Baby tests positive for cocaine

[AliceInFundyland]

9 minutes ago, daisyd681 said:

There's always Scientology for the marine rescuers. L. Ron lived on a boat for ages.

They've moved into beautifully restored old buildings in cities that clearly cost a shitload of money. Seems to be the new plan. The one in Portland is an awesome bldg...across from an historic gay club, porn store and strip club. It's sort of awesomely weird. And it has all this cross imagery with the scifi books. So odd. I am so tempted to do a new fangled version of the audit.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

1 hour ago, daisyd681 said:

I humbly submit that when I went through recovery as a teenager there was a very clear distinction made between who a person is and what they have done (this was expressed both to addicts and their loved ones). A person had to be allowed to live down their past through hard work. This not to say they weren't responsible for their actions and whatever consequences those actions resulted in. The difference (at least to me) is saying someone is an animal or saying they are behaving like an animal. That being said, expecting those that haven't been through it to understand the difference is too much to ask most of the time. Calmly explaining why it's hurtful is usually more productive than getting upset.

I beg to disagree a bit. People that are subjugated to drugs are very very often selfish, unreliable, empathy lacking, manipulative arseholes. We often tell their relatives that they aren't speaking with their son/daughter/husband/wife/brother/sister but with a their drugged aliases, with their Mr Hyde. Real life examples: guy addicted to coke hits his sister and elderly mother that refuse him money, he isn't just behaving like an animal, he IS a very bad person in that moment, he doesn't distinguish good from bad, "it's totally their fault because they were being mean to me" etc. Or the guy who blows up what his parents put aside for their retirement and knowing he has AIDS he had unprotected sex with many women. Or the one who burglars his own home horribly scaring his family making them believe they are the target of a gang with anonymous letters to threaten them etc. I could go on forever but what all these guys have in common is the utter inability to accept that they are doing anything wrong while they are in the throes of an addictive substance. And this lasts longer than the effect of the drug. They are clean when they start our program, we rarely do the first part where substitutive drugs are slowly decreased, there are ad hoc facilities where people go to do just that. But people are still addicts when they arrive in our facility, their brain is still working as an addicted brain. The change we try to facilitate is painfully slow, one behaviour at a time, one damaging belief at a time. And you can see when it starts dawning on them that they behave like selfish assholes. It happens to go home and cry because I saw a person really really (not just with words) realise how much damage he/she did and be crushed by this knowledge, it's heartbreaking and hard to see and you can do nothing other than not leaving them alone there and hope that they will find in themselves (with our help) the ability to build up the stregnth to face life with this awareness without choosing the easy way out, drugs. During all the time they are in our facility people are required to write a sort of daily diary, when they are approaching the end of their program we invite them to read back the first diaries. This usually leaves them appalled, they don't recognise those words, the person who wrote them is an alien now, the reaction is often something along the lines: "I can't believe how much of an asshole I was. Can I burn it?" This is the happy ending for some. Many others are not as lucky, the guy who knowingly contaminated others with AIDS will always struggle to balance the paranoid thoughts he knows he has with the occasional slips into psychosis for which he needs medications, but at least he knows right from wrong now and he knows he can choose what's right. But the guy I was talking about above, the one who hit his mother and sister there won't be a happy ending for him, he will remain Mr Hyde even if he stays clean. Because coke has a bad habit of wrecking the vascular system, starting from the brain's and killing neurons. When the damage has gone too far there's no coming back and Mr Hyde is here to stay. It doesn't matter that before he was a good guy, a hard worker who did coke only to keep up with inhuman work rhythms, now he is an empathy lacking, highly paranoid and thoroughly damaged person and none can do a thing about it. It's not just how he behaves it's how he is, take or leave. And he will get worse because coke triggered a condition for which his brain wil slowly and progressively shut down. There's no way to know before in what way cocaine will mess with someone's brain and if there will be a coming back. People need to know that cocaine is not a recreational drug and that it doesn't just change your behaviours but your brain, your very being.

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Just a couple of more things then I'll shut up promised. If a person and his/her actions were inherently separated it would open the old chapter "you can choose to not do drugs/not behaving like an addict" etc and by now we know that it's not entirely true because drugs change what you are not just what you do. Most people choose to stop with drugs after hitting what's their personal ethical bottom (and I hope that endangering their babies is this couple's hard bottom). As Nellie has already beautifully said most people even when they are the wicked version of themselves are still sane enough to understand that endangering babies is waaay off limits and to just avoid being around children if they are aware that they are a danger to them. The fact that these two parents didn't makes me this that they are deeply addicted. That or they are basically wicked person on their own. In any case they are responsible for what they did, they weren't in a drug induced psychosis so they knew right from wrong at least in abstract. Because that is the problem with addiction, most addicts can tell you what's right but for many of them it's somehow devoid of deep meaning and they don't feel compelled to do it, the only truly compelling thing is the substance, if the right thing to do is in contrast with their addiction they won't do it or they will do it with enormous struggle. 

This said Daisy is somewhat right in saying that people need to separate a person from his/her deeds. Even if that person's brain is addicted and wicked by drugs into something that someone would define animal, that person is still intrinsecally a person and not an animal. This is very difficult, as a person who works daily with them I fully admit (never to my patients though) that sometimes I struggle with it, simply because I am human and I have my difficultie and I am as flawed as anyone else.  Sometimes I meet a person that makes me say "no with this one I can't, I feel I can't care enough, he/she hits a nerve within me". It's important to admit it immediately to oneself and to the colleagues because that person is always entitled to the best care and if I can't someone else must. Obviously professional ethics require that this is never communicated to the patient and I am not free to behave in a judging or anything less than professionally correct way towards him/her. I am just required to avoid this person if I am triggered and leave my colleagues dealing with him/her. In my experience this is something that happens mostly with new patients, when we know them better and start seeing them change it's easier to care deeply for them despite their behaviours.

I think that as a society we have a duty to condemn crimes, a duty to protect minors and dependents and a duty to remember that this people are humans and are ill. We don't have a duty to tiptoe around them around them and their issues and those who are affected by their recklessness have a right to be enraged.

[MarblesMom]

10 minutes ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Sometimes I meet a person that makes me say "no with this one I can't, I feel I can't care enough, he/she hits a nerve within me". It's important to admit it immediately to oneself and to the colleagues because that person is always entitled to the best care and if I can't someone else must.

This absolutely rings true for me - thank you for phrasing it so wonderfully.  

I worked with a variety of people over the years that ranged from one end of the spectrum (any spectrum, trust me) to the other... and sometimes it was just a  "nope, I just cannot handle this particular person..." - I am human, too - but I still made sure they were passed to a colleague who COULD handle them.  Customer focused, but still keeping *my* sanity.... 

[Grimalkin]

         I don't think anyone read this and thought "all addicts are animals!" They read it and thought "those parents suck. " by the way after the hospital demanded a blood test they left and took the baby to a different hospital. It doesn't help anyone to say "aww they are addicts and didn't mean it, let's let it slide this time." If you have an active alcoholic/addict  at home or in your life and they treat you badly the more you put up with it and make excuses for them the more likely they will continue to behave that way. Why would anyone change or do something different if they are caterd to? 

       Can people redeem themselves? Sure, of course. They got to do the work. If someone is okay with lying to the hospital staff who are evaluating their baby, asking questions since that baby cannot answer them. What else are they willing to do? Not a lot of people would be able to stand the pressure. Maybe initially "I don't know what happened." But to repeatedly and actively lie that takes someone who has been hardened and has some practice at lying.

[DaisyD]

It seems that in my attempt to be brief and get back to the thread drift (it was much more pleasant than the previous convo) I didn't communicate well. Everything LaP said is absolutely correct and doesn't contradict what I said (or at least what I meant). Saying there's a difference between who you are and what you've done (I should have added "while in the throughs of addiction") is a way to acknowledge that the person wasn't themselves when they did these things. Their "addict" did them. I often heard people say that their addict was talking to them when they were feeling tempted. As I said, this in no way absolves them of the actions they took while their addict was in charge. It's mostly a tool to explain the disparate personalities that are involved in addiction. 

Saying that these things were communicated to the loved ones wasn't meant to imply that they were told they didn't have the right to be mad. It was a tool for them too. It was a way to deal with and move past the hurt and to recognize any future backsliding. I suppose the theory being that if they'd stuck with you that far, they were willing to stick with you through recovery. Tough love was always encouraged, especially at the beginning, and there was lots of therapy for everyone involved. 

My program was for teen girls so there wasn't a lot of high crime involved for most of us. The worst I had done was petty theft (and got caught). In the end I came to realize that I am, in fact, not an addict. I was more like Sparkling Lauren, addicted to the image. The long road for me has been finding a way to incorporate the parts of my personality that that image spoke to without jumping in with both feet to any one stereotype. Being myself and not a chameleon was really difficult at first.

None of this was really addressing the two parents that started this as they are either very bad people or so far down the spiral that they can't see clearly and hadn't entered recovery yet. I was talking about recovery and trying to explain why someone in recovery (especially doing it herself without the support of a program) would take offense to the way things were being worded. I tried to communicate my opinion on them with my second quote, and agreeing with another poster. I hope they get help and don't get their child back for at least a year. The first year of recovery it's hard enough to take care of yourself, adding a baby just makes success a lot less likely. 

I know this is a wall of text. Since brevity caused some misunderstanding I thought it was important to spell it out. 

[xlurker]

On 7/3/2016 at 8:05 PM, zee_four said:

I've struggled with opiate addiction for years

Keep fighting the good fight!  You are stronger than you think

[Shadoewolf]

I've noted in other conversations that I'm married to an addict. When he was a teenager it was, weed, coke and prescription drugs. He ended up in rehab for the coke and dropped it entirely. When we met it was alcohol and prescription drugs. He's quit drinking and is now what I call an "opportunity" addict. 2 years ago his stepmother had back surgery and was put on morphine. He got asked to do something while they were out of town for the day. He stole 10 of her pills. My son was on a trial of Adderall, I had hid the bottle but it still came up empty and not from my son using it.  Most recently, a friend had an extra bottle of Xanax, that she gave to me after hubby had a 3 day manic episode (or was coming off of something I honestly don't know which). Last week I found the bottle empty, and she gave me enough for more than a month.  Every single time I catch him he lies to me at first, and when I shut him out completely for a few days he fesses up. 

I KNOW why he behaves this way. He's an only child who was spoiled. A total momna's boy. Anytime he got in trouble she rescued him. Got a DUI and crashed his car? She'd bail him out and he'd have a new car in a week. When he was mixing alcohol with Lexapro (Lexapro acts as an enhancer to alcohol) it was my fault for nagging him and stressing him out.  He picked up from seeing her lie constantly that it came with no consequences so he does it too. (Thats always our biggest fight). He's never had to take responsibility for himself or consequences so he has no coping mechanism for stress. The easy way out is to take something and duck his head or lie his way out of it. 

Tbat being said, he is aware how this affects us, and his insurance kicked in July 1, he starts counseling and new psych meds on Monday. I have power of attorney on all medical decisions and I go to all his non-psych appointments. I try my hardest to keep control of drugs he shouldn't have easy access to. I've tough-loved his butt out of the house 3 times for months at a time. (His mother paid for him to stay in a long term hotel or he lived with his dad).  Its a battle, because just when I start to relax after 3-6 months of no issues, he relapses. But when he's not using he's an amazing dad, attentive husband and it never interfers with work. I try to enjoy all the good days since they outnumber the bad, and hold on tight when things get rough.  Its all I can do, while he gets the help he needs.

 

[Grimalkin]

1 hour ago, Shadoewolf said:

I've noted in other conversations that I'm married to an addict. When he was a teenager it was, weed, coke and prescription drugs. He ended up in rehab for the coke and dropped it entirely. When we met it was alcohol and prescription drugs. He's quit drinking and is now what I call an "opportunity" addict. 2 years ago his stepmother had back surgery and was put on morphine. He got asked to do something while they were out of town for the day. He stole 10 of her pills. My son was on a trial of Adderall, I had hid the bottle but it still came up empty and not from my son using it.  Most recently, a friend had an extra bottle of Xanax, that she gave to me after hubby had a 3 day manic episode (or was coming off of something I honestly don't know which). Last week I found the bottle empty, and she gave me enough for more than a month.  Every single time I catch him he lies to me at first, and when I shut him out completely for a few days he fesses up. 

I KNOW why he behaves this way. He's an only child who was spoiled. A total momna's boy. Anytime he got in trouble she rescued him. Got a DUI and crashed his car? She'd bail him out and he'd have a new car in a week. When he was mixing alcohol with Lexapro (Lexapro acts as an enhancer to alcohol) it was my fault for nagging him and stressing him out.  He picked up from seeing her lie constantly that it came with no consequences so he does it too. (Thats always our biggest fight). He's never had to take responsibility for himself or consequences so he has no coping mechanism for stress. The easy way out is to take something and duck his head or lie his way out of it. 

Tbat being said, he is aware how this affects us, and his insurance kicked in July 1, he starts counseling and new psych meds on Monday. I have power of attorney on all medical decisions and I go to all his non-psych appointments. I try my hardest to keep control of drugs he shouldn't have easy access to. I've tough-loved his butt out of the house 3 times for months at a time. (His mother paid for him to stay in a long term hotel or he lived with his dad).  Its a battle, because just when I start to relax after 3-6 months of no issues, he relapses. But when he's not using he's an amazing dad, attentive husband and it never interfers with work. I try to enjoy all the good days since they outnumber the bad, and hold on tight when things get rough.  Its all I can do, while he gets the help he needs.

 

         I hope he gets the help he needs. Take care of yourself and your son(and any other kiddos you may have) I have a friend who loves her husband to bits but she is moving out this summer because of how his drinking is affecting her daughter. She is heartbroken. He is a well liked man. She just has had enough I guess. His sober self is what makes it so hard for her.

         MIL certainly isn't helping. At the same time I understand how unbearable it must be to worry. It's a pattern.

[MarblesMom]

2 hours ago, Shadoewolf said:

A total momna's boy. Anytime he got in trouble she rescued him. Got a DUI and crashed his car? She'd bail him out and he'd have a new car in a week.

My heart goes out to you, @Shadoewolf.  

I watched my ex's family die/fall apart in this very process.  4 sons, 2 now dead.  Multiple DUI's, car crashes (hidden), rehab x nth degrees.   Now two broken old people, wondering what they did "wrong", two dead sons, two living, yet on the fringe.

My kids headed down this path and it was Tough Fking Love and no turning back.  They are alive and prospering (as much as they can in this job market..) 

NO WAY would I ever just downplay a DUI or an arrest.

Stay strong   This is not an easy path.  Hugs!

[DaisyD]

@Shadoewolf If there's any way to swing it, I would highly recommend long term inpatient treatment. I know that insurance is a determining factor and that they don't like to pay for that, but it's by far the most successful form of treatment for addiction. Out patient can work if the patient wants to get better, it's just a lot harder.

No matter what you're able to do, I hope that things get better for all of you and that his mother can butt out long enough for him to make some progress. 

[Whipple]

16 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

Just a couple of more things then I'll shut up promised. If a person and his/her actions were inherently separated it would open the old chapter "you can choose to not do drugs/not behaving like an addict" etc and by now we know that it's not entirely true because drugs change what you are not just what you do. Most people choose to stop with drugs after hitting what's their personal ethical bottom (and I hope that endangering their babies is this couple's hard bottom). As Nellie has already beautifully said most people even when they are the wicked version of themselves are still sane enough to understand that endangering babies is waaay off limits and to just avoid being around children if they are aware that they are a danger to them. The fact that these two parents didn't makes me this that they are deeply addicted. That or they are basically wicked person on their own. In any case they are responsible for what they did, they weren't in a drug induced psychosis so they knew right from wrong at least in abstract. Because that is the problem with addiction, most addicts can tell you what's right but for many of them it's somehow devoid of deep meaning and they don't feel compelled to do it, the only truly compelling thing is the substance, if the right thing to do is in contrast with their addiction they won't do it or they will do it with enormous struggle. 

This said Daisy is somewhat right in saying that people need to separate a person from his/her deeds. Even if that person's brain is addicted and wicked by drugs into something that someone would define animal, that person is still intrinsecally a person and not an animal. This is very difficult, as a person who works daily with them I fully admit (never to my patients though) that sometimes I struggle with it, simply because I am human and I have my difficultie and I am as flawed as anyone else.  Sometimes I meet a person that makes me say "no with this one I can't, I feel I can't care enough, he/she hits a nerve within me". It's important to admit it immediately to oneself and to the colleagues because that person is always entitled to the best care and if I can't someone else must. Obviously professional ethics require that this is never communicated to the patient and I am not free to behave in a judging or anything less than professionally correct way towards him/her. I am just required to avoid this person if I am triggered and leave my colleagues dealing with him/her. In my experience this is something that happens mostly with new patients, when we know them better and start seeing them change it's easier to care deeply for them despite their behaviours.

I think that as a society we have a duty to condemn crimes, a duty to protect minors and dependents and a duty to remember that this people are humans and are ill. We don't have a duty to tiptoe around them around them and their issues and those who are affected by their recklessness have a right to be enraged.

The same goes for mental illness with or without addiction. I had such a difficult  time accepting that illness had changed my ex-human's brain, "wicking" it with illness, rather than with drugs but turning him into a completely different person. Same effect though, went from a caring individual to a manipulative, liar with no empathy. It is easy for me and my son to say, "No with this one we can't" because the behaviors are so extreme, so hurtful and as you say "enraging", and so damaging." Son and I went to NAMI Family to Family class and learned so much. Learned to accept and love anyway. There are  those times when can see glimpses of the human who was there but those  times are becoming more and more infrequent. Learn not to expect too much or be too hopeful; just be grateful for those times. The big thing for my family is not to subject ourselves to pointless unnecessary suffering and not to be in denial. Denial only makes things so much worse.  

I don't mean to use this as a springboard for my own issues (or as a "me too") but this is the first time I am writing about my own issue with my very promising 21-year-old son who just might make it into medical school. He is  genetically vulnerable and it is important for me not to bury my head in the sand with false hope by minimizing his problems or feeding my ego with what he could be while ignoring the stress he is under trying to keep up with the grades. I didn't realize that I had so much narcissism about my ability as a mother being tied to his accomplishments. He has told me recently that his impulse control disorder, which used to be dermatillomania when he was has morphed into something else-early signs of kleptomania, which if he continues will have legal consequences for him and his future. We are both attacking this with both barrels and getting top notch help from an OCD clinic even if it breaks the bank. Before I did not get expert help (just worked with a sub-par psychologist who has since had his license suspended) and I feel very guilty about this. And still I want him to achieve. 

So back to the subject, I just want  to repeat  what others have said about never downplaying a DUI or an arrest. Way to go Green Hair in College. Better to respond a problem when it is small, rather than when it is an addiction or a way of life.  My experience is the kids will beg you to take the easy path and once things have calmed down, it is so easy to do that. Statistics from MADD indicate that the average drunk driver has driven drunk 80 times before the first arrest so it is already a very big problem. I would also suggest Al-Anon as a resource for anyone going through this problem.

[Coconut Flan]

8 hours ago, Whipple said:

Statistics from MADD indicate that the average drunk driver has driven drunk 80 times before the first arrest so it is already a very big problem. I would also suggest Al-Anon as a resource for anyone going through this problem.

I would say it could even be higher than that or the ones I have known have been luckier than average.  It's also extremely important that they see the arrest for what it is and that the family enforce/push never driving after drinking even the tiniest amount.  I was very tempted to turn in my manicurist after she told me of having driven "only a few blocks" after two margaritas all while on a suspended license for a DUI.  I settled with do you know the legal consequences if you are caught or have an accident?  She said she looked into it and would not do it again.  The MADD presentation she was forced to attend was what really got her attention. 

[Grimalkin]

@Whipple thank you for posting. Very insightful with lots to think about. It takes a brave parent to look things like that square in the eye and deal with it. I imaging you can really help a lot of people with your expierience. Don't feel bad about anything. You are moving forward that is what matters.

      May I ask what NAMI family is?

[SpoonfulOSugar]

4 minutes ago, Grimalkin said:

May I ask what NAMI family is?

https://www.nami.org/Find-Support/NAMI-Programs

(National Alliance on Mental Illness)

[Tim-Tom Biblethumper]

On 7/10/2016 at 0:20 AM, Grimalkin said:

I have a friend who loves her husband to bits but she is moving out this summer because of how his drinking is affecting her daughter. She is heartbroken. He is a well liked man. She just has had enough I guess. His sober self is what makes it so hard for her.

I just had to chime in here....
My father was an alcoholic from the time I was 8 until his death when I was 30.  It destroyed our family, but my mother wouldn't/couldn't ?? leave.  I begged her to from the time I was a pre-teen.  I wouldn't have minded living in a car if it meant getting away from the turmoil.  He also had his good days and managed to maintain a professional career, but I still cried myself to sleep every night knowing the bad days were coming.  I feel as though my life might be entirely different if I had grown up in a different situation.
I'm 54 now.  
Please relate this to your friend if she's having doubts or if you feel it will help.   

Sidenote:  Not all only-children are spoiled and have their parents come to their rescue.  I'm an only child and saw many of my peers (with many sibs) get away with murder because their parents bailed them out of trouble (at school, with the law), where I always had punishments that stuck, and have been what most would call "clean to the point of squeaky" & "empathetic to a fault".  Just felt the need to say that.