Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Fear
Fear
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Marriage mistakes.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Lots of people know that they need couples counseling. They have heard about and thought about the things relationship counseling can do for them. They are considering it for all sorts of reasons. What they want to know when they ask about the price tag is often, can they afford it and then will it be worth the price.
It is unfortunate that this question comes in as often as it does. Couples counseling can help. Sometimes it helps a lot. Couples therapy can even help if you have both decided it is over and you want out. This is extra true if there are children involved.
Sometimes couples counseling can help you repair a damaged relationship. Other times it can help you both work through the decision to separate. Remember that if there are children, family, and friends or even pets to consider, the more you can agree on, the less the trauma and cost of taking this to the lawyers.
More than one couple has come in thinking it was all over and they needed to work out the details of the divorce and by the time the relationship counseling was completed they had rediscovered the things they liked about the other person and the relationship was off life support and on the mend.
Couples, married or not, should get the help they need to keep their relationship healthy and growing and the price of seeing a therapist shouldn’t be the deciding factor. If there are children involved they need the help in working out the ways to make this less traumatic for the kids.
A good couples therapist can help interrupt the conflict and give you a chance to try on some new behaviors. Sometimes just finding out that what you are going through is typical for a relationship at the stage you are at can be helpful.
The counselor can give you a different way of looking at your issues and can help you develop and practice new skills. The things that brought two people together are often the things that are pushing them apart. The skills you need to start a relationship are not the skills you need to maintain one.
Once your relationship begins to change the common tendency is to blame the partner. You think they need to change or that you need to get out of this relationship and find someone else. It is rarely that simple. Pick a partner and you get a set of problems. Change partners and you change problems, often for the worse rather than the better.
The average couple, according to one study, attends couples counseling about 6 times. A few couples may opt for more sessions than that, say twelve or more. Beyond that, you are probably not working on conflicts. You will have transitioned to more of a relationship coaching situation where you are working on growing the strength of your relationship rather than trying to save it.
Some of the how long or how many sessions depends on the nature and seriousness of the issues. If there has been an affair the non-affair partner may need time to work on their own pain and issues separate from the couple’s issues.
We often discover that there are personal issues that one or both of the parties are working through. Hidden underneath the “couples issues” and “lack of communication” there are often long-standing serious substance use or childhood issues.
The price for couples counseling varies from area to area. In major cities, the prices can be higher but then so is the office rents and everything else. In my area, the “usual and customary” rate is on the order of $100.00 to $150.00 an hour. A few very new counselors may be lower and some old-timers with very busy practices charge more.
Relationship issues are not considered a mental illness, even if your spouse is driving you crazy. Most medical insurance or public funding will not cover relationship issues or the coverage will be limited. There are cost-cutting things you can do. Some Employee Assistance Plans cover relationship issues. There are low-cost clinics and some counselors offer sliding fee scales for low-income people.
Even if none of those options work for you and you are looking at paying out-of-pocket consider this:
How much will the divorce lawyer want for a retainer? Do the math. Six sessions at the average price that works out to six hundred to nine hundred dollars. Less than a lawyer. Less than deposits and rent for a second place. Way less than the cost of a custody dispute.
How much time and effort have you put into this relationship? There must have been some reason you two got together and stayed together besides the booze that first night.
If there is any chance of fixing this don’t you owe it to yourself to invest a few bucks in trying to make this relationship work?
One thing I have noticed also. Those people who divorce, they often end up quickly getting into a second or third relationship. A bit later those repeat relationships end up in therapy to work on the reasons their past relationships did not work.
My hope is that this post helps put the costs, financial and emotional, of relationship counseling into the larger perspective of the cost of abandoning a potentially good relationship, the effects on the children, family, and friends of not trying to learn how to have a good relationship.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Adventure
Life is an adventure
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Divorce.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
In relationship counseling we run into a fair number of couples that have been together a long time, often 20 years or so, and now they find that they just can’t hold it together anymore. The most common cause of these issues is that they have spent the last twenty years “staying together for the kids” instead of staying together because they want to be together.
Most people who have worked with children will tell you that your children are not being fooled by this behavior. Kids know when mom and dad are distant and don’t like each other even when there is no outright fighting going on.
Growing up in a home where the parents wish they were not together is not much fun. If you are in that situation consider letting go of your resentments and working on the relationship. If you have to live there you might as well find a way to make the relationship better.
It is not unusual for relationships to go through a period of severe distress just about the time the oldest child is graduating from high school. Couples look at each other and ask “why did we stay together all these years?” If it was for the kids now what? Do you two still want to be together?
Relationships like cars or houses need maintenance. If you have just used your relationship to focus on the kids and have not kept the connection with your partner healthy then after the kids are gone there is not much left.
Some couples split up and try to start their lives over. Most of the time they end up in new relationships, now wanting a relationship for themselves instead of for the kids. Often both people get new partners. Who wants to be alone once the kids are gone?
Guess what? This complicates things. You are not a twenty-something anymore. Your new partner comes with an ex and some kids. So you, your ex, your new partner, your ex’s new partner, and the kids and all their partners keep crossing paths. You think you put your needs on hold for the kids before? Looks like it has just gotten worse. Do you get to enjoy life while you are still alive?
Lots of people stay in bad relationships and suffer. They think that the suffering they will go through by staying is less than what they and the kids would go through if they end this relationship.
Plenty of people go through these young-children-years by trying to stay busy and distract themselves from a relationship that is not meeting their needs.
Dads tend to work a lot. The old idea was that dad worked and paid the bills so that the rest of the family could have a good childhood. The result of this model was that dad got robbed of being a part of the family he was paying for and the rest of the family gets to resent dad for never being there.
Moms also get caught up in this. Mom usually has two or more choices of ways to stay busy and avoid looking at what is lacking in her life. Mom can become a fanatical “soccer mom.” Spend all day and all night not just taking kids to places but also volunteering to help the activity take place. Mom can get so caught up in the school and the soccer league and the clubs that she does not have time to talk with her own kids let alone dad. Or mom can insist the kids need more things and expensive activates and she can go to work and stay busy that way.
What will mom do if the kids escape? Some chase the grandkids down and try to stay busy and others drop into a deep depression because their life has no meaning without someone else to make happy.
Smart couples develop other choices. If you are having difficulties you work on the issues. Couples counseling can help, so can making sure that you allocate some time and resources to maintain your relationship. Couples that enjoy being together and doing things together survive the kid’s exodus.
Think this over. You have a lot of time invested in your family. Are you waiting to do your time so you can escape after the kids leave or are you willing to work on this relationship so that the two of you will have reasons to be a couple after the kids have moved out and on and started their own families?
There is life after children. You can have a good relationship after your kids start their own lives if you two can get through the process without hurting each other so much there are just no good feelings left in the relationship account.
If your relationship feels like doing time, consider getting help from a professional relationship counselor.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Counseling questions.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
The traditional way of thinking about things was that you should just automatically be well and happy and that if you were not then you were sick or there was something wrong with you. If you were sick or mentally ill then you went to the doctor and they gave you some pills to make you better.
Over the last hundred years or so, new ways of looking at things have emerged. First, there was talk therapy, the talking cure that involved going to see a counselor, and talking through your issues. Still, this was mostly deficit-based. You were sick and the professional was supposed to know how to fix you. The sicker you were the more you needed to talk about and the longer you needed to talk.
Recently we have seen some new trends emerging. Healthy living can keep you physically healthy and thinking more helpful thoughts might prevent the occurrence of a mental illness or at least make it get better faster. There are things you can do to work on yourself and the counselor, sometimes now a “life coach”, can help you learn how to create that better less stressful life you want.
Yes, we know that there may be some difficulties that are genetic or the result of trauma or injury, but even for those conditions, there are ways you can reduce your stress and help to keep yourself mentally well.
This new emphasis on mental wellness and recovery has gone by several names. Strength-based counseling and positive psychology are two of the prominent ones. WRAP also belongs on that list.
If you were to go to a life coach or counselor that worked from a more strength-based approach how would they go about helping you? Also, how might you go about preparing to help yourself.
A beginning exercise would involve getting clear on your values. Is money important to you? Is family? Which is more important? Lots of people spend time in life pursuing goals only to find out that the things they had to do to get there were not consistent with their values.
There are several good exercises that can help you get clear on your values. You could also spend some time thinking about what is important to you. A good counselor would spend some time with you making sure you know the guiding principles of your life before sending you off on a quest for your happy life.
Goals are about where you want to go. Values are about how you want to take the trip. Do you want to be wealthy? Why? Are you OK with cheating people to get there or is being honest more important to you than the money?
Now don’t go saying you do not want to be successful you are not all about money. There are lots of other goals that are more important to many people than money. Just if you are working hard to get a good education so you can get a good job so you can make a lot of money is that success if helping the less fortunate was your value?
You could use the money to help others or you might choose to work in a program that paid less but that helped the needy.
Do you want to be a great athlete? Or is a writer more your thing? Maybe being a great father or mother is your priority. No one goal is the “best” in and of itself. Just pick the one that speaks to you and check it against the value yardstick you created in step one.
Most people have several goals and find they need to prioritize them. It takes time to reach goals and you need to be sure you work on the big ones rather than leaving those to a someday that never comes. A good counselor or life coach can help you figure this out.
Say your goal was to have more friends. Maybe you are shy and meeting people is hard. The counselor could help you devise a plan to stretch your comfort zone and begin to expand your circle of friends.
Shy people often lack social or people skills. Rather than saying that this is just the way you are, we used to blame that on your being introverted, your counselor might teach you some social skills and help you create opportunities to practice these skills.
Having to check in each week and let the counselor know how you did on the homework or practice assignments can motivate you to keep working on your skills. Nothing so keeps you accountable as having to pay that other person each week and knowing you will be largely wasting your money if you pay to go in and tell them you didn’t do the work.
If you find you can’t or don’t want to do the required practice, that is important information for your life change project. Talk this part through and see if it is fear or if the goals are wrong or you picked goals that do not match your values. Some people at this point come to the realization that those goals are not really their goals. They are what their parents wanted for them or what they think they should be working towards.
When plans do not work or when you breeze through them and decide that goal was too easy, you need to revise your plan. A good counselor can help you keep updating your plans and taking your life game to the next level.
From all these points you can see that none of this is about any diagnosable mental illness. It is about creating a happy life. People with a happy life have way less depression or anxiety and stress, well they just eat that for breakfast.
While this happy life planning may not fit well with staying sick so you can get free therapy, still it can beat the heck out of a not-happy life. Consider investing in and working on a life plan that helps you build the happy, well life you are looking for.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Morning
It is a good morning.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Is this a hack?
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
One of my younger colleagues was talking to me about the desirability of “hacks.” This word like so many others has changed its meaning, not because the dictionaries had it wrong, but because people started using the word differently, and then the dictionaries are having to change their definitions to keep up with the way people use the word.
As an old guy, this changing my vocabulary and changing my metaphors so as to be understandable to the younger generation is a challenge. Mentions of Milton Berle get mostly dumb stares these days. The word hack, for me, is especially challenging.
I am familiar with Lifehacking sites, I even subscribe to their email. It is just that I had no idea how many other areas of life were getting hacked these days.
Hacks used to be cabs you called to take you somewhere. In that sense, I can see the use of the term life hack. These little tips are meant to help you get from where you are to somewhere else, quickly or more easily.
A “Hack” also used to be someone who did things in an unprofessional or half-hearted way. Calling a journalist a “hack” as in writing an uninformed or factually incorrect story was one of the worst things you could say about a member of the third estate. Hack writers were thought of as being unoriginal and mediocre. In that sense, I would not want a hack writing my life hacks.
There is also hacking into computers, as in unauthorized entry and hacking things up with an ax, neither of which seems to be related to those other definitions of hack.
Today Hacks, life or otherwise, have become accepted as short, useful ways to do things better, faster, and more easily. In an era when there is far more skimming than reading going on via the internet, using hacks makes sense. Skimming used to be a bad thing as in taking money out of the till which involved stealing or cheating on your taxes, but today skimming is grabbing the cream off the top of the article without reading every word. See the old guy is catching on.
As we look more at how to improve life, wellness, and recovery, and less at diseases and disorders, looks like Hacks have their place. It also appears that a number of the posts on counselorssoapbox.com in the past were in fact “hacks.” How to improve your memory, how to be happy, and so on. I would also include recovery tips in this category. So life hacks will now get their own category.
Not sure. Some of you youngsters need to let me know how far this hack thing should extend. Do we need friend hacks, memory hacks, etc or can we just lump them all together as life hacks? For now, just an added link to the posts that feature hacks, and you can sort through them or look in the other categories for hacks.
Here is the link to the counselorssoapbox.com life hacks.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Unhappy.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Writing about your problems and your feelings is a standard treatment in mental health and recovery settings. Researchers tell us that writing about your issues can speed your recovery. They also tell us consistently, in multiple studies, that the more time people spend on social media the less mentally healthy you become. How can we make sense of this? Is writing about your feelings good or bad?
There are a lot of reasons that talking about and writing about what is on your mind can improve your mental health. It depends however on who you write to and what kind of reaction you want from them.
Writing in a journal or other private place can help you work through difficult things. Exposing yourself online to the attacks of the trolls leads to emotional damage.
Writing things out can help you explore what you are thinking. It can turn a jumble of feelings into a coherent story of your life and make meaning out of your experiences. It can also expose you to a lot of negative consequences if the trolls get hold of that story.
When we write for friends and supporters we do it to express ourselves. On social media, it is more about hoping for a favorable response. People start measuring the value of what they have written and therefore their self-worth, on how many “friends” they have and how many “likes” they get.
True friends like you no matter what. Trolls feel so bad about themselves that they look for people to pull down. Have you ever know someone who felt so bad about themselves that they needed to put everyone else down in order to feel OK about themselves? Those type trolls gravitate towards social media where they can spew their venom and move on.
One reason that negative comments affect us so deeply, especially online, is the human tendency to compare up. You do not compare your popularity with the person with only one friend – you. We tend to compare ourselves with those who have thousands of friends. Some people wage relentless quests to accumulate the most “fake friends.” There are even places you can buy friends, likes, and followers.
One week you get 5 likes on your social media page. This means that people like you right? Next week you get 3 likes. This should equal 8 likes in two weeks. That should be good. What we see however is not that we have now accumulated 8 likes but that this week’s likes are down by 40% a severe decline in your popularity. And you had a couple of snarky comments also. You are now likely to be desperate.
Most people will at this point increase the number of posts they make. If you want to be popular, if you want to have friends and be considered an OK person, you need to be online all the time. You need to put in more posting hours. At this point, you are becoming hooked and your self-worth is dependent on those electronic rewards, the friends, and likes, that pop-up with you say and do the “right” things.
In expressive writing, we can write, rewrite, and revise. This presents opportunities to think more about these feelings and to change them from unhelpful thoughts to more helpful thoughts. Staying up all night posting online, hoping someone will like your results in sleep deprivation, disappointment, and depression.
On-line once you click post you are stuck with the result. One typo and you can kick yourself for being stupid forever. That typo will never be recalled but all the good things you have ever done will fade away.
In counseling and with support systems there is a good chance you will be told that what you are going through is normal and that helps ease the pain of the moment. On-line those fake friends will tell you how they never have that problem and announce to the world all manner of negative things. That has to deflate your self-esteem.
Are your online activities making your life better and happier? Or are you like so many others becoming addicted to social media? The more time you spend on social media the more likely you are to become dependent on the opinions of others and the lower your self-esteem may become.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
Want the latest blog posts as they publish? Subscribe to this blog.
For videos, see: Counselorssoapbox YouTube Video Channel
By David Joel Miller, MS, Licensed Therapist & Licensed Counselor.
Counseling questions.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
Most of the attention in the addiction and alcoholism field is focused on the addict. For this discussion, I will include alcoholics and alcoholism under the category of addict because – yes – alcohol is a seriously dangerous and addicting drug. Many drug addicts use and abuse alcohol also and when trying to stop they will often turn to alcohol as a crutch.
For every person who is an addict, there are five to eight other people who have been affected by that addict’s drug and alcohol use. The addict gets treatment and has a host of self-help options. For the partners and families of addicts, there are far fewer resources
The substance user and abuser will try to find ways to justify and minimize their use. They tell you and themselves that their problem is not that bad. They keep this up until some outside event forces them to face the addiction and even then they may vow to “cut back” or reduce their drug use.
The way the addict describes events will have you doubting your own sanity. You begin to wonder if they ever tell the truth. They repeat stories with such conviction you can’t see how their perception of reality and yours are so different. You may even ask yourself and others if you are going crazy.
Addiction leaves more destruction in its path than some tornadoes. There are bills to pay, fines, lost jobs, and damaged relationships. There are children to care for. The families of addicts daily deal with cleaning up the mess while asking themselves when it will end.
The addict complains and asks for support while away in jail or rehab. All the while you are trying to hold your life and family together. Then when they come home they may launch back into the old drug use pattern believing that they will now be able to manage their use. Some will embrace recovery and or the 12 step community. Before they were always gone in their addiction and now they are gone in their recovery.
Personally, I think that the addict working the steps is a better outcome. Eventually, as they recover they will begin to function again. But that wait can be more than some family members or spouses can take. You start to wonder if your life will ever get better.
Most inpatient rehabs have almost round-the-clock treatment for the addict. If that program offers any help for the family it is probably a couple of hours one day a week. Even if you do get to go most of the focus is on how you can help the addict not on how you can recover from the stress of living with one.
Sometimes family members have drifted into ways of coping with the chaos that comes from living in a home with an addict. You do what you have to do to keep a roof over your families head. Once they are in recovery you may hear things like you are an “enabler” or “codependent.”
You didn’t mean to do anything to keep them using but you can see how the more you did the less they had to do for the family and the more their drug use came first. For many spouses of drug addicts, it is very much like staying with a partner who is having an affair because you and the kids may not have many options.
There are lots of meetings, A.A. and N. A. for the addicts. But for the families not so many. There usually are 25, 50, or even 100 A.A. meetings in a town for every Al-anon Meeting.
Many families and most spouses drop the addict off for treatment and say “Here fix him or her.” What is missing is the family nature of the disease of addiction. The whole family is hurting and they all need help.
Please do not say that the kids do not know what is going on. That is rarely the truth. Most of the time even the little ones know way more than you think they do.
In my work, especially in private practice, I see a fair number of family members. Mostly they come in looking for ways to get the addict to stop using or go into treatment. There are small things we can do but counseling does not do much for the person who is not in the room.
You have been stressed, traumatized, made anxious and depressed by living with the addict.
The spouse or family member of the addict is generally so stressed out and traumatized by living with the addict they are no longer functioning effectively. What they need desperately is some counseling or coaching or how to function more effectively themselves.
Sometimes the family needs some perspective. They need to hear that they did not make the addict use. They may not be perfect. There are often things in the family that went wrong. But the choice to cope with problems by drinking and using, that was all the addicts’ choice.
You may also need to hear that drugs mess up memory and that addicts tell lies so often they begin to believe them. You are not going crazy. But they may be telling you things they believe that are nowhere near true.
Families always seem to want a magic formula to get the addict to stop using. What you need to know is that there may be things that encourage or discourage drug and alcohol use but there is nothing you can do to keep them from using if the addict chooses to use. Yes, Virginia, even in prison drug addicts find ways to drink and use.
If you are living with an addict or have one you’re related to that may be coming home soon I encourage you to get some help for yourself. Seek help not for how to stay involved in their addiction and recovery by doing for them. Look for help for yourself on how to cope with the situation you are in. Work on acceptance, that you are in charge of you, but you can’t control their drugs.
Look for help for you? Consider Al-anon. There are counselors and coaches that can help you. Some parts of this may be covered by insurance but after all you will pay for fines and lawyers and treatment, you need to invest some resources in getting the rest of the family help also.
Staying connected with David Joel Miller
Seven David Joel Miller Books are available now!
My newest book is now available. It was my opportunity to try on a new genre. I’ve been working on this book for several years, but now seem like the right time to publish it.
Story Bureau is a thrilling Dystopian Post-Apocalyptic adventure in the Surviving the Apocalypse series.
Baldwin struggles to survive life in a post-apocalyptic world where the government controls everything.
As society collapses and his family gets plunged into poverty, Baldwin takes a job in the capital city, working for a government agency called the Story Bureau. He discovers the Story Bureau is not a benign news outlet but a sinister government plot to manipulate society.
Bumps on the Road of Life. Whether you struggle with anxiety, depression, low motivation, or addiction, you can recover. Bumps on the Road of Life is the story of how people get off track and how to get your life out of the ditch.
Dark Family Secrets: Doris wants to get her life back, but small-town prejudice could shatter her dreams.
Casino Robbery Arthur Mitchell escapes the trauma of watching his girlfriend die. But the killers know he’s a witness and want him dead.
Planned Accidents The second Arthur Mitchell and Plutus mystery.
Letters from the Dead: The third in the Arthur Mitchell mystery series.
What would you do if you found a letter to a detective describing a crime and you knew the writer and detective were dead, and you could be next?
Sasquatch. Three things about us, you should know. One, we have seen the past. Two, we’re trapped there. Three, I don’t know if we’ll ever get back to our own time.
For these and my upcoming books; please visit my Author Page – David Joel Miller
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Sunday Inspiration Post By David Joel Miller.
Autumn
Autumn
Photo courtesy of Pixabay.com
“Autumn…the year’s last, loveliest smile.”
― William Cullen Bryant
Wanted to share some inspirational quotes with you. Sunday seemed like a good time to do this. If any of these quotes strike a chord with you please share them.
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