Latest / Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour / Dangerous Relationships. Ep 1 part 1. Living With Addiction

Transcript

Dangerous Relationships. Ep 1 part 1. Living With Addiction · Inside The Consulting Room - Understanding the Child Behind the Behaviour

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist, and this is the first episode of the series Dangerous Relationships.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to break this episode into two parts because it's rather long.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's a complex area.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's entitled When Everything Revolves Around Danger, Living with Addiction.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I use the term addiction, I'm referring largely to substance addiction, but there are also other forms, behavioral addictions of one kind or another.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll probably look at those in a bit more detail in the second part.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: But in the previous introductory episode, we explored what makes a relationship dangerous.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we concluded that dangerous relationships aren't simply defined by conflict or unhappiness.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: They become dangerous when one person's repeated pattern of behavior gradually erodes another person's emotional well-being, physical freedom, sense of identity, and sometimes physical safety.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to explore one of the most painful and most misunderstood of all dangerous relationships, and that's living with addiction.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when people hear that word addiction, they think about alcohol or drugs, and they think about what the individual, they think about the individual who is addicted.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And clinically that's understandable, but psychologically, addiction rarely belongs to one person for very long.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So very quickly, addiction becomes the organizing principle of an entire family, and everything begins revolving around it.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Plans revolve around it, finances, children, arguments, hope, fear.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And eventually every member of the family finds themselves asking the same question, which is what will happen today?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the uncertainty is exhausting.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the defining features of addiction is unpredictability.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know who is coming home today.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know what mood they will be in.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know whether they'll be intoxicated, remorseful, angry, or affectionate.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know whether today's promise will finally be the one that changes everything.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Living with addiction means living with chronic uncertainty.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that leaves people in a state of heightened stress arousal and anxiety.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the greatest generators of anxiety that we know.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it places the nervous systems of family members into a constant state of vigilance.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: You stop relaxing, you start scanning, listening, watching, anticipating, preparing.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in that way you become emotionally organized around danger.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I've chosen this title for today's episode, When Everything It Revolves Around Danger, because it does.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: The person living with addiction lives with danger.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: The partner lives with danger, and so do the children and the wider family.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Will they lose their job?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Will they drive whilst intoxicated?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Will they spend the mortgage money?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The money for the house?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Will they become aggressive?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Will the police arrive?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Will they overdose?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Will they survive the night?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: Will this be the last telephone conversation we ever have?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Those questions are dramatic, they're real.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I've listened to many accounts of people saying exactly the same thing.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so for many families, this is a truth that they live alongside.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the greatest misconceptions about addiction is that it's simply about substance, but it isn't.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the gradual loss of freedom.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And at first the individual appears to choose the alcohol, the drugs, the behavior.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, something changes.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: The addiction starts making the choices.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this isn't a failure of character, nor is an absence is it an absence of intelligence.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is a progressive illness that alters judgment, priorities, emotional regulation, and behavior.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not saying this because that in any way removes responsibility, but it helps us explain why good intentions alone are so rarely enough.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most heartbreaking aspects of addiction is that the cycle, it just continues to generate stress and craving and use and relief and regret, promises, hope, and then relapse.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very typical pattern in, we see this in recovery, that people who are endeavoring to become clean will go through cycles that end with relapse.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: People who work in this area take that as a given, it's going to happen.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the hope is that if that person is still participating in a recovery program, the relapses become fewer until eventually the person is dry.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: But until that time, the cycle just begins again and again.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, families become trapped inside that cycle just as completely as the addict.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now, every relapse is followed by remorse, uh, is followed by promises, and every promise rekindles hope, and hope is wonderful, but hope, when disconnected from meaning or meaningful change, can just become another prison.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: How many partners have heard those words?
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last time.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I promise, I've realized what I've done.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never put you through this again.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have my word.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I think at the point that those those promises, those words are spoken, they really are meant.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: But addiction is much stronger than promises.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's something else in that cycle that I've seen a number of times, and it's externalizing and minimizing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Quite often people with addiction will maybe have the initial remorse or the initial crash, but then they will rationalize and they will externalize.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we see what is called blame throwing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I did it because of this person, of that person, all these different things that are wrong, and they externalize.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of behavior isn't just confined to addiction.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some people will happily and consistently throw the blame at others for their predicaments.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And just like people who have addictions, they don't take responsibility until eventually something, you know, something goes really wrong.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: But what happens is that families slowly begin living from one promise to the next.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the saddest realities I encounter in my work is that partners are often they become addicted to hope.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Not because they're naive, it's because they're desperate.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh hope allows them to believe that tomorrow will finally be different.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And hope keeps the relationships alive, and that's awful.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, to to to be living on hope.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reminded of that phrase, you know, live in hope, die in despair.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: But hope without recovery keeps people trapped.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And over time, something else starts happening.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: The family starts adapting to the to the addiction.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And without realizing it, they they begin protecting it.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: They will be the ones who phone the employers with excuses, and they're the ones that cover up embarrassing incidents.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they may pay off debts, they rescue, they smooth things over, they try and protect children from the truth, they hide bottles, uh, they search rooms, they're constantly monitoring, and this process has a name.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that name is enabling.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Enabling behavior is that which doesn't encourage, but it what what it does is it allows the behavior to continue because it's not being challenged.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: It it is not calling it as it is.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's as if the person with the addict the addiction will they will have the narrative that explains their actions and their con and the consequences, and people buy into that, at least in as much as they they don't challenge it, because they know that if they challenge it, something bad is going to happen.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're trapped.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And enabling is often misunderstood because sometimes people people see it as weakness, but in fact, it isn't.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: It almost comes, well, as I said comes from in the beginning from love, care and concern.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: But soon it becomes a protective mechanism because it's much easier in the moment to not challenge, to not face the truth.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think because ultimately this is what we're talking about.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we're talking about the truth.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth of an addict can be found in the bottom of a glass or a bottle.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: That is their truth.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I think people don't want to see other people suffering.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: They're it they're enabling because they care.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And because they care, watching someone they love destroy themselves is is unbearable because they hope this one intervention might make the difference because they fear the consequences if they didn't help, because they're frightened, and perhaps nowhere is that gr fear greater than this.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Many partners quietly live with an unspoken terror.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: They become frightened.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: If they establish boundaries, if they stop rescuing, then if they refuse to provide money and they insist upon treatment, or if they finally leave, then the person they love may die, and that is a very real fear.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And some addicts will say that.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some addicts will, people with severe addiction, will say, I want to die.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no point in me being here.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mess everything up.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Now, whilst whilst that may be true in the moment that it's said, or it may even be a pervasive reality, the person on the other side of that doesn't know how how that they take it seriously, they're frightened.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, of course they are.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there's enough research into suicide and the relationship between that and addiction to listen to those words and think this could happen.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: That that that puts that puts the other person and other people in a terrible position because essentially they feel as if they have to hold the life of the other in their hands, which paradoxically is what's keeping them where they are.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll we'll come on to that.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes they imagine this person's death.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it may be intentional through an overdose or or something else, or perhaps through an accident, suicide very definitely, and those fears are profoundly distressing.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's important to acknowledge that these fears are real, but it's equally important to recognize something else that no one person can assume responsibility for another adult's addiction.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not possible.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: We can influence, we can encourage, we can support, we can love, but we cannot recover on another person's behalf.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we you know with the term codependency is used, and it reminds me of those relationships where a person ends up occupying a role that the other person relies upon.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: It could be that the person who is being relied upon is the listener, the provider, the rescuer, the always there.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, underneath that is something really quite toxic because one person is being used and the other, for whatever reasons, is allowing that to happen, probably because they don't see it, probably because their blind spots are activated, because they're in that situation.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nowhere is this more true in families where addiction, relationships where addiction is is apparent.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Confronting it is one of the most liberating things we can do.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's also one of the hardest.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I will come back with part two shortly.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.