THE OTHER SIDE
Recently a normie friend reached out eager and excited with
the idea that I’d be a perfect fit to speak to their child’s middle-school
class. Someone, given my new venture here, that could put an experienced
voice and face to a cautionary tale of addiction and recovery. I had to
decline.
While I undeniably have a tale of addiction, an
evolving message of recovery, and I believe I can have a relatable, credible
dialogue with adults with SUDs [Substance Use Disorders] who are in or seeking sobriety and recovery,
what I don’t have is a prevention message. I’m working on it. I
have a 4-year-old daughter--a fact which almost demands I have one within
the next decade or less. But I’m certainly not qualified now to be a voice
of prevention. For children.
It may go without saying that the notion of substance use
prevention was a message I never heeded. What could come as a surprise—though I
imagine not—is that it was a message I rarely, if ever, heard as a child. I’d
suggest that I was, in fact, exposed to the opposite message: substance use normalization.
Often indulgence. Occasionally over-Indulgence. Sometimes abuse.
Of the approximately four parental figures (two bio, two
step, & more!) I had during my formative years—let’s call that birth
through seventeen--two of them smoked cigarettes; they all, at times, smoked a
not-insignificant amount of marijuana; they all partook, some more eagerly than
others, of cocaine; acid, mushrooms, what-have-you made appearances; and they
all--without qualification--imbibed copious amounts of alcohol with great
regularity. And that’s just the low-hanging fermented fruit on the family tree.
However! Let me make something (im)perfectly clear: I’m not
judging them and I’m not blaming them for the inception, course or duration of
my active addictions. Were they irresponsible? Maybe. An adult’s view of their
own childhood is often from a grassy knoll.
What I am doing is painting a picture of the behavior-modeling
available to me as a child. My childhood included, in no particular order or
relevance: a Folger’s coffee can packed full of pot on a refrigerator door
shelf; very memorably being taken to see Poltergeist by a parent
tripping ‘shrooms; being allowed to eat pot seeds like they were sunflower
seeds; between the ages of 5 and 15 having my first drink of wine with one
parent, first beer with another and first toke of weed with yet a third; and
being present for the planning and preparations to move one illicit substance
and the transportation of another--both across international borders and each
with a different parent.
So, yeah, I grew up with a fairly non-traditional model of
substance use. One could say that with a genetic predisposition to a substance
use disorder, in addition to my depression and anxiety, the fix, if you'll
pardon the expression, was in. Yet for all the aforementioned freewheeling
mind altering going on around me as a child, I remained remarkably abstinent
until I left home. It would seem I had some coping mechanisms in place.
Some vague notion of what was…sensible…vis-à-vis drugs. I had some measure of
self-control.
So, what happened? Nurture didn’t seem to have an immediate
impact. I was certainly more abstinent than almost all of my peers throughout
my childhood. I would argue I was almost impervious to peer pressure. Was it
simply my nature to develop a SUD? There certainly seems to be antecedent and
subsequent players in the family tree to suggest it’s in the gene pool.
Would a more temperate attitude towards substance use from
my parents have prevented my ultimate fall? Would an overt prevention message
have helped? I don’t know. But I really don’t think it would have. It certainly
couldn’t have delayed things any more than I delayed them almost unconsciously
on my own.
What does all this mean for my message for my daughter? Well,
first, I’m going to hope like hell she’s a normie. However, at the moment, all
I’m thinking I can do is play the role of grizzled sherpa for her as she
undertakes what may be an inevitable exploration and hope the descent isn’t too
steep or too long. Then walk her back up.
My child became addicted very early despite parents who hardly used anything. (2 drinks a month) Got marijuana and alcohol from older friends, wanted to be cool. We gave many prevention messages but he got more pro drug messages from peers, culture. As long as culture promotes, provides, normalizes, more kids will try. Making it uncool will help a lot. Prevention of smoking is working--can work with drugs. Can't expect perfection, but reduction is better than giving up.
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