LOVING TO GET HIGH SYNDROME

In 1949 two wonderful things happened, I was born and Hazelden Treatment Center started providing treatment for alcoholics. Fast forward 61 years, I am writing a blog for parents and Hazelden has launched an on-line forum for parents. We have joined the the new media era of the World Wide Web.

“Families Facing Addiction, Uniting families in hope and healing” can be found by clicking here.

As a parent raising a kid that loves to get high you will find valuable resources from blogs, videos, forums, chat rooms, and event postings for community education.

You can also become a member and contribute to this great on-line forum for parents.

Going back to school should mean “bummer dude, summer’s over”. But for a lot of kids it’s a time of excitement, “I’m back hanging with all of my friends”.

School inadvertently provides kids who “Love to Get High” access to parties, new friends, the latest trends in getting high, pills, pot, and some alcohol. (not as easy to get as pot, according to students)

Parents it’s great to have the resources that school provides to help you parent; structure, homework, role models, care and support. But it’s our job to get involved, visit, call, find out if the staff at school has any concerns.

Parents, your other job is to wake-up to the fact that your kid might be getting high and loving it. If this is the case they will be keeping it a secret. You will be the last ones to find out.

Start talking, asking questions, stay connected, with school, other parents and most importantly your son or daughter. It may make all of the difference in the world.

Prescription for Disaster

The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) has published the results of a survey about teens and prescription drugs. Prescription For Disaster: how teens abuse medicine is an excellent resource for parents.

• One in five teens have tried prescription drugs.
• One in ten teens report abusing cough medicine.
• Two in five teens think that prescription drugs are safer than illegal drugs.
• One in three teens believe that there is nothing wrong with using prescription drugs once in a while.

This article spells out common drugs that are abused and helpful tips on what parents can do to counteract the potential abuse by teens. Print this article out and share it with your teen.

Happy 75th Birthday AA

Twenty years ago on a cold snowy winter night in Akron Ohio, a co-worker and I visited the home of Dr. Bob, Co-Founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Over the course of the evening a dozen or so members of the Founders Fellowship dropped in for support, fellowship and some black coffee. It was an absolute honor to hang out in Dr. Bob’s kitchen and talk about sobriety with a direct line to where it all started. At that time they were celebrating 55 years of helping Alcoholics stay sober.

Imagine the lives that have been touched in the past 20 years. Teens who were attending AA at that time are now parenting there own sons and daughters trying to figure out if they are in need of a meeting and the Fellowship that helps people of all ages stay sober

In honor of this 75th Birthday, this is an excerpt from the Minneapolis Star Tribune from July 9, 2010.

“My name is Chas. I’m an Alcoholic. I stumbled into my first AA meeting in the fall of 1997. I had been a hard drinker for 20 years, and a serious drinker for 10. I had lost my job, was about to lose my family and was having serious health problems. My Doctor said that I had to stop drinking.”

“That was impossible. Life without alcohol was unimaginable. I had been an anxious kid and a morose teenager. I’d suffered from depression and panic attacks. Drinking wasn’t a problem but a solution: Booze made me feel normal.” This is why your kid might be dating a drug, getting high isn’t a problem, it’s a solution. Thanks for the great insight Chas.

http://www.aa.org

Attachment, is believing that without a particular thing or person, you can not be happy. (Anthony De Mello)

What a simple and profound definition of addiction. The interesting thing is that this explains Co-dependency as well as it does a drug dependency.

“If you my dear child, are not happy, than I can’t be happy.”

So our kids get high to be happy and we make our happiness contingent on their happiness.

What a viscious cycle of insanity!

I’ve created a list of things that our sons and daughters want and need.

Acceptance, Adventure, Affection, Affluence, Appreciation, Belonging, Bliss, Boldness, Care, Cleverness, Confidence, Connection, Control, Coolness, Courage, Curiosity, Desire, Determination, Devotion, Dignity, Discovery, Ecstasy, Encouragement, Energy, Enjoyment, Entertainment, Enthusiasm, Experience, Fairness, Fame, Family, Fashion, Freedom, Fun, etc.

This is a partial “List of Values” important to our kids. It includes A-F, only 6 of the 26 letters in the alphabet. As short as this list is, it speaks volumes about their emotional wants and needs.

As a parent we need to ask ourselves and our kids, “How’s it going?” “Are you getting what you want and need?” “What can I do to help?”

Meeting and fulfilling lifes wants and needs helps determine lifes outcome. What can we do to make this happen?

In five short days, eleven people died on Minnesota Highways, eight of them teenagers. It would be of no surprise if the teen drivers were under the influence of alcohol or another drug, but they weren’t. But intoxication was not far away. In the accident that caused 6 0f the deaths, the passengers had been drinking. They were having a party.

Loving to get high is more than just being under the influence, it’s all about the thrill of the moment, no matter the consequences.

It’s Two AM, you’re partying with your friends, they’ve been drinking, it’s your job to drive and keep them safe. No one is wearing a seat belt, there’s loud music, everyone is having fun  and bam you hit an SUV head on. All of your friends are killed and you survive. What a horrible scenario.

This moment can not be taken back, it happened in a split second and caused six deaths. Lives and families and communities changed forever. It seems so unnecessary. Why do things like this happen?

In an interview, one of their friends said “We live in a small town, it’s boring, there is nothing to do, so we drink”. A great excuse, but what’s going on is more than boredom. It’s how we deal with boredom.

Being entertained is a expected in today’s society. “Loving to get High” is “Entertainment without Limits”! Loving to get high is not limited to  just  drinking and using drugs. It also includes; driving fast, staying out late, hanging out with friends, loud music, having sex, gambling, risky behavior, lying to parents, skipping school, bullying, driving drunk and the list goes on.

Loving to get high is the whole package of fun, thrills and risky behavior. All with little or no consideration of the consequences.

Parents, our kids have high expectations when it comes to having fun, and to  some degree we stand by and watch it happen. It’s time to start asking questions. Where are you going? Who are you going with? Where are the other parents? What is curfew? Who’s driving?

More importantly we need to be asking these questions: What’s important in your life? What makes life worth living? How are you dealing with stress? What can I do to help? How do you make tough decisions about risky behavior? Who do you talk to when you’re really stressed out?

Our kids need our help. Society has created a dangerous precedent for their emotional high, but no consideration for their emotional wellbeing.

That’s our job.

When parenting a teen it is important to consider the possibility that they might be up to something that you don’t want to know about, like getting high or drunk. It is important to ask yourself; Is this possible? How did this happen? Why didn’t I see it? Now what do I do? Here are some questions that will help you explore these possibilities.

• If your relationship with your teen were ideal, what’s one thing that would be different?
• Describe any issues that might be going on: behaviors, attitude, conflicts, suspicions.
• How does your teen push your buttons? Frustrate you? Make you angry, sad, anxious, worried?
• What are you putting up with? Tolerating? Excusing? Justifying?
• What does your gut tell you is going on?

If you find these questions difficult to answer or are confused about what this all means, please e-mail me at coacht@usinternet.com and start a discussion about these issues.

Jeff Bridges plays a down and out alcoholic country singer in the movie “Crazy Heart”. It is absolutely an award winning performance.

Alcoholism looks different for an adult than the “loving to get high syndrome” does for an adolescent. The role of Bad Blake gives us a glimpse of what  loving to get high turns into if not dealt with.

On the soundtrack you get a musical sense of the power of alcoholism. The song Fallin’ & Flyin’, written by Stephen Bruton and Gary Nicholson does a great job of showing the heaven and hell aspect to drinking.

Fallin’ & Flyin’ by Stephen Bruton and Gary Nicholson

“I’m going where I shouldn’t go,

seeing who I shouldn’t see,

doing what I shouldn’t do,

being who I shouldn’t be.

A little voice tells me it’s all wrong,

another voice it’s alright.

Used to think that I was strong,

but lately I just lost the fight.

Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’, for a little while.”

Funny how fallin’ feels like flyin’, is what’s behind loving to get high. Without the sense of flying no one would ever fall in love with getting high.

Thank you Hollywood for understanding alcoholism and addiction,  now you need to figure out where it starts, with Loving to Get High.

It’s time I give my son some praise.

Christmas Eve is always a big deal at our house. A lot of food, music, family, friends, gifts and games. This year was no exception. We had a Christmas Carole Sing Along with my mother on piano and a friend Rebecca, on Fiddle. Wonderful. The food was spectacular. Our youngest daughter is a Pastry Chef and our youngest son a Food Chef. Their creations were the best they have ever been.

My son, who gave me the inspiration to this web-site, “Wowed” me with his cooking. Short-Ribs and Brussel Spouts, the best I’ve ever had.  He has developed into a talented and successful Chef. His contribution to our family is significant.

Maybe the key to this success is similar to the key to his loving to get high, PASSION. He is passionate about cooking, food preparation, food presentation, his job, his co-workers and his customers. This passion is being directed into something that he is proud of and wants to show-off. For that I am very grateful.

Son, you are doing great, I’m proud of you.

P.S. I’ve discovered that if you want to comment on my blog you need to first click on the “Title of the Post”, which will take you to a page where you can leave a comment. Your comments are greatly appreciated.