Control the worrying instead of the addict.
For many of us as parents, we can’t imagine not worrying about our children, especially when they are struggling with addiction and behaving in obviously dangerous ways. We stay up all night, we wake up with feelings of dread. We lose our ability to concentrate at work and at home. Our lives grow small and tight as we put all of our focus and energy into our addict. We may become overwhelmed taking on responsibilities that they should take on, like their very own children at times.
If we can take a step back and be really honest with ourselves though, does the worry do any good at all? Does worrying help us make better decisions? Does worrying help us come up with words that help our kids? Does worrying make our kids want to get help? Does the worrying help in any way at all?
I often talk about how addiction is contagious. It’s considered a family disease because we all end up getting sick. Our kids each have their drug of choice and they think of little else other than getting the next hit or the next drink. For us, our kids become our drug of choice and we obsess over them the way they obsess over drugs and alcohol.
We all know that we can’t control the addict yet we keep trying to. Or we decide to stop taking actions to control, but we still spend all our time thinking about the addict and worrying. Even when we say we know we can’t control their behavior, we often find that we have no more peace than we had before, so what good is it?
The bottom line is, we are choosing to worry and obsess. It may not feel like a choice, but it is. Our addict has a disease that is telling him to use drugs, he also has a choice to make but he has a force of nature telling him to make the bad choice. The disease is making the addict feel like they cannot live without the drug. The compulsion to use is as strong as the compulsion to breathe. We don’t have that same disease, and we cannot use the love of our child as the excuse to surrender our own lives to fear and worry over him or her. We have to break the cycle of one disease destroying everyone.
We cannot control the addict but we can control the worrying. The only thing we actually have control over is how we respond to the world around us. The weather, war, pandemic, other people, traffic, lines at the grocery store, we can’t control any of it. All we can do is let it stress us out, or do our best and move on. I make it sound simple, which it is, but simple doesn’t mean easy. It’s not easy to change ourselves, but it’s what we stay up all night worrying about and hoping our addict does. So, let it begin with us. Let’s change ourselves the way we hope our beloved and suffering child will change themselves. Let's regain control over our own lives.
How many of us feel like we have lost all power over our lives? That’s because we’ve been using our power in ways that it doesn’t work. When we try to use our power to change others, it makes us feel powerless. If we have a flood in our house and try to use a hairdryer to dry the floors, the hairdryer will seem useless. It’s not useless, it’s just not meant to dry up after a flood. If you use it to dry your hair it will still work well. It’s the same thing with our own power. It only works when we use it on ourselves. We have tremendous power to change our lives and how we feel even if nothing else in our lives changes. We can choose to love without taking responsibility and to show compassion without obsessively worrying. When we do this, we free up all that energy that we have wasted and we can begin, once again, to use it to make our own lives better and when we are better, we can be better for everyone around us.
Worrying becomes a really bad habit just like eating junk food every night or smoking. The best way to break a bad habit is to change your routine around the triggers for that bad habit. Move a muscle, change a thought. The next time you wake up in the middle of the night worrying, have a plan. I keep a sensory box next to my bed along with a stack of spiritual and personal growth books, and of course, my dogs. The sensory box has a beautiful piece of soft velvet in my favorite color, chartreuse. It also has a few smooth stones and a few pieces of sea glass. I’ve included a few essential oils whose smells make me feel happier and more calm. If I wake up worrying in the middle of the night, or if I wake up with angst in the morning, the first thing I do is say thank you to God and the universe for the fact that I am still here. Then I either reach for my sensory box and touch or smell something beautiful and calming. Sometimes I’ll reach for a book and read a daily reading, or a blessing or a few pages to remind me of all the good things in my life. Then I always roll over and rub my dogs’ bellies. That simple act of kindness towards my dogs is rewarded a thousand fold by their pure joy and trust. Their unconditional love and trust reminds me that my child’s addiction is not my fault and that I am worthy of joy and happiness even if others I love are not happy.
Like changing our diets or starting an exercise routine, the process is simple, eat better and go to the gym, but actually doing it can be really hard. We can train ourselves to worry less. We can be sad about our child’s situation AND be happy about other things. We can choose to not waste our energy on worrying but rather to spend that energy making sure that we are living our own lives to the fullest.