Say No To Pot

Interacting with Drug Addicted Loved Ones

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 01:05:29 +0000

To adults drugs are often that one thing you should never play with, and much like fire it ends up hurting everyone who is around. Adults have more power in their hands to help fight drugs than anyone else in the family. They’re usually self-supporting, as well as educated and knowledgeable on drugs, and figures in the family who you can come talk to easily and find support from. This isn’t to put adults on a pedestal, but children and teens can want to change the world for their abusing siblings or parents, but can’t, while adults have more power in their hands.
The best way to help drug addicts within the family comes in two steps—seeing the warning signs, and interaction with the addicted. This guide uses a book quoted by the National Library of Medicine by D.M. Reilly called “Drug-Abusing Families.”
Warning Signs of Interaction:

Negativism: If everything between family members is “negative,” if everything comes from complaints, criticism, and other points of anger or resentment, then you see the initial warning signs of drug abuse.
Parental Inconsistency and Denial: Inconsistency in parenting is simply chaotic use of rule setting, where there is no enforcement of the rules and the family structure is weak. Denial is a different animal, where the parent refuses to believe their young son or daughter has a drug problem.
Anger Problems: You might think anger is in the same line as negativity, but here we’re talking about repressed anger, the mental and emotional states where children and teens cannot cope so they use drugs.
Self Medicating: Often drug addicts are trying to escape something in their life, a memory or moment they are ashamed of, or something perhaps they simply obsess about. If a parent or child is using drugs to cope with something, this is classic self medicating.
Unrealistic Parental Expectations: Lastly, parenting is perhaps that one science you can never completely master. If you had bad parents, you’re supposed to be a bad parent. If you’re an alcoholic, you must be a bad parent. When it comes to raising children, placing too high of expectations on them, or too low, can be damaging and lead to drug abuse. For instance, your son gets a job and you say it doesn’t suit them and they will fail. Surprisingly, children cope with this in many ways, not always with drugs. But for substance abusers, drugs are always an options.

Solutions on Interaction come from many sources. The best solution is to go to the opposite of these things, but even that can be somewhat problematic. Sometimes one person is “codependent” on the other, where they expect everything from them. It works out as one person trying to control the other, denying their own feelings, and having low self-esteem. In social terms, it used to be the husband or wife having a drinking problem and the spouse being the codependent, stuck with a substance abuser. In modern times, it applies to family dynamics in many ways, namely those with behavior or psychological problems.

Before I quit – Part 1

admin — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:55:02 +0000

This is a story of how drugs, particularly pot (Marijuana) came very close to ruining my life:

I was born to a good middle class family in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia in 1970. I was a one of 4 children and was raised modestly, but was loved and never abused. My parents were Christians and made sure that all of the children attended church every Sunday until age 16. Once you turned 16 years old and could drive, church became optional.
I know now that I had the potential and personality to become an addict from the beginning. As a young boy I experimented with alcohol and tobacco. I thought it was cool and felt it impressed my friends if I did so. I took my first drink when I was in the 6th grade. I believe that I was 11 years old. I did not get drunk the first time, but did get a buzz. I thought it was a lot of fun and wanted to do it again. The next time I drank was in the 7th grade and got really drunk. I was at a friend’s house and we got into his parents liquor cabinet. I completely blacked out and was told the next day that I was out of control and he was surprised that I didn’t wake up his parents. I also remember feeling very sick the next morning. I mean really sick.
Well, the drinking continued off and on until my senior year in high school. By then, I was known as the guy who liked to party. Which at the time I thought was really cool. I didn’t get into any trouble, but I definitely did plenty of things that I should not have been doing. Before graduating from High School we had a night where “Silly Awards” were given out to the seniors. I received the award “Most likely to buy a house next to a Miller Genuine Draft brewing plant”. My senior year in high school consisted of going to parties every weekend and even on weekdays. Honestly, I was very happy that year and still feel that it was the happiest part of my life. Soon that would all start to change. Click to Continue –>

Before I quit – Part 2

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:56:35 +0000

High School ended and my friends went off to college. It was strange, because they had been talking about college our entire senior year. I never even seemed to think too much about what I was going to do. However; I did take the SAT and received a score high enough to attend a local community college. At the time, I do not feel that I was an alcoholic or addict yet. I was really still in the early stages. I went to college and finished my freshman year as scheduled. I was really proud of myself for this accomplishment. However; I started hanging out with a new friend “Rick”, who I knew from High School. Rick was a good friend but also liked to drink and do drugs. Mainly, his drug of choice was cocaine. Rick was able to get us a small quantity of cocaine to take on a trip with us to Cancun Mexico. By this time, I smoked a little bit of Marijuana off and on, but was not completely hooked. Again, I do not feel that I was an addict yet.
I have to admit that cocaine was a really interesting drug. To me, I found it highly addictive (I could feel the itch for more after doing it) but not worth the money. I should also mention that I was constantly going to the gym to try to improve my physical appear for women. Being a skinny kid, I was not interested in anything that caused me to lose weight because again I wanted to be “Buff”. With all of that being said, I will still never forget the first time I really got high off of cocaine. I was in Cancun Mexico and did a few lines before going down to the bar. At the bar, I sat down and drank 5 or 6 draft beers and walked away sober. That’s when I realized why it was called the party drug. You could get completely blitzed and do a few lines and were immediately sober again. But, I would never become addicted to cocaine as you will later see because of my desire not to lose weight.
Time went by and I started working at pizza delivery business. I started when I was 21 years old and was still a student at my local college. So, delivering pizzas was a part time job for me. Around this time I started smoking pot regularly. I would say by the time I was 22, that I smoked it every night. By the time I was 23 I was stoned all of the time. If I wasn’t stoned then I wanted to be. My first finance broke off our relationship at age 23. This was a blessing for me to say the least. However; I could not stop smoking pot no matter what happened in my life. Around this time I went to the doctor for some reason and he prescribed me an anti-depressant. He felt that I was depressed. Indeed he was correct and it made a huge difference in the way I felt about myself. Even though I was smoking pot all of the time, I felt so much better once I was given something to help with my depression.
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Before I quit – Part 3

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:55:57 +0000

By age 25, I was really addicted to Marijuana. Anyone who tells you that Marijuana is not addictive is a complete liar. This was my drug of choice hands down. In fact, at the age of 25 I really didn’t drink that much or do any other drugs regularly. My one and only drug was Marijuana. Well, I tried and tried to quit on my own. My little brother who lived with me at the time was constantly trying to get me to quit. He said that he tried to be “Mean”, then he tried to be “Nice” and no matter what he did I kept on smoking pot. I used to write notes on my dresser at night when I went to bed title “DSP”. This meant, Don’t Smoke Pot. I lived in a garage apartment behind my parent’s house and did not want them to accidentally see the full writing, so I created this short abbreviation. I cannot tell you how many times I put this note on my dresser at night. It just didn’t matter; the mental obsession to smoke pot the next day was just too strong. No matter how hard I tried, I could not stop smoking pot.
Well, you can probably imagine what happened next. That little brother of mine had given up trying to help me in his own little way. So he finally told my parents about my problem. I woke up one morning to a phone call from my parent’s home (about 100 yards from our little apartment). I believe my sister was the one that called me that morning. She told us that we were all going to the doctor for an issue regarding my mother. Well, I gathered my things wallet, keys, half and once of pot, etc. and went to this doctor for my “Mothers” problem.
I noticed as we were pulling into this place that the name looked a little familiar. “Ridgeview” I thought to myself, why is my mother going to see a doctor out here. Of course, the entire family was with me and we all sat down in a circle with this doctor. The first thing out of his mouth was “You must be Steven”. That’s when it hit me that I had been intervened. Oh yes, just like the famous Drug Intervention show on TV today. Everyone went around telling me all these things about how I needed to quit. I should mention that my parents never even knew I had a problem until my little brother told them. They were absolutely clueless naive parents. Anyway, this circle of absolute humiliation and crying continued. The thing that still makes me a little mad to this day was that “I would have gone if they would have just asked me in the first place”. However; my parents were not willing to take any chances, so it went down as described and of course I went right into Drug Rehab “for a couple of days”.

At the time, I thought “How will they fix me?” I had thoughts like maybe they were going to just hold me there for a while and give me some medicine. I really didn’t know what was going to happen. The first day consisted of staying in cottage “C”. Cottage “C” was really for everyone including the mental patients that were entering the facility. I had to stay there for 24 hours. I guess you could say that it was also the detoxify room. Yes, on January 4, 1996 I was admitted to into drug rehab. This is where my story of recovery begins. I’m going to continue adding to my recovery story on a regular basis. Right HERE….
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Jail Time

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:58:48 +0000

Unfortunately, people make too many assumptions on how I feel about the legalization of marijuana. Marijuana does not need to be legalized because it tells our youth that it’s okay to do one more drug. So instead of saying it’s okay to drink, we are also saying it’s okay to drink and smoke pot. Why would we want to add-on another drug? We can’t make alcohol illegal; it’s just way too late for that now. If it wasn’t and we could switch the two drugs then I would actually support that idea. Let’s face it, the addicts are the ones that get behind the wheels of a car and run over a family. The two drugs together are much more deadly than each one separately. But, if we want less deaths, and less problems with addiction we can not say “Hey kids, while you’re drinking go ahead and fire up a joint too.”

Being an addict, I’ll be the first one to say that we’ve screwed it up for all of the “normal people” in the world. We are the ones that run over people, hurt others and generally do bad things because we drink and use too many drugs. But, that’s the way of the world. Sometimes the bad apples ruin it for everyone else. I guess you could say the same for the health care industry. If it wasn’t for those people who got sick all of the time then it would be cheaper for the rest of us.

I am also firmly against putting “most” people in jail for selling drugs. The judges need to send people to rehab and not prison. Just because I don’t think we need to add another drug to the “OK LIST”, doesn’t mean I feel people should be put in prison for selling drugs. Each case needs to be evaluated separately and fairly.

Legalize Weed

admin — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:13:58 +0000

The problem isn’t making pot legal for all the “Normal People”. The problem is making it legal for all of the addicts. I remember that I really liked going to weddings and concerts. Because it was okay to get really drunk or stoned because everyone else was “doing it”. So making marijuana legal for addicts gives them the green light for a wedding everyday. Let’s face it the liquor store makes most of its money from the alcoholics. So who really gets hurt by making marijuana legal? Alcoholics and addicts are different because they “Crave”. This is what sets us apart from other people when it comes to using certain drugs. I’ve always said that we already have one drug legal that is terrible (alcohol). Why should the government make two drugs legal? I think everyone has heard the term “pothead” before. This term was created to describe someone who smokes marijuana all of the time. THC the active ingredient in marijuana gradually causes the brain to “slow down” in some areas. The strange thing is that the addict rarely notices that this has occurred. However; the people around him or her will notice the slowdown. I personally had this happen to me, so I know what it feels like to have other people laugh and call you a “pothead”.

These are the “pothead” effects that I experienced:

1. Slowed speech.
2. Slowed movement.
3. Trouble reading (My eyes could not stay focused on pages.)
4. Short Term and Long Term memory problems.
5. Trouble learning new material.
6. Did not mature into adulthood as expected.
7. Felt less than other people.
8. Depression
9. Anxiety
And the list goes on…..

These are some of my direct effects from smoking marijuana. Medical marijuana is a complete joke. Go see a psychiatrist and see if he or she would ever recommend marijuana for a patient. I was personally told that “Let me give you something that will help without all of the side effects of marijuana”. This is the real truth about the drug. The side effects are too many to count. Have you ever felt really paranoid when smoking marijuana? No, I’m sure that has never happened to anyone before……..

Drug Rehab – Part 1

admin — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 04:21:29 +0000

I was admitted to drug rehab at Ridgeview in the suburbs of Atlanta, GA on January 4th, 1996. First, I was placed into cottage “C” for detoxification and drug testing. I told the staff that I had not drank any alcohol or used any drugs besides marijuana in the last 3 months. They definitely did not believe me because most addicts are known to lie about their drug use to other people. I figured what was there to lie about now, it was over and I had to quit.

I recall meeting a few different people in cottage “C”. These individuals were people that I would strike up conversations with during outside smoke breaks. Everyone, I mean everyone smoked cigarettes. I noticed that my cigarette smoking greatly increased immediately upon stopping my drug use. I think it primarily had to do with the strong obsession toward marijuana and trying to make-up for it. One thing that I remember about one of these smoke breaks was talking to an individual who told me the doctors found out that he was bipolar. I was beside myself when I heard this information. I was a psychology major at a university, so I had a little bit of knowledge on the subject. I thought to myself that it would be terrible if they found something like that wrong me.

After spending 24 hours in cottage “C”, I was moved into the Half-way house. This is the place where you go after they feel you are not going to hurt yourself (or others) and that you have successfully been detoxified from all drugs. Treatment centers really have to be careful especially for alcoholism. Alcoholics can die from withdrawal if not treated properly. It was known in the early days of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) for sponsors to care liquor with them to keep the new comers from dying from withdrawal.

Once at the halfway house, I was settled into a room with another individual. I can not remember who it was to this date. However; he seemed pretty nice like most of the other people there. It didn’t take long to realize that a lot of wealthy people including doctors and lawyers were also there with me trying to stop using various drugs. I recall that they had 2 group meetings everyday in the halfway house. One meeting was early in the morning around 8:00AM and the other one was in the afternoon around 4:00PM. Each one of these meetings consisted of everyone telling how they felt that day. But, before each person began to talk, he or she would state whether or not they were an alcoholic or an addict. Some people even stated that they were both. When it was my turn to speak for the first time, I stated that I was a Marijuana addict.

In between circle based meetings, we had classroom like schedules. Each class lasted about 1 hour and were instructed by different teachers (drug counselors). For the first week, I was pretty cheerful and answered questions while a lot of people made fun of how slow I talked. To me, I did not seem to speak in slow motion, but everyone else clearly noticed and made fun of me from time to time. This obviously was an effect of my long term use of marijuana. But, it wasn’t just my speaking that was impaired. Marijuana had actually slowed down my thought processes. This was one reason why I had been unable to finish my 4 year college degree in psychology. Honestly, my mind was not nearly as sharp as it was just 5 or 6 years earlier. Marijuana had turned me into a slow thinking, slow talking person. These problems along with a few others like the inability to read well because my eyes lost focus quickly would continue to cause me problems for the next 2 or 3 years. Click to Continue ->>

Drug Rehab – Part 2

admin — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 19:05:50 +0000

On the first or second day in the half-way house, I went out with friends to a movie “Get Shorty”. I think it was at the dollar theater at the time, so it was cheap. This was my first venture away from the half-way house since I was admitted to rehab. Somehow the conversation of having just one beer was brought up and the others in the car stated that this was not something that you could do because it was cause you to go back to your drug of choice. Of course, alcohol was the drug of choice for a lot of people there in the first place. I did not fully understand because I really didn’t feel that I had a problem with alcohol. However; I was only kidding myself because I was definitely an alcoholic. The only reason why I switched over to using marijuana years earlier was because the side effects were much less than alcohol. I always drank until I got sick and I did not like getting sick. My high school friends used to make fun of me once they saw that I was drinking my 6th beer. They would say: Here goes Steve again trying to drink that 6th beer and expecting that he will not get sick this time. I could never stop drinking until I was drunk, but it was definitely not my drug of choice, marijuana obviously was it.

During that first week in drug rehab I met some really nice people. One of my favorite individuals was a guy named “Jay”. Jay and I would have a blast at the 8AM and 4PM circle discussions. We joked around like crazy and were truly enjoying ourselves. During the circle meetings I was still stating my first name and indicating that I was a marijuana addict and that was all. At the circle meetings, the lady in charge of the Half-way house would make statements regarding various things to us. There were at least 2 or 3 people that she made comments about how it was there second or third time in rehab. She would say things like: Are you convinced this time that you really are an alcoholic and an addict? Do you think you will be able to stay sober this time when you leave?

During that first week, we immediately were directed by the staff and counselors that we must attend 12 step meetings or we would not be able to stay sober. This was my first real introduction to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). I say real introduction because when I was 19, a girl friend of mine took me to an AA meeting. I was really only there to watch one of her friends pick-up a chip. I remember her even stating that I was an alcoholic just like the people in the meeting. Of course, I did not pay any attention to what she said at that time. So, technically I had been to an alcoholics anonymous meeting before and had never put two and two together about what rehab was going to involve.

When I started attending meetings (this time for real in rehab) I listened and was shocked at some of the things I heard. Some people stated terrible things that had happened to them directly do to the effects of using drugs and alcohol. This was not something that I had in common because my drug of choice was marijuana and it did not cause me to spend all of my money and ruin my life (yet). The other thing that I immediately noticed was a big age difference between me and the other people attending these 12 step meetings. I was only 26 years old which is the only reason why my drug use had not caused me a lot of problems. It only makes sense now that I look back at my age and what I was doing at that time. If I would have used for another 10 years I probably would have found myself in 12 step meetings stating how my life had been ruined.

I should also mention the withdrawal effects that I was experiencing during the first week. Mainly I was just craving my drug of choice (Marijuana) or frankly any drug. The mental obsession and cravings were almost unbearable. My mind was stuck between wanting to stop using drugs and not. At night, I would dream like crazy. So, really the only withdrawal symptoms that I experienced were unusual dreams and that strong craving that makes your toes curl up.
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Drug Rehab – Part 3

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:25:53 +0000

The person in charge of the halfway house at RidgeView was Susan. Susan was a very strong individual and very commanding. She definitely had the halfway house under control for me and the other participants. One of the things that I notice early on was they wanted you to do chores while you were in the halfway house. The thinking behind having us perform chores was that they felt most alcoholics and addicts were being taken care of by another individual. This enabling of an alcoholic/addict was something that the treatment center wanted to eradicate as quickly as possible. One of the problems that I noticed with drug rehab is the fact that everybody was categorized into one big group. Unfortunately, there is probably no other way to run a treatment center than to use this method. The main problem with using this of course is that everyone is different. Since everyone is different it makes treating alcoholism and drug addiction that much harder.

Most of the people in the treatment center that I encountered had bad personal relationships with their family members and possibly their siblings. The alcoholic/addict was responsible for these bad relationships 9 times out of 10. However; the individual that the alcoholic or addict married or was an relationship with was also typically making the problem worse. Again, this problem was made worse by the enabling that was taking place by the people surrounding the alcoholic/addict (family members, friends, siblings, etc.). Enabling is when you provide money or some sort of assistance to the alcoholic/addict to allow him or her to easily continue using drugs/drinking alcohol. This enabling is prevalent in most alcoholic and addict lifestyles. Because my drug of choice was marijuana, enabling really wasn’t an issue with me. Marijuana is relatively cheap and the type of job that I had at the time allowed me to pay for my habit without placing a financial burden on me or someone else. This may or may not be the case with other marijuana users. If you find yourself in a rehab facility like I found myself, just keep in mind that it’s impossible for the doctors and counselors to run the rehab without putting everyone into one group and labeling everyone in a certain way.

During the first week in the halfway house my parents were brought in for meetings with me and the other counselors. They were told about how they could possibly be enabling me to continue using drugs and drinking alcohol. Again to this day, I really don’t feel that I was being enabled. If I was being enabled it was not to a great degree. However; given the circumstances my parents were eager to listen to what the counselors had to say as far as their possible enabling part was concerned. So to summarize; part of the first week in the halfway house consisted of meetings with the drug counselors individually and some meetings where my parents attended. The other thing that was taking place during my stay at the halfway house was a very organized daily curriculum. This curriculum consisted of waking up at 7:30AM drinking a cup of coffee, smoking as many cigarettes as I possibly could and going to my first class by 8:00AM. The class starting at 8:00AM and most of the other classes throughout the day consisted of small group conversations between me and five are six other individuals (other addicts) and a given drug counselor. I quickly realized during the short meetings with various drug counselors (in these small classrooms) that the other individuals at the rehab facility had problems with relationships that I had not experienced. Again, I really feel that this goes back to my age of 26 and the fact that I didn’t have a wife or any children.
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Drug Rehab – Part 4

admin — Sun, 31 May 2009 09:15:06 +0000

The first week at drug rehab consisted of this daily routine of going to meetings in small groups with counselors, as well as meeting with family members and drug counselors. In the evenings after these meetings with various drug counselors and possibly a short meeting with a psychiatrist earlier in the day, we attended AA meetings. We all had sign-off cards in which we were supposed to hand to the person chairing the meeting after that meeting was over. The chairperson would sign-off that we had attended that AA meeting. Everybody was instructed to go to at least one AA meeting every day while in rehab. However the treatment center was really unable to control what you did in the evenings. Some of us, (me included) decided that we didn’t need to go to an AA meeting every night. Again, this first week in rehab I was still just referring to myself as a marijuana addict. Truly, I was in denial that I was an alcoholic as well. One evening in particular I and my new found friend Jay decided that it would be fun if we went to a local bar and had just one beer and then attend a movie. We had made this decision while driving back from the local cigar shop where Jay bought some cigars.
For whatever reason, we needed to stop back by the halfway house before going out that night. Once we entered the halfway house some other addicts spotted me and Jay and insisted that we go with them to an AA meeting, because they knew neither one of us had been to a meeting in a few days. This was the first of what I would refer to as “strange events” that happened to me in early recovery. If it had not been for the other people in the halfway house that evening, Jay and I would have gone to the movies and would have relapsed. After attending the AA meeting that night I realized what a big mistake I almost made. Alcoholics and addicts must refrain from the using drugs and alcohol. Any use of alcohol or other drug typically will cause the craving effect to reoccur in that person. The craving phenomenon is so strong that an alcoholic/addict will usually migrate his way back to his drug of choice. This migration may take some time. In fact, you might be able to get away with drinking alcohol instead of smoking pot for a couple months. But sooner or later you will find yourself using your drug of choice again. The main problem I faced in early recovery was realizing that I was also an alcoholic and could not drink or use any drugs again. This “almost relapse” was caused by a denial. Denial is not believing that you have an alcohol or drug problem. Denial is something that you will find prevalent in almost every alcoholic or addict in the beginning of their recovery. Denial in itself is probably the worst part of the disease. Denial is probably the hardest and most difficult thing for the drug counselors, the family members, and the psychiatrist to arrest in the mind of the alcoholic and or addict. If it wasn’t for denial, alcoholism and drug addiction would be much easier to treat. At the treatment center, I learned that addiction itself had a specific goal. The goal of addiction “the disease” is to kill the individual in whatever possible way it can. The killing of the individual can be accomplished by the disease in so many ways. The disease might cause a person to overdose on drugs, the disease might cause the individual to get into a car wreck, the disease could even cause the person to even commit suicide.

The reason people have such a hard time stopping is because of denial. Once the addict or alcoholic can get past denial (and want to stop) he or she is on their way to recovery. For me, the denial was also very strong. The type of denial that I experienced felt like a war going on inside my head. To combat this war I used some of the early sayings that I’ve learned in AA meetings. The one I used the most was: “fake it until you make it”. I would continue to use “fake it until you make it” for quite some time (maybe 6 months) after leaving the treatment center.
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