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Drugs, and your information on them.
I was interested in the sources of information from which you got the first two paragraphs of your answer here. Ill quote.
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You should be direct with him. Drugs are not an issue to be taken lightly. The people who do drug counseling know that being direct is what works. Because people who abuse drugs and alcohol have every excuse in the book. Here is one thing I know, and have learned from having drug and alcohol abuse in my family of orgin.
The day that a young teenager picks up alcohol or drugs and starts to use them continually, is the day that he/she stops growing emotionally. So what happens is when this person who has been abusing drugs and/or alcohol gives it up at the age of 40, still has the emotional IQ of a teenager. He/she does not behave well as a father or husband (wife or mother) and has to start all over again. And the family suffers. This is true.
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I am interested specifically because of the quoted psychology. That when a person begins a drug habit that they stop maturing emotionally.
Well, you specified teenager. I was wondering if that is a psychology specific to teenagers or if it applies to adults as well, and where the information came from. Ive studied a bit of psychology related to addiction, and this seems to disagree rather severely with what Ive read/have been told.
I can understand the perspective borne of negative experiences with family and drugs, most definitely, but from everything Ive ever understood a substance addiction is usually evidence of emotional immaturity, rather than the cause. Addiction is more often a symptom of other problems or deficiencies in personality.
I would just be interested in whatever materials you got this information from. As psychology is largely a matter of logic and opinion rather than physical fact its always interesting to read a differing opinion.
Thanks.
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Thanks for leaving a question in my in box.
And your query is very interesting and to get the answer I have to go back in time.
Where do I start? I have read sooo many books on substance abuse, I don't know if I can name them all, but I will give you the titles or authors that I found most memorable. I have only had a few psychology courses in college, (it was not my major). The books that I found most interesting and helpful were by authors who studied ACOA and/or lived it. Toxic Parents by Dr. Susan Forward, C0-Depdent No More by Melody Beattie, Adult Children of Alcoholics by Janet Woititz. Each book led me further on my path to emotional maturity. I personally did not abuse drugs an alcohol as my as other members of my family did, but their abuse stunted their own growth and the growth of other family members. (emotionally I mean.)
As a family, and individually, we all had opportunities to receive one on one therapy. What I found, personally, is that the "therapist" who were college gradutes with MSW degrees were less in tune with the dynamics of what was actually going on in our family, than those therapist who came by their positions from living the 'life', then finding sobriety, and then sought out positions where they could help other addicts.
I have come to believe that emotional growth is a learned behavior. If parents or guardians do not display emotionally healthy problem solving skills when dealing with life's ups and downs, their children won't learn them either.
I hope that I am making myself clear.
Parents are responsble for the healthy emotional growth of their children from the day that they are born. So if we indulge children who throw temper tantrums, or who cry, or who whine, and give in to them, we are not raising children who will be able to delay gratification. If parents just appease children, and give in, children learn that their bad behavior gets resutls. The behavior becomes a viscious circle, and a learned behavior because it gets them the results they think they want. Parents create this visious cycle and think they are powerless to stop it. They turn more and more to substance abuse rather than deal with it. Parents turn to the bottle when things get hard. Kids don't see any successful problem solving. Problems rear their ugly heads, then things calm down, but they always come back, because they are never solved.
The children fail to grow emotionally, they fail to learn coping skills, and they learn that medicating is the answer.
And I have seen in my own family, and in the families of in-laws, that alcohol and drugs are not the only things that people can be addicted to. ACOA behavior can take many forms, and the effect can be multi-generational. I have known adults who were addicted to food, romance novels, television....things that took up a large portion of their time and energy, and keep them from forming healthy relationships. Yet each one of them would have argued with you that there was anything wrong with their behavior because it didn't involve drugs or alcohol. In this case, this family's alcholism spanned three generations, yet in the nuclear family that I married into, no one drank.
"The sins of the father are visited on the children." Is a great quote, and I don't know who said it, but most likely it was said by someone who witnessed bad behavior that spanned a few generations.
I have seen the lack of emotional growth in my own family of orgin, and I can see now the lack of emotional growth in my parents, who were responsbile for raising emotionally healthy children. They couldn't. They weren't given the tools when they were growing up. Due to substance abuse and various other reasons.
When it came time for me to be a parent, I KNEW that I did not want to raise my kids, as I was raised, but I was at a loss. My initial reaction was to act just like my mother. It scared me, a lot. But in the 80's there were few books out there that gave you advice on how to raise healthy kids when you have not had an idyllic childhood yourself. So I turned to books on alcoholism, and that helped, but it was mostly about how to stop drinking yourself. What I eventually found were books on ACOA. And they really opened my eyes about my own behavior, and how to STOP the cycle of poor parenting due to substance abuse which resulted in poor emotional growth, or just plain good samples of good parenting.
Well I hope that I made myself clear. I am sorry if I went on too long. If anything was not clear, please feel free to ask for clarification.
Thanks
Michele
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