Question: I understand that one person can’t make another person want to accept addiction but when it’s a literal life and death situation are there any more extreme things a family can do to get the person to understand that they are killing themselves? My brother is a cocaine user. 2 years ago he had really severe headaches and it turned out he had a brain aneurysm that was caused by cocaine addiction. He had to have open skull surgery to clip the aneurysm and at that time he swore he was done with cocaine and everything else. Now I just heard from a friend that she saw him using again. He could have a brain bleed and drop dead at any time and using cocaine puts him at high risk of sudden death. My parents have been through hell with worry about him and I don’t know if I should tell them what I know or if there is nothing any of us can do if it is better that they do not know. I do not know if an intervention is going to work since he already had a near death experience and promised to get help. He did not get help but I am pretty sure he stopped for some time since he was quite weak for several months after his surgery.

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

I highly recommend that you attempt to talk to your brother about your concerns. You can talk with him in a non-judgemental way and offer to assist him with getting some help this time. Point out to him that there is no shame in needing and asking for help. You can learn more about how to help him at smartrecovery.org. They take a different approach than Alanon. They believe someone close to the person with addiction has the best opportunity to help provide an intervention and encourage them to get help. There is also help for the addict on this web site. Some states have laws that can help you force someone into rehab, but most have many loop holes and are rarely used successfully. Best wishes.

Question: My wife is complaining that she can’t feel her legs very well and I can see that she is weak and unstable. She is a heavy drinker and she has been drinking at least a bottle of wine each night for about 5 years, and often times it is two bottles a night. She never drank before that and then she did a wine tasting club and it is like she fell into a rabbit hole. I am sure she is an alcoholic but she will not even discuss that idea. What are the odds that she has alcoholic neuropathy? I do not think she has been drinking for long enough to get this but the symptoms seem to match her condition very well. She will not go to a doctor and I think it is because she knows the doctor will tell her to stop drinking and she cannot allow that to happen. If the doctor tells her to stop and she can’t then she is an alcoholic. If no one tells her to stop then she can keep drinking as a ‘social drinker’. I really don’t know what to do in this situation. It seems that she is starting to drink herself to death and I have to sit here and watch her do it.

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

I am not a physician and therefore, cannot give you a medical diagnosis for your wife. It is certain that any daily drinking that exceeds two drinks a day can lead to both health problems and impairment problems. I recommend you seek help for yourself. Often times when we recognize that we cannot make another person change, we gain power over changing ourselves. You may seek out a professional counselor, go to an Al-Anon meeting or try an on-line help service such as SMART Recovery which provides help to the alcoholic/addict and the family. It is an alternative to the AA/ Al-Anon model. I wish you the best.

Question: I don’t know how to break free. How can you break free when it is your SON who has the problem and he is EVERYTHING to you? He is only 21 years old but he has been an addict for 2 years. It is meth. He is 41 days clean now. He has been clean before but it always ends. It usually ends after he gets really upset about something and then he goes out and will not come back for 3 or 4 days. Now everytime he is clean I feel like I am stressed out every second of the day trying to pay attention to his moods and trying to keep him in a good mood. Today he wanted $100 to buy new clothes and I was so worried because he was acting irritated. I want to trust him but in the past he has lied so many times for money but the biggest thing is I dont want to anger him by denying him so I gave him the money and then I lay in bed worrying until he came home at 1 am. But I was right to give him the money because he did buy clothes and he says now he going to look for a job and he was so thankful today. I feel like I am going crazy with worry. I know this is bad for me but I know that I have prayed so many times for him to get clean and now that he is trying to get clean too it is my turn to pay the price by suffering a little bit for a while and by trying to make him happy. I am willing to sacrifice myself for my SON. Is this what I need to do to support him?

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

You really are at a place that having your own therapist who is familiar with addiction issues would be your best bet. It is not unusual for loved ones to develop anxiety, struggle with appropriate boundaries and question everything at a time like this. You do want to support your son, while not enabling him. Instead of thinking of this as another time he will probably fail, think that each time before was an opportunity for him to learn and grow. He definitely should be encouraged to seek out help, whether professional or self-help. I just did a presentation at a women's conference at my church called Worn to Wonderful: A Catholic Woman's Way to Self-Care. Here is a link to my Power Point. Maybe it will have something to help you! You may also want to check out a web site a previous poster mentioned called Smart Recovery. Just Google it! https://www.dropbox.com/s/jx7t6vkyc0chjgk/Worn%20to%20Wonderful.ppt

Question: Can you give me any information on smart recovery’s family support program. In your opinion is it as good, not as good or better than alanon. I have a problem with alanon component where you have to let go and watch your spouse drink to death. I do not know if this is my issue or just a common sense issue that alanon makes no sense!

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

I do not know much about the program from personal experience, but I do know about the CRAFT model and it is well documented to be effective. It is a model that is conducive to the principles I believe in for the person in recovery. It teaches you to do a lot of what I would do in therapy with your loved one, from what I can tell. I think this would probably suit you a LOT better than Al Anon. Al Anon is wonderful at teaching a person to "detach" which is a wonderful skill to learn, even if you learn these SMART Recovery techniques to reach your loved one. You cannot make or force another to listen, to want to recover, but with the proper ability to detach and be willing to allow another to not change, to know you cannot force it, you can better be in a position to get them to listen. Try this, put a folder in your hand and have another put theirs on the other side. You push, they push back. Stop pushing and let go. Then they may begin to listen.

Question: How dangerous is it for a mom to expose her 14 month old son to secondhand spice (fake weed) smoke? My friend is doing this and I am worried that she could be hurting her son. She believes that weed is ok and this is ok too. I am trying to tell her that nobody even knows what is in this and so how can she know it is not harmful for her son who is probably tripping his head off everytime he comes into the room. If she won’t stop doing it what should I do? She is not really a person I like, just a close friend of my roommate who likes to smoke in my house (in her room) with her son playing with toys on the floor. My roommate is a nice person by the way who is also upset by this but she is honestly intimidated by her friend and can’t or won’t tell her to stop doing what she is doing. My roommate is the lease holder and I am her tenant and I do not want to move out so I am hoping to not cause major drama.

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

I agree with you 100% that you, nor this mother know what is in the synthetic product she is smoking. The effects of second hand smoke when it is tobacco includes increased risk of asthma, ear infections and allergy symptoms. Add to that, the unknown properties of the drug and you have a risky situation. I encourage you to not worry about whether or not you will cause drama and call Child Protective Services. There are tests available now to test for the synthetic substances. If you call it in anonymously and they do not follow-up by opening a case, you will have at least attempted to protect this child. You may also consider telling a concerned family member of the child if you have an opportunity.

Question: My son was jailed for 14 months for felony grand larceny. He was a crack addict and alcoholic. He is going to be released in three months so we want to prepare for him. He says he is thankful he got jailed so he could get cleaned up and he says he is never going to go back to using again. He there are lots of drugs in jail but he has been 100% clean for 8 months. We want to help him but know how strong his addictions are and that what he says doesn’t always mean much. We want to him to go into a halfway house after his release but he wants to come. He is 28. He says those places are full of junkies and that they are worse than anywhere else. I am concerned that if he comes back to his old neighborhood that the temptations will be too much for him. He has never been able to stay clean for more than 2 months in our neighborhood since he was about 18. What would you recommend for a person in his situation?

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

Your son can get better anywhere, with the right attitude, right coping skills and right support. Only time will tell whether his motivation is enduring. He has a hard road ahead of him, but many have done it before him and will help him if he will allow them. You have to decide based on not just him, but on what is best for you, your husband and the rest of the family. If there are siblings, sometimes the "good ones" are ignored and the "problem child" gets all the attention. This causes problems for the other children. You need good boundaries with your son regardless of where he lives. Seek help from Al anon or a similar group in your area. Encourage your son to seek out professional help when he is released.

Question: There is someone in my life who is a very good person who is probably an alcoholic. He is not violent or abusing in any way. But he will fall asleep drunk on the sofa many nights of the week and sometimes my 3 year old will be the one to find him there in the morning. I do not know what I am getting myself into but one area of concern that I have is how this may impact my children. My children are 1 and 3 currently. At what age would having a live-in person who drinks start to be a bad example that they would remember?

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

Forgive me here, but children often gives us pause to think about things that we would accept for ourselves, but not for our children.  I really want to back you up a step and ask you to ask yourself..."why do I accept this behavior from my partner"?  It sounds as if you think this could be a bad situation for your children, what about for you?  Children's first memory can be anywhere from toddler age to age 10 (usually if there is trauma, it is older rather than younger).  Your children will look to you to see whether or not you see certain behaviors as acceptable.  Just because someone isn't belligerent when they drink does not mean the drinking is not problematic.  You have to ask yourself what type of relationship this is?  Healthy or unhealthy?  If you have doubts, attend an Al-anon meeting in your area or seek out a counselor to talk to.  The longer you are in this situation, the harder it will be to get out.  Best wishes to you!  

Question: My daughter is married to an alcoholic. OK. We have accepted her choice but we do not understand it. Actually our relationship is quite strained now because we tried to stop her from marrying this man and now they both resent us. They have been married for 6 months. Now she is drinking a lot more than she used to. She told my other daughter that they get along better if she has a couple of drinks with him every night. I am worried that he is dragging her down with him but anything I try to say to her about it just sounds like I am trying to split them up again and so she won’t even listen to us. My daughter sees how things are with us and she doesn’t want to get involved. What can we do to save her?

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

Your daughter may be taking the "if you can't beat him, join him" path.  I recommend you find a good Al-anon meeting in your area, call the Alcoholics Anonymous number in your phone book and ask for meeting times and places.  Al-anon is for the family members of alcoholics.

You need to understand how to help and not to enable.  Sometimes your family member does reject your help.  It may be beneficial to attempt to heal the relationship between you, your husband and your daughter so that when her marriage begins to have problems, she will turn to you.  As things stand now, she will probably not do so.  It can be hard to watch your child make what you see as a mistake.

Just know that sometimes God (or your higher power) has a bigger plan in all of it.  If you pray, pray for your daughter and her husband.  Attempt to make amends when possible.  Either keep quiet about what you think or cut her off if you can't stand to watch it.  If you cut her off, know that she may have to fall very hard before she will ever come to you.  There is no perfect answer to this.

You may also want to work with a counselor in your area who is familiar with addiction so they can guide you step by step.

Best wishes. 

Question: My husband has a problem with crack cocaine. He can sometimes control it but will often disappear off on multi day binges. For reasons to complicated to get into here I stay with him, but our kids are getting older, they are now 3 and 5 and they are starting to ask more specific questions about where daddy goes when he doesn’t come home at night. I hate to lie to them, but I don’t know how much they should know. Should I tell them the truth, or should I continue to make excuses for him?

Jennifer Hamilton Says...:

There are three unwritten rules in a family with a member who has an addiction.  Don't talk, don't trust and don't feel.  These rules are not written on the fridge, but they exist and are unconsciously followed just the same.  These rules will stay with people through out their life often times and without help, they interfere with healthy relationships for years to come.

Your children do not need to know the full truth, but please do not lie to them or cover up for your husband.  You need the help of a counselor or a sponsor in a 12-step program for the family members of addicts such as Al-Anon or Nar-Anon which are for the significant others of people who alcoholic or drug addicted.