NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ESSAY DEALS WITH DRUGS IN A NC-17 MANNER. THIS IS A REAL DEAL, AND NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART. IT'S PRETTY DIRECT.

Okay, here's the deal: I've been debating the origin of this essay. I am indeed a little weary and in need of a small vacation. However, I have lately had a slew of banged up teenagers who come from really shitty home environments. With mom in prison, she lives with eight other people at grandma's horribly managed house. Another kid who responded to my question, "do you ever have any meals together at the kitchen table?" said: "No. It's either in my room or on the living room floor watching TV. We don't have a kitchen table". So, when I worked with a father 25 years ago, and now his daughter has permanently lost her kids as she heads to prison, I penned an essay addressing this issue. Maybe it's a good idea to occasionally take the kids gloves off.


Someone came in last week and asked a rather intriguing question. They asked, “since you have been a therapist for so many years, is there stuff you know now that surprises you?”  I really have pondered that question and the answer is, unsurprisingly: yes. So how about if we narrowed down the inquiry to, “what’s the most shocking thing that you didn’t know before”?
 
Remember in the great movie The Sixth Sense when we observed the sick mother adding slow acting poison to her daughter’s food? What kind of screwed up human, mental illness or not, would do such a thing? In my forty years of counseling, I have yet to meet anyone suffering from Munchausen syndrome (purposely causing your child to suffer so that you get people’s sympathy). Personally, I believe it would be difficult to ignore the paternal instinct of absolute disgust and remain completely clinical with such a person. However, in retrospect, perhaps I have observed a close diagnostic cousin over the years. Because I have been practicing for so many years, I have had a family generational vantage point most therapists do not have. I am now in my third generation with some families. As such, with my more torn up families, I get to see a trickle-down effect of family dysfunction. The following example is a melding of a handful of situations.
 
He was in his early thirties when he was truly lost with methamphetamine. He was one of my first IV drug users. One harrowing story was when he did a shot so huge, he had to have a junkie companion hold the syringe and finish the shot for him. He was “pinned to my chair with electricity when two young teenage girls came in. While they were being escorted to the back to ‘trade’ for meth, I wanted to scream to them to stop. They had no idea how bad this gets. But I was helpless with my own huge shot, and couldn’t speak.” A year later I did my first (and only) 11pm emergency crisis with him at my office. I could see his extreme heart rate in the  carotid artery in his neck. I talked him down from his suicide plan, and he started to come back in for counseling. Over the years he has been in rehab (and did very well), later relapsed and took his marriage to the brink, saved his marriage with his sobriety, relapsed, got straight again, and I finally lost track of him. Who didn’t I lose track of? Guess.
 
Not unlike The Sixth Sense, he has spread his poisonous dysfunction to his three children. All three of his kids has been poisoned by “David” with his insane use, getting better then getting sick, then getting better and twisting off again, his shit for behavior, and obviously his "unreliability" to his children.  His son is on parole and has lost permanent custody of his children, one daughter is in prison, and the youngest daughter I last saw with a broken nose, headed back to the abuser, and permanently depressed for having lost all three of her kids. For good. No one to celebrate Mother’s Day with again- ever. Is it genetics? Is it the toxic environment? Who really knows. Regardless, he owed it to his children to fight and defeat his love of meth, and to vigorously teach them how to fight their probable genetic predisposition for the love of altered states. So thirty years ago he was hammerin’ home a giant shot, and here we are thirty years later his personal needs have poisoned his kids.
 
So little “lost control of your drug (including alcohol) users”, picture this amazing scenario: your cute four year old daughter runs up to you when you arrive home. She wants a ride on your feet as you walk around the house. Walk with her back to your room and tell her you have a surprise for her! Help her roll up her shirt sleeve and give her a shot of meth. Her veins are small, so be careful! Just a little one, cause it’s going to take a while before she is big enough to do a bigger shot. Later, maybe at eleven or twelve, you can help to walk her into a friend’s back room and teach her about trading for her drug of choice. Bring a change of clothes for her. You don’t think that’s her life because of you? Are you serious? Of course it is. In this small town, I have an easy dozen of next-generation lost young people. You think it’s just about you? Of course it’s not. So here’s the options:
 
*Permanently repair your life. Rehab, 12-step, counseling, religion, on your own.... it doesn’t matter. You dedicate your life to changing the future of your children and grandchildren. You don’t whine, make excuses, slip up...... you dedicate your life to your children. Either do it or don’t do it.
 
*Teach them the skills they will need to combat their probable genetic weaknesses. Problem solving, stress and anxiety durability, and ability to handle suffering are all going to prove to be necessary skills to make them the improved generation.
 
*Model really good behavior, even if you have to pretend. If we intend for them to be better than us, we have to give them a picture of what that is. Never let your guard down.
 
*If you find you do not possess the paternal or maternal character to devote your life to your children, put your kids up for adoption as soon as they are born. All of them.
 
If you decide you do not love your children and just can’t improve your life, at least accurately picture the events correctly. As you take a hit off the dirty pipe (or pathetically drunkenly rage), vividly picture you putting four drops of poison in their milk every day. In this manner, you will kill them slowly. Kill their kids too. It would have been so much more humane to let a family adopt them when they were young. You should seriously consider that last option. However, I would rather fix my life and save my kids. I have never met an altered state I loved more than my children.
​
John S. Sommer
Brownwood, Texas
Licensed Clinical Social Worker
National Certified Addictions Counselor II

Hey John,
I have a complicated problem. Let me start by saying I do not intend to leave my husband. His mother’s (my MIL) life has crashed and burned. The aftermath of her recent forth divorce has left her with no long term place to stay. Thus, she has moved across the country to move in with my husband, me and our two young daughters. She is mean and my husband a wussy. A week after her arrival, she yelled at my six year old daughter, “what’s wrong with you? Are you retarded?” When I angrily complained to my husband, he replied, “Oh, she didn’t really mean it”. Last week at Bed, Bath and Beyond, I turned the corner just in time to see her stick something into her purse. My own MIL shoplifting! I told my husband I would NEVER take her with me to any store ever again. He didn’t say anything, but just walked away. How do I get this incredibly screwed up creature out of my house?
Freaking Absolutely Out Schwartz
 
Dear FAO Schwartz,
It can be a real curse to be massively unassertive. However, when we allow anyone to injure our children, there’s something much more serious going on. And, I must admit , I have an issue with parents who don’t protect their children. However, as a therapist, I try to remain as objective as I can.
 
We can sit here and try to diagnose the cause of hubby’s problem: fed bad formula instead of being breast fed? Terrorized by doodle bugs when he was ten? Daddy didn’t love him as much as he did the family gerbil? Who knows, and really, who cares? The facts, regardless of our diagnoses are that you got one bad woman for a MIL and a husband who is pretty worthless in sticking up for his family  (sorry to insult your previous taste in men). I am assuming that you have confronted your MIL in addition to complaining to your husband. As you are unlikely going to slip testosterone into his iced tea, my dear, you are on your own with protecting your family.
 
Consider  moving ½ of mutual bank accounts into a new account for yourself in case of emergency. Then inform the wuss-meister you are giving his bizarro mother thirty day notice. You both can seek out new living quarters for her, including damning one of his siblings with her temporary residence. Public housing may be an option. Perhaps enrolling her into a prescription drug trial in another state would be a benefit. She’ll make some quick bucks on that venture; and maybe some new drug would turn her into a human. In the event the black widow and the gummy worm do not wish to make a residence change, you may have enough to at least temporarily move out with your girls. Your “husband” may soon tire of cooking and cleaning up all by himself, and assist his mother in moving out. Once Mrs. Badness has moved out, please feel free to write again for an idea on how to seek some degree of happiness with you and the girls. As for your husband, change is always possible, but you’ve got to want it first. I hope he can learn how to be a husband and father. It’s a good existence to work to become a protective, devoted man to your wife and your children.

Hey John,
After a lot of suffering, my mother just died. She was only in her mid-fifties. I have a lot of mixed up feelings about her death. She knew she was COPD years ago, but she kept on smoking like a train. She really didn’t take very good care of herself, and now I’m without a mom. I am both angry and sad, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel. My sister is mad at me because she says I’m not sad enough. My brother just stays drunk most of the time. How am I supposed to feel?
Lost Daughter
 
 
Dear Lost,
Early in my career,  I had a fella die who I did occasional business with and  I found myself half-crazy with my bizarre emotions. Sometimes I would not think anything about him for a while, then I’d feel guilty I hadn’t been mourning him. Other times I would be in the middle of a work project and almost “hear” a debate I’d had with him. I felt like I was losing a few of my marbles, so I went to go see my supervisor. When I explained that I was not grieving normally, he asked me what normal was. I responded, “Well, first I suppose I should be denying this whole event. Then I should probably be angry. Then I .......”. He interrupted and asked, “are you giving me Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief?” I wasn’t on purpose, but clearly I was doing just that. I laughed and agreed that I was. He asked me to describe my shifting emotions regarding Raymond’s death, and we discussed that for a while. After I left, I had a clearer picture of my sadness. I was grieving in my own private manner, and however I was doing it was “normal”.
 
Sadness / grief is an unpleasant place to dwell. Nonetheless, it is both an inevitable and important part of our lives. Grief is evidence that we have had a significant person in our lives. If God popped into your room and said, “I will relieve all of your great sadness, but in doing so, I must erase all memory of their existence from your mind”, would you do it? In a vast majority of cases, we would accept the sadness and keep the memories and experiences. Although it’s a whole lot easier to say this when I’m currently not going through it, suffering is an extremely important, and often times beneficial time in our lives. Rarely does a family member have the skills to act as a therapist. If you need to discuss this with another person, it sounds like your family would not be the ones to do it. A discussion or two with a decent counselor might be helpful. Although sadness sucks, I’m glad your relationship was significant enough to make your heart ache.
 
Hey John,
I have a job, no kids, and a shaky relationship with my boyfriend. I smoke meth, and he doesn’t like it. I say that I have a job and smoke meth, and so it is not affecting me in a negative way. Is it possible to use meth consistently AND productively?
Pam’s Pipe
 
Dear P. Piper,
My dear, if you will excuse the pun: you’re living a pipe dream. Because of increasing tolerance and simply just the nature of this drug, ♫There’s A Bad Moon On The Rise♪. Trouble is coming when you use some crappy, man-made chemical that has so many seriously bad qualities to it. Just because it is currently helping you through the day, it doesn’t mean it will continue to. In a short period of time, you will not be able to get through the day without it. Then it starts to make some long-term chemical changes in your body. Continued use without knowledge of the consequences is ignorant. Learn to add the energy to your life through consistent exercise, a well thought out diet and meth-free entertainment. The clock is tickin’ toots.

Hey John,
I have a question about my oldest son. He is a good child, helpful around the house, plays nicely with his siblings, good grades, kind and inclusive at school, etc. But when my husband or I try to instruct him on something, he gets uncomfortable sometimes to the point of tears. A simple example: we were all learning how to do push-ups (they mentioned doing them in gym class), I was correcting Johnny and little sister Jane’s form. Jane (5 years old) had no problem accepting the correction. Johnny started laughing, fidgeting, doing something goofy, etc. It isn't until you get firm with him that he will "listen" and even then you can tell it is painful for him to get corrected. He finally does it correctly then mumbles on his way out of the room “I did it right the first time”. This drives my husband nuts as he thinks he isn't being respectful and should be open to learning. I think Johnny has an issue with not being perfect and I am trying to figure out how to curb the anxiety when he doesn't get a 100% or do something right the first time. 
 
James would say that Johnny can't be a perfectionist because he doesn't work on something over and over to get it right. I don't think you need that to want to be perfect all the time. However, James is a huge perfectionist and I definitely used to be. Anyway, I am reaching out mainly because we want Johnny to be comfortable with learning new things and accepting criticism. Any advice you have would be appreciated!
 
What’s the primary focus here: wanting your child to be comfortable learning or “acting right”? Most parents I have worked with would be plenty aggravated when their kid appears to not be listening, then departs and mutters he did it right the first time. So is it perceived disrespect that is the issue here? As this appears to be your eldest child, the fact is that y’all have never entered into this part of the child rearing arena before. That being the case, we parents have much to learn as well. Remember going from nursing (or the bottle) to solids? How did that new digestion system like it? As I recall, it was a semi-painful (and stinky) transition. The same is true with most of these developmental steps. This is the beginning of learning how to learn. It’s another painful transition. We know as adults, to admit you don’t know something is a sign of strength and willingness to learn. As a kid, means you must be stupid or something. Remember not asking a question in class for exactly this reason? Take deep breath good parents; it’s ok to have some little boy ego issues with learning. Girls’ egos are easier to deal with than boys. Relax. Patiently teach, and regardless of their reaction, they’re learning. You want him to improve at learning? It seems appropriate that y’all lead the way.
ps: if we have some bad habits we do not wish for our children to learn, it’s best to either improve upon them, or hide them away. Over perfectionism comes to mind. Let’s keep these kids healthy, and raise them to be better than ourselves.
 

Hey John ,
I love to read advice columns, but yours is the first one that I've come across in which the advice really seems sound. I am desperately hoping you can give me some guidance.
 
My parents have been financially unstable since I was in my late teens. I worked and put myself through college, got married, started a family - the typical path. My husband also came from a financially irresponsible family, and we have worked our tails off to develop good financial habits and live within our means. We save for emergencies and it has not been unusual for either one of us to be working two jobs if we need to replace those funds after an emergency has come up. We're extremely worried about the financial situation my mother has placed herself in, however. 
 
My younger sister is an intermittent drug user throughout her life. Incidentally, she blames being illness on me - she says the fact that I scared/startled her repeatedly as a child caused her brain chemistry to become "off" and therefore I caused her problems. Her employment has been unstable. She would move in with my parents "just for a couple of months" and would stay for years, never contributing financially. My parents supported her son's needs (she did not pursue child support). Her son grew up and my parents insisted that she move out - she moved into the apartment complex where my mother worked, and then proceeded to quit her next job and threaten to kill herself if my parents did not pay her rent. Of course, they did. My nephew, her son, has been arrested multiple times for drug possession, and has fathered two children with another addict. My parents have cared for and paid all expenses for one of the children. The other was given to friends of the mother's sister who my nephew does not even know. My parents paid for the attorney fees involved with his arrests, court costs, replacement of multiple cars "so he could work" though my nephew has changed jobs about every two months and frequently takes a month or two off completely. My sister moved herself back in with my parents in their tiny apartment, sleeping on their living room floor, and storing all of her belongings in their living room. She stopped speaking to me when I told her it was unacceptable for a 40-year old adult to be sleeping on her parents' floor and that it was past time for her to get herself together. She decided that she wanted to be declared disabled, so she took a bunch of pills, then had her son take her to the hospital, so that she would be held in a mental hospital for a few days so that she could "let someone else take care of her for a while" because she says she is not equipped to care for herself. Then she didn't like it and wanted out.  
 
My parents have always been church-goers and have heard frequent teachings on being good financial stewards, but their codependent behavior has resulted in them running up multiple credit cards to pay for attorney fees, rent, cars, and child care for these two. My husband and I have begged for almost twenty years for them to get counseling, to get church assistance in correcting the situation, go to Dave Ramsey classes - SOMETHING. We have been worried that my sister and nephew would leave them wiped out financially and then expect us to foot the bill for them not being on the street, and we have repeatedly expressed this worry to my parents, but nothing has changed. 
 
My father passed away recently. My mother is 75 years old and is maxed out on credit cards, with very little savings and a leased car. She is living in a small house now that she cannot afford, with my nephew and his daughter. He is three months clean, but due to his record, has had difficulty finding a job other than waiting tables. He currently works two days a week and contributes nothing. My mom takes care of his daughter every day and weekend - free childcare. Although the birth mother has never had custody of the child, she collects child support that is taken from his sporadic checks and spends it on drugs. He's repeatedly reported this, but has been told that unless she willingly submits to a drug test, there is no proof and nothing they can do. My mother buys all the food, pays all the utilities. The little girl considers my mother - her great-grandmother - her mother, because her own other is so addicted to drugs that she rarely sees her. My sister has moved in with a boyfriend, and has been hired and released from temporary job assignments because someone always "has it in for her." She has not paid my mother back or helped her financially. She has not filed taxes in years, and has over $40K in student loan debt. She hides her car so that it is not repossessed. 
 
My mother met with her financial advisor yesterday, who bluntly told her that unless my nephew/sister pays $800 per month towards the expenses/what they owe her, she will be out of money and on the street in a matter of about 18 months. 
 
I'm sick to my stomach. My husband and I work very hard, but we have a family to support and we're not going to be able to pay my mom's expenses. What I see happening is that my mom will run out of money, my sister and nephew will dump her on me, she won't want to abandon her great-granddaughter, so she will want her to move in as well. It's like a train wreck that I've been watching come at me for 20 years, begging them to change direction, but they won't. We don't want this mess in our lives. We want to give our child a stable home and financially stable parents like we didn't have, but at the same time, we're not going to let my mom sleep on the street. 
 
Is there any way out of this for me and my husband? Thank you for your time and consideration.
Worried About My Mom
 
Dear Worried,
 That, my dear, is a mouthful. Lucky you for having turned out to be the white sheep in the family. However, it is a sad vantage point looking at so much rampant dysfunction in your birth family. Although your detailed account is different than most chewed-up families, you share one important inquiry: “what can I do to change other people?” Logically, we know that if making significant changes in our own lives is so difficult, forcing changes on someone else is typically futile- especially when they’re not asking for help. If you can’t affect their change, then how do you handle your own frustration and sadness? Limiting contact with really dysfunctional family members (or friends for that matter) is essential. Putting a hold on Facebook contributions of theirs is a first step. Limiting (not necessarily stopping altogether) texts or calls seems necessary in the same vein. I’d invite my Mom over as much as I thought was proper, and have a pleasant time together. She will most certainly need a role model for what a “normal” person is like. As years of lectures haven’t helped, perhaps merely love and kindness would remind her of what she may be missing in her own life. Will it help her to raise her standards? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is it the proper thing to do? Seems like it might be. Exposure to kindness can have a profound effect on someone.
p.s. I’ve been a therapist for a long time. As we are living in these here United States of America, I have yet to see a regular person tossed “into the street”. Though your financial fears for your Mom may be correct, the homeless /starving scenario is likely not accurate. Now, daughter, it’s your turn to be a good role model.  pss You and your nice husband need to start having some fun together. An occasional movie (theater), bowling, or a drive in the country helps to provide some balance in our hardworking lives. Work hard on behalf of each other too.