I’ve spent my whole adult life advocating for change - changed systems, changed policies, changed organizations and changed communities. Like many moms, I’ve reinvented myself over and over as I’ve done it. New jobs, new skills, new identities driven by the constant need for self-improvement sold to mothers as we strive to carry the load and responsibility of raising our children to the best of our ability in a world where governments rarely consider children in their policy making.
Believing change is possible clearly is the assumption behind my work and behind my choices and yet when it comes to motivating change in people and families around addiction, I’ve rarely seen it. Quite the opposite. The cycle of trauma and hurt caused by drug, especially alcohol, use in families has repeated so relentlessly that I had essentially given up hope. Our treatment industry and the public health policies around addiction treatment seem fairly hopeless as we continuously fail to address the systems that cover up the truth. There is proven science around what works to treat and to prevent the damage alcohol and drug use in families causes to the physical and mental health of our children and the massive cost to our society and economy.
For a book project, I’ve been reading widely on the real cost of substance use, the failure of policy and care to not only prevent addiction, but to treat it with solutions that work and the continued shame and stigma which help the keep loved ones silent for too long - making recovery more difficult for everyone impacted.
While I’m not filled with hope, I’m no longer totally hopeless. Here are a few of the books which are worth sharing. My main takeaways for now are:
Alcohol is much more addictive and harmful to your brain, your family, and your relationship then anyone thinks.
Drug and alcohol use isn’t an individual, personal, or private issue - it is a public health problem and someone else’s drug use can hurt your health as much as them.
Most people stop using substances without a formal treatment program. Conversations from concerned professionals and loved ones have to happen though.
If you want to prevent addiction and mental health issues in your teenagers and kids, don’t drink or use drugs regularly in your home or around them.
Delaying alcohol and marijuana use (or any other drug use) until 21, basically guarantees a person won’t become addicted in their lifetime.
Long Going
by Sophie Calon
This is a unique memoir from a daughter about her father’s drinking and death published by Honno Press, an independent co-operative publishing Welsh and English writing. Her story is shocking in the unique and universal ways her life, her mother’s life, and her siblings life were upended by her father’s behavior. The uniqueness lies in the still pervasive silence on the experience of children and teens growing up in homes with excessive alcohol use. From the outside, outrage at the abuse Sophie endured is seductive, but she also chronicles the love and care her father showed her and the many hallmarks of a functional family.
The Addiction Inoculation
by Jessica Lahey
Lahey is an author, teacher, and parent who taught in a residential program for teens with substance use disorder and this book translates the research on prevention factors and conditions in families and schools into useable language and strategies. It can be a bit overwhelming depending on the readers’ circumstance since many of the conditions aren’t easy to implement as individuals. Once can only hope policy makers and officials who make decisions and allocate resources to youth services have read it. There are practical prompts and conversation starters for parents and Lahey’s honesty about her own drinking, parenting, and evolution of her family’s experience are a highlight.
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change
by Jeffrey Foote Ph.D., Carrie Wilkens Ph.D. and Nicole Kosanke Ph.D. with Stephanie Higgs
This is one of the only resources for families of loved ones with unhealthy substance use. The authors are the founders of an addiction treatment center and have decades of clinical research and experience behind their practical strategies for families and friends who want to collaborate with their loved ones on addiction treatment. Rather than traditional messages of “tough love” or co-dependency, the guide uses proven motivational and behavioral strategies to help everyone to collaborate to create a changed environment that can lead to a range of improvements.
Good Morning, Destroyer of Men’s Souls
by Nina Renata Aron
Gender, love and addiction are the central themes of Aron’s story. Growing up on the East Coast with a sister struggling with drug use from an early age and a family circling around her addiction, Aron describes her own addiction to chaos and caring which defines her relationship with herself and love through this story. The complete contrast between the private pain and risky behavior and the public image of a capable mother is striking. Anyone who has spent time in Al-Anon and perhaps not felt at home, will find the radical candor placed in the wider context of how wives and mothers have been treated in AA refreshing and eye-opening.
Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy
by David Scheff
The author of Beautiful Boy, a brutal account of a father’s experience of his teenager’s addiction, has gone on to report extensively on addiction. This is a thoroughly depressing chronicle of America’s failure to prevent or treat our largest and most devastating health crisis. Like most of our social and health systems, Sheff convincingly demonstrates that we know what we should do to help everyone, but we don’t.
