, I realized that anything would be better than this and decided to enter therapy.

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Get Rid of Drug Addiction With Effective Drug Rehab Program–discusses the effective treatments for stages of recovery.

Who Should Women Lean on for Support in Their Recovery from Addiction–“Elizabeth Tracy and a team of researchers will follow 420 women who are receiving help from three local social service agencies over their first year in recovery to understand what kinds of individual social networks women need to build to support a healthy recovery.”

The Second Road Family–In Which I Wish Addiction (and Recovery) on the World–”I wished that everyone could hear the pain and the shame and the compulsivity behind years of sexual encounters. I wished everyone could hear the remorse and regret for the pain caused. But most of all, I wished everyone could hear the gratitude, the joy and hope of recovery, the promise of change.”

From improveourconsciouscontact.blogspot.com, posted by Sugah who writes about “Beginnings of Prayer in Recovery” with this: “When my moment of clarity arrived, I wanted so desperately for release, and at every turn, I encountered resistance. I was told that there was not a handicapped-accessible detox facility in my entire state. I finally threatened to kill myself if someone wouldn’t help me. I could no longer live with the symptoms of my addiction, and I could find no one who was willing to help me try to live without them. The nurse who removed the patch from my arm was a psychiatric nurse. I was involuntarily committed to a behavioral health ward. My journey had begun.”

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When do we know that our use of an addiction has entered the danger zone? When other people tell us that we have a problem or when we are social isolating ourselves so much that we rarely have human contact.

The chosen addiction is simply the car we choose to ride in instead of feeling all our feelings–uncomfortable as well as the pleasant ones. It gives us the opportunity to live in our heads in a world of our own creation.

The disease model of addiction has helped add to the confusion about addiction. Addicts live in a self-induced delusion. The delusion is that the world revolves around them. In reality, the world doesn’t revolve around any individual.

As John Powell has written, we each need a Copernican moment when we realize the world doesn’t revolve around us. Remember Copernius went against all other thinkers to say that the Sun didn’t revolve around Earth, but that Earth revolved around the Sun.

In other words, some of the main issues in addiction treatment are maturity issues. The age at which a person started drinking, using, eating, buying, being overpowering to others, using sex, etc. is the emotional age he/she still is. If he/she started at age 15, which is pretty normal, then he/she is age 15 emotionally.

So recovery is generally about growing up. Another main issue of why people are addictive is to continue to live life in their head or in their imagination. No one knows reality–we only have a perception of reality.

As the hero in 10 Million Ways to Die says,”I never knew that I lived in a world that I hadn’t created..” That is why the addict experiences such anger at having to give up the addiction. It seems to the addict to only be pertaining to him/her. In reality, the addiction is affecting everyone in the addict’s life.

Links to posts about different addictions:

Mahjong— Fueling Addiction

Exercise—A Not-So-Healthy Addiction

Spending—How to Cope With Spending Addiction

Pornography—Pornography Addiction and Marriage

Video Gaming—Frontline Looks at Video Addiction in South Korea

Video Game Addiction

Makeup—My Addiction Since Jan 07

Work—Workaholism: Hazards and Benefits

Cocaine—Brain Disconnect in Cocaine Addiction

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Having grownup in a home controlled by alcoholism, I was able to see my addiction very early into the disease. Thanksgiving, 1976, I told my family that I thought I was an alcoholic. I fully expected everyone to disagree with me because I had not had any outward signs. But, my mother said that she had been afraid of that. So I was stuck with the admission and being the “perfect daughter”, I never drank again and went to AA.

My third month into recovery, I had a radical conversion as described by William James in his The Varieties of Religious Experience. It was instant and I call it ‘”the moment that changed my life.” So I have been trying since 1977 to hear what God’s will is for my life. Many days I have followed my will and called it His. But there has been progress, too.

Our core issues in recovery for those of us who lived in a family of “don’t ask–don’t tell” include the following:

1. From Want to Know.Info: “Transform Fear Through Core Issue Work”:

“Most of us have one or more core issues or challenges which surface repeatedly over the course of our lives. These issues are usually rooted in deep unexpressed fears. Depending on your perspective, core issues either cause all sorts of problems, or present many opportunities for transformation. When you choose to look at core issues as an opportunity, you are much more likely to transform your fears into learning tools which lead to a better life. Below are the most common core issues, their related fears, and suggestions for dealing with them.”

“Examples of Common Core Issues and Associated Fears”

• Abandonment – Nobody cares about me. I’m all alone. I don’t matter.
• Arrogance – I’m better than all of you. I’m too much. I’m right and you’re wrong.
• Damaged – Something is wrong with me. I’m a failure. I’m damaged.
• Inferiority – I’m not good enough. I’m stupid. I’m worthless. I’m boring. I’m hopeless.
• Rejection – I’m a burden. I’m unwanted. Nobody wants to spend time with me.
• Shame – I’m bad. I’m evil. I’m a mistake. I’m a monster. I’m disgusting. I’m possessed.

“Our core issues often originate from childhood family scenarios. They can be a result of negative messages that were repeated many times to us by our parents or other significant people in our lives. Or one of these beliefs may have been driven deep into us during one or more traumatic experiences. Was one of the above statements drilled into you in your early years?”

2.  In a post on The L.I.S.T ACA Group, a reprint from ACA WSO Webster, lists the “Effects of Abuse and How to Get Past them”, the following suggestions for overcoming abuse are given:

“RECOVERY FROM ABUSE”
1. Share your story – you don’t need to deal with pain alone
2. Believe your story – you have a tendency to discount
3. Establish perpetrator responsibility – recognize it isn’t about you
4. Address the addictions used to numb the pain
5. Realize you can deal with the pain without mood altering substances
6. Learn to recognize, then accept, and then communicate feelings
7. Learn to nurture yourself
8. Build self-esteem and positive body image (affirmations)
9. Deal with family of origin – break the code of secrecy – by writing and talking with other people
10. Learn to be playful
11. Learn that now you do have a chance to live, you do have choices – YOU NEED NOT BE A VICTIM
12. Take back your power – act responsibly, set boundaries that feel comfortable, control sexual
behavior – you can control who enters your life
13. Remind yourself of your strengths
14. Learn you can say “No”
15. Learn to give and receive criticism
16. Stop abusing others

Some links about core issues:

3.  PDF of Core Issues to be Addressed for People in Recovery from the Friends of Vermont

4.  Recovery from Abuse which is a practical introduction for pastors and other religious professionals has good links for three areas of recovery. Recovery from Distorted Images of Self–Recovery from Distorted Images of God–Recovery from Distorted Images of Others.

5.  Decision Point Center is a holistic treatment center.  I have no association with this treatment center or any other treatment center.  I reason I have included this one is that they believe what I believe about addiction–that trauma is the core issue of addictions, compulsive behaviors, and chronic relapse.  An excerpt from this site:

“Common aspects of trauma involve feelings of complete helplessness in the face of real or perceived physical or emotional danger. We have come to know trauma as an extreme dramatic event or series of events and experiences overwhelming the individual’s ability to integrate the emotions relative to that experience or event. We have now recognized that trauma can be even more subtle; a perceived threat can also be traumatic. Trauma can be encoded at a cellular level or trapped in the body where it impacts the way an individual may react or behave without any conscious awareness as to why.”

“We believe that addictions and addictive behaviors are dysfunctional coping mechanisms used as a way to medicate and escape from pain, shame, and trauma. Over time, these dysfunctional behaviors can become a progressive and fatal disease known as “addiction”. Through our comprehensive, integrated, individualized and holistic approach, individuals are able to identify and address the underlying core issues as well as the core features directly related to their addictive behaviors.”

6.  Journey Trauma and Addiction Recovery knows that if you are struggling with anxiety, depression, or addictions your core issue may be unresolved emotional trauma. This website lists seven reasons why their experiential workshops are effective. They remind us that addiction is a symptom.

7.  Good article by Bill Urell about the three stages of recovery reminds us that the late stage of recovery is dealing with the underlying issues.

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A

ACA/ACOA: Guess what normal is; Just Be Real;Understanding My Son; mamaTRUE; The L.I.S.T.  ACA Group; Child Abuse Survivor

Addiction recovery help: Nicole Wick; Spiritual River to Recovery; Barefoot Bob’s Collection of Writings

Al Anon:I’m Just F.I.N.E–Recovery in Al-Anon;Through an Al-Anon Filter; Happiness

Artists in recovery: Attitude of Gratitude; Enchanted Oak

Asperger’s Syndrome (not an addiction): Life with Aspergers (has a great Aspergers blogroll)

B

Bipolar recovery: Sophie in the Moonlight

C

Child abuse: Child Abuse Survivor;  Cult of Deception; Blooming Lotus

Christian journey: Covered in Dust; Glass House Ministries; Highway 41: Life in the Fast Lane

Christians living sober: reflections of a ragmuffin; sobernuggets; Sober Julie

Codependency: Sophie in the Moonlight

Committed fathers: The Rabbit Room

Cooking: Find Your Balance; Irish Gumbo

Creativity: 1 door away from heaven

D

Depression: Beyond Blue; Rusin Roundup; Storied Mind

Domestic abuse: This Sober Life

Dual addicted: Enchanted Oak

E

F

Faith: A Churchless Faith

Food addiction recovery: Actively Arielle: A Voice With a Commitment; Sassle! My Journey to a Healthier Life!

G

H

I

J

K

L

Healthy living: Find Your Balance

Living a balanced Life: The 4th Avenue Blues

Living in the positive: AHA Moments; Beyond Blue

Living with disability: So about what I said…

LMTs in recovery: Jill Java and the Garden of Eden

Longer term sobriety: Being Sober

Mind mapping: I Q Matrix; Idea Mapping; Mind Mapping & Creative Thinking;Mind Map Inspiration; Mind Mapping Blog; The Mindmapping Software Blog

Mothers in sobriety: A Passion for Jaywalking; My Recovery; Queens World; Stay-at-home-mayhem

Mysticism: The Website of Unknowing

N

O

P

Parents of addicts: An Addict in Our Son’s Bedroom

Poetry: Yesterday, Today and Forever

PTSD: The Invisible Wounded; Win Over PTSD; Heal My PTSD; Living With PTSD;

Q

R

On the recovery journey: Elegant Blessings; Finding My Wings in Life; He Not Busy Being Born is Busy Dying; In Spite of My Crazy Self; Three Routes

Recovery chef: Adventures of One Sober Woman

Recovery Plus Cancer:  My Personal Lens

Recovering in California: Steveroni’s Blog 

Recovering in Canada: A Song Not Scored for Breathing; Stay-at-home-mayhem; Sober Julie

Recovering in Illinois: Wait. What?

Recovering in Texas: higher powered

Recovery support communities: The Junkies’ Wives Club; The Sober Village

Reparenting: Guess what normal is; Way Station One

S

Sexual abuse: Come Into My Closet; Victory Over Sexual Abuse; Cult of Deception

Sexual addiction recovery: A Room of Mamas Own; Love in the Time of Addiction; Woman. Anonymous7

Sober blogs directory: Sober Blogs

Sober in the military:  Healing Imperfectly

T

12 step help: Recovery Archive; Step12.com

U

V

W

Working in recovery: Stop. Drop. Recover.; Spiritual River

Writing help: Pictures, Poetry and Prose; The One-Minute Writer; Click Here to Visit Top 100 Sober N Clean Blogs

X

Y

Z

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12 Steps: A Spiritual Journey (Tools for Recovery)

Friends in Recovery

ISBN 0941405443

Amazon link

Addiction & Recovery for Dummies

Brian Shaw, Paul Ritvo, Jane Irvine, and M. David Lewis

ISBN  0764576259

Amazon link

Alcoholics Anonymous: Big Book 4th Edition

AA Services

ISBN  1893007170

Amazon link

Bipolar Disorder: Insights for Recovery

Jane Mountain

ISBN  0971927057

Amazon link

Codependent’s Guide to the Twelve Steps

Melody Beattie

ISBN  0671762273

Amazon link

Conscious Contact Volume 1: Where Spirituality And Recovery Meet

Gail DeWitt

ISBN  1598244949

Amazon link

Don’t Call It Love: Recovery From Sexual Addiction

Patrick Carnes

ISBN  0553351389

Amazon link

Love First: A New Approach to Intervention for Alcoholism and Drug Addiction

Jeff Jay and Debra Jay

ISBN 1-56838-521-8

Amazon Link

Mindful Recovery: A Spiritual Path to Healing from Addiction

Thomas Bien and Beverly Bien

ISBN  0471442615

Amazon link

Recovery from Cancer: The Remarkable Story of One Woman’s Struggle With Cancer and What She Did to Beat the Odds

Elaine Nussbaum

ISBN  0757001376

Amazon link

Recovery in Mental Illness: Broadening Our Understanding of Wellness

Ruth O. Ralph and Patrick Corrigan

ISBN  159147163X

Amazon lin

Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self

Lucia Capacchione

ISBN 0-67170-1355

Amazon link

Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics

Herbert Gravitz and Julie Bowden

ISBN  0671645285

Amazon link

Self-Esteem Tools for Recovery

Lindsey Hall and Leigh Cohn

ISBN  0936077085

Amazon link

The Child Abuse Recovery Workbook: Your Life is what Your Parents Made It – How to Make it Yours

Robert Hoc

ISBN  1595940544

Amazon link

The Dual Disorders Recovery Book

Anonymous

ISBN  0894868497

Amazon link

The Family Recovery Guide: A Map for Healthy Growth

Stephanie Brown, Virginia Lewis, and Andrew Liotta

ISBN  1572242183

Amazon link

The Grief Recovery Workbook: Helping You Weather the Storm of Loss and Overwhelming Disappointment

Ray Giunta

ISBN  1591450241

Amazon link

The Soul of Recovery: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension in the Treatment of Addictions

Christopher Ringwald

ISBN  0195147685

Amazon link

The Twelve Steps And Dual Disorders: A Framework Of Recovery For Those Of Us With Addiction & An Emotional Or Psychiatric Illness

Pat Samples and Tim Hamilton

ISBN  1568380186

Amazon link

Trauma Recovery and Empowerment: A Clinician’s Guide for Working with Women in Groups

Maxine Harris

ISBN  0684843234

Amazon link

Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions

AA Services

ISBN  0916856291

Amazon link

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“Don’t evaluate your life in terms of achievements, trivial or monumental, along the way.  If you do, you will be destined to the frustration of always seeking out other destinations, and never allowing yourself actually to be fulfilled…Instead, wake up and appreciate everything you encounter along your path. Enjoy the flowers that are there for your pleasure.  Tune in to the sunrise, the little children, the laughter, the rain and the birds.  Drink it all in…Drink it all in…there is no way to happiness; happiness IS the way.”                                         Wayne Dyer

1.  Parent 2 Parent: Another ER Visit!

“I wasn’t going to open the letter but couldn’t stop myself. I did receive another letter from an attorney indicating my son has another pending arrest warrant. I am proud of myself for not going online and checking for outstanding warrants etc.”

“In addition, I have noticed that I have not been receiving any messages from friends telling me how sick my son looks. I am pleased I don’t get those calls but it also indicates he is avoiding them which also indicates a past pattern of his chronic addiction.”

“After seventeen years of watching his addiction in action I can usually predict when he will reach his bottom. If he doesn’t end up in jail or the hospital he will seek a homeless shelter; perhaps another try with the Salvation Army ARC program. He’ll appear to be doing good and will convince me and others, including himself, that this time he is through with drugs. Then within nine months he will relapse. His disease is so predictable.”

“Of course, I know that He is in God’s hand and recovery is possible for anyone, even my son!”

“In prayer for my son and your child also.”

2. Borderline Families: “Reevaluating”:

“I never came to her unbidden. Sobbing into the phone while walking across the bridge back to Manhattan, keys to her apartment lost, hungover and scared – I didn’t come. I came after the the quiet calls. The ones where her voice was barely audible and sadness seeped into the phone lines making it almost unbearable to hold the phone to my ear. Still, I always waited for her to ask for help.”

“What I didn’t know then, was that my daughter was suffering with withdrawal from the psych drugs that she abruptly went off of seven-eight-nine months before. I thought at that time that she was experiencing an overflow of “mental illness”. She had headaches so severe that she cried out in pain, dizziness, and mood swings that knocked her out of any social gathering she tried to attend. She had insomnia but when she drank enough to sleep, she was plagued with horrendous nightmares. Her stomach was in an uproar; nothing she ate stayed put. She couldn’t concentrate and lost time in dissociated states.”

“During those months last fall, I got too many quiet calls. Her world seemed to be crumbling and I went scrambling to save her.”

“No parent should have to discuss suicide with their child. (Where is God?, July 5th, 2010) But, I told her on these visits that I understood. I did. The pain was just too much. Months of it. Endless rage and sorrow.”

“All the while I kept searching for help.”

“After I bowed out in January, my daughter would go for long stretches without calling my husband (she calls him “Dad”). There would be a flurry of calls concerning money once or twice a month. But, the emotional crises seemed to tapered off.”

“If you do go back and read these old post, you will see that they are written in a language I which have abandoned – the labels and descriptions presented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, devised by the psychiatric industry. The posts were written when I was firmly entrenched in the psychiatry-driven mental healthcare model. I believed that the professionals were going to deliver a cure. During all those crises, I still believed that my daughter would find relief by taking some combination of psych drugs and finding a sympathetic psychiatrist who would set her on the “right” path.”

“At the end of May, I was reading Susan Smith blog, A Journey, Gianna Kali’s Beyond Meds and had just bought Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic.  My world was about to change significantly.”

“My daughter called on May 23rd and needed to talk with me. Only me. She was not okay and she needed me. And, there I was, back in it her life in a blink of an eye. On the flight to New York I wrote a post, In Flight to New York, May 25, 2010.”

What unfolded was tragic but she and I were different this time. I had been reading about the concept of the neuroplasticity of the brain. I was able to see the benefits of months without me being involved in her life. She had definitely built a life with friends. She had had occasional work as a model or art director and despite being too jangled to answer it, her phone (once we replaced it) rang and rang.”

“So, what happened? Was all that hard work at making a life dashed by a fit of uncontrollable anger and anxiety? I want to believe that she can build on what what she has worked so hard to achieve. But, like in May, it seems so dire. It looks hopeless.”

“Cutting off contact works until it doesn’t. Then what?”

High Bottom Drunk

Some of the personal stories from the website:

I Almost Choked to Death on My Own Vomit
Tim R., Longview, Texas
It takes what it takes.

Something to Live For
Carl A., San Antonio, Texas
Even cold hearts can find warmth.

Sober Since Seventeen
Jan P., Little Rock, Arkansas
You don’t have to be old and ugly to find recovery.

I Drank With the Best of Them
Barbara T., Charlotte, NC
You don’t have to be a big redneck man to drink like one.

You Can Get Off on Any Floor &
Tilex Changed My Life
Vicki M., Daphne, AL
“Accidental” sobriety brings self-awareness and serenity. In this case, Tilex was no ordinary bathtub cleaner.

Sober, Happy, and Free
Rick S.
When you’re no longer afraid to die.

Let Go and Let God
Klara R., Tylertown, MS
God takes care of me when I get out of the way.

A Brother’s Love
Joey (Anonymous)
Short and sweet.

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