The Insanity We Speak Of
When a family is experiencing all that the disease of addiction has to offer, everyone’s emotional state is challenged and can become distorted. The user has a mind that has been altered so that communicating with family members can become next to impossible. The addict’s denial of life’s reality feeds his inability to communicate with those he loves. At the same time, his friends and family are altered by the co-dependent behaviors the addiction draws them into and they may lose the ability to effectively communicate with love and understanding. They may resort to arguing, numbing out, shutting down, screaming and yelling, repeated logic, defensiveness and confrontations, but none of it works. Why? Because both sides are trying to appease the addiction. It is not an argument that can ever be won. Unless all parties involved become open to understanding the disease and are willing to take the necessary steps of change, they will remain in an ever-increasing state of chaos. This is the insanity we speak of in regard to this illness.
Understanding the insanity this disease creates is not black and white, and what “insanity” means for you, may not be the same for me. That is how clever the disease is. As individuals and families, we contribute to the chaos in our own way. Once realizing I had a problem in my family, my approach to communicating started with confrontationally pointing out realities and using my logical mind to get to the truth. I had no experience dealing with addiction and, as I look back, I can see how ridiculous and ineffective I was. But I now have some time and experience behind me. I have remained open to 12-step meetings, family recovery education, counselors, books and movies that have helped me understand the disease and allowed me to make the changes I needed to make as a family member. When I first started attending meetings, I listened to the experience of others and what continued to create the chaos in their homes. Enabling was a common practice that I heard many family members engage in, which kept the insanity growing. I felt good since I had not done a lot of what I thought to be obvious enabling. But time proved to me that feeding the insanity comes in different forms. What is enabling to one may not be to another, and there is always something your family brings to the table that addiction and codependency can wreak havoc with to create or continue the insanity. One thing I know for sure is that insanity hides behind a mask, allowing it to appear to be something it is not.
For my family, the mask of insanity hid behind the belief that if an addict was clean and sober, he could live in our home and we could rebuild our relationship and support his recovery. We tried this after rehab, after jail, during rehab and after a disastrously dangerous living situation. Each time, it started off great with the best of intentions from both sides. Boundaries were in place and agreed upon. I was taking care of myself by going to the gym and meetings. The chaos returned during the first two attempts since neither the addict nor the family was ready to let go, despite the consequences. Each time the addict returned and left, I made progress. All the while, I continued with my support groups and education and I worked to take care of myself. I became an advocate for Heroes in Recovery. Giving up is not in my nature.
The second to last time he left, it was becoming routine and said, “I will not do this again.” The last time came just before the holidays. We asked for a random drug test and he refused. Whether he was using or not, we stood by our boundary. The chaos looked and felt different this time. It was calmer and quieter. The disease of addiction had morphed itself into something more subtle but still had the ability to be just as destructive. I was different this time as well. The insanity had hit me in the face, allowing me to accept that this was the last time. I said, “I cannot do this again,” but I knew this was about me and not him. The addict moved out that day.
That day, I detached from the disease of addiction and the insanity that I had allowed it to bring into my life. It allowed me to let go of my son and once again turn the situation over to my higher power. I am able to communicate with him with love and understanding because the disease is not between us.
The definition of insanity is when someone does the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. That is exactly what I did. Why hadn’t I seen it before? I was not ready. I had to learn other lessons to get me to this point, and they cannot all be learned at once. Today, I have peace of mind and the freedom to move forward once again. Today, I have moved away from insanity but I remain ever aware that it will try to move back in if I let it. If it knocks on my door, I will have to tell it to live somewhere else.