When addiction strikes close

Addiction and drug abuse issues are one of the most common problems in our society. A day does not go past without news stories on deaths arising from Fentanyl. It feels like an epidemic. Let us not lose sight of the many others who abuse other drugs, including alcohol.

It is a hotly debated topic these days, with Canada planning some form of legalization and various US states already having done so. Billions of dollars are spent on the war against drugs, although as Dr. Gabor Mate points out, it is really a war against those who suffer from the disease of addiction. This disease is also one with a very high rate of stigma. People suffering from the disease are seen as morally bankrupt, not worthy of the same kinds of medical support as other diseases and are the brunt of legal versus health interventions.

For the family or close friends of substance dependent people, they too find themselves struggling with the stigma - "how can you keep enabling?"; "There must be something going on in the family."; "Surely you don't let them come to your house, they will steal things". This leads to a feeling of isolation. When the person suffering is your child, then the stigma mounts up as you must have failed as a parent.

The stigma exists along with other stigmas that might relate to race, gender, social status, mental health and religion (to name a few). Rarely is there the stigma of the drug or alcohol use on its own. Family and friends carry a burden along with the person using.

There are some resources for family and friends such as the 12 step program Al-Anon. Many find that program difficult as they are not willing to step away. Others may find therapy helpful but so often, the message is don't enable which leads to severing or weakening the relationships between family, friends and the user. There are times when that might be needed but the shame and guilt that goes with it only adds to the pain.

Meditation becomes one way to cope. It helps to identify what matters in your own life, knowing what is and is not in your control (which is only the self) and getting to know your inner self that includes the  existence of the pain and loss. When you have a user in your world, the grief is ambiguous - you know who they could be if sober; you know you love yet feel deprived and betrayed; you don't know how the story will end but fear the outcomes often.

Thus, meditation is about self care, self love and acceptance. We did not create the user, pain  and trauma created that. We cannot heal the user but we can heal the self. As Karme Yeshe Rabgye notes, the only person you can truly know is yourself.

Detox

ER
Bed twenty
Eighteenth time

Beside your bed
i sit once more
Observe the sweat oozing from your skin

A familiar nurse
Pushes your IV needle in
Her face tired of yours.

Your body shakes
You moan in pain
Grasping your stomach swearing at the cramps

I get the look form the medic
The one that says I'm to blame

It's time to stop, time to end
To detox from you

But I stay, terrified
You will die, I will live.

© Peter Choate, 2016

The untenable pain of close loss

Loss is a part of life. It is inevitable. When the word loss is used, most of us think of death of a loved one or close friend. In today's economy, we also see the material losses that turn into human tragedies as economic resources fade - family life becomes stretched, relationships become combative, depression seeps in, egos get bruised. There are a lot of these losses today.

We have also seen ongoing tragic losses with refugees streaming across borders in various parts of the world. They risk everything clinging to hope of a safe future.

A loss that is we should speak about is when families fracture. Divorce is one of the more common ways. Parents and children suffer the loss of the family unit. Children are often faced with figuring out divided loyalties that get more complicated when parents get new partners. Illness also fractures families. Dementias change people in ways that the one who was loved seems to have left with a new, more challenging person having emerged. Mental health, substance abuse and disability also change the relationships as again, a new version of the loved person comes to the fore.

As these changes occur, many families face the loss of connections. Many of these losses are very difficult for people to discuss. Being open feels shameful and even disloyal to the family member who is now at a distance.  As a social worker, I have spoken with families about a member who is wandering the streets, they think, of some other city; unsure if the person is alive. Even those who have chosen to cut off a violent or mentally ill family member, talk of the constant loss - the empty feeling of someone they once loved who cannot be there any longer. They are faced with, what if? - what if things had not turned out this way? Could I have done something different?

When the cut off person has done something perceived as shameful, the family was muted- not able to talk about the deed openly nor how they might still love the person. I recall once meeting a family torn apart by the criminal activity of one member. Some said, no matter what has occurred, the person is still our family while others responded with despair that anyone they had once loved could so something as horrible as occurred.

What happens then when loss is so close that we feel it deeply in every part of our being but so uncontrollable that all you can do is feel it? What happens when, sitting in a coffee shop, a brief action by someone brings the loss flooding back and tears are all you have? What does it mean to open up the family photo album to see the person who will not be in future photos? What do you do when you reach into your own being and feel guilt about what you might have done? These are the questions of close loss of a living loved one and the pain that never really goes away. There is no end to the story.

Meditation is focused upon accepting the feelings that arise. Being honest with self so that you can both be with the pain but know the pain not as the end of self. Meditation makes it easier to form your thoughts, feelings and emotions around the loss as you come to truly know them. From this, being able to speak and journal begin to make more sense.

To my lost loved one

Conceived in love

And when born

Universe exploded in light

The promise was great

The beauty expansive

The blow came unseen

Denied

But its impact was slowly

And unmistakably revealed

You began to face

The expansive beauty snuck out from time to time

Creating such joy

Between the roots of sadness that had overtaken

This virus ate its way

Through love, joy, compassion

Leaving just enough behind

To create hope

When the glorious moments erupt

Every effort is made to grasp them

They are real

But slip away taking hope like a prisoner

It takes nothing

For the pretence of hope to return

Alas it is a fantasy

Although it is better than defeat

How many more times

Shall I ride this train

Going always to the same place

The graveyard of hope

© Peter Choate, 2016

Ambiguous Loss

The American writer Pauline Boss has done a magnificent job in advancing the notion of ambiguous loss. Think of this very pertinent example here in Canada. The Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. Imagine you are the parent, brother, sister of one of these missing women. You have a real loss - she is not in your life. But the loss is ambiguous - you may likely think of her as dead but, without proof, you are not sure - she could be alive.

Many of us have ambiguous losses. Another perhaps pertinent example are the people who have been laid off from the petroleum industry who are losing homes, livelihoods, resources. They did nothing wrong. They went to work one day and were told it was over. They know they, any many others have lost employment but also have the hope that somehow, there will be a new opportunity for them.

We need to be honest about the struggle. I love the quote from Viktor Frankl when he says that "An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour." To not feel sadness in these unresolved ambiguous losses is abnormal.

Boss also explains that there is no such thing as closure. It is perfectly typical to continue to feel grief about a loss for years after it occurs. What is not typical is ongoing obsessive grief about a loss. We need permission from within and from others to feel grief.

Some losses may be shared experiences either because culturally groups grieve together or the loss affects many people. Sometimes it is both. I was in south India recently. People still spoke of the tsunami this hit in 2004. I was in the area before and after the tsunami. I have stood on a street in Pondicherry where many lives were lost. Indeed, there is a video of people standing on the street moments before the tsunami arrived. Most of those people are dead. Their loss, along with the loss of livelihoods, homes, infrastructure are all still felt. At the same time, life goes on and the communities have found new ways to manage, although some still suffer deeply.

Think also of the families of the Malaysia airways loss - there is no body for a funeral or other ceremony.

Identity is another form of ambiguous loss. Forced migration as is taking place in Syria causes a loss of identity through place and community. Retirement causes loss of identity through occupational role. Divorce causes loss of family position while also having to sustain connection when children are involved.

In meditation, we can grieve our losses while finding a place for acceptance of them. We find acceptance of the middle position - it could be this or might be that - either however is the loss. Meditation is observing and allowing the truth of your feelings.

I sit on the edge

between the river and the forest

it is the point of divide

It is like grief

on one side is what was

and on the other what could be

What was is still there

what could be is just out there

grasping for one while holding to the other

It is being in two places

while being in neither

the middle of neither win nor lose

They say let go

and to grasp the new

but is it I that holds onto the old

I am like the forest and the river

ever flowing

ever changing

I cling to what I know

I hold to the pathway long walked

it is fear held onto

The fear comes from where I have been

it sneaks in and grabs hold

the same story gets told time and again 

The story haunts

I crash into it in my dreams

I hear its ghost in my days

Who owns our trauma

when the loss is ambiguous

it's like holding onto warm jelly

Is it true

is it false

will I ever know

© Peter Choate, 2016