Mother May Be Assuming Something Untrue

Welcome to Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard podcast. Before I get started with today's podcast, I wanted to take a minute and talk to you about how to get help. If you are looking for help, you have an addiction problem or you have a loved one who has an addiction problem, you can get the help you need. All you have to do is reach out for that help. You can go online if you're an addict and you want to try to understand what recovery is about or how you can help. Get support.

You can go online and look for AA meetings or NA meetings or Celebrate Recovery, Smart Recovery. There's so many different ways of doing it. All you have to do is just look. And so you can get the help online, on your phone, on your computer, anytime you want, 24 hours a day. Meetings are happening every hour, on the hour, online, all over the place. All you got to do is reach out for help.

And if you are the loved one of a member of the community of addicts, and you are struggling with trying to understand your place in that recovery or how you can help, you also can get help online. The other way you can do it is just go to your local emergency room. They can help you, believe it or not. Or you can check into a rehab. You can do an IOP. You can find a professional like me. Reach out to me. You can contact me.

Reach out to me through my website, wellspringmindbody.com and send me a message. I don't know where you're listening to this podcast, where in the world, what country, what state, what city, but there is help out there for you. I'll see you next time. Today, I wanted to talk to you about something that really distressed me. I was reading in the newspaper, and there was a full two-page spread article about a woman who was a mother of a 25-year-old male who had died from a fentanyl overdose.

And in that article, she talked about the impact of the coronavirus and the pandemic and the shutdown on her son and essentially blaming that shutdown on her son's death. And it was distressing to me because as I read the article, there were some things that really came to light that might've been missed by a casual reader or even somebody who didn't know anything about addiction, but it was something that really jumped out at me and made me think.

So I wanted to talk to you about that and see if I could maybe help you understand why people are addicts. So I'm reading this story about this woman who has a son who is 24 years old and he dies from a fentanyl overdose. Normally I don't read articles in my free time because I do that for work. And so I kind of not, so I was just kind of glancing at it and I was reading through it and I thought, oh, okay, it's another story of a unfortunate guy who dies from fentanyl overdose.

And so I just kind of glanced through the article, but then there was something in the article about, I don't know, just caught my attention about halfway through the article that made me think. And what drew my attention was was the fact that she said that he had overdosed because he didn't get support because the pandemic caused the shutdown of all meetings in his area, I guess. And so there were no in-person meetings for him to attend.

So he was forced into isolation and was not able to contact or be in the recovery community. Now, as a specialist in this particular field, uh, that got, that caught my attention because I thought, wow, that's interesting. He did not have access to in-person meetings and he didn't like, she did say in the article that he didn't like the online meetings. So he just quit doing meetings. But the thing that really caught my attention as I went back through the article, after I saw that, I was like,

Now this is, he's 20, he would have been, he died when he was 24 or 25, I can't remember, but this was when he was 16. So we're talking nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago. And this was kind of at the, still at the height of the prescription problems, doctors pushing out pain meds all over the place like crazy. which is, you know, at the time that was what was going on. So the doctor prescribes pain meds and then this kid becomes addicted.

And so then he quickly goes from pills to heroin because heroin is cheap and it's available and pills are not. And in that time from 16 years old when he was an addict, he had gone through all kinds of different attempts at recovery. He was not able to successfully recover. recover. He went to a residential treatment, and I don't know if it was multiples, but it seemed like she was making it out that he had only gone to one. So he'd completed the residential treatment.

He didn't leave against medical advice, but he completed the program, got out, and then he was dead within 10 months. So it was under a year. And she was making the claim that the reason he had died was because of the pressures and the inability of community effort, you know, the recovery community effort to stay together. And he didn't like doing online meetings and there were no in-person meetings. So he just quit doing recovery work.

And so she's pointing the finger at the pandemic and the shutdown as to why he overdosed. So In reading that, I'm thinking to myself as a professional, wait a minute. So he quit going to meetings, and then he just didn't like the online thing, so he just quit meetings. Where was his sponsor during this? Where were the people in the community, and why was he saying, I don't like meetings, and then so I'm not going to do anything? less than a year after he'd gotten out of rehab.

Because as we know, in the recovery community anyway, the clinicians know statistically the number of times that an opiate addict ends up completing residential treatment before they get clean, statistically, nationally in this country, the number of completions of those residential treatments before you get clean is six times. That's the average. So he's gone once, And it's less than a year after he gets out, and he's not going to meetings, and he's not doing any of his aftercare.

Due to the pandemic, her assertion, I would say that what happened was actually a different story. Because as I read the story, I was picking up little clues and little things that didn't make sense, didn't add up. And here's one. When he was in rehab, he had some kind of an experience. And she said it was an experience. She didn't say what it was. In rehab, where he became enamored with the idea of working in a restaurant. So when he got out, he worked in a restaurant.

And I think it was probably as a waiter. But then he decided at some point he wanted to do something so that he could become a bartender. So that's the first thing that doesn't add up. Because... I don't know anybody who is a clinician who works in recovery that would agree that working in a bar or a restaurant is a good idea for somebody, at least in the very early stages of recovery, which he was.

And the reason for that is that's the one industry that's left where that kind of stuff is tolerated. Being drunk, being high is a huge problem in that industry. particularly in working in bars. So he's wanting to be a bartender and he's trying to get into recovery for opiate addiction. Everybody he would have run into that's a clinician or has clinical training or is a sponsor or works in a sober living house would have told him that's not the place for you. It's not the place for you.

Bar, people are drunk in bars. Drinking is what goes on in bars. You're going to be around alcohol. You're going to be touching alcohol. People are going to be trying to buy you shots, buy you drinks. It's everywhere. What are you doing? You can't do that. That's what he would have been told. Stay away from the bar. You're going to relapse. Don't do that.

And it's something in a restaurant, too, because if you're working in the kitchen or the waitstaff, after hours, everybody goes out and parties. That's kind of what happens. I know there's exceptions sometimes. Don't get all ruffled. Feathers all ruffled about the fact that they're, uh, I've been a bartender and I've been a waitress or, uh, I've worked in the kitchen and I've been sober for 20 years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know there are those exceptions.

Yes. But for the most part, people who work in that industry, they party, they drink, they do drugs are high. It's fine. That's fine. You want to do that? That's fine. However, that's a fact. So that's the first thing that didn't make sense. There were meetings. There were meetings online. There were meetings in person. There were protocols for doing meetings in person, six feet apart. Everybody wears a mask. Nobody gets near each other. No hugging, no holding hands. We don't hold hands.

Do this running prayer at the end. There were meetings going on all over the place. Uh, now with NA, it might be a little bit different because that's a different crowd and you know, NA rolls a different way than AA. I understand that. And there are fewer of them. Um, However, I don't like online meetings. Well, I don't either, but you got to do what you got to do.

Cutting yourself off from your main source of support because you don't like something is not going to help you, especially if you know it's life-threatening. I'm sure people who have cancer don't like radiation treatment, and they don't like chemotherapy, and I'm sure that they don't like surgery, having body parts cut off. However, What's the alternative? So then on top of that, if he's an NA, I would hope that he had a sponsor.

And if he didn't have a sponsor, he's not really doing his aftercare because nothing's happening because you're not working the steps by yourself. So if you don't have a sponsor, it's easy to duck out of stuff and say, well, I'm not going, so I don't like it. Well, a sponsor would say that's too bad. You got to go anyway. What are you doing? So the second thing there that didn't make any sense is this whole thing about meetings.

And she is pointing a finger directly at the recovery community having to be shut down for in-person stuff. And then the subsequent isolation that she says was going on that caused her son to overdose. I disagree. I disagree. I would say she doesn't really understand what it's like to be an addict and she doesn't understand what it really takes to get into recovery. I'm not faulting her, but I will say that most family members who are not in recovery don't because they're not going through it.

They haven't gone through it, so they don't fully understand it. So I think that might have left her with a naive view of what happened. He overdosed because he got a hold of fentanyl because the fentanyl is what was in the product that he bought, whether he actually bought fentanyl or if it was something he was using was cut with fentanyl. She was saying that it was cut with fentanyl and I would have to just go with that because she has proof of that, I guess. That's why she's saying that.

But he might have actually just gotten a hold of fentanyl itself and just gotten too much. But being cut off from the recovery community. No, he cut himself off from the recovery community. He chose not to go to meetings. He chose not to work his steps. He was 10 months into opiate addiction that had been going on for nine years at that point. No, that's a, he chose not to do that. That wasn't because of the isolation. That wasn't because of the pandemic. That was because he chose to do that.

I, again, I don't, I don't like going to online meetings, but they're better than going to no meetings. You got to have something. And I, my clients, my clients struggle with that, trying to get them to do online. And it kind of sucks. We want to be able to hug it out and hold hands and, and do the serenity prayer and see people's faces and interact with each other. That's why we call it the recovery community. But you know that you just got to do what you got to do.

So, Her whole assertion that the pandemic is at fault for her son's overdose, I think is false. I think it's because he was an addict and he relapsed. His opiate addiction is one that is really tough to overcome, and he couldn't do it. He overdosed. He relapsed and overdosed. Could it have been prevented? Probably, yeah. Yeah. Would it have been easier? If it wasn't during the times of the pandemic, yeah.

But you know, my experience in treating addicts has led me to understand that the mind will take you to places that you don't necessarily want to go. In other words, if you think about something, it's probably going to happen. So if I think I'm going to relapse, I'll probably make it happen. And on top of that, what did he not do in order to get into that recovery? He didn't get help. But that's what's been happening forever. Yes, we've had an explosion of opiate drug overdoses.

We went from 60,000 to 100,000 in a year. Why? Why? Well, because people are cooped up and they got nothing to do. But also, you know what? We have a problem with drinking at home that has escalated. It's skyrocketed. And why is that? Well, because people are at home. I can't work or I'm working from home and life sucks. Yes, it does. And it really sucks when you're an addict. But again, he didn't really get the help that he needed because he didn't reach out. Why didn't he reach out?

Well, he relapsed and nobody knew why, because he cut himself off from his source of support, which again is the recovery community. His, he didn't, I'm guessing he didn't have a sponsor or a sponsor wasn't very good or his sponsor couldn't reach him. He cut himself off from that. That's like a lifeline, you know, somebody to call somebody to pick up the phone and talk to you when you are relapsing. You've got to have somebody. So it was kind of just, I was glad the article was there.

It brings to light that there's a huge problem. I was very happy to see that, but it would have been nice if it could have been more informative as to why, because now it's like, oh, the pandemic's to blame. No, it's the addiction is to blame, not the pandemic. He shouldn't have been in a bar. He shouldn't have been working in a restaurant. He should have been working somewhere else. That's a bad place for somebody to be, especially with heroin.

That's what we call recovered heroin addicts, by the way, you know, alcoholics, because that's what they do, because it's legal. So why would you then put yourself in danger by putting yourself in that place? It makes no sense.

So what do we do coming out of this pandemic as we are and how it's changed us and how we think about the effects of isolation? I think it's been a great lesson for people who are not addicts to understand really what it's like to be an addict. Because what addiction does is it makes you isolate. You isolate from the pain. You isolate from people. You isolate so that you don't have to show that you're an addict.

But our pain and misery... that makes us so uncomfortable is the thing that makes us actually isolate. So if you are wondering what it's like, you want a glimpse into the world of what it's like to be an addict, this last year and several months of lockdown, can't get out, can't show your face, want to hide from people, that's what it's like to be an addict in some ways. Staying away, isolating from people, not being able to interact. That's kind of what it's like.

Except for an addict, the reason they do it is because they're full of shame or embarrassment or they're drunk or high and they can't be around people. And, you know, addicts, we're stigmatized anyway. But that's a lot of what it's like. So if you wanted to know partly what it's like to be an addict, that's it. But what can you do now coming out of this pandemic and we're, you know, stuff's being lifted and we're, you know, I mean, the assumption is that it's all going to kind of go and recede.

Although, you know, we know it typically takes two years for, for, uh, pandemics to subside totally. And we're not there yet, but, um, what can you do? Well, first of all, let's understand that people who have addiction problems, they can get triggered, uh, And the way they get triggered is they end up being isolated and uncomfortable and that's what they're medicating, right? But every addict I've ever met, they've been heavily traumatized.

So are they being triggered by the pandemic because they're being traumatized and they already had trauma or was the trauma that they had being, is it going untreated or was it left untreated? And that's a problem. I think that the opiate addict overdose problem, partly some of it is because of the lockdowns. We're not able to get out in the public more. And so if you overdose, you probably are going to die.

You're not going to be able to be hit with some Narcan because nobody's going to be around. That's part of it. And maybe another part is we're just miserable.

So being kind... being considerate not punishing people for their addiction but trying to help them that might be worth uh looking at let's try a different effective method but if you're a loved one like this mom was of this this young man who um tragically overdosed on on fentanyl and died he died by himself he nobody was there with him um but you know we try to understand It's not the pandemic that's causing the problem.

It's that the pandemic is causing problems that aggravate what goes on with addicts. But we kind of have a place to find recovery. And so if you're an addict and you're listening to this, man, just go to meetings. Do them online. I know they suck. Nobody wants to do an online meeting, but do a meeting, go to meetings. They're, they're there.

I mean, yeah, it's virtual and all that, but you know, to stay close to the people that are in your, your community, the people that you've surrounded yourself with. I know that it's easy for people to spin off and disappear. Um, and then that's when they go out and pick up, but I understand that, but you gotta stay connected, right? So connect back with your community.

And if you're just entering into recovery, and I don't know if you'd be listening to this podcast if that were the case, but if you're just getting out of rehab, understand that you gotta find the help. And if your state, for whatever reason, is one where there's still not many in-person meetings, like I know for a fact that Texas has in-person meetings all over the place. Virginia has them. And I know that because I am in those two states. But other states may not.

California, I'm sure California is still a mess. And some of the other more liberally controlled states like Michigan that just seem to refuse to release these lockdowns, they might be ones where you have a hard time finding meetings. But for God's sake, they're online. So please, please, just do the meetings, just go to the meetings, sit there in front of your computer and do the meetings. It's not a form of punishment. It's just like, it's what, it's what we got to do right now.

Um, and if you're a loved one is in trouble with, with addiction, understand that addiction is not caused by circumstance. It's not caused by some unseen force that comes from the universe that just pushes them into addiction and then pushes them into overdosing. It's not. It comes from within the person. They're traumatized. They feel bad and they feel uncomfortable and they want to feel better. So they do something to make themselves feel better.

Discomfort, medicate with drugs and alcohol or whatever. Then they temporarily feel better, but it doesn't last very long. The pandemic is not causing overdoses. The pandemic is not causing addiction. The person is. is falling prey to addiction. It's just that the pandemic creates an opportunity for something to happen. And with this young man, he got addicted to opiate drugs. I don't know what was going on in the family. I don't know the guy's background.

There's no mention of dad in that article. There's no mention of anything that went on. If dad died, if there was a divorce, if dad was abusive, dad disappeared. There's no mention of any of that. So I don't know what was the history there. Um, but you know, it's, and in the article, the woman uses I, uh, without, she never uses we that I saw it was I. So I'm assuming she was a single mom, but it didn't, the pandemic didn't cause the addiction. It didn't cause the overdose.

What caused the overdose was addiction. What caused the addiction was most likely. And I'm, I'm, perhaps making a false assumption here, was the trauma that that poor young man suffered as he was growing up. And it's tragic and it's horrible, but getting the help for that is really where it is. It's interesting. It's kind of like the person that came up to me at a funeral and said, well, my son went to rehab and it was like the third or fourth time and I thought this time it would take.

I was like, that's not how it works. It's going to take two years, not 30 days. And that's the misunderstanding. That rehab is the cure. All done, all better, move on. Or that going to meetings is the cure. Go to the meetings, you'll be fine. All done, all better, move on. And that's not what it is at all. It's much more than that. So if we could just keep a clear mind here about what's causing... the massive increase in overdoses.

It's boredom, isolation, frustration, agitation, discomfort, drug use, alcohol use. That's what's killing us is our addictions. So let's maybe keep an open mind about what we're seeing and reading as we kind of read between the lines and understand and let's get better. Let's try.

So I'm going to get off my soapbox now and wish everybody a healthier life a better way and some good recovery and find some way to move that direction and if you need help with that you can reach out to me or you can reach out to another professional who specializes in addiction and that's the critical thing specializes in addiction because they have specialized training to do that and you want to do that so go find somebody to help you and let them guide you towards recovery.

I want to thank everybody for listening to the Doc Shock Your Addiction Lifeguard podcast. Our podcast is... One that I do because I enjoy helping. And if you do need help, you can reach out to me through my website, wellspringmindbody.com. Look for Dr. Jacques DeBerger and click the message me button on there and let me know if I can help you. I do podcasts. I do counseling. I do interventions. I help families, individuals. I kind of try to touch everything.

But if you need some help, reach out. It's not worth ending your life just to save your addiction. And the best way to do that is get help. It's not how many times you fall down that really matters. It's how many times you get back up. And you've only got to get back up that one last time. So thanks for listening and tune in for the next episode coming up very soon. Bye.