5 Things I Wish I’d Known About Addiction as a Kid
If you’re like me, most of your drug and alcohol education came from a one-week unit in your health class each year where you looked at pictures of tar-coated smoker’s lungs, the D.A.R.E program which introduced you to a bunch of new drugs you’d never heard of before, and Red Ribbon Week, where you sign a non-legally binding contract to live drug-free. While these programs are well intentioned, they weren’t enough for me struggling to understand addiction and recovery within my own family, and probably perpetuated some false beliefs. Knowing that there are millions of kids growing up like I did in this country, here’s the messages that I wish I’d heard from the adults in my life.
1. Addicts aren’t bad people
When I was a kid, the only time I heard conversations or saw portrayals of addicts was as criminals on the news or as the sleezy drunk guy in a movie. I saw guys on COPS getting pulled over, failing field sobriety tests, or getting searched and arrested for possession (after, of course, being tackled to the ground as the iconic theme song “Bad Boys” played). I saw car crashes on the news, the anchors always careful to include whether the driver was under the influence, and tabloids at the grocery store publicly shaming celebrities following overdoses, arrests, and rehab stints. As an adult we all know that addicts aren’t bad people, but no one was telling me that as a kid. Perhaps that’s exactly how society wanted me to believe, hoping that as a “good” kid I’d never want to be like “those bad people” and would stay away from substances. But think about the message that sends to those of us with addicted family members: “Your loved one is a bad person because they use/drink. If you reach out for help, no one will take compassion on you or them. In fact, they’ll likely be punished (jailed, or at least shamed). Protect your loved one from that by staying silent”. The disease already creates these horrible messages within families. Educators and media can do better.
2. Your pain is real, even if it “could be worse”
When your loved one’s substance is legal, they are a high-functioning, and their use is episodic (not constant), it is hard for a child to tell whether their loved one is actually an addict when their only examples are the criminals and “bad people” listed above. If a school counselor had asked me when I was 12 years old if anyone in my house struggled with addiction, I would have said, “no”. In my brain, addicts had to use every day, and my loved one didn’t drink at all most of the time. I didn’t feel like we “counted” as an addicted family. Sometimes I felt like I was crazy for thinking there was a problem at all. My sister and I weren’t being abused, we didn’t live in poverty, and most of the time, everything with my family was really great. I didn’t feel like I’d earned the right (i.e., suffered enough) to blow the whistle.
3. You’re not alone
I watched Full House a lot as a kid. For a family sitcom, they tackled a lot of hard issues like eating disorders, child abuse, and even a teen drinking episode. But they never really portrayed addiction, even though 1 in 4 families has struggled with it. If you’d asked me what that statistic was when I was 12, I would have guessed it was maybe 1 in 15, and they sure as heck weren’t people I knew. Going to school and sitting in class worried about home, I was just certain that I was the only one in the whole school who knew what I felt. Middle schoolers never want to feel different. Maybe seeing just one family like mine represented anywhere would have helped.
4. It’s not your job.
I didn’t know treatment existed until I was in my late teens. It seemed like health class was telling me, “Being an addict means you can’t stop using. Once you’re addicted, you can’t get out. So don’t ever use drugs kids or they’ll hook ‘ya, have fun at recess”. It seemed like nobody knew how to help addicts, so when it came to trying to help my loved one, I was guessing at what would help. But I didn’t really know what I was doing, and always feared making it worse. (“Should we talk about what happened, or not rock the boat? Should I just dump the booze I find down the drain, or confront her with it? I don’t know”). I was 12. It wasn’t my job to know ANY of that. But I didn’t realize anyone knew. I didn’t realize there were clinicians or facilities or books or AA or anything. No one ever told me that.
5. Recovery does happen… and it should be CELEBRATED!
My dad has been sober now for almost 28 years. He went to at least 2 meetings a week throughout my entire childhood. I didn’t know exactly what they were until I became a teenager, but I picked up through context clues that they a.) weren’t for work, and that b.) we weren’t supposed to mention it to our friends. My dad is very proud of his recovery, but I imagine he just didn’t know how we would take it when we were young and didn’t want to embarrass us. I don’t know how I would have taken it at that age to be honest, but I like to think I would have been very proud (or at least excited to help Dad blow out two birthday cakes every year). This is the side of addiction that no one ever mentions in health class: there are millions of people in active recovery in the US who have saved their own lives and they shouldn’t be invisible.
Knowing these 5 things could have dramatically and positively changed the way I felt about myself and my family growing up. I’m so proud of The Virtue Center for offering the Addiction Information Series, which primarily serves adolescents. We teach students about the true criteria for diagnosing a substance use disorder, introduce them to not just one but multiple levels of treatment options, and allow them to get to know a person in long-term recovery: Caleb, our Peer Recovery Support Specialist. It makes me happy to think that while there are millions of kids growing up like I did, maybe some of them will get to hear some of the life-changing messages that I didn’t.
Sarah West, LPC Adult Drug Court Specialist
