Summary of the OCT 2, 2010 PSST Meeting Posted by:Rocco--Saturday, October 02, 2010

Summary of the OCT 2, 2010 PSST Meeting

There was another nice turn-out for the Oct 2 PSST Meeting in Wilkinsburg with a good mix of new, regular and some returning veteran PSST Parents joining us.

Our PSST Pros, Val and Lloyd from Allegheny County Probation and our resident Wesley Spectrum Family Therapists Kathie and Jocelyn led the meeting with 12 parents representing 9 families.

Lloyd announced that PSST Parents Sally and Rocco have been selected to win the Allegheny County Parent-of-the Year Award. This announcement came with a beautiful congratulatory cake with Vanilla Mousse inside – YUMMY!

Read more about Sally and Rocco to receive award here:

Thank You to all of our PSST Friends

Sally and I want to give a heartfelt thank you to our PSST Pro’s; Val, Lloyd, Cathy C, Kathie T and Jocelyn. They continue to stick with us to assist, advise and support us in our effort to get our son Cisco get the help that he needs in his recovery.

We would also like to extend our appreciation to all of the PSST Parents, Past and Present, who have listened, empathized, encouraged and passed on some of their wisdom to Sally and me (and given us some serious hugs as needed).

PSST is a special place for us parents that allow us to strengthen ourselves mentally, spiritually and physically so that we can take back the power and control in our homes and our lives. PSST provides the tools we need to help our teens save their lives.

"By helping others succeed, we help ourselves succeed. Whatever good we give will complete the circle and will come back to us."

Meeting Summary

After the opening announcements everyone had a chance to introduce themselves and tell as little or as much as they wished to tell about their teenager/parental relationship. There was a storehouse of information and knowledge and wisdom and some tears and laughter exchanged.

- We had a veteran PSST mom with a daughter in recovery. Her daughter is now in the U.S. Navy and is stationed overseas in a country without a minimum drinking age. This of course triggers old feelings and alarms for her. Yes parents have triggers too. We need to continue to work at phasing them out of our lives. The mom reported that they are both doing well at this time.

- The second mom (June on the blog) is dealing with her son who is nearing the end of an inpatient program and will then move into a halfway house before coming home. She is satisfied with his progress but naturally concerned about this next phase in his recovery.

- Another mom’s son has been clean for several years but has recently relapsed. She is feeling bad because of his relapse, his consequences and because he continues to blame her for his problems. This is tough on all of us parents of addicts. We often question ourselves and wonder what we might have done differently. After a few years of clean time it must be even tougher. Please keep coming to our PSST meetings and let us support you through this.

- Our next mom had her 15 year old son involuntarily placed into an inpatient recovery program 2 weeks ago under ACT 53. She had a rough visit with him last week. He kept telling her that it was her fault and that she did nothing to help him and she had to turn him over to someone else. After arguing and trying to explain things to him she finally agreed with him that she could not do anything more for him by herself. She said he immediately quieted down and the last ten minutes of the visit went well. As she noted “If I had only thought of agreeing earlier it would have been a much nicer visit.”

Parents of addicts tend to waste a lot of time trying to explain how things really are, defend their plan or justify their actions. They feel that if they continue to “discuss” the issue long enough that their child will get the point. Unfortunately the addicted teen usually is not interested and tends to hear only “I blah, blah, blahed. You blah, blah, blahed. So we need blah, blah, blah.”

Try your best not to get pulled down this emotional rabbit hole. Come to our meetings and learn how to 'Find little things to agree with’ followed by 'Never-the-less' statements and 'Fly above the Chaos'.

- The next mom has a son who has just entered into a halfway house last week and is also naturally concerned about this next phase in his recovery. She is handling it well and challenged him to make the best of it while he is there. She is doing well but having a hard time detaching and not blaming herself. It is not an easy thing to do.

- We had a couple (Ralph & Alice on the blog) who’s son, Ed, is scheduled to leave his inpatient placement “soon”. They gave us another good example about being careful about what you say, and how you say it, to your teen. Lloyd gave us a good example of how it is okay to take the blame when the teen misinterprets what you tell them.

The first issue is about their son’s desire to return to his high school. Both Ralph and Alice emphasized, in their own way, "No, you are not returning to your high school." They are looking into alternate schools without the friends and other triggers their son would find returning to his school.

The second issue concerns being manipulated by your teen into discussing how many more days they will be in a recovery program. If you tell them 30 to 60 days they only hear that “Dad told me I will be out in 30 Days!” If you say we might work something out in the next 2 or 3 weeks they will throw “Mom, you lied! You said I would be out of here in 2 weeks!” right back at you.

Lloyd explained that it is okay to admit to them that “Oh man did I say that? I guess I was mistaken. Even so, we will know that the time is right when you are following the program and willing to accept our rules, right?”

- Our next mom has been through the recovery of her older son and is now concerned about her younger son. While she has no proof that her younger teen is using she has red flags or triggers popping up. He is not doing well in school and doesn’t seem to care about anything but his music and his band. This again emphasizes how parents of addicts develop triggers also (I know I have some myself). This is something we will always need to work on and is part of detaching.

REFOCUS VS. DETACH
After the meeting, one of our PSST moms mentioned to me that she didn’t like the word “detachment” – it brings up too many thoughts of abandonment. She likes to use the word “REFOCUS” instead. As in “You need to REFOCUS your attention off of the addict and back on your own well being.”

Being a photographer myself I like this phrase. Many times in my pictures I like to have the main subject in clear focus and fade the background. This puts the attention where it belongs. So if you find "detaching" too hard, try to "refocus" on what is important - your health and well being.

- Next were Sally and Rocco. As we noted previously Cisco is now in an adult inpatient program with emphasis on being able to manage his own life and eventually to live on his own. We had our second visit with him and he shows improvement but has months to go in a very tough program. Keep watching the blog for our updates.

- Finally there was another veteran couple (who were the 2009 Allegheny County Parents-of-the Year). Thanks for coming back to our meetings. Their 20 year old son had been clean for around 3 years. Recently he was found with beer in his car and has been charged with underage drinking. This carries with it an automatic suspension of his license. Fortunately he found an apartment about a mile from his job and will be able to walk to work for the next few months. His parents will keep the car at their house with the keys locked safely away so he is not tempted to drive without his license. His mom said she was tempted to hire a lawyer and help her son out. And then she decided no, she was not going to enable her son. It was up to him to work this one out, on his own, and see what his consequences are.

We all, at times, need to stop and ask ourselves "Is this something our child really needs or are we merely enabling his/her addiction?"

Ralph had visited the former Alcatraz Penitentiary in San Francisco and saw the following sign:

RULES & REGULATIONS, U.S. PENITENTIARY ALCATRAZ

REGULATION #5: PRIVILEGES YOU ARE ENTITLED TO -

FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER AND MEDICAL ATTENTION.

ANYTHING ELSE THAT YOU GET IS A PRIVILEGE.


It is probably too wordy for a bumper sticker but would be a great sign to hang in our adolescent addict’s bedroom.

BREAK TIME
After our break for cake and coffee and some other goodies we still had time for a role play.

ROLE PLAY
June volunteered to play the obstinate teenager in an inpatient program who wants out and is threatening to walk out if his parents did not have him released by the weekend.

Ralph and Rocco volunteered to play played the parents. Sally later jumped in as grandma.

The main theme was to get some little agreements in, to defuse the child’s anger and arguments while not giving into his manipulations.

In order not to drag this post out too long this is the “Readers Digest” version.

Mom and Dad: Hi Joe how are things going?

Joe: What do you think? Things here really suck! This place sucks! These people suck! I’m getting out of here this weekend, right?

Mom: You’re right Joe this is not a great place to be.

Dad: It must really suck to be in a place like this, don’t you agree mother?

Mom: Yes Pop, but you know it’s a good place for Joe to be…

Joe: Hey! Am I getting out of here this weekend or not?

Dad: You know Joe you always come right to the point. I like that. There is never any guessing what you are talking about. That’s great, so to get right to the point, NO you are not getting out this weekend.

Joe: I am too getting out of here. If you don’t get me out of here I am just going to walk out of here.

Mom: Right to the point again. That is great. Thanks for letting us know that Honey.

Joe: Thanks for letting you know? What do you care? You never cared about me. You never cared about anything except yourself. You put me in here so you and Pop could go out and party and vacation by yourself. You don’t care about me!

Grandma: Now Joey we do care about you. We are concerned if you walk out of here that you won’t have anywhere to go and then you would be out wondering around on the streets.

Dad: Yes we do care. In fact we care so much about your safety I am going to talk to the counselors about you wanting to leave. That way they can keep an eye on you. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to you out there.

Joe: @#$% the counselors. They’re too stupid to catch me. I can walk out of here anytime I want. I can get past the locks and the security cameras and even that old guy at the bottom of the hill with the shot gun. And the police don’t care enough to take the time to even look for me.

Mom: You right Joe, you probably could do that. You’re really clever and you've probably thought this out. You know Honey that is the main reason we are so uncomfortable with you coming home at this time.

Dad: That’s right. Jeez. If security cameras and locked doors and the police can’t stop you, well then, Mother and I certainly wouldn’t be able to relax with you living at home. We would need to keep an eye on you 24/7.

Grandma: Pop’s right Joey. It doesn’t sound to me like you are ready to come home and follow their rules yet!

This role play went a couple of different directions. We had a lot of good input from Lloyd and the parents, and were able to rewind and try some other tactics. We even had a chance to get in a few laughs.

Rewinding is not something that you will not get a chance to do at home. That is okay. If you miss this time, don’t fret. Try to get it right the next time.

That is why PSST is here. To get you ready to gret it right, to practice how to do it and to help you get it right the next time as needed.

“Parent Survival Skills Training is designed to empower parents. Some of these teenagers have held their parents hostage. The parents are desperate to find a way to survive. More importantly, they are desperate to find a way to help their teenagers survive the deadly game of drug abuse. By the time they come to group, many of the parents have already learned that “bailing their child out of trouble” only adds to the problem. We refuse to place any blame on the parents for having a troubled child. We want them to identify how they are being manipulated, rise up, and take back control.” – Val Ketter - Supervisor of the Court's D&A Unit

Once more Sally and I would like to thank everyone at PSST for being there for us.
As Sally noted "I just wish that each of the parents at PSST could win this award because I think we all deserve it!”

Thanks to the Allegheny County Eastern Probation Office for the use of their space.

The next Parent Survival Skills Training (PSST) meeting is Saturday Oct 9 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Trinity Lutheran Church 2500 Brandt School Road, Wexford, PA 15090 (Our one-year aniversary at this location).

Come and join us - PSST Meetings are open to all parents who are serious about making a difference in their children’s life.