It's Just Weed

Weed. Is it addictive? It is the question of the day on some of the NarAnon facebook pages.  In my humble opinion, yes it is. This is not an assumption or simply an opinion. It is an actual observance of a lot of different people over the years. I have seen it in my own home with my own kids. Now I know there are many out there who are hitting their bong as they read this and laughing at my ridiculousness as they gasp and choke out that last hit. The funny thing is, if they have a bong.....you can bet trying to take that bong away from them for any period of time would likely result in a fight.

I was told by someone that they were not "addicted" but simply "dependent" on the weed.  I hated to have to tell them that addiction and dependency were the exact same thing. They laughed in my face as they hit the bong again. The ridiculousness of it all made me sad. Denial is a powerful thing.

My stance on weed is this, I do believe in the studies that show that cannabis can cure cancer, seizures and help with pain. I also believe that smoking weed does less harm to your body than drinking alcohol. But....that is kind of like saying that taking Oxy is less harmful than shooting up heroin. In other words its like telling someone that poison is bad for you, but go ahead and pick the least bad poison. So yes, I believe that cannabis can have some positive and life saving properties, however sitting on your couch unmotivated, taking hit after hit off your bong is neither positive nor life saving. Long term usage can also have long term affects such as the breakdown of healthy cells in your body, damage to brain cells and short term memory loss. So why mess with anything that changes your brain chemistry or hurts your brain at all? Regulated cannabis with the hallucinogenic properties removed for the purpose of ridding someone of seizures or cancer is one thing. Recreational weed is completely different.

As a parent and even a friend, I have seen people who were highly motivated individuals turn into barely functioning and completely unmotivated couch potatoes. I have seen people who were healthy and active become overweight and completely inactive because weed took over their lives. Throw in the fact that it is illegal in many states and good luck finding a job or keeping a job. I have known several with really great jobs who happened to have a drug test popped on them and they were walked out that very day. So much for weed not affecting their lives.

Realistically, weed doesn't affect people like opiods, meth, heroin and alcohol, but it does impair the brain, slows the reflexes and can cause both a mental as well as a physical addiction. Also, coming off of weed does not carry the horrid side effects of coming off drugs like meth or alcohol, but there is a craving and it takes a bit of work to get completely clean. It also stays in your system longer than other drugs as it stores in your fat cells which you often have more of with long term weed use. Passing a drug test "legally" can be a little more challenging.

I have long heard that weed is a "gateway" drug. My previous understanding of "gateway" was that once you used weed and found yourself dependent on it, eventually it wouldn't be enough of a "high" for you and you would move on to more potent drugs. While I still believe that for some this is the case, my understanding of "gateway" since watching my son and several of his friends go down this path, is much different.

A good percentage of addicts do start out with weed and there are two kinds of weed users. The first kind are the kind who go to a party, hang with friends and on occasions will take a hit just to kick back and have fun. This type of weed smoker hardly ever buys it for themselves and eventually grows tired of both weed and the people who actively use it daily and either never uses it again or very rarely uses throughout the rest of their lives. These people usually have higher self-esteem are motivated and have been taught to face life head on.

The second kind is the kind who have always felt like a fish out of water. Perhaps they have been bullied or see themselves as less than others. By smoking weed, they feel they have elevated their social status and feel more accepted in social circles...... and big bonus, every time they use, they feel better about life. These are the ones who tend to get caught up in the using of weed as an escape. When using, the world is as they want it to be. When they aren't, they become overwhelmed, anxious and in a lot of cases unable to try and take life on unmedicated.

The gateway part of it has much more to do with the people on the fringe who are watching these would-be potheads. I am referring to dealers and those who see these beautiful, scared and insecure souls as money in their pocket. These unwitting kids are a type and there are many shady people who will get these kids hooked and use them as mules, runners and fall guys for drug deals and other illicit business dealings, keeping them in drugs and keeping them hooked with the belief that there is no way out. To me, this is the real danger and the true gateway of getting involved with weed. It is the culture of drugs, starting with weed and working it's way into full blown addiction with the likes of meth, heroin and pills. I have seen it with my own eyes and it is scary as hell. Don't tell me that weed is not a gateway drug! 

So yes, in my opinion weed is a drug that if not addictive in itself, can be the pathway for many more deadly drugs and a life of addiction and pain. Of course not everyone who uses weed becomes addicted, just like not everyone who uses meth, heroin, cocaine or drinks becomes addicted. However, enough have that it is viewed as illegal in many states and because of its brain altering affects is viewed as one of the top 10 drugs that people go to rehab for.

My final thoughts....if you have used pot or any drug for that matter, and walked away with no desire to use again, count yourself lucky. That is your story, but just because it is your story doesn't mean that it is everyone's. For every five that walks away, there is at least one who gets caught up and falls into addiction....and for every 10 that fall into addiction, at least one does not make it out alive. So while this may not be your story, this is my story. I watched my son fall down the rabbit hole with just weed and before any of us knew it, he was shooting up meth and handing his life over to addiction. As a mom and grandma, I will never look at it as just weed again....and.....this is why I am no fan of weed.

Until next time......

Living With an Addict

If you have never lived with an addict, I tell you now to get down on your knees and thank God. No...REALLY! Living with an addict is a life that I would wish on no person no matter how much I disliked them. It takes a toll on you mentally, physically and emotionally. It makes you question your sanity and everything you ever thought you knew about anything.

Not until I became the mother of an addict though, did I realize that there were people who lived like this, let alone survived it. Up until this time in my life, I had been a precise thinker. In my head, I always believed that people should act and behave in a certain way. Yes, looking back it seems a bit controlling but also not unusual. It was all about black and white with very few shades of grey. For the most part, people in my world did act with a sense of right and wrong, so my thinking wasn't too far out there. However, you throw an addict into the mix and the world turns upside down pretty quickly. What once was normal becomes torn to shreds by someone who sees nothing wrong with lying, stealing, hitting, screaming, knocking holes in the walls or destroying anything in his path. In a life where I once could have set a clock by the same ol' same ol', suddenly I never knew what I was walking in on or waking up to next.

One day, everything my son had ever been and everything I had ever taught him, seemed no longer to exist. The control I prided myself on having in my home was gone and it had been replaced by utter chaos. He had literally turned into a monster and I didn't know how to "fix it." He was so unpredictable as some days there were still glimpses of the funny, fun loving, sweet son I had raised, but more and more was emerging a vile, angry, aggressive, hateful and hate filled human being. You never knew which version of him you were going to get. The worst though was after awhile, he learned to manipulate and gas light like a pro. More and more he would take situations that I knew were one way and manipulate the situation to the point where I literally questioned my own sanity.

The problem in living with an addict is that they slowly lose all of their social skills which means they end up usually losing their jobs, their friends and even family members. They become the very worst versions of themselves and with an addiction such as meth, they also become paranoid, grandiose, impulsive, compulsive, careless, reckless and they deny and rationalize in the most amazingly manipulative ways. An example of some of these traits are: a meth addict is not the cleanest person. Their surroundings usually have much to be desired. If you tell them to clean up their room (something that would take you or I a half hour) you might go down in two hours and find them with a toothbrush cleaning the dirt off of a heating grate. Now mind you, that will be the cleanest grate you have ever seen, but that will be all that has been done in two hours and likely all that will get done even if given another two hours.

My addict had a brilliant mind before drugs and during drugs, he would come up with the most grandiose and ridiculous ideas of how he was going to make millions. One idea was that he was going to learn to blow glass and sell his works. The reality was that all he ever made were a bunch of meth pipes that when I found them I crushed them all. We were lucky he didn't burn the house down in the process as he had a great affinity for torches and fire at the time and was highly upset that I wouldn't let him use propane in the basement.

The next great idea was that he was going to take apart non-working tvs and sell the working parts on buy/sell sites. I came home one day to find my garage and basement full of 55"+ non-working broken down tv's all parted out everywhere. He was frantically taking them apart talking a mile a minute about all the money he was going to make. Needless to say, a month later I was loading up tv parts and taking them to a recycle place.

After I finally realized that he was an addict, I was in a bit of an abyss. I was a mom and mom's didn't just turn their back on their kids. I had to fix this and by damn I would! I had no idea how far out of my pay scale meth addiction was and worse I had no idea that every single minute of every single day, I was doing nothing but enabling him and making the situation worse. Still I forged ahead deluding myself and denying what was right in front of my face.

Then the stories began. He would tell tales of things he was doing, rationalize the worst of it and talk with pride about his exploits as an addict and a dealer. Yes, the truth is, any addict who uses long enough becomes a dealer. They also become criminals shop lifting, robbing and stealing from strangers, friends and family. They have to steal to use and they have to keep using to survive.....at least that is part of the lies meth tells them.

As a parent and a human being, I lost all sense of reality. I was living in this dark and terrifying world that my addict had created not only for himself but he had dragged me into it too. I feared daily for his life, for what would be destroyed next, what he would do next and I even began to fear for my own safety.

When things got to their worst, I finally was starting to realize that meth had become his best friend, his mother, his father, his love and his god. I had no control over him and I couldn't compete with meth. I was emotionally exhausted and whipped, physically suffering from lack of sleep and spiritually dark. I was no longer in control of anything including my own reactions. One day as he stood in front of me spitting on me and calling me every vile name he could and telling me that he used because of me, I lost it! A rage built up in me that I couldn't control and I hauled out and slapped him across the face with every ounce of strength and anger I had. It was a terrible thing to do....not that he didn't deserve it, but that act put me in more danger than I had ever been in. It stopped the tyraid but opened a flood gate on his end of extreme aggression. Luckily another individual was there at the time and stopped my son from likely killing me. Instead my door took a savage beating. It was at this moment that I knew he had to go or something horrible would end up happening.

It just so happened that I went downstairs as he was outside "cooling off" and I found lines of meth out in the open and that was all I needed. I told him either he left or I turned him into the police. Yeah, more words I never thought would come out of my mouth. His friend persuaded him that his best bet was to leave and he did. It was his last time living under my roof for more than a night.

Looking back, I can't even remember how I survived it all. This was all before Al-Anon and before I had any tools to help me get through situations such as this. Sadly, it still took me awhile before I realized that I was never going to fix this. There were more ups and downs but mostly at a distance and I still had so much more to learn before I would get to the place where I had to reach out for help. I honestly believe that the day I found Al-Anon was the day that saved my life.

Knowing now what I didn't know then, I can safely say that a situation like that is not likely ever to happen again because I know better how to handle myself. I have also learned that beyond the shadow of a doubt that although I did enable my son, I am not the reason he is an addict. His addiction is his choice and his decision and getting clean will also be his choice and his decision.

I guess I would like to end this by saying that addiction happens in the best of homes and the worst of homes. It happens where families are well off and where they have nothing. It is a human and willing choice first and disease after that. As I said before, if you or your family has not been touched by addiction, then thank God above, because for those of us who have, it is nightmare that we have no control over. If we do it "right" we turn our addict out into the cold, both figuratively and literally and we leave them to their own devices in a world we know nothing of. We fear every phone call and every ring of the doorbell knowing that this time could be the time we hear our addict is in jail, the hospital or worse. Please don't judge us too harshly if we isolate a bit, seem to be into praying a lot more and use a lot of phrases like "Let go and let God" and "One day at a time" and if we tell you we can't do something because we have to go to a meeting, please understand that we really have to go. Just know that we are trying our best to survive in a world we didn't create with a disease we never wanted.  The bottom line.....I have no control over my addict or his choices.....but I can save myself.

Until next time.......

How I Got Here!

When we envision having children, we think of adorable little mini me's who love us unconditionally, hang on our every word and bask in the glow of the knowledge that we instill in them. The reality is pretty much the same as the vision....and then they turn 2! From that point forward though, it is a constant uphill battle on the part of parents to get them to walk and talk, then to sit down and be quiet. We spend hours dealing with fits over seams in socks, eating vegetables and bed times. Then before we know it, they are teenagers and we learn that we have done such a good job as parents that they suddenly have minds of their own and they ain't afraid to use them, however immature and inexperienced in the real world they are. The fits turn into battles and we find ourselves battling over curfews, friends, boy friends/girl friends, homework, driving and there is always the fact that they are so wise at 15, 16, 17, 18..... that they simply do not understand how we as the dinosaurs that we are, can carry on a conversation let alone understand their oh so complex lives. Yes, parenting looks much easier on paper than it is in reality.

With all of this though, never once in my pre-child days did I ever say to myself, "Gee I hope my child grows up to be an addict." Even in those trying years of being a toddler on up to the know it all teen, never did it occur to me that my angel would ever make a choice that would become an addiction. Maybe my child was right when he believed I did not understand his oh so complex life.

Now I was not completely catatonic during my kids growing up years and I did spend many an afternoon, evening and car ride discussing drinking, drugs and the dangers of the two. At first my kids listened wide eyed and intent on the dangers of underage drinking, drinking and driving and never even smoking weed as it had been drilled into me by their father that weed was a gateway drug. He would have been the voice of knowledge as he had been a dual addict who had spent years in recovery, while I was the small town girl whose worst vice had been a little drinking and a little dive into smoking that lasted about six months. I thought it made me look cool, but it really just made me wheeze because I had asthma. That was the extent of my knowledge of the illicit world of drugs, so it is no wonder that my drug lectures eventually fell on deaf ears. At some point they were living in a world where drugs were at every party, offered in every school hallway and they couldn't throw a stick without hitting a kid who was part of the ever developing drug culture. It is true, after awhile, my lectures must have become monotonous and lame and they just tuned me out. In my ego inflated brain though, I truly thought I was getting through with my self-righteous "don't do drugs," and "just say no" regurgitation from every after school special I had ever watched. I was wrong.

At first my child just started becoming distant. I justified this by telling myself he was just a teenager and teenagers just did this. Then in time the distance became laced with anger. He could go from zero to aggressive in seconds and over nothing. Then I began to fall into the pit of enabling. I had no idea I was enabling or that there was anything going on other than teenage angst, but there was and I did.

I would question, poke, prod, lay down the law and battle this child of mine daily. It seemed like in the course of a few days, he had gone from the child I knew to some pod person that had taken over my sons body. That is how it seemed, but looking back I can now see that this had been coming on for awhile. Maybe even a year or so. At first it was just weed and he wasn't really smoking enough of it to set off too many alarms, but as he began to dabble in other drugs, they were taking a hold of him and his brain and the changes became too obvious to ignore. Still though, I was looking for excuses for him. I tried to convince myself that it was everything from him being bullied at school, to having a hard time with school work, to even psychiatric issues. Never once did drugs ever occur to me. All the while though, I was being naive and making excuses which started a long and winding path of enabling.

I had no idea that drugs were at the core of his issues, but his attitudes and behaviors were starting to get borderline violent, erratic and abusive. It wasn't just at home either. He was an equal opportunity aggressor and his actions were starting to cause many problems with teachers, community members, other family members and friends. Still, I was the mom and as the mom I had to make everything better, so I went into "fix it" mode. As he went through life damaging, destroying and causing chaos, there I was following right behind him picking up his messes, trying to fix the damage and making excuses for his behaviors right down to lying to family and friends as to why he was acting the way he was. My excuses included but were not limited to: "He's tired. He's had a bad day. He's not feeling well." And my all time favorite, complete denial that he did something by simply saying, "You are lying! He didn't do that." The situation was getting out of hand for both of us.

Finally one day when things were particularly rough for both of us and he was appearing to have an emotional break down of sorts, he blurted out that he was smoking pot. I remember being completely and totally dumb struck. I absolutely had no words.....until I did! The words were, "your grounded and you aren't smoking any more weed ever" and then I am sure there was incoherent screaming that followed because I was lost. Unfortunately, my son was already well on his way to establishing some very fine addict tools and he pulled manipulation out of his hat like a pro. Before our conversation was over, he had gone into victim mode as to all the reason he had chosen to use, "I was too strict, I was too mean, I didn't understand him," but my favorite was that he was having extreme anxiety and weed helped calm him. Now this might have been a good one had the child ever had anxiety before. He had not. Still, before all was said and done, my motherly guilt was in full gear and he walked away punishment free and still smoking weed.

Now let me say here, if you have never had a child with addiction issues, you probably just rolled your eyes and thought, what a pathetic parent I am. If however you are reading this and you have walked in these same shoes, then I am almost sure you have lived some version of that last paragraph yourself.

My denial and his manipulation ran deep. That day I showed him that I was a huge enabler who chose to believe my son over my gut which even at the time was churning as I think I knew there was more to the story. I also taught him through my actions and reactions that he could pretty easily manipulate me because I so wanted there to be a reason that he chose to smoke pot rather than just the fact that he wanted to smoke pot and liked it.

In time his drug of choice switched up to include methamphetamine. The story of how he "chose" that drug will be for another blog but make no mistake, he did choose it. In fact before it became his disease, it was his choice. This became a very grim time in our lives as I was still heavily in denial all the while he was constantly running, having strange people into my home, wrecking cars and getting more and more vile, aggressive and dangerous.

When I finally learned that he was using meth, this was so foreign to me that I had no idea what was even going on. I found out one day when a friend of his took me to him, he was staying at a house that I had no idea was a drug house. This individual took me right up to him and told me to look at him and never to forget what I saw. My son who had always carried a little weight was skinny, his skin was pale, his eyes sunken and they literally looked crazy. My son was beyond angry and as I left he proceeded to stand out in the street and scream obscenities at me. Later that day, he started sending me texts that were vile. He told me that he wished I were dead and that when I died he would be so happy that he would dance on my grave. He also called me names that were so vulgar and insulting. I couldn't imagine calling someone I hated those things let alone calling my mother that.

Within days he was close to death and he knew it. When he came down he barely remembered any of his tirade and he begged to come home. Looking back now I laugh, but at the time I felt like he was in a bad place and somehow I was now in charge. I was in control. I allowed him to come home with a laundry list of rules. Soon, he started looking and acting more like the son I raised and before long, it seemed like things were normal again. Until they weren't.

Within a year, I began to see changes again. Unfortunately, I was still stuck so far in denial that once again, I didn't recognize what I was seeing. Once again I had to be told and had to have his drug use forced down my throat before I knew what was going on. Once again I thought I was in control  and pulled the reins in tight. There was peace for a few more months.

When the third relapse happened, my naivety was starting to grow thinner and my gut was telling me that he was using. Then as happens with addicts, he started getting sloppy, cocky and feeling like consequences couldn't touch him. That is how he got caught by me on this occasion. I may have been getting wiser at this point but I was still pretty stupid about drugs and addicts. I still somehow thought I had some control and that I could "fix" things. I gave it one last try and it could have very easily had tragic results.

By this time, he had been both snorting and smoking meth. I began searching his room in my house and I found that he was stashing both meth and paraphernalia everywhere. He had also been dealing and selling with my vehicle (he had wrecked his) and he was getting involved with meth people who were very dangerous.

My having any control over him was quickly becoming a joke. He never stopped using and his behaviors were getting worse and worse. No day was a safe day in my house. He was aggressively engaging the neighbors, he would scream and yell and throw horrific tantrums in the house and he was getting physical with me. Still I lied for him and made excuses. I was slowly beginning to isolate myself from everyone because the lies and the hiding of who he was becoming were becoming more than I could handle. I was allowing him, the addict, full control over my life and I had no idea how to be anything but a victim.

One day, I found lines of meth in his room. It felt like the last straw and I kicked him out. He tried desperately to manipulate, threaten and control, but a switch had flipped inside of me and I was done living without sleep because I was afraid of what was going on in my house at night. I was tired of the daily fights and having to apologize to neighbors. I was tired of being abused and I was tired of seeing his face. Harsh but true.

He moved in with a friend and it became out of sight out of mind for me. I would get updates from time to time on him and have an occasional talk with him but I never saw him in person. I was told he was clean, but I found it funny that in 8-10 months he still didn't have a job, but I was just trying to find peace in my life so I really didn't ask too many questions. As long as I knew he was a live, I was okay. I never in a million years imagined that as a mom I would get to this point, but I was. Until I wasn't.

One day my son showed up at my house. He looked horrible and he was crying. He told me that he had been using the whole time he had been out of the house and that he had graduated to shooting up meth. By this time I really shouldn't have been shocked, but I was. My heart sunk as he sat in front of me looking sick, pale and horribly thin. He said he wanted help and just like that, I was back in enabling mom mode, ready to fix everything.

I spent the next two weeks getting him into detox, sober living and counseling. All of which he left as soon as he got there. He didn't want to be clean. Not really. He was killing me though. Literally! I once again was not sleeping, not eating and I was idling on high anxiety terrified that my son was going to die and feeling as if I was the only one who could save him. Then one Sunday I was sitting in church and I nearly passed out. I was beyond exhausted and I knew that I was both mentally and physically at my breaking point and for what? That day I dropped him off at a "friends" house and then I went home and went to bed. The following Saturday I went to my first Al-Anon meeting.

I walked into the meeting feeling victimized. I wanted to know how to fix my son and to get my life back into some kind of order. I wanted off this hamster wheel where I kept doing the same thing going in circles. I didn't know if I was going to find it here as I had avoided Al-Anon from the beginning, no matter how many times it was suggested, but I knew that what I had done so far was sure not the answer.

On that day, being in that room with a bunch of strangers, this is what I learned. Everyone in that room was different and yet we were all the same. We all had family members and friends that were alcoholics and addicts. We had all enabled, controlled and tried to fix our addicts with no luck and we were all at the end of our ropes. I also learned that I was not a victim and that I could not fix my sons addiction. I was powerless over his addiction and more importantly, I was powerless over his choices. I learned that he was an adult and that by enabling him, fixing things and making excuses for his actions, I was part of the problem and standing in the way of him ever getting help. The hardest thing that I realized that day though was that no matter what I wanted for him, he had the right to make bad decisions and I had to let him live with the consequences of those decisions. Then there was the light at the end of the tunnel, when I was made to know that Al-Anon was not for me to fix my addict, it was for me to fix me because I was part of the problem.

In that one hour, I had learned more about both myself and my addict than I had in all the previous years of his addiction. I walked out feeling hope as I had seen people in my exact shoes who were smiling, rested and moving on with their lives. I had a whole new prospective on both myself and and my son, the addict. It was both a spiritual and an emotional awakening. I have never looked back.

This is my story as the Al-Anon Mom. My name is LE and this blog is about my recovery as the mother of an addict. Yes, there will be stories about addiction thrown in because at times it will be hard to tell my story without telling how I got here, but this  blog will by my therapy and my service.

I hope if you like what you read you let me know in the comments. Also if you have questions or need help because you are struggling with an alcoholic or addict in your life, please know that like me there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Al-Anon and NarAnon groups are in just about every city and even in smaller communities and they can and will help if you let them. You are worth it, just like I am and no....no matter how strong you are, you can't fix your alcoholic or addict. The only person you can fix is you.

Until next time.......