Deceived: Facing Sexual Betrayal, Lies & Secrets

Deceived: Facing Sexual Betrayal, Lies, and Secrets is my newest book in which I offer women in relationships plagued by sexual betrayal the care and guidance to create a new path of clarity, direction, and confidence. I show them how to proactively emerge from emotional isolation, shed secrets and shame, and discover their power to incite positive change in their relationships.
Deceived is available at my website

Question:
I'm in a support group for women whose boyfriends or husbands are acting out sexually. As I listen to other's stories and their feelings of anger, sadness, and resentment, I wonder what's wrong with me. More than anything, I'm just tired and numb. Shouldn't I be feeling something more?

Answer:
The challenge with letting go when you're at the end of your rope is that you quickly get in touch with deeper feelings. For women like you, the depth of your pain and anguish or fear may be so profound that you don't know how you will survive. The breadth of anger you feel is so pervasive you are convinced you won’t have any self-control. The natural response is to scramble for any type of control. Think of the adage, "To make lemonade out of a lemon is great, but to refuse to acknowledge the lemon ever existed is denial,"--denial of yourself and your experiences. It is when you own and accept your feelings--whether you feel irritated, fearful, sad, humiliated, or joyous--that you will be able to embrace life, to move forward. To be whole you need to be able to access a range of feelings. Part of your recovery is learning to identify a wide scope of feelings and then learning the healthy expression of those feelings. The following are some initial suggestions to begin this process of owning your feelings:

Journal. Carry a notebook with you. Throughout the day, or at a specific time every day, write about what you've been feeling.

Create a feelings list. Make a list of feelings and carry it with you. Bring it out three times daily and ask yourself what you have been feeling.
For example:

• I am feeling guilty about_______.
• I am feeling sad about ________.
• I am feeling afraid about ________.
• I am feeling angry about _________.
• I am feeling embarrassed about _______.

Share what you are feeling with someone you trust.

Affirm your emotional self. Identify two affirmations that will support you in acknowledging your feelings. For example: "I have the right to my feelings" and "My feelings help me identify my needs."

Breathe deeply. People close off their feelings when they take shallow breaths. Check your breathing throughout the day and particularly at times of vulnerability. Take a deep breath in for three seconds, exhale slowly for three seconds; repeat five times. In time expand this to five seconds, five times.

Learning to own your feelings won't be easy because you have probably spent a lifetime not being safe with your feelings. It is likely that you gleaned your understanding of what to do with your feelings from people who denied them, people who contradicted your perception of reality and generally could not express positive or negative feelings in healthy ways. That modeling then became reinforced in your relationship with someone who sexually acts out. He is not there to listen, to validate, or to offer support. In fact he most often discounts, ignores, and denies your feelings. He rages in anger or walks away in silence. He tells you there is no reason for you to feel the way you do. It’s possible he tells you that not only do you have no reason to be fearful, angry, or sad, but in fact you should be grateful. With so many previous negative experiences, it is likely you have a lot of fears of what would happen should you show feelings.
Fears such as:

• Others won't like me.
• People are going to be able to see how bad I am.
• I'll be seen as weak, and that is bad.
• People will tell me I have no reason to feel this way.
• I will be out of control, and that is not okay.
• I will be vulnerable to getting hurt.
• People will take advantage of me.

You may be at a stage where you have difficulty expressing your feelings because you have difficulty identifying them. You may not recognize anger as you stand with your fists clenched and arms tightly folded. I have worked with women who had tears rolling down their faces, and when asked what they were feeling, they didn’t know. Many coaddicts smile broadly through their fear, humiliation, and anger.

Feelings are cues that signal what you need. If you pay attention to your feelings, you will become more adept at knowing your needs. Feelings also help you determine the boundaries you need to set to provide security for yourself. They are your signals to comfort, safety, discomfort, and danger. A mark of recovery is the ability to know what you feel when you feel it; to be comfortable with your emotional self, and then determine whether or not and with whom you share feelings.

Parenting Under the Influence

In this rapidly changing world, there’s one thing that never changes: we all want to make sure that our kids grow up healthy, happy, and most of all, capable of dealing with life in the 21st century. How can we, as parents, educators and care-givers help them?

I recently took part in a TVOParents.com webcast panel discussion on the ways that drug and alcohol abuse affect children.

In “Parenting Under the Influence” myself and co-panelists Christine Sloss and Steve Hall discuss issues such as:

When does parental substance use become a problem?
How many substance abusers are parents?
What is life like for kids of substance abusers?
How does parental substance abuse affect kids’ learning?

Visit the TVOParents.com website to view the webcastalong with my list of indications that a child may be living with family substance abuse.

TVOParents.com, is a community resource for advice, news, interactive tools, and the latest educational research. It’s all designed to help you help your kids succeed in learning, and in life. TVOParents.com brings together parents, care-givers, and education experts in a welcoming, online community.

Disclosure to Children

What and how should children be told of their parent’s sexually addictive behavior? How does disclosure impact the parent-child relationship? Do children want to be told, and if so, what age is appropriate for the disclosure? Are there protective factors, such as a therapist’s presence, that promote healthy disclosure? How much information should be shared?

Keeping a secret is like sitting on a time bomb. Powerful events initiate the need to keep a secret, but once kept, the secret itself becomes an explosive device. When and where will the explosion take place? Will it happen in my home with all my family present, in front of the media, in the courtroom, or in my mind? Can I escape the explosion, move to some other place in the world, or into some other place in my mind? And will I survive the explosion?

Addiction professionals have long recognized that addiction flourishes in isolation and secrecy. It is a common therapeutic belief that secrets not only interfere with recovery; they preclude the possibility of recovery, or fuel relapse. The questions remain: who is the recipient of the disclosure, how much is disclosed, and when does it occur?

For the addict, disclosure: reinforces accountability in recovery; reinforces honesty with others and self; and facilitates the letting go of shame. Most sex addiction professionals believe disclosure is beneficial to the addict, their spouse and the “couple-ship.” Truth telling is an important step in restoring trust.
Such disclosure has the potential to:

• Allow for an adult-to-adult relationship on an equal basis;
• Empower the spouse/partner with truth;
• Give the spouse/partner the ability to make healthy choices based on the truth;
• Allow the spouse/partner to embrace recovery; and
• Break the addictive system.

Disclosure to children regarding sexually addictive behavior is undoubtedly a situation that no parent wants to anticipate or face. Yet, for the health of the family, there needs to be a time and manner in which to discuss sexual behavior. In reality we live in a highly sexualized culture. Children are bombarded with sexual messages through the media, television, music, and the Internet. With so much cultural shame attached to sexuality, sex has become a major source of acting out behavior. When sexual addiction exists within a family, the need to dialogue about sexuality surfaces earlier than parents would have chosen, but the disclosure can be looked at as an opportunity for children to gain an awareness of what is healthy sexuality and intimacy.

Children Know
Prior to disclosure, children knew of their parent’s behavior or they suspected it. Parents seldom want to share their secrets with their children. They want to protect their children from pain. Yet many children knew, suspected, or would learn of their parent’s acting-out behavior. As much as parents wish to protect children from their own mistakes or hurtful behaviors, keeping secrets does not provide the sought after protection.

I was surprised that my mother was not aware that I knew. I carried this secret with me my entire adolescence and no one knew!

I knew. I had read my father’s diary. It was quite a shock. I told my best friend, but I never told anyone else.

I can’t be totally honest about anything anymore because I am bound to keep his secret. So a good part of my life is a big fat lie now.

Sure I would rather have not known about any of this. I don’t think any of us who have had this experience want to know this stuff. But that is impossible because in my case I was living in a house with two addicts, my father a sex addict and my mother addicted to him.

I don’t know which part is the most unfair, that he is doing what he does or that he doesn’t know I am like the fair princess who has to keep the knight’s honor clean.

Children’s Reactions
At the time of the disclosure, many experienced anger: anger for the pain caused to the other parent, anger for the embarrassment, but predominantly, anger over their lives having been turned upside down.

I felt like I wanted to punch them. But I just sat there.

They were often fearful of the financial ramifications.

My dad was going on about his being a sex addict and treatment and steps and other stuff that I could care less about and the word bankruptcy came up because at the time we were being sued, and that really struck a chord with me. What did that mean for me? Would I lose my bike?

For many children the term “sex addiction” created a picture of their parent being a pervert or a child molester. They frequently found themselves in fear of a parent whom they had previously trusted.

I felt sick, horrified. What are other people going to think? Can I be left home alone with him?

Confusion was a predominant feeling about the impact the behavior would have on the child or their family.

I was only seven! I was too little to understand. And now we had to move, and I had to leave my friends. That is what I understood. The last thing I needed was to feel different from other kids.

I was really too young (eleven). I didn’t know much about sex and it was foreign. I really couldn’t imagine my dad doing the things he did and that was hard for me.

This made my relationship with my dad very awkward when I didn’t find it that way before. I felt very uncomfortable being left alone with him.

Children often acted compliant or even reached out to emotionally take care of their parent(s).

I knew my dad was feeling forced to tell me. If he didn’t tell me, my stepmother would. She was really angry and was divorcing him. He was crying and so embarrassed, I didn’t know what to do or feel, mostly I felt sorry for him. He really was my only safe parent, and I knew what he did was suppose to be bad, but how could I be angry? I was more scared I would lose him.

I felt like I had to defend and protect my father.

While some children were shocked and confused, some found immediate relief.

I was initially so shocked, my stomach kind of dropped. I had this dialogue going on inside. I can’t believe I am hearing this. It just blew me away and at the same time incredible relief, wow.

Some children experienced immediate validation. There were reasons they had lived with the confusion, anger, and mixed messages.

I was not crazy. I had known all along!

I think a lot of parents think that their kids don’t know. I think that is a huge mistake. We know almost everything our parents’ do. We aren’t stupid. We may not know exactly what it is but we know enough to wonder why our parents are doing this. I think disclosure is a good thing.

Rationale for Disclosure
Why do we tell children? There are four pertinent reasons to disclose to children.

1) Validation: Disclosure validates what they know. Having their unspoken perceptions validated takes away the “craziness” of knowing but not knowing. It diminishes the additional shame and anxiety that comes with secrecy.

2) Exposure: Children will find out. Others who know will tell them, such as a parent, a sibling, someone in the community, the media, or another source. Thoughtful disclosure can be offered in a healthy manner to counteract a mean spirited, or otherwise simply thoughtless act.

3) Safety: If a parent has engaged in sexual behavior with young people, and the child lives in the addict’s home, or visits the addict, the child needs to be educated on how to protect themselves and what to do in case of a suspected or known behavior. If a child’s safety is threatened, he or she may be better able to protect him or herself if they have prior knowledge of the behavior. Children need to know they are not at fault if an act or behavior occurs. The departments of social and health services within the states and the courts are often involved at this stage and it may be that visiting is not allowed or allowed only with supervision. It is always the responsibility of adults to protect the interests and welfare of the children.

4) Breaking generational cycle: Addictive behavior is a cycle that repeats itself generationally. To be able to discuss the addiction honestly, to offer an understanding of addiction and recovery sets the stage for the potential of the cycle to not be repeated.

Appropriate Age
At what age is disclosure most appropriate? Ideally, a minimum age of mid-adolescence. If the children are pre- or early adolescent, the issues of the child’s safety or exposure to the information via another avenue are the strongest reasons to talk to them. It is my bias that even though pre- and early adolescents say they were aware, developmentally they need a greater belief in the stability of the family. It is the child’s own sense of security that is most challenged at this moment. To have sexual data about their parent prior to mid-adolescence is too confusing for them to be able to derive positive meaning or value from having that information. Certainly maturity varies greatly and the professional involved needs to assess the maturity level. By mid-adolescence, as much as children don’t want to be told, being told validates their knowing and they can better cope with the information.
There is no negating the difficulty of the decision to disclose. There are times when a pre-adolescent’s behavior may be the greatest indicator of the need to disclose. They may be acting-out confusion, fear, or anger in aggressive or otherwise destructive ways; they may demonstrate sexual behavior premature to their development (e.g., a nine-year-old hiding pornographic magazines). They may be repetitively asking questions that point to some knowledge on their part (e.g., “Is Dad still working late with that woman again?”).

Healthy Disclosure
While there is no ideal situation, the following criteria support a healthy environment for disclosure to children.

• Disclosure is facilitated with a clinician or therapist
• Both parents are present and participatory
• Both parents are in agreement to disclose to the children
• Both parents articulate why this is important and of value to the child
• Both parents have strategized and agreed upon what is and is not disclosed
• Parents speak for themselves. The addict and co-addict each speak about their own behavior
• The addicts speaks in generalities about addictive behavior, not specific details
• Parents display signs of recovery
• Neither parent takes on the role of victim
• Child is not used as a confidant
• Parents are clear that it is not the child’s responsibility to fix or take care of their parents’ needs. It is very easy for the child to become caught in a triangle of choosing sides and then reacting on behalf of the person or one who is perceived to be the victim-parent at the moment
• An ongoing openness for dialogue and discussion with a clinician is demonstrated
• Set the tone for the child to know he or she can discuss it with you as they need to or as you believe it is appropriate. To say or imply, “We’ll talk about this today and never again talk about it” reinforces the shame of disclosure and the behavior. Disclosure is not a one-time process.

Historically the disclosure process to children has been the sexually addicted parent sharing information about their behavior. It is my belief that the co-sex addict also has a role in the disclosure process. While this is not a time for an educational presentation on coaddiction, children frequently want to know how long the coaddict has known, how he or she is feeling, and if a divorce is imminent. Their main concern is how their life will be affected.
Upon hearing disclosure, most adolescents and certainly pre-adolescents don’t understand addiction even when it is explained to them and, consequently, are more concerned with the sense of emotional betrayal. Children want to hear and feel hope, thus, it is the responsibility of parents and helping professionals to reassure children that the adults are handling and taking control of this painful situation.

Basic Rule: Parents must exercise caution whenever they intend to disclose sensitive information to children. Always consider what is best for the child. Whether or not a child asks directly, there are crucial questions that need to be answered.

What Does it Mean to be a Sex Addict?
The word addiction or compulsivity doesn’t make sense to most children. It is important that the parent share how engaging in the addictive behavior was about garnering control and power to overcome feelings of powerlessness, responding to unhealthy anger, medicating and anesthetizing pain, or bolstering self-esteem. Addiction is when someone engages in behaviors repetitively in spite of negative consequences. Children can be told how denial and rationalizations are used to maintain the behavior; or how the need for power, to control, to medicate emotional pain, or to bolster esteem became greater than anything else.

Examples of actual behavior in child sensitive language might be:

• I was unfaithful to your mom/dad and our marriage vows.
• I was having extramarital affairs.
• I have been engaging in sexual behavior that is wrong (such as…).
  

These explanations might be used for a mature early adolescent and mid-adolescent.
The following examples are brief but often sufficient explanations of sexual activities.

• Pornography: looking at sexually explicit pictures of people or behavior in magazines, videos, the Internet
• Voyeurism: viewing people unknowingly who are undressed or are being sexual
• Compulsive masturbation: frequently touching one’s own genitals to a state of arousal. (Note: Parents and professionals need to use caution to not distort what is healthy adolescent sexual behavior. Key to differentiating unhealthy and healthy masturbation is when it is used as a response to anger or pain, used to medicate, dissociate, or results in physical self-harm.)
• Extramarital affairs: being sexual with someone other than your spouse/partner
• Exhibitionism: exposing yourself sexually unexpectedly to unwilling people

When children ask for specific details, such as whom, where, or when, it is advisable to say that this is information shared only with their other parent unless the answer has a direct impact on them (the children). An example in which the need for greater detail could be indicated would be when it explains the reasons the family is moving as the sexual behavior was with the next-door neighbor. Or, the reason the family is not seeing a certain relative this holiday is because the sexual behavior was with a relative.

I suggest the parent connect the addictive behavior to the consequences for the family by describing the impact on the child. Is the child impacted by financial consequences, the possibility of marital separation, divorce, the changing of schools and friendships, or possibly public exposure? For example, as a consequence of the behavior:

• I wasn’t home spending time with you.
• When home, I was preoccupied.
• I spent what was family money on non-family activities.
• There are legal problems that are public and create embarrassment for the family.
• I have not been available to model healthy sexual or relationship behavior.
• There have been arguments at home because I’ve been dishonest with your mother/father.

Do You Still Love Mom or Dad? Does Mom or Dad Still Love You?
Children want to know how the parents feel towards each other. These may be difficult questions to answer. While the answer may be a clear yes, if this is not a reality, a parent might say, “Right now your (other parent) is very angry and is questioning how she or he feels.” Or, “I do not know how I feel at this time.” The parents need to have empathy and be sensitive to the child.

Do You Still Love Me? Did I Do Something Wrong?
Children need to be reassured that they are loved and that whatever happens between mom and dad, they will always love them. Children need to understand that this is not about them or their behavior.

How Does This Affect My Life?
The parent must be honest and tell the child what he or she knows. The greatest concern is usually whether or not their parents will remain together. Perhaps there will be a temporary separation. Perhaps the parents will be home more often and more involved in their life. If the parent is not sure of what may happen for the family the uncertainty may be expressed, and then the parent needs to commit to tell the child when they do know.
Other concerns may be: Are there things they can or cannot talk about at home? Are there television shows or movies they can or cannot watch? Are there any restrictions regarding going places or seeing certain people? Can they ask more questions if they arise?

Who Else Knows?
It is important to discuss who else knows. The disclosure itself does not have to become the “family secret.” Recovery is not about replacing one secret with another. Recovery is demonstrating healthy boundaries and discriminating with whom one does and does not share. If others know, prepare children with an honest response to questions and remarks of others.

Can I Tell any of my Friends?
Anticipate this question. Parents are encouraged to support children in their own support system that may be one or two close friends, a counselor, or another trusted adult. If the child needs to keep what you have told them a secret, you need to seriously question any disclosure.

Are You Sorry?
Children need to hear that both the addict and the co-addict are sorry for their individual acting-out behavior.

What are You Doing so it Won’t Happen Again?
Children need to hear of the recovery plans of their parents, as individuals and as a couple. What are the parents willing to do for the relationship, the family, and for recovery? Children need to have reasons to be hopeful.
When children were asked to offer feedback to improve the disclosure process, they commented:

A little humility would have made me feel better about my dad. He really let Mom do most of the talking.

Not so much detail.

My step mom went crazy, she shouldn’t have been so angry in front of us.

More resources like reading material about sex addiction.

Questions should be accepted, even welcomed so the family unit can face the problem in its entirety.

Disclosure would have been better had their been help for what his behavior did to us, rather than everything being centered around his recovery.

A qualified therapist present would make the disclosure much easier.

A counselor who didn’t just work with my dad.

I should have been taken to counseling again when I got a couple years older.

Disclosure opens up the process for a multitude of feelings. At the time of the disclosure and after, parents and clinicians need to be willing and available to listen and validate those feelings. This may be very painful for parents, but is a necessary part of healing for the family. As an adult child said, “Truth, even if in very small pieces, can lighten the load. Shame is a burden we as children should not have to bear.”

Parents do not want to cause their children pain, but that possibility was lost in the act of the addiction. The parents must forgive themselves for their behavior, move on in recovery, and learn greater recovery skills. Those recovery skills begin with honesty to one’s self and then to appropriate others. They cannot change the past addictive behavior but they can influence their children by example in their recovery practices. If the commitment to changing the family system does not exist, disclosure alone will not break this addiction cycle. Changing the family system begins with the parent’s individual commitment to recovery. Then, at the appropriate time, disclosing secrets to children is effective in breaking the generational cycle.

It is in recovery that adults will find the strength to be the parent their children need them to be. It is likely the parents will always feel sad their children have been exposed to addiction, and that their behavior has caused them pain. It is normal for parents to be concerned and fearful of the consequences for their children. With support from others in recovery and with the guidance of skilled helping professionals, parents can do their part by taking responsibility and being accountable to their children. Then, as they say in Twelve Step language, there comes a time to “let go, and let God.”

Triggers

Triggers are specific memories, behaviors, thoughts and situations that jeopardize recovery - signals you are entering a stage that brings you closer to a relapse. The process is much like riding a roller coaster that loops over itself. Once the roller coaster car gets to a certain spot in the track, a threshold is met, there is no turning back, and it starts the downward loop.

Just as gravity has a motivating effect on a roller coaster, brain chemistry has a similar effect motivating triggers. When people use substances or engage in escape behaviors the brain releases neurotransmitters such as adrenaline and dopamine that trigger the brain’s pleasure/reward center; or it may release serotonin which lessens anxiety and depression. With repetition of the drugs alcohol, or other addictive behavior, the brain’s reward center overrides the cognitive, rational thinking part of itself. Brain scans show that when using or engaged, there are reduced levels of activity in what is called the prefrontal cortex. This is the part of the brain where rational thought could override impulsive behavior. But addiction hijacks the brain. The reward, pleasure center holds captive the thinking center. Science also indicates that stress alters the way we think. Parts of the brain that help us problem solve shut down at times of stress fueling impulsive behavior.

It is very likely you have heard your husband, wife, partner, mother, father, your boss, a friend, your attorney or even a judge say, “What were you thinking?” The answer is − you weren’t thinking.
The science of addiction indicates that the inability to recognize the impact of your behavior, the willingness to risk what is significant in your life, and in this case the quick lapse into old behaviors in spite of good intentions appears to be connected to brain chemistry.

The good news is to know that the brain has plasticity to it. That means in treatment and recovery practices you can learn skills to calm the emotional responses and reactivity area of the brain. You can learn to avoid triggers that activate the emotional area of the brain, and you can learn to enhance the decision making area of the brain so you can rationally think through decisions rather than respond impulsively and from such a strong emotional basis. But it takes time for the brain to be rewired, and it gets rewired with the repetition of practicing new skills and new ways of thinking, hence the reason we so strongly urge ongoing involvement in aftercare and other support systems.

Will power alone is not a defense against a relapse. Recovery is achieved, maintained and enjoyed through a series of actions. Learn to identify your triggers and with each one identify a plan that anticipates and deescalates the power of the trigger. With that your reward is another day of sobriety with endless possibilities.

Five common triggers are:
1. Romanticizing the Behaviors
Romanticizing involves a tunnel focus only on the positive feelings you associate with the behavior, it is glamorizing using behaviors and in the moment totally forgetting about the negative consequences.
When I get overwhelmed about my life today, I find myself calling a few old buddies and reminiscing about the 'good old times.' Well let me tell you about those times - I was young, married with two kids, and my wife was unhappy with me because I wasn’t keeping a job while she was working two. I was doped up a lot and would get on my motorcycle and take off for days at a time, lost in my drugs. I wasn’t responsible or accountable to anyone. I was just into me. So now, in recovery, it is scary to realize I am accountable to my two kids and to my girlfriend today. It’s depressing to look at the financial mess I made as a result of my drinking and using, so I go back into moments of glorifying the old times to forget about the fears I have about how to handle my responsibilities.

Getting overwhelmed at times is to be expected, but it’s very easy to slip into romanticizing without any insight as to how you got there and at that moment you enter a slippery zone, touching the trigger. While romanticizing is in and of itself a trigger, it is often in tandem with an external trigger such as noises, sights, sounds or even tastes. You could be watching a movie and the next thing you know it is depicting the power of alcohol, drugs and sex in a positive way and you are off into romanticizing. Or you’re listening to the radio and an advertisement for a drug comes on, and you think about your pain pills as the commercial goes on to tell you how much better you’ll feel, and off you go. Or you’re watching a ball game on TV and as you watch you can almost smell the popcorn and peanuts and you see the spectators drinking large cups of beer and everyone is smiling like it’s only a good time.

Take a few moments to think about how you romanticize your addictive behavior. What do you find yourself thinking about? What is the romanticizing covering up? What are you forgetting to take into account?

2. Feelings
Addicts have used their behaviors and substances for years to separate from their emotional states. And there is so much to feel about—guilt for how your behavior has hurt others; sadness for your losses; anger with yourself; fear of what is in front of you; shame for thinking you are inadequate, not worthy. You can act out in response to every feeling imaginable.

Any person or situation can trigger threatening feelings. You are upset when you realize your friends are reluctant to include you on a weekend outing because you created a scene last time. You want the people you work with to like you but you are anxious that you will be rejected, or not welcomed. Your sister won’t let you baby sit her kids anymore and you feel guilty, sad and angry. You just met with your ex-wife and you walk away angry, like always when you see her. You are working hard in your recovery and you know you are doing pretty good but it still isn’t easy to have these feelings and not be reactive. You lessen or get rid of feelings when you own them, talk about them, or in some cases engage in problem solving. It is when you try to divert, ignore, and numb that you get into trouble. Feelings are a part of the human condition and you can’t escape them, so the goal is to learn how to tolerate the feelings. Recovery is the ability to tolerate your feelings without the need to medicate, engage in self-destructive or self-defeating behaviors and thoughts.

Recognize the gifts that come with feelings. Feelings are cues and indicators telling you what you need. Loneliness tells you in your humanness you need connection, fear can offer you protection, sadness offers growth, guilt is your conscious, offering direction for amends. It is critical for you to have this insight, and more importantly to start to take ownership of recognizing the feelings when you have them. It is vital to learn how to be with the feeling and how to appropriately express it. It is also necessary to find safe people in which to share your emotional experiences.

So when you recognize your feelings ask yourself -
What do you need? What feelings are ones you go to any length to avoid? What is the price you pay for hiding, masking those feelings?

3. Loss
Coupled with the trigger of feelings is the fact those feelings are often associated with loss. By the time you get to recovery you have had multiple losses in your life, often losses related to childhood, many times due to being raised with abuse, addiction, mental illness, etc. While you may have experienced trauma within your original family, pain of loss may be from a specific situation,

You may have experienced the loss of relationship with your parents or children; or the death of friends, family; or abortions, career or work opportunities missed. As an addict you are likely to have losses related to health issues. Perhaps you have Hepatitis C, or HIV, or injuries due to accidents.

It is not that you are suddenly thinking about these losses, but one more time there may be a physical trigger − you are in treatment and you see other people’s children come to visit and you have three kids and you don’t even know where they live. Your daughter tells you that your ex-husband has just moved in with someone else. The goal is not to dwell on your losses, but to not live in the pain and anguish of them which is what happens when you don’t acknowledge them and what they mean, triggering you back to your using behavior. With some loss you can only grieve, and ultimately come to find some meaning from your experience, with others in time, you can attempt to repair damaged relationships.

4. Resentments
Resentment is also a feeling but I think it warrants its own place as a significant trigger. Resentments are like burrs in a saddle blanket, if you do not get rid of them, they fester into an infection. Resentments are often built on assumptions, When you don’t look at me I assume you think you are better than me. When you don’t include me in a social gathering, I am assuming you think I am not good enough to be with you and your friends. They are also built on entitlement, which is a form of unrealistic expectations and impatience.
I have been in recovery six weeks now. I resent the fact that my wife still doesn’t trust me.
Now that I am clean and sober my boss should give me that promotion I deserve.

The attitude in both examples is not just that you should be rewarded for doing well, but that you should be rewarded for the sacrifices made, after all you have given up your alcohol, your drugs, and/or the addictive behavior and therefore deserve to be rewarded. The problem here is that you are still more connected to the loss than to the gifts of sobriety.

Unrealistic expectations + impatience = resentments.

Ways to move from resentments are – when assuming, check it out; put yourself in someone else’s shoes (it may allow expectations to be more realistic); identify and own the feelings the resentment is covering (often it’s a cover for feelings of inadequacy and/or fear); be willing to live and live.

Some questions to consider are - What does it mean for you to hang onto resentments?
What would it mean to accept that you have been hurt or wronged and that you can no longer change that? What does it mean to take responsibility for your own feelings? Ultimately who pays the price for hanging onto resentments? Today are you willing to let go of resentments?

5. Slippery people, places or situations
You need to identify specific triggers that are people, places, and situations that are high risk. Slippery people could be your ex-lover, certain family members, past using/party buddies. A slippery place might be a bar you used to frequent, a casino or an area in your community where you cruised. In essence any place that triggers a positive association about the use of your drug of choice. Slippery situations could be an emotionally charged social gathering, such as a wedding, a family event, or vacation setting.

Medication may be a trigger for which you need to be accountable. While there are situations where medication is needed, you are at high risk to abuse. You need to be proactive in how you are going to cope with this situation because it is likely your brain is going to remember a good feeling, saying more is better. There is also a tendency to look for outside fixes too readily. Just because you are agitated, doesn’t mean you need a prescription pill. Just because your knee hurts you don’t need to take your sister’s pain meds. Or if you have difficulty sleeping it doesn’t automatically mean a sleeping pill is indicated. Again, there are situations where medications are necessary, but self-diagnosis and/or self-prescribing only create a recipe for disaster.

What are the people, places or situations that are potential triggers? What creates the greatest safety for you to not get triggered? What triggers can you avoid? For example, do you really need to be at this family event? Is it worth the risk? That is what you always need to ask yourself, is it worth the risk? You don’t need to test yourself, you don’t have to prove anything; this isn’t a contest. If you can’t avoid a certain place, can you lessen the contact or time? Meaning, you go to the wedding, but you know you will leave prior to the reception.

While some decisions around triggers are absolute, others are not necessary for your entire life. Know your triggers and make a plan accordingly. In the face of a trigger, what do you need to do? What do you need to tell yourself? Who can you reach out to for support and or problem solving?

Today in recovery you have options:
1) practice staying in the present, don’t sit in the past or project into the future
2) validate the gifts of recovery for the day – practice gratitude daily
3) identify, build and use a support system – you need to stay connected. History and experience has proven time and time again, that recovery is not a solitary process, and cannot be sustained in isolation.
4) trust your Higher Power is on your side

This article is excerpted from Claudia's new audio CD Triggers and new DVD The Triggering effect.

Addiction Straight Talk

Straight Talk: Discussing Addiction with Children
Claudia Black, Ph.D.


Three nine-year-old boys are standing in a long line at Disneyland, waiting to get on one of their favorite rides. In conversation, one boy asks of the other, “When is your dad getting out of the hospital?” At this point several people in the line turn in curiosity to listen. Before the boy whose father is in the hospital has a chance to answer, the other boy says, “I didn’t know your dad was in the hospital, what happened to him?” The third boy responds, “Oh, he is sick. He has a disease, it’s called al-co-hol-ism.”

What I have learned over the years is that younger children more readily accept that their addicted parent has a disease, it makes sense to them. This boy’s response was reflected spontaneously, without embarrassment, totally accepting that his father genuinely has a disease. Why else would someone act like this? Children, prior to the age of nine or ten don’t need a lot of explanation. They accept that addiction is a disease with both physical and psychological ramifications. Of course those aren’t the words used, but they understand the “being stuck” aspect of addiction, or the allergy analogy. They comprehend that this isn’t just a disease that affects someone physically like most diseases. They see the change in personality and they grasp the inability to stop something once it is started.

A Good Rule of Thumb: When talking to young children, keep explanations to three or four sentences. Let them come back to you with questions.

Many years ago I wrote a book for children affected by parental substance abuse titled My Dad Loves Me, My Dad Has a Disease. The title came from the impact of a conversation I had with Alexis, an eight-year-old girl, whose father was alcoholic and in treatment. I was having an individual session with her and I asked her if she knew why her father was in the hospital. She looked at me as if I was stupid and quickly said, “Of course, he has a disease.”

This young girl was able to accept there was no other reason for her father’s behavior. He certainly wouldn’t choose to act like he does. Something had happened to him and he needed help to get well. She had been told that drinking made him sick, that it does that to some people, that it can change his personality so that he behaves in ways that are confusing, scary, and hurtful to him and others. She readily accepted that. Still looking at me as if she wondered what assistance I could be to her since I didn’t seem to know her father had a disease, she added, “But he still loves me.” Alexis fully believed this because in her case her father had provided positive parenting in her very early years and she got the message that he loved her.

It is possible to talk to a child of any age as long as age appropriate language and relevance are considered. With young children this conversation is more likely to be more brief and much more general. Parents often tell them that they are allergic to alcohol and when they drank they did things they wish they didn’t do. So now you choose not to drink. If children are aware of the drug use, you tell them that you made some poor choices and used drugs and then couldn’t stop on your own, or without help. If they have lived with it, or saw you many times when you were under the influence it is best to acknowledge it.

As true for chemical dependency these same principles can be applied to behavioral addictions. For example:
Like a latter-stage drug addict or alcoholic, compulsive gamblers live from fix to fix, throwing life away for another roll of the dice and deluding themselves that luck will soon smile on them. Their subjective cravings can be as intense as those of drug abusers. They show tolerance through increased betting and they experience highs rivaling that of a drug. Up to a half of all pathological gamblers show withdrawal symptoms that mimic a mild form of drug withdrawal, including churning stomach, sleep disturbance, sweating, irritability and craving. And like drug addicts, they are at risk of sudden relapse even after many years of abstinence. With the exception of sex addiction, the ability to generalize these guidelines is relevant to other addictive disorders. (For more direction in discussion of sex addiction, the author suggests you go to her website www.claudiablack.com and look in the Special Interest section.)


I have worked with children as young as four and five years of age who can describe personality changes, even loss of control though they don’t use that language. Some poignant explanations of personality change and loss of control I have heard from young children have been, “Sometimes my mom is very loving toward me and really likes me, and then maybe later in the day she acts like a stranger to me.” “When my dad says he is going to the bar for one or two drinks, he just can’t do that anymore. It is sort of like eating potato chips, I eat the whole bag.” As adults we often underestimate how much children have witnessed and understood.

Other parents find that if their children did not witness the active addiction and only know their parents in recovery that it is best to be less specific about the addiction until the children are older and it has more relevance to the child’s life.

I have always been vague with my kids about just what I took, how much or how frequently I drank—but they know I drank a lot and chose to stop when we had our first son. I see them as boys who could idealize the partying way of life, and if it was good enough for their dad and he ultimately stopped, then they could rationalize it is okay for them and that they could stop.
Father of 2 sons


As children raised with addiction become older they are not so readily willing to accept the disease model as the answer for why or how you, their parent, behaved the way you did. If children have not had some formal education about addiction, they may very well think calling it a disease is a cop out. They may think you are trying to make excuses for your behavior, and blame it on something other than yourself. If you are met with that resistance, your job is not to convince them; your job is to simply share information.

When mothers are addicted, children of all ages are more apt to minimize and deny her addiction even more so than a father’s. Both a woman’s ability to hide her addiction and the stigma of being an addicted woman makes it easier for children to discount their mother’s addictive disorder.

In conversation be willing to be descriptive about the addiction. You’ll find children may listen more if you do the following things:

• Tell your children the areas of your life in which you believe you were out of control, such as alcohol or drug use, spending and debting, or work.
• Take ownership for your choices along the way and how you were ignorant about what you were doing.
• Explain that you didn’t realize you could not stop and pretty soon you were rationalizing, denying, etc.
• Give your children examples of the extent of your denial and rationalizing.Refer to how your addiction controlled your life by speaking of your preoccupation and denial.
• Describe your change in tolerance and/or escalation to achieve the desired effect. Make the point that you continued your behavior in spite of adverse consequences—again demonstrating that your addiction had power over and against your good judgment and morality.
• Tell them this is not what you envisioned when you started your addictive behaviors and that you had no idea how it was hurting the family, in spite of what were obvious signs.
• Relate that you needed help to stop something that had become bigger than you.
• Be more available to them, now that you are in recovery.
  

You do not need to cover every point in any one conversation. This is not necessarily the only conversation you will have; hopefully it may be a part of many conversations. What is paramount in these conversations is that children hear that they did not cause the addiction, and they can’t they control it.

You don’t have to convince your children of anything or convert them to your way of thinking, just share yourself with them.

The different choices in what and how much parents share with their children needs to be influenced by the age of the child, how much of the active addiction the child witnessed, and the parents’ relationship with the child

You will need to find your style and entrances into conversations of what is most meaningful with your children. While it is important to talk about addiction, be careful to avoid being too wordy, detailed, or intellectual in talking to children of any age. They don’t need, nor will they listen to a lecture, yet the information is invaluable if presented in a realistic and sincere manner.

While you can’t make up for the past in a few conversations, and you can’t completely protect your children from the enormous reach of addiction, you can move closer to becoming the parent your children need you to be and the parent you want to be.

Straight Talk is available at www.claudiablack.com

It Will Never Happen To Me

It Will Never Happen To Me: An Introduction:


This is an except from Dr. Claudia Black’s best selling book, “It Will Never Happen To Me.” The book is available at http://www.claudiablack.com/

While hundreds of thousands of people are in recovery from chemical dependency, co-dependency, and adult child issues, our communities continue to be impacted by addiction. Heroin, cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and marijuana use is rampant throughout our communities. But historically the number one abused drug is alcohol.

The National Association of Children of Alcoholics has reported 76 million Americans, about 43% of the U.S. adult population, have been exposed to alcoholism in the family. Almost one in five adult Americans (18%) lived with an alcoholic while growing up. There are an estimated 26.8 million children of alcoholics in the United States. Preliminary research suggests that over 11 million of these children are under the age of 18. Compared to children of non-alcoholics: They are more at risk for alcoholism and other drug abuse. They are more likely to marry into families in which alcoholism is prevalent. Thirteen to 25% of children of alcoholics are likely to become alcoholics. We also recognize clinically, that as adults, they experience a subset of behaviors related to shame based beliefs that create depression, victimization, rage, and a lack of meaning in their lives. While children from difficult environments often show much resiliency, for many, it is at a very high price.

When the term alcoholic, or addict, or chemically dependent is used, it often is referring to people who have neither the ability to consistently control their drinking or using, nor can predict their behavior once they start to drink or use, and /or whose drinking/using causes problems in major areas of their lives and yet continue to drink and/or use. This is a person who, in his or her drinking/using, has developed a psychological dependency on a substance coupled with a physiological addiction. It is someone who has experienced a change in tolerance to alcohol/drugs and needs to drink/use more to acquire the desired effect. They have a need to drink or use which progressively becomes a greater and greater preoccupation in their lives. At one time in their lives, they had the ability to choose to drink or use. In time, it became not a matter of choice, but a compulsion.

Many people are confused about chemical dependency because there is no one specific pattern of behavior. Addicts differ in their styles of drinking/using and the consequences of the addiction vary widely. Some drink daily; others in episodic patterns; some stay dry for long intervals between binges; some drink enormous quantities of alcohol, use other drugs, others do not. Some drink only beer; some drink only wine; while for others their choice is hard liquor. Still others will drink a wide variety of alcoholic beverages.

Although addiction appears very early in the lives of some people, for others it takes years to develop. Some claim to have started drinking addictively from their first drink; many others report they drank for years before crossing over the “invisible line” which separates social drinking from addictive drinking. While the focus of It Will Never Happen To Me will remain on families where alcohol is the primary drug that is abused, it is my hope the reader will see the similarities in other substance abusing families.

The commonalities will be in living with extremes, living with the unknown, or the fears. It is the living in a system where the addiction has become central to the family and the needs of the individual family members become secondary to the needs of the addict and his or her addiction.

Commonalities To Other Addictive Disorders
Since the original writing of It Will Never Happen To Me in the early 1980s, we have not only been more adept at recognizing multi drug abuse, we are recognizing what is referred to as process addictions and the fact that both substance and process addictions often co-exist and are interrelated. Such addictions would include gambling, spending, eating disorders, sex, love and relationship addictions.

The commonalities across addictive disorders are:

• A pattern of out-of-control behavior, meaning that one is not able to predict their use once they engage in the substance or behavior, nor willingly stop their use
• Negative consequences due to the behavior
• Inability to stop, despite the consequences
• An increase in tolerance and amounts of indulgence — the need to use or engage more to get the desired effect
• Preoccupation — the anticipation of, involvement in, or reflection about their addictive behavior is the focus of their thoughts and feelings
• Denial — minimization, rationalization, denial of their behavior as a problem permeates their thinking to the point of delusional thinking

To apply this to other behaviors, know that addictive obsession can exist in whatever generates significant mood alteration, whether it is the self-nurturing of food, the excitement of gambling, or the intoxication of alcohol or other drugs.

Irrespective of the substance or object of the addiction, the co-addiction behavior follows very common routes as well.

Typically, we see the co-dependent experience:

• Loss of sense of self, how they feel, and what they need
• Being obsessed with another person that facilitates not dealing with own life
• Reacting to someone else’s behavior instead of from personal motives
• Being all-consumed with another and putting own priorities on hold
• Taking responsibility for other people, tasks, and situations
• Engaging in denial system

The dynamics of the addictive system, be the addiction alcohol, prescription pills, cocaine, heroin, gambling or sex, etc. are so similar that the impact on children is also very similar. For children in the family, the combination of addiction and co-addiction results in neither parent being responsive and available on a consistent, predictable basis. Children are affected not only by the addicted parent, but also by the non-addicted parent (if there is one) and by the unhealthy family dynamics created as a consequence to living in an addictive system.

Commonalities To Other Families
One of the gifts of what we have come to learn about people raised in chemically dependent families is that it has offered extremely useful information for people raised in other types of troubled families as well. Whether or not you were raised in an addictive family system, It Will Never Happen To Me may very well offer a framework to understand your situation. We have long recognized that people raised with physical and sexual abuse strongly identify as if they were raised with addiction. Many times they were raised with both. People who were raised with mental illness, ranging from schizophrenia to depression, to raging parents frequently identify with adult child issues. People raised with parents impacted by chronic health issues, or physical challenges may identify.

Another reason for identification is to be raised by those who were raised with addiction (to be raised by adult children), who may not manifest an active addiction, but the thinking and behavior is often characteristic of addiction. The connecting thread between these different types of families is experiencing chronic loss that fuels emotional isolation, rigidity, or shame. Whatever the circumstances, when you come from a history of loss it is like being a first cousin to the person raised with addiction. Therefore if this information can benefit others raised in troubled families, this is an added gift.

The terminology was different than it is today. Today we seldom refer to someone as alcoholic, and recognize people are often addicted to more than one substance. And we use the phrases like “chemically dependent” or “addict” to recognize that irrespective of one’s predominant substance addiction that they need to refrain from the use of alcohol and other drugs. This has occurred for two reasons, the first being it was recognized that many alcoholics were actively addicted to at least one other substance; and secondly, that even if they did not show signs of a second addiction, they needed to refrain from the use of other substances because those other substances would often lead them to relapse to their primary or secondary addiction.

In the 1970’s, spouses and partners of the alcoholic were referred to as co-alcoholics. Today they are more commonly thought of as co-dependents, or co-addicts. Originally the prefix “co” was used to describe a marriage partner who had become increasingly preoccupied with the behavior of the addict and functioned in the role of a primary enabler. It now encompasses the dynamics of giving up a sense of self, or experiencing a diminished sense of self in reaction to an addictive system.

The only acknowledgement of the impact of children was in the professional journals citing the research about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and the genetic predisposition to alcoholism. The emotional or social impact was not discussed, and the phrase “adult children” or “co-dependency” non-existent.