ReLearn

Is it possible to help someone who doesn’t want help?

That is a very commonly asked question. The answer is yes it is possible to help someone fighting addiction even when they may not want help.

The problem is we want it to be easy, we want it to happen in 90 days, we want our loved fixed, with good reason, I realize. The answer to this dilemma is it does not work like that, it is a long process, there is no quick, easy fix.

Recovery and healing is slow but it is possible. Please read that again, “It is possible.” It requires lots of re-learning, neurological re-wiring of the brain, time and honestly lots of love, bucket loads of it.

Recently I received some intensive training in C.R.A.F.T. (Community Reinforcement and Family Training), this post explains it in more detail in “Unfinished” . Very shortly I will be completing my certification. Its purpose is to help people walk with their loved ones through the sometimes, slow journey to recovery in effective and powerful ways.

The re-learning I talked about must happen on several levels. Learning to cope in new and healthy ways. Learning to allow the time for neuroplasticity, a powerful feature of our brain, to reconstruct for us what has been robbed through prolonged drug use, especially if we started using drugs very young, so we can once again enjoy the many elements of life, cope in affective and healthy ways with the constant pressures our world presents, and realize we can live without drugs or alcohol. That all takes time, but it is possible.

I remember one evening, in particular, Lauren had returned from her IOP (Intense Outpatient Program). I have written about this evening before, it had a great impact on me. We were in our dining/kitchen area, a place that for our family became the center of lots of activity. LaLa (Lauren) sat at her favorite spot at our kitchen island. She was sharing with me all she had learned that night about the impact of beginning drug use before the age of 25, how that can impact the brain, especially the Frontal Lobe that monitors our decision process, and how long it might take for that to happen. She was very positive and upbeat. She seemed inspired. I was so proud of her, I felt very encouraged, even though I had had suspicions that she must have used heroin between leaving her IOP, and arriving home. I understood that she was deeply in “Ambivalence”. Ambivalence is a state that drug users and alcoholics get to where they are disgusted with the use of their substance of choice, they really want to stop, but, as of that moment, they simply cannot. Having been in ambivalence myself when overcoming a cocaine addiction I knew exactly what she was feeling, what mattered more for me was that she was beginning to move toward real healing. Ambivalence is a good thing because it often marks the beginning of significant progress. Watching Lauren while we talked that night made me feel so encouraged and, yes, even happy. I thought, “Maybe this is the beginning of her really getting well.” I was happy.

As I listened to LaLa speaking while she sat at our kitchen island I was filled with great pride for her progress and an overwhelming sense of hope.

That’s what I mean, this journey is long and complicated with lots of mountaintop moments and a few valleys. That person we love so much needs to know we are going to go the whole distance, when they do it can produce significant change, even when they may not want it.

This weeks featured image is by Brooke Shaden. It is a montage of images she did for the JoAnne Artman Gallery in NYC last year. This show was a dramatic shift in Brooke’s more recent work. That is one of the things I admire about Brookes’s work. She literally reinvents her style, seemingly overnight since this show, as she learns, reinvents, and re-learns thoughts and skills and how they impact her art and life. She constantly pushes the envelope of her thinking. That is what we need to do as we attempt to discover the tools and skills that will help our loved one fighting addiction find wholeness.