Denial Can Kill
Denial: “The refusal to acknowledge painful realities, thoughts or feelings.” Step one of the 12 steps states, “We admitted we were powerless over our addiction and that our lives had become unmanageable.” I believe this is possibly the most important step, because if you cannot admit your powerlessness, you cannot move forward toward recovery.
Denial is such a consuming and harmful defense mechanism in the world of addiction. In my case, it revolved around my addicted son. In my head, I knew he had a problem, but my heart just couldn’t accept it. For a long time, the reality was just too much for my mind to deal with. In my son’s case, he couldn’t admit he was an addict, even to himself. It ultimately claimed his life.
My way of handling things was to constantly hound him about it. And his reply was always the same, “I don’t have a problem with drugs! You’re totally exaggerating things!” My heart was only too willing to believe him. My mind, however, was not so willing. I became a control freak and an enabler. I no longer believed his promises. Even though he was in his 20s, I was always trying to protect him and control his every action. I was hiding his secret from the world. In reality, I was just enabling him. Instead of allowing him to experience the consequences of his behavior, I was taking all the responsibility for his actions on my own shoulders, and it was exhausting. Not only did I have to live my own life but I had to control his life too. This is part of the insanity of addiction. You become addicted to “fixing” your addict. And I am here to tell you, you cannot control another person. Let me repeat that: you cannot control another person!
At some point, I became so exhausted from living both of our lives that I was ready to admit I was powerless over the addiction and had lost control of my own life. That’s STEP ONE! I joined a 12-step program and began to work it. I’m not going to say it was easy because it was not! It goes against every parental instinct to let your children suffer and fall. But I kept at it with the tremendous support of others who had walked in my shoes. Sometimes, I screwed up but I kept coming back. And it helped me reclaim my life and my power. As they say, “Keep coming back. It works if you work it.”
My son had a turning point after the death of a very dear friend. It shattered him to his soul. He finally said he was ready to get help and was willing to talk therapy. He still refused rehab or a 12-step program, as he was convinced he could quit on his own. He did quit painfully and horribly cold turkey. I often wondered why he didn’t want to do it with medical supervision, as it would have been so much easier on him. I have come to believe that by going to rehab, he would have had to admit that he was an addict. His thinking was that if he could quit on his own, he wasn’t an addict. There’s that denial problem again. More than once he said, “I’m not like those people. My problem isn’t as severe as theirs.” But the truth is that he was like those people, and there was no shame in that.
He did very well in therapy and had six very positive, happy months. He became his old self again. Unfortunately, temptation from the demon of drugs came to call, and he died of a heroin overdose. I am certain that he thought it would be ok to use “just this one time.” It was his first and only overdose and it was his last. I’ve always felt that maybe if he had allowed the ongoing support of a 12-step program to help him, he might have made it. But he could never completely get past the denial and work step one.
My request of you and my hope for you is to get yourself out of denial, quit worrying about what others think and take that first step. It saved my life. It could very well save yours. Do it for those who didn’t make it and, most importantly, do it for yourself! You are worth it!
In love and light,
Pam