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Substance Abuse
Pot is a gateway drug for many
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<blockquote data-quote="mrsammler" data-source="post: 521279"><p>"difficult child thinks, talks and plans for the next drug/alcohol use 24/7. Her life revolves around it and she enjoys that life."</p><p></p><p>That's my difficult child nephew, to a T. And almost all difficult children as well, as far as I can tell.</p><p></p><p>The thing is, I don't think they're that way because they're addicts. I think that being this way is a symptom of an underlying cause, and as has been noted broadly in this forum, the root cause is some kind of as-yet-not-clearly-categorized mental illness. From a ton of observation, I think it stems from an inability to recognize and commit to the standard rhythms, rituals, and mechanism of ordinary life--get up, do school or the job, come home, relax/rest and pursue other interests, then sleep and start the same cycle the next day--so that the arcana and rituals and mechanism of doing/chasing drugs fills the void and makes them feel alive and productive and purposeful in the ways that ordinary life makes the rest of us feel alive and productive and purposeful. I do know that EVERY difficult child I've ever known or heard of seems to regard drug-chasing and -taking as an entirely worthwhile and productive use of their time and energy--and that they feel as empty and rudderless when they (are forced to) stop as the rest of us do when, for instance, we lose our jobs or suffer some similar major disruption in the standard rituals & activities & cycles of behavior that make *our* lives feel productive and worthwhile.</p><p></p><p>I saw a clip on YouTube recently of a former drug addict giving advice to parents of addicts and she warned that, when your addict child gets out of rehab, you MUST give him/her plenty to do, have lots of structure and scheduled activity and all of that (the stuff that addicts really relish about rehab, evidently: all of that structure and scheduled activity that fills their days), because (and this really struck me) "we just don't know how to live a life--at all." That seems at the very core of GFGness: each day is a meaningless, structureless, pointless canyon of time, so they fill it with partying and drugging and the pursuit of those activities--whereas the rest of us easily fill it with the standard routine: getting up, doing school/job, coming home and relaxing & pursuing personal interests, then closing the day with sleep. It's so simple and automatic for us and it's SO foreign and intolerably undoable for difficult children. And that is SO sad--to be unable to live or fill one's days in ordinary, productive (or at least unharmful) ways. I can't imagine what that's like, but it's gotta be terrible.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mrsammler, post: 521279"] "difficult child thinks, talks and plans for the next drug/alcohol use 24/7. Her life revolves around it and she enjoys that life." That's my difficult child nephew, to a T. And almost all difficult children as well, as far as I can tell. The thing is, I don't think they're that way because they're addicts. I think that being this way is a symptom of an underlying cause, and as has been noted broadly in this forum, the root cause is some kind of as-yet-not-clearly-categorized mental illness. From a ton of observation, I think it stems from an inability to recognize and commit to the standard rhythms, rituals, and mechanism of ordinary life--get up, do school or the job, come home, relax/rest and pursue other interests, then sleep and start the same cycle the next day--so that the arcana and rituals and mechanism of doing/chasing drugs fills the void and makes them feel alive and productive and purposeful in the ways that ordinary life makes the rest of us feel alive and productive and purposeful. I do know that EVERY difficult child I've ever known or heard of seems to regard drug-chasing and -taking as an entirely worthwhile and productive use of their time and energy--and that they feel as empty and rudderless when they (are forced to) stop as the rest of us do when, for instance, we lose our jobs or suffer some similar major disruption in the standard rituals & activities & cycles of behavior that make *our* lives feel productive and worthwhile. I saw a clip on YouTube recently of a former drug addict giving advice to parents of addicts and she warned that, when your addict child gets out of rehab, you MUST give him/her plenty to do, have lots of structure and scheduled activity and all of that (the stuff that addicts really relish about rehab, evidently: all of that structure and scheduled activity that fills their days), because (and this really struck me) "we just don't know how to live a life--at all." That seems at the very core of GFGness: each day is a meaningless, structureless, pointless canyon of time, so they fill it with partying and drugging and the pursuit of those activities--whereas the rest of us easily fill it with the standard routine: getting up, doing school/job, coming home and relaxing & pursuing personal interests, then closing the day with sleep. It's so simple and automatic for us and it's SO foreign and intolerably undoable for difficult children. And that is SO sad--to be unable to live or fill one's days in ordinary, productive (or at least unharmful) ways. I can't imagine what that's like, but it's gotta be terrible. [/QUOTE]
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