Family members often become enablers of addict, life coach says

Family members of people who become addicted to drugs often make things worse for themselves and the addict by unwittingly serving as enablers, actuallypreventing or prolonging any attempt at recovery.That’s a key point made by Mike Leatherwood of Jonesboro, a certified life coach who helps families overcomedrug addiction, in a presentation to the Out of the Dark coalition during its quarterly meeting last week.Out of the Dark is an organization founded three years ago by attorney Charles “Skip” Mooney to combat drug abuse, especially among young people. The coalition is a support group for the main organization, which recently elected Leatherwood to its board of directors.Leatherwood told more than 100 people at Thursday’s meeting there are two intervention types for drug addicts. One is formal intervention,which often is seen on reality television shows and usually involves a tense situation.His coaching, however, includes informal interventions,which take more time and involve workingwith family members as well as the addict.He pointed out that “a lot of families get to a place where they are bankrupt — financially, emotionally and spiritually bankrupt.” In that way the addict takes everyone down with him.The parents of an addict are often hit the hardest,he said, because the first instinct of a parent with a child in trouble is to “step in front of the bullet”and take it for the child. That can be the worst thing to do because it keeps the addict from having to face the consequences of his or her conduct.“When you’re using drugs,” he said, “you’re going to be a pathological liar. They’ll say anythingto get what they want. That’s what they’re turned into until they face the consequences. They are going to continue to use ... until such time as recovery, institutionalization or death occurs.”At the bottom of the chart, when the addict’s conduct has resulted in severe financial and emotionaldamage to them, the family members begin to feel persecuted by their loved one (“Why are you doing this to me?”) and suddenly refuses to enable.Eventually the family members may decide they were wrong to refuse to help and go right back to enabling. Then all go down the same road together, and the ending is always bad, he said.As an intervention coach, Leatherwood’s first task is to help the family get better first. Without that, the job of helping the addict with recovery is much more difficult.The addict is not likely to seek recovery until he or she “hits bottom” — which means the pain from the consequences of addiction becomes so great that the person is willing to surrender to someone else’s instructions for recovery.Throughout the process, Leatherwood stressed, relativesof the addict must take care of themselves first. For the addict there is no guarantee of success, but an informal intervention, he said, provides the best chance of survival.Out of the Dark is a unique organization that Mooney and his wife Jill founded after reading a newspaper articleabout five young Jonesboro residents being hospitalizeddue to drug overdoses at a party. He and his daughterthen wrote an op ed piece for the The Sun, inviting comments from others, and received such an overwhelmingresponse that he decided to form an organization.Since then, the organization has grown in size and influence, and nine chapters have been established at Jonesboro area schools.For more information: http://www.outofthedark.org.Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by email at royo@suddenlink.net.