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Quote of the Week
"If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way" ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
One of our roleplays featured a parent saying something to the effect of: "Yes, I did report you to your PO and I'll bust your a$$ again to keep you safe from drugs." This was very powerful. This is a talking point that PSST encourages parents to use. See some of our other talking points by clicking on the Talking Points brochure (Ken) on the right side of this post. You can access it in both Word and PDF formats. 1. I will do anything I can to keep you safe. 2. I will not keep secrets for you. 3. I will call the police, your PO, the school, neighbors, your friends parents, or anyone else I think can help me keep you safe from drugs.
These are a few of the messages that are on the Talking Points brochure. Another parent in group mentioned something like, "If you walk out that door I'm going to be on the phone with every parent of each of your friends and I'm going to tell them that you don't listen to me, that you continue to do illicit drugs, and that they should really take a good look at what their teens are up to." This was not a roleplay, but this is what she actually told her teenager who was trying walk out the door. He didn't go.
Also, Lori was at our meeting. This is her pen name and if you would like to read some of her writings on our blog, Rocco just reprinted the first of a six part series that Lori wrote a while back. Also, you can put "Lori" in our search window in the upper left hand corner. One of the things she said at our meeting in response to a parent who was asking "Why did my teen say ______?" Paraphrasing her response: "Your teenager just wants to manipulate you. You take what he said seriously and respond in a thoughtful manner. Meanwhile, as you are talking to your teen, all he hears is "Blah, blah, blah" and what he's thinking is "How can I get 20 bucks off this bi!@#." It was a funny moment.
At one point Lori was telling a new parent that she needs to be more concerned about her teens drug problem than she is about the possibility that he might have a juvenile record. Of course, at PSST we agree with that; and yet, we appreciate that parents are concerned about the possibility of a juvenile record.
Val pointed out that Consent Decrees carry no Juvenile Record and that teens with Misdemeanors can have their records expunged just by going downtown to the Family Court House and signing a piece of paper. I think this is a good subject for a separate post. At the least we should add that to the Should I get My Teen a PO post.
 Contributed by an anonymous single mom
When I first realized that drug testing was going to be yet another part of my single-mom job description, I really wanted a do over, because well—yuck.
I’m still waiting for my “17 again” reprieve, but I did figure out a way to use the past even if I never get to revisit it. Here’s what happened:
In the beginning, I thought that the whole "single mom of a teenage son" situation meant that this new opportunity for life experience would be too weird to handle properly. Then I remembered the good old days when my biggest problem seemed to be my plumbing. What I learned from that mess was about to serve me in fresh ways, back then my plumber had me use green dye tablets to see if the water from my toilet tank was migrating to the bowl. You can imagine my joy when I realized that I could use food coloring, leftover from cookies and craft projects, in much more inventive ways. And you know what they say; it really is good to create new memories with your child.
So, here’s the process: I turn off the water to the house first. It’s an old house, and I’m the only one who knows where the valve is. I do this for two reasons. First, I eliminate the flushing and refilling problem. Second, I do not want to get him mad when he inevitably isn’t as interested in this version of family time as I am, but I do know that he’ll want to get a shower eventually. So I tell him, “I can turn on the water as soon as you fill the cup,” as if I won’t have the ability to find or move the water valve until the cup gives the missing skills back to me. Perfect.
I flush the toilets after turning off the valve to remove as much water in the tank and bowl as possible. That’s probably just overkill. Like the Chicago River on St. Patrick’s Day, one flush by your offspring probably isn’t going to get rid of all that green. But I digress. Just like any plumber would tell you, coloring toilet water only requires a few drops in the tank and bowl of every toilet, which makes me grateful for my more modest circumstances and limited number of bathrooms.
So, I hope that if the going gets weird for you, you can use this handy tip to make family memories you’ll never forget either. Note, if you get bored, change colors. Just think of what you could do on President’s Day even in a 1 1/2 bath home. Or maybe there’s a scrapbooking opportunity here. I haven’t thought it through.
Comment From The Editor:
Thank you for the very interesting idea for the single moms in our group when they need to give their teenage son a urine drug test. A.) Locate the main water valve and turn it off. B.) Place 3-4 drops of food coloring in each toilet bowl and toilet tank. C.) flush the toilet(s) in your house to empty the tank D.) Be prepared for an unhappy teenager who will cooperate only because you promise him the use of the shower. E) If you get a positive reading on the test; seek the help which your son needs. Sally
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Emily has earned many off-campus visits with me, has had 2 successful day passes at home, and may have an overnight visit this weekend or next. She is up to level C now and doing fairly well in RTF. She still involves herself in others' business and is still overly concerned with the "fairness" of how she is treated compared to the other residents and often gets in trouble for voicing her feelings or acting out inappropriately in response.
She has been put on Lithium by the psychiatrist at the RTF, which I initially was originally very apprehensive about. I mean, that was a drug they used in Mental Hospitals! How could they put her on that? But, I have noticed a remarkable change in her since being on it, so who am I to interfere? I also hate the idea of "substituting" one drug for another which is how I view it, personally. However, I am not a doctor nor a Behavioral Health professional, nor an addiction professional, so I am letting them take charge here, and stepping out of their way, which can be difficult for me to do as a single mom who always calls the shots.
Emily is in school at the RTF and continues to struggle. But she is putting forth the effort towards her classes. She is still overly social with the boys and gets up and leaves class whenever she gets bored or overwhelmed, to pass notes to the boys or just to walk around the halls. They are working on ways to combat that. One way is to have her earn free-time on the school's computer where she can do her photography and other things except go on-line. Another thing we all agreed on was that if her behavior for the week was really bad, then I would cut my visit short that weekend. We did that 2 weeks ago and I only stayed for a couple hours. That seemed to hit home.
Emily has her Consent Decree hearing on May 3rd. That is when it expires. They are only good for a year. On May 11th, Emily will have been gone for a whole year. It is hard for me to comprehend that. A year! I still miss her. I do. And it has taken a long time, but the pain of not being with her has been replaced with a sense of relief that she is NOT home doing drugs, having boys over the house while I am at work, trashing the house, or breaking the law. I really didn't expect to feel this way. The first few months, I cried myself to sleep every night and wrote to her a couple times a week. There was such a hole in my heart. I was lonely for my daughter. I missed her smell, her pretty face, her singing in her room, us snuggling together, or watching movies on Friday nights. But I came to realize that those were the few good times we had, and the bad times were more prevalent. When your child is away, you tend to glorify the good times because you miss them, while forgetting the bad times. I have found it necessary to remind myself of the bad times, to keep myself in check, as well as to keep HER in check.
She still tries to play the victim. I do not accept that at ALL anymore. I did at the beginning because Emily was a victim of sexual abuse as a small child. But, I cannot keep doing that because it doesn't help her. It gives her an excuse to not succeed. I can't let her do that anymore. She will never make any real progress if she keeps believing she is a victim. Until she stops playing the victim and takes her recovery into her own hands, and allows the professionals to show her how, she won't get better or heal.
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How nice it was....We had a great turnout of parents and professionals in attendance. There was a whopping turnout of seventeen (17) parents. Some were familiar and others were brand new.
Val and Lloyd and Cathy were there as usual but we were also fortunate enough to have two professionals from C.I.S.P. in attendance. They were Marvin Randall and Ron Bell. Marvin heads up the Community Intensive Supervision Program which services the Wilkinsburg, McKeesport, Garfield, Homewood and the Hill District. It was good to see some new faces for even though all our stories are similar they are not the same and new wisdom is always conveyed.
I was introduced to a single mom who has some insight into "How to Drug Test Your Son" (It can prove embarassing to give a urine test to an adult son and she had a simple way to make sure the test speciman was his!) Look for her post which may be coming soon! Because of the full room we had time for only one role-play but we role-played it two ways. (One) With the teenager being in control and using the GIMME THREE STEP METHOD, NEVER THE LESS/REGARDLESS & I AM NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THAT methods (two) With the teenager being out of control and using the WE ARE GOING TO BE NICE ENOUGH TO LET YOU KNOW THAT WE ARE GOING TO HAND YOU OVER TO THE JUVENIAL COURT SYSTEM method. We had a newbee play the out of control teenager and he "brought down the house"! Bravo to him. In summation, my fellow-mom who sat next to me stated that "Our kids may always be manipulative" and yes, they probably will, therefore we must always and persistantly continue to keep the power in our homes. Thank you PSST for showing us the way to keep the power.
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Sometimes You Gotta Break a Few Eggs to Make an Omelet! For new visitors let me explain that one year ago Sally and I were about to crack. We had an addict for a teenage son (we call Cisco). We had tried various forms of counseling, out-patient therapy and 12-Step Meetings for three years and it was not working. In fact Cisco was slipping deeper into the world of drugs and becoming more and more out of control. We were not only considering Act 53 (involuntary commitment of minors into drug and alcohol treatment) for him but we were seriously beginning to ask about how we could make Cisco a Ward of the State. We didn’t think we would ever get our lives or our home back in order and we were not sure how much longer Cisco would survive. He had already overdosed twice by age 16.
In our search we found PSST and have been regularly attending PSST meetings for ten months. They have guided us to professional resources for assistance for our son and for ourselves. We have also connected with a lot of other parents having very similar experiences with their teenagers. There are other very good Help Groups in the area (you can find links to some of them on the right side of the page) but we have found this group to be the one that suits us best.
Please consider attending a PSST Saturday morning meeting if for no other reason other than to VENT your feelings with others that understand what you are going through. You will be reassured, as we were, to see a number of parents nodding in agreement as you tell your story. Within a month or so of attending the PSST meetings we found an amazing thing – Sally and I regained our ability to laugh again. This was a big turning point that we weren’t sure we would ever reach. We, as well as our son, still have a way to go to on the road to healing (with some speed bumps, some usual and possibly unusual detours and plenty of potholes ahead) but we now have our GPS set for Recovery.
On the left side of this page you will find directions to the PSST Saturday morning meetings. On the right side of this page you will notice some links titled “Recommended Posts” and “Key Role-Plays”. A lot of these are based on discussions in the PSST meetings and address subjects and topics common to parents of addicts. They go back to 2001 and contain a lot of experience and wisdom.
One that I have keyed in on several times is “Breaking a Few Eggs” from March, 2007.
The post goes into how we as parents of addicts tend to “walk on eggshells” to keep peace and order in our lives. Our tiptoeing at least provides us “the perception” of peace and order in our lives. Just for the record, let me clarify that I was the one that thought that this was the better approach. Sally learned early on to be a little more direct and frank with Cisco and tended to “stomp on eggshells” to make sure she got her point across to him.
Cisco, like most addicts, needed to be the one in control. He would "play nice" with us as long as it got him what he wanted. But whenever challenged he would get loud, agressive and agitated. This had the effect that he wanted. We sympathized, reassured, apologized, commiserated, comforted and encouraged him just as all good parents do.
To put it into one simple phrase – We Enabled him.
To paraphrase the previous post: …all of our apologies, statements of love, and determination to “understand” were seen as a sign of weakness by our teenager. He played along of course. He understood this game well. The name of the game is “How Many Ways Can I Make This MOM and Dad’s FAULT?
In the last 10 months Cisco has been arrested, voluntarily entered inpatient treatment, violated probation, visited Shuman Center and juvenile court a few times, been on house arrest for a month, successfully completed an Intensive Outpatient Program, attended a lot of 12 Step Meetings, relapsed, gone into a second inpatient treatment facility and has matured quite a bit. He is scheduled to take his G.E.D. this month and is beginning to think about his future. The drug induced fog is starting to lift and Cisco is beginning to “get it.”
During this same time Sally and I, with the help of PSST, have been going through our own recovery process. The abuse and chaos of the last few years is settling we are regaining real peace and order in our lives. But NOT by “walking on eggshells” this time around. Sally and I now “get it” too.
Breaking eggs does not make us bad parents.
We now are dealing with Cisco being placed in a halfway house before returning home. We presented it to him and he didn’t like it. We felt bad but we got over it. Cisco did very well controlling his anger but still tried his best to “guilt us”. We felt bad again, but you know what? We got over it again.
To borrow from the post again: “…we can break a few eggs. In fact, we can break a few on purpose. Why? Because we come to understand that our child’s well being is not fostered by the whole “tiptoe around the eggs thing.” Furthermore, our teenager is not the only one that needs to express a few feelings! As parents, we need to express some things too!”
We realize that if Cisco is going to believe that we have truly changed, then we better show him some of these changes while he is still in placement.
We need to take risks in order to have any chance of helping our teenager make good decisions.
We need to be strong, take-the-bull-by-the-horns parents, who do not shy from confrontation.
“We need to break a few eggs.”
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