dr james dobson what to do if you son is using drugs

Dr. Tim Clinton: Hi everyone. This is Dr. Tim Clinton, Executive Director of the James Dobson Family Institute and President of the American Association of Christian Counselors. Wanted to accept just a cursory moment to let you know that nosotros love, appreciate and are praying for you. Our entire squad hither at Family unit Talk is doing that very affair.

And we too wanted to encourage you, if you're struggling or you could use some encouragement, to feel costless to call us and pray with us. Our cost free number is (877) 732-6825. That number over again is (877) 732-6825, or you could also connect with united states of america online@drjamesdobson.org.

Thanks for letting us be a role of your life every day. We are going to get through this. Dr. Dobson said, nosotros are going to become through this challenging time and we're going to do it together. Let's go now to our regular programming.

David Meece: My father was an alcoholic. He would go on these drinking and drug binges and he was absolutely just fell as a human existence. I mean he'due south out of his listen. My brother and my sister and I saw him endeavor to kill my mom three different times. Of class the fright was he was going to turn on us adjacent. And he did one night, he drove his auto through my chamber wall and appear he'south going to kill everybody. Those terrible things that came nearly as a result of his addiction to booze and drugs were so traumatic that I blocked 'em out of my mind completely.

Roger Marsh: Well, that was certainly a heartbreaking account from our friend, Christian recording artist, David Meece. And sadly, I'm sure many of y'all could identify with and empathize with that story as well. Numerous adults are still dealing with the painful bug associated with alcoholism in their family unit and the bear on information technology had on them growing upwardly.

Did y'all have a parent struggling in this area when y'all were a child? If so, then today'due south broadcast will speak to yous. In just a moment, Dr. Dobson will continue his chat with four folks who grew up with alcoholic parents in the domicile. Ane of the members of our panel is licensed spousal relationship family and child advisor, Dr. Brusque Grayson. The other three individuals in the group asked to share their stories with anonymity. So for the purposes of this interview, we're calling them Ann, Chris and Joe.

Equally we rejoin this discussion, Dr. Dobson reads a listing of characteristics attributed to adult children of alcoholics. As was the case with yesterday's broadcast, the material we're near to talk over is very sensitive in subject thing, then it'south not suitable for younger listeners. Parental discretion is advised. With that, let's hear again from Dr. Dobson and his four guests on this edition of Family Talk.

Dr. Dobson: We were talking final time almost the experiences of these four people as children of alcoholics and what they went through, the pain that they experienced individually. At that place'due south an amazingly consistent pattern from one person to the other. And I'm told if nosotros had 100,000 people here, that would be truthful every bit well. There are but these common characteristics.

In fact, that reminds me of the fact that in 1967 when I graduated from USC, I did not take a class in which nosotros talked about adult children of alcoholics. Information technology wasn't discussed then. It wasn't recognized that in that location is this commonality. There is this frequent pattern of hurting and the perpetuation of the problem among those individuals who were children of alcoholics.

It would probably be wise at present in this second circulate to talk about what those characteristics are. People are going to recognize themselves. And then I take a list hither of 13 characteristics. I'm going to read them rather quickly and so inquire you lot all to comment on what I've read. Okay? All right, hither we go.

Number one, adult children of alcoholics have to guess at what normal is. They think that what they experience is what everybody experiences. Two, adult children of alcoholics take difficulty in following a projection through from beginning to end. Iii, adult children of alcoholics lie when it would be just as piece of cake to tell the truth. 4, and I'thou not going to repeat adult children of alcoholics. I'll say "they," guess themselves without mercy; very hard on themselves. Five, they take difficulty having fun. Half dozen, they take themselves very seriously. Seven, they have difficulty with intimate relationships.

Dr. Dobson: Of the four of you, Chris, you've never been married. Have the other iii had marital difficulties?

Ann: Aye, definitely.

Joe: I'one thousand divorced.

Dr. Curt Grayson: I'm divorced.

Dr. Dobson: All three are divorced. Isn't that interesting? Number eight, they overreact to changes over which they accept no control. Number nine, they constantly seek approval and affirmation. Number 10, they feel they are different from other people. Number 11, they're either super responsible or super irresponsible. Yous can't lose on that ane. [crosstalk 00:05:26] Either one fashion or the other. You can count on that.

Joe: Black or white.

Dr. Dobson: And number 12, they are extremely loyal. This one surprised me. They're extremely loyal, even in the face of evidence that the loyalty is undeserved. And number 13, they are impulsive. They tend to lock themselves into a course of activeness without giving serious consideration to alternative behaviors or possible consequences. This impulsivity leads to confusion, self-loathing, and loss of command over their environment. Okay. React to the list of xiii. What jumps out at you from what you've simply heard?

Chris: What jumps out at me is the tremendous demand for approval. I missed getting the affidavit I needed equally a kid. And what was okay one twenty-four hour period, it was not okay the other twenty-four hour period and so there was tremendous confusion. And I have since learned that silence to me means disapproval. Information technology ways I have to guess. And so never quite knowing where I stand now as an developed, before every bit a child, is I demand that affirmation, that approval, "Chris, that'south okay, this is non okay." Considering I don't have that developed inside me because I didn't have the opportunity to learn that as a kid.

Dr. Dobson: Yes, Chris, even though you recognize that now, y'all sympathise that's why you are as yous are, do you nonetheless notice yourself watching people, looking into their eyes, seeing if they're rejecting y'all or accepting you?

Chris: Oh, I am so hypervigilant. My head knows that, but my heart, or the niggling girl within me doesn't know that. This little girl inside me needs the hug and say, "That's okay."

Dr. Dobson: Brusk, did you await for blessing in your father and not observe it?

Dr. Curt Grayson: I definitely did. I feel similar there were a lot of times when I would go to my father with things that I had done, pictures that I had fatigued or something, and I would say, "Look at this dad. Look what I did." And sometimes he would barely look up from his book and and then look back and really not answer to it and say, "Oh, that's nice," but he really wouldn't even look at the paper.

Another thing with me too is sometimes even now when I'chiliad in a grocery store, it'due south kind of embarrassing to say, but I can come across a mother spank a little child or yell at a little kid, and even though I'm an adult, there's a function of me, that little kid within begins to cower and actually exist fearful. And I would never admit that, but other adult children of alcoholics experience the same matter.

Dr. Dobson: Were you lot disciplined rather severely as a child?

Dr. Brusk Grayson: My parents were divorced when I was about five. My begetter never adult a drinking trouble. He was not a very harsh disciplinarian. My mother and stepfather who were both drinkers and were actually alcoholics. The disciplining was kind of sporadic. My mother would discipline us, but she wasn't strong enough or big enough to really injure united states as we grew upwards. Simply every bit soon equally she got my alcoholic stepfather into the scene, he didn't know limits, and when he hit, he hit for skilful.

Dr. Dobson: Practice you know that 90% of all child corruption is booze related? It reduces the inhibitory part that would continue you lot from going too far.

Joe: Yous know, my dad was very abusive too. Still, he as well was an adult child of an alcoholic and he didn't know it. So in a sense, he was an developed but interim like a child on me, so to speak, when I was a child.

Dr. Curt Grayson: Information technology but perpetuates itself, generation after generation.

Joe: Information technology's a family affliction.

Dr. Dobson: Your children, Joe, are going to be adult children of alcoholics.

Joe: They not simply are going to be, they are.

Dr. Curt Grayson: Every bit a thing of fact, the really, in talking about adult children of alcoholics, nosotros find it's a three generational problem. So fifty-fifty if your parents don't impact a drop of alcohol, you lot are only as much affected because they were adult children of alcoholics and they did not learn how to parent past having no example.

Dr. Dobson: Then information technology sometimes skips a generation doesn't it?

Dr. Brusque Grayson: It can.

Joe: Merely information technology'due south also unconscious. I didn't effort to transfer this stuff to my kids, simply it was transferred; it was transferred unconsciously. The good news is today they know about it. They know that there is help. They know what happened to me and it's out in the open. There'due south no more than secrets, not in my family.

Dr. Dobson: Ann, we're dealing with number ix on this list, adult children of alcoholics constantly seek blessing and affidavit. Has that also been a feature of your life? And equally a child, did y'all reach for developed affirmation and not go it?

Ann: Unlike Chris, I didn't strive to become those A'south for approving. That probably was because my parents just most ignored me. Equally a child, I had no validation. I had no response from my parents. My mother was so busy taking care of the alcoholic, I was pretty much left on my own. There was no one encouraging me to do well in school or no 1 commenting if I did poorly in school. No assist at all.

Dr. Dobson: What does it do to you all today when you do something that you feel is done well or right and another person just doesn't happen to like information technology? Suppose at work y'all're trying to exercise a good task and the other individual doesn't mean to reject you or exist insulting, only simply says, "I think nosotros ought to do information technology another way." Do y'all even so feel it today? Are you still hypersensitive to that?

Ann: You get the feelings down within. I recall you lot're always going to be sensitive, just today I can speak out and I can vocalization that feeling.

Dr. Dobson: What other items from this list of 13 jump out at yous?

Joe: The one that jumps out at me, Dr. Dobson is this one whereby nosotros're so serious. For years people used to say to me, "Joe, lighten upward." And I'd say, "How?" I didn't really laugh until I was twoscore years quondam.

Dr. Dobson: Is that correct?

Joe: That's true. And I know I didn't cry until I was twoscore years old, in my retentivity. And it wasn't until recovery that those emotions were released. Y'all see, I stuffed my emotions and I only knew a few, and not knowing those emotions, how in the world could I express joy? How could I have joy in my life when I didn't have any joy in my life?

Joe: So we can get into a veil of tears, just the truth of the thing is, for me today, subsequently a lot of work and a lot of recovery, recovery's a lot of fun and laughing.

Dr. Dobson: And yous can express joy today?

Joe: Yep, y'all bet.

Dr. Brusk Grayson: I think with me, I was the one in the family who was the family unit clown and comic, and I was able to express mirth and go on people off balance.

Dr. Dobson: That's one of the methods of coping.

Dr. Brusque Grayson: That'south right. That'due south right. And for me, also being the ane that stopped the fights, one of the ways I stopped fights in the family is I told a joke. I was able to do a somersault. I was able to juggle. I learned to juggle when I was young. I would do kind of funny little weird things to go my parents' attention off either hit me or getting in an statement with each other.

Joe: The basis of all one-act is tragedy.

Dr. Dobson: Sure information technology is.

Chris: I think for me that the inconsistency of the behavior of my parents and especially my male parent is that I never knew when playtime would end up to be a very dangerous fourth dimension, that something would go wrong. The cord on the kite would pause and suddenly my begetter would become extraordinarily upset and he would begin to beverage more, and information technology turned out to exist a horrendous ... finish up in a hitting or beating or being sent to my room.

Dr. Dobson: And then he had a low frustration tolerance even when he was sober that lent itself to more drinking.

Chris: He was never really sober. I hateful always the issue of the alcohol was in that location. And then that playful niggling girl inside me, there's a part of me that'southward finding out she's at that place and information technology'southward fun to discover her. At that place all the same is some fear and it's nonetheless not okay to play because while I'm playing over hither, there's some danger over here.

Dr. Dobson: Chris, let me put you through something hard, tin can I?

Chris: Sure.

Dr. Dobson: Let'south suppose that your begetter was able to visit yous today and he was sober and y'all have an opportunity to talk to him. What would you say to him?

Chris: Wow. If I had the opportunity to see my father, what I'd really similar to say to him is that I wanted him. And when he was drinking, what I had was a bottle, and I wanted him. And I wanted the safety and the playful times to be there and be there more often. But not to take the bottle.

Dr. Dobson: Chris, would you forgive him?

Chris: By faith, I take forgiven him.

Dr. Dobson: Would you lot tell him that?

Chris: Yes.

Dr. Dobson: Not only for drinking but for abusing you sexually?

Chris: Yes.

Dr. Dobson: You've forgiven him?

Chris: I have forgiven him past word of oral cavity, past confessing that and past religion. Information technology'south dropping into my middle.

Dr. Dobson: Ann, what would you say?

Ann: My dad's been expressionless for years now and we never said, "I dearest y'all," and so I'd say, "I love you daddy."

Dr. Dobson: He never told yous he loved you?

Ann: No.

Dr. Dobson: Did he honey you, Ann?

Ann: I'm sure he did in his own way. But he too was the adult kid of an alcoholic and didn't know how to express feelings.

Dr. Dobson: Did he e'er put his artillery effectually you? Ever accept yous on his lap?

Ann: I never remember that, whatever times like that.

Dr. Dobson: You lot withal miss it today?

Ann: Certain practice.

Dr. Dobson: It'southward a void all these years afterwards.

Ann: That'due south right.

Dr. Dobson: Curt, what would you say to your father if you had an opportunity to talk to him?

Dr. Brusque Grayson: Well, fortunately both my parents are withal alive. My mother was the alcoholic, then really a lot of my issues and talking would exist with her. I'm actually fortunate in that my mother has had viii years of sobriety and that'south been a blessing to me and to our family unit.

Dr. Dobson: Have you been able to reconcile?

Dr. Curt Grayson: Well, I have a little scrap. She understands now that she is sober, some of the things that happened, and I'm able to really take a risk. As we talk well-nigh in our ACA support group, yous can't e'er automatically right away get to your parents and say, "Now I know I grew up in this alcoholic home, and I demand that you brand reparation and acknowledge what you did wrong." Some people don't get a chance to talk to their alcoholic parents until many years subsequently they've gotten some recovery themselves. Just I've been very fortunate to take saturday down with my female parent and she's a very brave woman to listen to me in some of my anger and some of my pain and be very, very willing to hear it. And I don't call up that's mutual, but I know it'due south been helpful for me.

Dr. Dobson: Joe, what would you say to your parents if you had an opportunity?

Joe: Well, to my dad, I did accept an opportunity. I had a chance to sit with my dad on his deathbed and talk with him heart to centre. However, that was before alcoholism and the like. But what I would say is the truth, that he hurt me an awful lot. It made me very angry and I forgive him because I know his pain. That's how I've found forgiveness. Who am I to judge?

Dr. Dobson: Was he an adult child of an alcoholic?

Joe: Absolutely. And he was an alcoholic too. Then I judged him for years and was real angry with him, but what skilful's that practise?

Dr. Dobson: We have such empathy for a child who is deprived, abused, hurt in this way. Only when that child grows up and becomes a hurting, abusing developed, then we don't have empathy for him anymore. If we could have seen your father when he was a fiddling boy, when he needed to exist held.

Joe: Sure.

Dr. Dobson: When he needed someone desperately to accept him in his arms and pull him upwards close and tell him he's of import and tell him that he's loved, and that was not in that location for him. There would be at least an understanding of why he was unable to meet your needs.

Joe: Even then when my dad died, I thanked God back so that the hurting was over for him, considering I knew even then without any education or whatsoever that it was painful.

Chris: In that location'south another process to this and this is Chris equally an adult dealing with a piffling girl inside her. I accept hated her. I take wanted to dispose of her. I wanted to annihilate her. I wanted to do the verbal same things to the little girl inside me that my parents did to her, and to go-

Dr. Dobson: Why do you detest her Chris?

Chris: Hated.

Dr. Dobson: That's in the past.

Chris: Yep. That's in the by. Because she was then defiled and unacceptable and she was the scapegoat of the family unit and she was emotionally thrown out of the family when she was raped at age four. I no longer became the daughter that my mother and my father badly needed me to be for them. I could not be me.

Dr. Dobson: I had such a marvelous relationship with my parents, particularly the relationship with my father. I've done a lot of talking nearly information technology, and people will write me and say, "I didn't have that. I green-eyed that. I wish I could have had it." You spend the rest of your life thinking well-nigh it if y'all didn't have it, don't you?

Ann: I so longed for this loving, happy family and thought I was going to create it when I bankrupt abroad from that home, when I got married and went out on my own, I was going to create that loving, happy family.

Dr. Dobson: And found yourself facing the same kind of thing. So you lot feel cheated in that way, Ann?

Ann: Sometimes I do.

Dr. Dobson: Yep, and information technology will exist remembered for a lifetime because there is that need and it will withal be there.

Chris: At that place are those 2 kinds of tears that I take. I have the tears of the things that happened to me; the abuse, and I have the tears of what didn't happen, and at present that I know some families savour and that does happen. I still believe that office of my middle's desire to be married is to have a little piece of that in my life.

Joe: Relative to meeting the child, myself in the past, I've washed that in a way.

Dr. Dobson: Have y'all really, have you thought that idea earlier, Joe?

Joe: Absolutely. A main ingredient of recovery for an ACA is to go back, discover the memories, notice the pain, and then that in essence, we tin can experience the healing of forgiveness and then to begin to re-parent ourselves. I know that piddling kid that was back so very well today, finally.

Dr. Dobson: And what was he like Joe?

Joe: He'southward a neat little kid. He was distressing back then, but he'due south a peachy piddling kid. He's the one that allows me to laugh. He'southward the ane that gives me spontaneity. He's the one that allows me to honey and to play. He's the 1 that didn't become the play. And today, I take him to baseball game games and things like that. I've never done that before and nor did my parents. I begged my dad to accept me to baseball games. He would never practise that. And today, I can take me to a baseball game. As uncomplicated equally that might sound, that really works because I'm learning how to love myself.

Dr. Dobson: In the right manner.

Joe: Admittedly.

Dr. Dobson: Not self-aggrandizing.

Joe: And God taught me that. The first time I experienced dearest, existent love, is the first fourth dimension I experienced God in my life.

Dr. Dobson: Chris said that for a time as an developed, she hated the memory of the little kid inside of her. Did yous hate-

Joe: Not consciously, simply unconsciously. I hateful, after all, I tried to poisonous substance him with alcohol. Think about that. It was slow suicide, it was killing myself. What'southward that near? And and so in reply to your question, yeah, just I wasn't really, actually aware of information technology.

Dr. Dobson: Brusk, what the adult child of an alcoholic does not want to exercise is canteen it up inside.

Dr. Curt Grayson: That's absolutely correct. And I agree with Joe, I think in some ways, part of my being an adult now and having come out of an alcoholic home, is that to parent myself improve or to re-parent and take intendance of my piffling boy within, is to one-time look at my very busy schedule and learn to say no and learn to set aside fourth dimension for me to play.

Dr. Curt Grayson: Now, for me, play is playing lawn tennis, it'southward playing guitar, it'south playing basketball. And I have to larn how to schedule in those times to just be this frolicsome, featherbrained little kid. Because the remainder of the time I'one thousand too responsible.

Joe: Which is fun.

Dr. Curt Grayson: That's right.

Dr. Dobson: And fun is a curse. Yous can't have it, correct? In addition to these 13 characteristics of an ACA, there are also behaviors that are typical. The compulsive kind of beliefs. Ann you developed an eating disorder, didn't yous?

Ann: That's right. I've struggled with a weight trouble now for about 9 or ten years.

Dr. Dobson: Chris, y'all had the aforementioned state of affairs, didn't you lot?

Chris: Yep, I did. Aye. I turned to sugar to endeavour to feel better. And at one time in my life I was obese.

Dr. Dobson: Well, I was non a child of an alcoholic. I've turned to sugar too, and then I don't know what excuse I take. Joe, you turned to alcohol. All of these are ways of dealing with pain, patently. Brusk, what are some of the other approaches to dealing with this pain inside? What are some of the other compulsive behaviors?

Dr. Brusk Grayson: Well, I recollect it's important to let people know that peradventure people are feeling a lot of the emotions that we're feeling hither today and they're trying to think, "Was my male parent an alcoholic? Was my grandad an alcoholic?" And maybe they're proverb no, but maybe they're still identifying very much with what we've said here today. And there are other addictions. I hateful at that place are parents that are workaholics, they're foodaholics, exerciseaholics and various other kinds of compulsive behaviors that would, I feel, equally qualify people to exist in a back up group and deal with these issues. And the way I expect at it is, annihilation that made the parent preoccupied with themselves and not with raising the kid and being there emotionally-

Dr. Dobson: Deprived you in the same manner.

Dr. Curt Grayson: Exactly.

Ann: When y'all were talking about that Curt, it made me remember that at that place are people out there that are going to say, "Well, my parent wasn't an alcoholic because my parent was responsible. My parent attended piece of work every day; never missed a day of work. My parent was a civic leader, my parent wasn't a slip row bum." And we tend to think of an alcoholic as existence somebody that's unable to concur down a job that is unable to keep them cocky, physical appearance, and is constantly drinking and under the influence and may be passed out cold. Whereas, that is not that stereotype of what an alcoholic is.

Dr. Curt Grayson: I think the word in that location that I would use is there's some people that are called functional alcoholics. And what that means is just like you're maxim, Ann. Every bit far as somebody who has a job, they are very responsible in the community, just they are withal just every bit fond to the alcohol. It could even be some other legal medication. Some people are addicted to a Librium, Valium, various other prescriptions that their doctors freely give them without actually knowing that they're addicted.

Dr. Dobson: And their children take many of the same characteristics that we've been talking about.

Dr. Curt Grayson: Exactly.

Roger Marsh: Well, that is a rather sobering revelation for many in our listening audience of what truthful alcoholic parents wait like. This has been a difficult field of study that we've addressed on this edition of Family Talk. Only we believe that by bringing these difficult topics to the surface, meaningful healing can have place for individuals who are hurting. Over the years, we've heard from many listeners who've dealt with this verbal outcome.

If you had or currently have an alcoholic parent in your family, nosotros have a resources for you. It's a book past Daryl Quick called The Healing Journey For Adult Children of Alcoholics. You lot'll find a link to this book by going to our broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org. Also, if you're looking for more applied help, you can connect with the American Association of Christian Counselors at aacc.net. You can find boosted resources and search for a Christian advisor in your surface area. Again, that'southward aacc.net.

Thanks and then much for joining u.s. today. Be sure to tune in again next time for the conclusion of this word. We'll be talking virtually positive steps that adult children of alcoholics can take to further process their injure. That's coming up side by side fourth dimension on Dr. James Dobson'southward Family unit Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Hope you'll join the states so.

Journalist: This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family unit Institute.

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