It’s Not A Competition

By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

When I was a kid, I remember noticing that my parents used my brother’s many successes as what I then called to myself “Parent Badges”.  He was very smart, so that meant they were smart also.  He won all sorts of competitions, so, in effect, they did, too.  They bragged about him whenever they could (particularly when they could seem not to be bragging).   For any of you who know I Love Lucy (and if you don’t know that TV comedy series, I urge you to have a look at it.  If you can watch one episode and not laugh gleefully, please do let me know), you may remember the episodes where Lucy and Ricky get into (or try to avoid) bragging competitions with their best friends about which son is cuter and smarter and learning more things earlier.

I didn’t have so many overt successes as my brother, so I didn’t provide much in the Parent Badge department.  However when I did, I kept my triumphs to myself because I couldn’t bear the thought of my parents using my successes as their Parent Badges.  Somehow it seemed to me to take away from my hard work if they took it as their own.  Was I too sensitive?  What do you think?

As a mom, I shied away from talking about my kids very much or carrying their photos because I couldn’t bear the idea that someone might think I was bragging.  I never even kept photos in my office because I didn’t want to be asked questions that would lead me to have to talk about my daughters who accomplished much.  Perhaps I carried it all a bit too far.

Being a mom or a dad is about guiding and teaching and loving and connecting, not getting or seeking validation for yourself.  Perhaps ‘parenting’ has become something of a competition—thinking back to I Love Lucy, I guess it always was.  Perhaps that is a part of the reason I have never liked the verb “to parent.’  Your child desires your good opinion, your praise—even if he/she doesn’t want to show it.  If you use your child’s success as your Parent Badge, you take away from the connection, the relationship becomes it takes on a hint of contingency.

And then there is yet another aspect to the competition: things, buying things.  What happens to a child’s self-respect, to his/her soul when your ability to provide more and more things for status becomes a part of your child’s actual belief in his/her self worth?  Is any child better or better off for having more things than other kids—or even for being able to keep up with what other kids have or can get.  And, yes, I acknowledge that I am writing this in the midst of the Christmas/Channukah buying season/frenzy. 

When I talk to parents whose child is not doing well, they often want to know if they are to blame for the problems.  That is such a complex and complicated question.  Parents always make mistakes—that’s jus a part of the deal.  Making mistakes is not the same as “causing” your child’s problems.  And the opposite is also true.  When your child succeeds at school or sports or in the school play or the marching band, you’ve certainly helped but you haven’t done it. 

Being a parent is never about the parent.  It’s always about the child.  However that very specifically does not mean that your child should become the center of your world or that you should teach your child the false and dangerous belief that he/she is the center of the world.

So, what’s the point here?  Perspective mainly,  and the same old thing I’ve written about so many times.  Being a mother or a father is about teaching, guiding, loving, connecting.  Being a parent isn’t about the bragging rights but about helping your child learn to be a productive, caring, generous, honest citizen (which is the best recipe for happiness I know).  However much you can help your child to become that person, you gain [silent] bragging rights—and a little peace and quiet in your later years.

Intimidation

By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

I was in Walmart today.  Waiting to check out, I heard the following conversation between a mom and her about 8-year-old son.

“I’ve already bought you…” and then she listed off about 10 toys she had purchased, she said,              in the last week.  “Isn’t that enough?” she asked.

 “No,” her son responded simply and pointedly.

Again she was on the defensive. 

“I just can’t afford it today.”

Her son walked over to a toy counter, from a marketing standpoint judiciously placed right there by the check out lines for kids to examine while their parents wait in line to pay.  The youngster found another toy (I think it was a Lego set) and placed it into the basket.

 “I don’t have the money for it,” the mother responded plaintively as her son turned the box   over to see the other side.

I don’t actually know for sure how that event turned out because it became my turn to check out and pay.  I so much wanted to say to the mom, “Don’t let him put you on the defensive.  Your goodness as a mom isn’t measured by how much you purchase.  In fact, your son will be better off if you teach him restraint, self-discipline, thoughtful instead of impulse purchasing.  Instant gratification isn’t helpful.”

I didn’t say any of that.  What do you think?  Should I have said something?  Would you have wanted someone to say something to you?

Is this Helping?

 By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

A Very Simple Question:

Unlike just about everything else in life, I find that moms don’t tend to ask the “Is this helping?” as the primary and decisive question when looking for, continuing with, or thinking about, seeking or changing types or providers of help (therapists, psychologists, counselors, psychiatrists, tutors, coaches, etc..) 

Keep in mind, if the plumber doesn’t do a good job or the tailor or the car mechanic or the lawn guy, you change.  That’s what you should do if the therapy, counseling, coaching, medication isn’t helping. 

Simple, right?

Well, only if you have created criteria by means of which to evaluate.  You do know if the plumber fixed the leaky faucet, if your clothes fit better or the car is running.  

Can you know if the help is helping?  Yes, you can. 

I can’t tell you how many moms I’ve spoken with over the years who tell me they are seeing “the best therapist.  I really like him.  Morgan has been seeing him for years.”  My first question is always, “And have you seen improvement?”  Often, oh!  all too very often, the answer is, “Well, no....”  And I hear the confusion at the other end of the line because this mom, like so many other moms had never really allowed herself to ask the question, “Is this helping?”

Think about it:  If it isn’t helping either the professional isn’t whom you need or the problem has been oversimplified, jargonized, simply not been understood.  

We’ll be providing more and more information on how to do better to find your child the help each of you needs.

How To Boil A Frog

By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

HOW TO BOIL A FROG:  RECIPE:

1.         Place frog in large pot of cool water.  Place pot on stove.

2.         Continue to heat slowly, being careful not to increase heat too rapidly.  Frog will acclimate 

            itself to the temperature and does not seek to escape to save itself.

3.         Continue cooking over slowly increasing heat until thoroughly cooked.

CAUTION:  Dropping the frog directly into boiling water, will cause it to

       jump right out to save itself.

HOW A TEEN BOILS A FAMILY:  RECIPE 

Using low but constant tension, agitating continuously:

1.         Intimidate and bully parents. 

2.         Making certain not to bring to a quick boil, carefully combine lies

with manipulations.  Add a pinch of need to be rescued.  

3.         Making sure to keep parents unaware of the increasing confusion,

pit parents against each other until they explode.  Be sure to allow

parents to justify, excuse, and rationalize the increasing chaos,

unhappiness, and failure.

CAUTION: If you act too precipitously, your family may realize what you

     are doing and react.

Don't "Like" Facebook

By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

I wrote this two months ago when the scandal regarding Facebook’s non-disclosed reasarch was making news.  Like most news, it disappeared quickly enough.  I found myself taking an unplanned sabbatical from writing and just now rediscover this not-a-blog.  I think the points are still important, so we’ll post it.

***********************

It’s all over the Internet today. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28051930    Facebook manipulating the news feed to see if they can manipulate you.  Oh, shame, shame, shame.  Facebook has shown its true colors today.  So, I’ve read some of the commentary, and most of it is thoughtful as well as thought provoking.

However, I will simplify.  There is absolutely no way to justify Facebook’s ethical lapse.  It just can’t be justified.  Twist yourself into a pretzel three times over, and there remains no way that any agreement to the Terms of Use or Privacy Policy can include attempting to manipulate user’s emotions.  I mean, for those of you who haven’t studied psychology, there is a long and nasty history of lying to people to engage them surreptitiously into research.  Ethical psychologists don’t do that anymore.  There just isn’t anything else that needs to be said about it.

Even more important, however, is the whole point of psychologists wanting to do this sort of research to prove….what, exactly.  To prove that if people hear happy things they tend to be happier.  I mean really.  When I see stuff like that I think of the definition I have sometimes been forced to offer for psychology:  The study of the bleeding obvious.

Unless (??) Facebook is hiding something else (and that surely might be the case,,,) there is no revelation at all in the research,  If they are hiding other intrusions into their member’s emotions, then again and again shame and more shame. 

Is it worse than the emotional manipulation of advertising and its accompanying music?

Several clients sent me links to two “studies” that were commented on in Sunday’s New York Times. 

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/23/cool-at-13-adrift-at-23/?_php=true&_type=blogs&emc=edit_hh_20140624&nl=health&nlid=60565538&_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/29/opinion/sunday/why-teenagers-act-crazy.html?_r=0

The most important point to notice in each of the articles is how silly they are.  Have you ever heard the adage that the coolest people in high school reached their pinnacle in high school?  Well, here is “research” to substantiate it.  Yippee??? 

And the other article about teens “acting crazy.”  Oh, come on!  Could someone please inform the author that teens in different times and places have acted (and do act) quite differently, so the facile conclusions about brain development don’t really hit the mark. Perhaps that research would benefit from a look at the context of US adolescence living in their world before making neurological assertions.  Perhaps someone might want to consider if the soldiers who landed on Normandy Beach only did so because they were neurologically not yet developed.  Character, courage, duty, patriotism, caring…

So, today is a day to remember that Facebook isn’t really your friend at all.  And to notice how empty so much psychological research really is.

There is such a thing as important psychological research.  I would hope to see more of it discussed in the media—and discussed intelligently not as though we’ve suddenly found a new way to slice bread.

And YAY for the mom I met while walking today who reminded her four-year-old daughter that she must be aware of other people as she is walking.  Well done, Mom!

What are you thinking about today?

This Is Not A Blog!

By Carol Maxym, Ph. D.

A kind friend gave me a lesson in blogging.  I am grateful.  However, the result is the clear knowledge that I am not writing a blog.  I thought I was which is why I decided what I wrote should be hosted on Blogspot.  I was wrong  Oh, well.

I understand that to do a blog properly, I am supposed to tell you the point of whatever I’m saying in the first paragraph.  Well, sometimes I will; other times I won’t because it won’t make sense.  I will always try to make sense.

I am told that blogwisdom states that if I expect you to spend five minutes reading here and think about what is being written, I am just plain old fashioned.  Ok.  I have more respect and trust in parents than that!  AND, although I recognize that we all have a bit less focus than we used to, I do not accept the premise that people are stupider than they used to be and can only mentally digest pablum.

If I am wrong and no one has the patience to stay on this page for more than 30 seconds, then I know you and I will never really communicate.  I wish you well.

I’ve been a parent for a really long time now, and I’ve worked professionally with parents for a long time.  When I published Teens in Turmoil, I broke the rule of ‘write vanilla, pretend to have all the answers (even though you know you don’t)’.  Indeed, had I followed that advice, more copies might have sold and perhaps I would be a TV pundit now.  I have no regrets.  I’ve had too many parents tell me that Teens in Turmoil was the only book they had read that actually helped them.  That’s more than enough for me.  I’ve no wish and no need to be the pundit who offers empty words every time there is a teen tragedy. 

So, this isn’t a blog.  This is a place on the Internet where you can come often to find thoughtful and thought-provoking articles.  It shouldn’t take you more than about five minutes to read any day’s article.  How long you spend thinking about it is your choice.

I hope you’ll leave comments, polite comments, even if you violently disagree.  I hope you’ll leave thoughtful comments that will help another parent or grandparent.

The help that helps (THTH—try saying it, just for fun). is what it is.  Perhaps one day I’ll come up with a new word like blarticle to give it a type casting. THTH is for thoughtful parents and grandparents, teachers, therapists.  If you are looking for the one magic bullet, this isn’t the right place for you.  (Well, if you think there is one, good luck finding it!) 

Most important changes start with the thinkers.  That’s because they’re thinking.  Their thoughts are transformed by others who actualize the thoughts.  I hope both groups will read here on a regular basis, pass it on to others whom they know to be thoughtful or to those who are the actualizers of thought. 

More than twenty years ago when I left one life and set out upon another, a dear lady, long since deceased, bade me good-bye and good wishes for my journey with this word:  “Godspeed.”

Selfies, Take Two

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

“Teens Post Selfies At Auschwitz In Controversial Facebook Group”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/07/selfies-at-auschwitz_n_5564106.html?m=true

Narcissism run rampant.  Historical context absent.   Kids taking selfies at Auschwitz.  This receives and deserves no further commentary.

Think about it.

Explanations

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I know that lots of experts tell you to explain to your child what you are doing to prove that it makes sense, is better, smarter, more efficient...  I know that there is a belief that if kids only understand, they’ll be okay with what you say.  Sadly that is just plain wrong. 

This does make adult sense.  Kids don’t think like adults.  Kids need and actually want for you to know what is right and good and helpful and just teach it to them.  Guide, direct, teach. Explaining and explaining, clarifying, saying in other words has many downsides.

Firstly, kids turn off quite rapidly when you are doing it (often because they just get lost in the rational explanation) and secondly (this is really important for the future!), you teach your kids that if you use a lot of words and explain and explain, whatever it is becomes okay (because that is the kid understanding of your long explanation).   

You may be thinking how much you would have appreciated explanations when you were a kid.  If only my parents had told me why I should do this or not do that…But again, you are thinking this as an adult and like an adult.    

Kids need and want direction.  Really.  They are kids.  They don’t know stuff.  They depend on YOU to tell them what to do, when to do, how to do.  You are the parent.  It’s what is expected.

Here’s a little anecdote:  On a cold March day in New York city, a very intelligent and educated mother asked her daughter of 2.5 if she would like to put on her coat.  The little girl said no.  So the mom explained and explained articulately, thoughtfully, explaining the advantages of wearing a coat in the cold weather, the disadvantages of not wearing a coat in cold weather… and the girl kept on saying NO.  This was going nowhere.  I must admit to having intervened to tell the little girl she was wearing a coat, it was put on, and off we went.  Later I talked with the mother who told me that he daughter was two and a half and had opinions.  I told her that her daughter needed her to know things, to guide, direct, teach.  I explained that the burden to the child of expecting her know and decide that which she cannot know or decide is unfair and creates anxiety.  The mom understood.  I hope she has changed her way of dealing with her daughter.

Long, detailed, thoughtful, cogent explanations confuse little kids…and bigger kids.  

Say 50% of what you were planning to say, and you will have said twice as much.

What I Learned From the Keynote Speaker

By: Robert Schmidt, M.A.

I was at a mental health agency event in Massachusetts last week where I heard a wonderful keynote speaker who really got my mind thinking about how therapy is supposed to work. This guy shared a really heartfelt story about his difficult childhood in Chicago and his process of change through treatment. 

He’s now working in the mental health field and making a pretty significant impact on his community. He’s is also starting on his doctoral work in the fall. He provided a great example of how therapy can make all the difference for people. When he was done sharing the story someone asked him to describe his therapist, and his reaction was funny: he kind of froze. All he could say about her was that she was very short. He made a joke about it and it seemed to satisfy the person who asked the question but I thought that was really amazing. Here’s this guy who is without question a different/better person because of treatment experience he had when he was young, and yet it was almost impossible for him to talk about the person who helped him make that change or what they did with him to make that change happen.

I think this is a fairly common phenomenon. People don’t always know what it is that their therapists do for them even though they want to give the therapists credit for the positive changes they experience. I think in the case of this keynote speaker, his inability to put a finger on his therapist’s approach was because his treatment process was fairly extensive and he could not have given a sincere answer to a question like “what was the one thing your therapist did that made you?... 

Those sorts of questions are built on false premises. To think that recovery comes from a single moment or a single relationship or a single critical realization is in most cases an oversimplification. We hear all kinds of stories like that on tv or in books but I don’t think they’re genuine. 

I don’t think many people have their minds changed forever by a single moment. Instead, I think that mental health/recovery/change comes from when major realizations get piled on top of one another and tested out in lived experience over time. I think that’s why 28 day rehabs rarely help people, they just don’t allow enough time for recovery to take root.

I like to think of my own recovery as the sum total of the contributions made by many people over a long period of time, and I enjoy thinking about the contributions that each of them made.  I have a file cabinet in my mind of people who were instrumental in my early recovery. It seems to me like each of them just showed up at different times and added different ingredients to the stew that I am now. I’m so glad that I met all of them and that I was given enough time in treatment for each of them to pass through it with me. 

I would encourage anybody who has a loved one in treatment to have as much patience as possible and to encourage their loved one to commit some time to the process, because it doesn’t really get better all at once, that’s not realistic. 

Defining Recovery

By: Robert Schmidt, M.A.

What do we mean when we use the word “recovery” in regards to substance abuse rehabilitation? Generally speaking, this word suggests something different than words like “sobriety” or “abstinence” do. Saying that an individual is in recovery usually implies that he or she is actively working some solution based program to help them heal. This underscores an important distinction between those who abstain and create new lives as a result and those who abstain and become “dry drunks.”

There are dry drunks in AA. These are people who quit using alcohol, yet continue to behave as if they are still actively drinking. Alcoholic behavior includes more than just drinking alcohol. It includes: lying, stealing, cheating, moodiness, laziness and various sundry other forms of overall nastiness. 

My tennis coach in college always used to shout “recover back to the middle” after I or a teammate would be forced by an opponent to chase a ball out wide.  I think this use of the word really gets at the heart of what is meant by “recovery” in substance abuse parlance. To recover back to the center of the court is to regain a previously held position of strength: and for our purposes, recovery from addiction is the same. An individual who is recovering from addiction is working to regain the things that have been lost or sacrificed in their selfish (hopeless) pursuit of satiation during their time as an active addict.   

So, what is it that addicts must recover? Relationships come to mind immediately. As do economic and legal viability, but that only covers the external features of addiction and recovery. What about the internal cost of addiction? What is it that needs to be recovered intrapersonally? 

As the cycles of addictive behavior become repetitive and automatic, individuals caught up inside these cycles’ losses a portion of their ability to exercise free will. In response to this they develop justifications for the behaviors, attempting to soften the impact of demoralization that comes from loss of control. Two things happen at the same time: there is a loss of governance over both behavior and thinking. 

I don’t know what an individual is beyond their thoughts and behaviors. To lose those things is to become something else; to lose your humanity. 

It is devastating for family members to look at their loved ones and see someone other than who they know and care about. This is what happens with addiction: it becomes like a shell that covers over the person. There is an individual encased inside, and that is what needs to be recovered. 

One Extra Moment

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I just finished writing a blog on boundaries.  I finished it by suggesting that when you have a moment—waiting at a red light, caught in traffic, on hold on the phone were some good times to think about your boundaries.  And I stand by that.  

But here’s what I thought next:  What I said about finding the moment in between busy-nesses probably describes a lot of your life.  And that is something to notice, perhaps an issue, maybe a problem.  Harassed people are never at their best, harassed parents are most definitely stressed, beleaguered—well, not at your best.  When your life really and truly is about finding moments in between moments to think about important matters, that makes life tough.  It makes mothering and fathering tough.

It doesn’t matter if you are a stay-at-home mom or dad or one who works or works two jobs, being rushed makes life feel chaotic because being in a constant hurry creates stress which creates chaos which creates stress.  Possibly it makes you feel that you don’t or can’t give enough thought to what your are doing as you mother or father.  And I imagine you are now thinking something like, “Well, yes.  Thanks for noticing.  I thought you were here to help, to give some tips, some advice.”  Yes, I am.  At least I try. It is the goal.  

Firstly, I think it is helpful to notice what goes on in your world.  To notice actively, not just try to keep the motion going or having it just keep going because it doesn’t stop.  Noticing is important.  Deep breath.  Notice what is going on around you.  Force yourself to slow down—even if only for a minute or two and notice.  In the rush of everyday life, it is so easy to lose track, to forget to notice with a moment’s distance.  Then there is noticing how you feel, how your day’s events, conversations, emotional collisions, emotional caresses. It isn’t necessary to analyze or interpret each and every event, conversation, collision, and caress.  Sometimes just noticing it, then running it through your mind (thinking about it) without any judgment at all.  Just noticing.  

Here is the next tip: Stop micromanaging your child(ren)’s life/lives.  You are the mom or the dad.  That does not make you in charge of providing complete happiness and satisfaction on a path to ultimate success at all times.  It does not make you the one to take care of everything in your child’s life so he/she won’t be unhappy now or later.  It doesn’t make you homework monitor.  It doesn’t make you overseer of everything your child eats or drinks or wants.  It doesn’t make you the one to prevent all bad things from happening all the time.  That is NOT the role of a parent.  Micromanaging is bad for you.  It is more dangerous for your child because he/she isn’t learning how to manage his/her own life.

There are certainly many ways in which we are all more busy than we were five years ago or a decade ago.  I’m not sure we are busier than most people were a century ago (when there were many fewer conveniences in life or in homes).  I grant that our expectations of ourselves are more.  Our expectations of our kids are more.  They have more activities, more needs, more problems to be solved…or do they?  Must they?  Are they and you benefitting from the more?

Quite possibly you are thinking something like, “But of course they must go here and do that!”  Must they?  Then you think, “Well, if she isn’t at ballet, she’s on Instagram.”  H’mmm, now that is a problem.  Greater busy-ness may help, but doesn’t solve it.

But let’s be clear about the core of the problem.  Being busy isn’t a moral value.  It’s just busy.  Being connected to some number of people isn’t an ethical statement.  It’s just busy.

Where can you intervene?  Think about real needs and created needs.  Being in contact with others all day (and night) every day and night is not a need.  It is a created need.  Having everything managed in your child’s life is not a need. It is a created need.  The more needs you create or allow to be created around you, the more you are likely to fall into micromanaging.

How will your children manage if you don’t micromanage their lives?  Perhaps the more pertinent question is how will you manage if you don’t micromanage their lives?

Think about it.

Quandary

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

This morning I heard the following story on NPR:  A mom had tweeted on Twitter or posted on Facebook (maybe both??) that when her son went to purchase his lunch at the high school cafeteria, he was told that he had overspent his meal allowance and wasn’t allowed food.  He offered to pay some of the bill with the $2 in his pocket ($3 short of the total), but was told that wouldn’t do.  His lunch was thrown into the trash.  The boy called his mother who came to his rescue, took him out for lunch, then went to the school, paid his bill (the e-mail about him being “overdrawn” on his lunch money account had only been sent out that morning), and paid an additional $60 to clear unpaid bills for other kids, so no one else would need to go through the humiliation and hunger her son had just faced.

So, the fact is, I probably would have done the same thing as this mother.  I would have been incensed as the stupidity of denying him lunch only to throw the food into the trash.  (Apparently it is mandated that the food be thrown into the trash…because of contamination???).  I would have put out $60 to make a statement that kids shouldn’t have to be put through such nonsense, be humiliated, and go hungry.  

But then I must think a bit more deeply.  In a different day and age, the young man would not have been able to appeal to his mom via telephone for immediate rescue.  He would have been obliged to figure it out on his own—one way or another.  Might he have had to go hungry?  Yes (but then there a lot of kids in this country who arrive to school hungry every single day), and that would be unpleasant but not really much worse.  Humiliated?  Well, and there isn’t much else to say on that.  And he would have had to deal with it all on his own.  Would he have learned from the experience, grown from it?

I think about a couple of other points:  I am saddened that the person who threw away the food couldn’t come up with a better solution to the problem, but then that person worked for the food service company contracted to prepare and serve the lunches at the school. so her/his responsibility was to do as trained.  Maybe there is a problem that the food service is outsourced and so there is a responsibility to “bottom line” that supersedes responsibility to be a bit generous to a kid who doesn’t quite have the sufficient funds for his lunch—this one time—and does offer to pay what he has.

And throwing the lunch in the trash.  I just have trouble figuring out how that made more sense than to let the kid each the lunch.  

There is also and very much the issue that if kids were responsible for their own lunch money instead of having an account that is kept filled by Mom and Dad, then if Johnny didn’t have the money to purchase lunch, it was completely on him.  Old fashioned, but a good way to make sure the responsibility stays as close to the right place as possible.

So, thinking about it, what this incident makes clear is that while there may be conveniences to have accounts for kids to purchase lunch with Mom and Dad being in charge of making sure there are funds there, and it may be more cost efficient (but then I wonder if it really is) to have a food service company preparing and serving lunches, perhaps the more “convenient “ way is not the best or even better way for kids to get lunch at high school.

Pronoun Disorder

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I’m sure you have heard all about disorders.  Your child has probably been “diagnosed” with at least one of them.  I’m not a great fan of the DSM “disorders” because they don’t tell you anything you didn’t know before and contrary to popular belief they do NOT prescribe treatment.  (That’s a big difference between a medical diagnosis and a psychological or psychiatric diagnosis. A medical diagnosis is prescriptive; a psychological/psychiatric diagnosis is descriptive, NOT prescriptive.)

However, there is a newish disorder that I have personally discovered, and it is not mentioned in DSM 5.  It’s one that has pervasive negative effects.  It is easily avoidable.  There is no medication for it.  I suspect, will there ever be, for one isn’t  required.  No. 

Pronoun Disorder  can be self-corrected, and you can get rid of it yourself.  Pronoun disorder is when you use an incorrect pronoun (I, you, he, she, we, they).  

Pronoun Disorder is fostered by schools, therapists, advice-givers, advertising,  even by colleges and universities.  Pronoun Disorder is simply when, as a parent, you use the pronoun “we” instead of  “he” or “she” or “you” or you say “I” when, in fact, you are not the one who is doing the doing…whatever it is.

Here are some examples:  “I am moving my daughter into college next week.”  “We are taking the SATs again next month.”  “We have a term paper due before Christmas.”  “We need to take our medicine.”

Schools are very much at fault for creating some of the first stages of the disorder.  It happens when schools involve parents in their children’s homework.  This is certainly the case when kindergartners are given homework.  I mean, really, how are five-year-olds ever going to be able to manage doing homework on their own (that’s why kindergartners shouldn’t be given homework!)?  So when little kids are given tasks that they cannot accomplish, Mom and/or Dad are brought in and, in fact, the assignment is completed by us instead of by him or her.

Thinking About Psychobabble

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Well, perhaps we should put this post in the pet-peeves folder because the concept of overachieving is one of my pettest of pet peeves.  May I list a couple of pesky overachievers?  Leonardo da Vinci.  Dwight D. Eisenhower.  Marie Curie. Oh, right.  Another overachiever:  Steve Jobs.  Lots of people we venerate are overachievers.  So why is it a bad thing if your child is an overachiever?  (It isn’t.)

Psychology has presented us—and especially parents—with a large number of useless or even harmful concepts.  Overachieving is one of them. In a society that measures goodness and worthiness by busy-ness, achievement, and reward, the idea of stigmatizing those who achieve greatly is hypocritical, annoying, and downright stupid. 

So, when the psychobabblers start talking about overachieving, what is it they are really saying?  Well, firstly, I can’t help but wonder about just a soupcon of jealousy or envy:  Let’s put down the really successful people.  Somehow they must be psychologically compromised or emotionally stunted.  But even more than that, what the concept is really about is that some people are super intelligent, talented, socially savvy, business savvy, artistic…and so it just messes up the norms of the bell curves upon which so much of the psychobabble world is built.  And there is more to it. 

I think there can be little question that some kids are over-scheduled, at least partially because their parents are hoping they will be “over-achievers.”  Some are over-scheduled because that’s what a lot of parents do and there is the competition (overt or covert) as to who will really have the Ivy-League, NFL/NBA billionaire kid.  Lots of scheduled activities, however, beats sitting with a smart phone and being on social media or lost in imaginary world of war and destruction. Still, none of that quite taps into the real issue I have with the very silly concept.

My real issue is that it is just one of the terms that gets used without much thought.  It seems to have some sort of root in the idea (mainly false) that kids are being asked to work so hard at school that any anxiety or depression that might be noticed/diagnosed has to do with the academic rigors of school.  Kids who work very hard and feel the stress of hard work get put into the anxious/depressed over achiever category because there doesn’t seem to be a category for them. Maybe the category, if there need be one is, hard-working kids who feel the effects of hard work. Maybe they don’t need a category?

I have no problem with hard workers and high achievers.  Do you?  Really?   Hard workers who achieve greatly is a concept that makes sense.  Over achiever?  No.  So the moral of the post?  Think long and hard about the psychobabble concepts that professional advice-givers provide.  If you can’t really make sense of the concept (or the diagnosis), it is possible that it doesn’t really make sense.

The Terrible Power of Frustration

By: Carol Maxym Ph.D.

Professionally as well as personally I am generally known as a pretty tough cookie.  I’ve seen a lot of the world, experienced a lot, worked with a lot of kids and families.  I don’t blink that easily.  And last week, after two weeks of idiotic (I just stopped to make sure I wanted to use that word and I found I did) and ridiculous, pointless bureaucratic runaround I was brought to tears.  Tears of utter and complete frustration.

The cause?  I wanted to open a bank account.  No big deal, you say.  So I would have thought.  But no.  It took me 19 days to open a bank account—at a bank where I already have three accounts.  Is this because I have bad credit?  No, that was never checked.  Because I have a police record?  No, no one ever asked about that.  No, the issue had to do with…h’mmm.  I’m not sure because no one could ever really tell me.  There were just hoops to jump through and the hoops kept changing.  Whatever I did one day wasn’t good enough for the next day’s hoop.

I have been a customer of the bank where I wanted to open a bank account for 13 years.  I have three accounts at that bank, all in good standing.  I have never had an overdraft.  I have been the model customer.  Did that matter?  Apparently not.  Why?  Well, after talking to one person, then another, then another, then still another, and another, I finally learned that one part of the bank cannot or does not communicate with the other part of the bank.  Perhaps that makes sense, but I am mystified as to why.  It must have something to do with “too big to fail”…

After submitting my application, I waited four or five days then received an e-mail stating that I needed to e-mail a document to the bank.  I did so immediately.  Then several days later I received a mysterious communication (that contradicted the other communication I received simultaneously) that I had to call a number at the bank.  Again, I complied,   There I learned that I needed to produce my telephone bill.  My telephone bill?  Yes.  Now if I were a bit more modern and did not still have a land line, I would have hit a complete stumbling block.

Okay, I won’t bore you with the rest of the saga that finally culminated this very morning with my having my new bank account.  My point is the level of frustration, the time and energy I spent trying to do a simple, everyday yet necessary task.

I’ve had some bad luck recently with a $15 credit card charge somehow turning into $15,000.  Now everyone involved agreed that it was a mistake.  However, it still took approximately 15 phone calls (usually getting different information from the last phone call) and FIVE weeks to correct the mistake. Hearing the scripted, insincere apologies from the people with whom I spoke on the phone frankly increased my frustration because an apology is supposed to have meaning. Again, frustration, time and energy wasted--mine as well as all the people who spent their work day dealing with this made-up problem and my mounting frustration.  Can that be a cost effective way to do business?  Maybe, but I can’t figure out how. 

Am I alone dealing with modern everyday frustration of talking to computers, to people who are only able or allowed to read from scripts that usually don’t have anything to do with the problem at hand? Am I alone?  I sincerely doubt it.  Well, I know I’m not.  

How much frustration do we wish to cause each other in our world?  How much frustration can any one of us actually tolerate before we break?  And what do those breaks look like?  

Important questions, I think.

Whose Homework Is It Anyway?

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

For ever so many years I have been telling any parent I could get to listen to me to leave their children’s schoolwork to the children.  When I made such a comment, many years ago during an interview with a national newspaper (and I would tell you which paper if I could remember but I cannot), I can well remember the journalist’s eyes nearly popping out of her head.  If I remember correctly the story was quite controversial for the usual nanosecond of controversy that contradicts conventional wisdom.  

So how chuffed was I to see the article in the New York Times by Keith Robinson and Angel L. Harris!  Vindicated!  Research substantiates the point that more involvement with your child’s school, school work, homework, and teachers is not only not productive, it is more often negative than positive! 

Here’s the link to the story:  http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/?h=CAQEeKxe5&enc=AZO2epYKRmpHbAAgEc5nttcXiWk7faH7xymQ2thfmYrDGbvm6If6g2mJZWoEbCNaXQ5d_u6rMymrdSPHrJ6q775wv5DR4snUbagAfJvugkKQar0cLFnyNzV3CAhY0sggm99Qat69JwEl-h

I would add just a few thoughts to what Robinson and Harris have demonstrated with their research.  When they write about talking to your children about the value of education, I think what they are also saying is that raising your expectations for your child is likely to be helpful. Letting kids know that what they are doing is useful, purposeful, important for their future and that you expect them to work hard…that’s what they need to hear from you--not all sorts of superlative-lane praise.  Clear, concise statements that education matters will serve you and your children well. 

Intruding into the minutiae of what they are doing every day is not going to be helpful—it’s is more likely to be detrimental.  Common sense tells you that—now it’s substantiated by research.  When kids have ownership (skin in the game) of their education, they are more likely to care about it.

Why?  Because when you are checking to see what the homework assignments are, if your child has completed them, completed them to your satisfaction, etc., etc., you are simultaneously taking away your child’s ownership of his or her education.  Education becomes another way of pleasing you, annoying you, fighting with you, controlling you.

When my daughter was in 6^th grade, I had quite the fight with the school because I refused to monitor her homework.  I refused to read her homework assignments. She always loved school, so there was certainly and definitely no purpose in my intrusion, but the teachers were offended that I wouldn’t…well, intrude in my daughter’s education.  I remember one of them (whom I later found out didn’t even have a Bachelor’s Degree….h’mmmm) saying to me, “But you seem like such a concerned and loving mother.”  My answer then as it would be now:  “Yes.  And that is why I am not intervening or interfering in my daughter’s education.  This is HER education.  I have had mine.”

I’ll add a plea to schools and teachers:  Stop giving homework to little kids because there isn’t a shred of evidence that demonstrates that kids who start homework earlier turn out to be smarter, better educated, or better students.  Give homework ONLY when it clearly serves an academic purpose.  And a plea to parents:  Ask your school to leave off the homework until it can benefit your child’s actual academic progress.  Homework is NOT for creating parent-child time together.

P.S.  There is no correlation between when kids learn to read and their intelligence or how they will do in school.  We’ll talk more about that in the next few days.

What Do You Need From Your Child?

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Generally our children know us as well as we know them.  Their existence from infancy through toddler years and into the time when they become increasingly socialized has been based on learning to read every cue from you, verbal as well as non-verbal.  Children often try to provide their parents with what they deem their parents want and/or need.  Sometimes they are right; sometimes they are not.  

The great child psychiatrist, D. W. Winnicott, wrote about how the child who cries when sent to pre-school (day care) because he is worried his mother won’t manage without him.  Sometimes that child is right; sometime not.  His broader point is that children do try to meet their parent’s needs, such as they perceive those needs.  To that profound statement I will add a more banal thought:  The next step after that is that kids discover how to manipulate you by understanding (whether cognitively, emotionally, experientially, or just so) your needs…and what makes you happy, what makes you react in a certain way.

What do you need from your child?  Do you need to need anything?  Once upon a time, children were expected to provide for their parents in their old age.  Although there are aspects of that in our modern life, I think that few people nowadays think in terms of securing their golden years by means of having children.

I remember as a high school senior realizing that my parents wanted me to succeed largely so they could brag about my successes to their friends.  I rejected that concept, so I kept whatever successes I had to myself.  I don’t think my parents were unique or even extraordinary wanting to “use” me in that way.  Still, I reject the notion that kids need to or should provide parents with reasons to self-congratulate.  (Remember that if you are the one responsible for what a wonderful child yours is or what wonderful things they do, so must you then, I suppose, be responsible for the bad and wrong things they may do…it gets very sticky if you go down this road…)

I suppose the question posed here is one of the most fundamental.  It is a question that most of us don’t pose to ourselves and our partners as we enter into the parent state.  Still, and very much in tune with the tagline of this blog, “Think about it”…well, let’s think about it. Should you need something from your child” and if so, what.

There is no single or simple answer to this first and most fundamental question. 

This isn't a Job!

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I hear people talking about mothering or fathering—parenting—as a “job” all the time. A

job has a start time and end time. Not so with being a parent. A job pays you. Not so with being a parent. You can retire from a job or look for a new one. Not the way it is for parents. You can get fired from a job—and even if there are times you feel you might like to be fired from being a parent, it just doesn’t work that way. You can get promoted in a job. No promotions in the parent world.

Being a parent isn’t a job. It’s a duty. A sacred duty. Once you become a parent, it lasts your lifetime. That’s part of what makes it so wonderful, so daunting, so joyous, so frightening. And, as you know, no one and nothing can bring you joy or pain like your child.

So why am I saying all this? Because I think in the midst of the day-long, day-to-day routine and all the advice that comes your way, it is easy lose track of the lifelong duty side of being a parent.

When my daughter had her first child and felt a bit overwhelmed with all there was to do (as do most mothers and fathers), I told her that I had learned from experience that one grows into being a mother or father. As the child grows, so do you as the parent. Recently she referenced that conversation to tell me how true was my statement. As a parent you grow and grow and mature, just as your child does.

Part of my goal for this blog is to help you to think, rethink, consider, reconsider, to be thoughtful and questioning while yet wise and decisive. Seldom will I give you specific advice, “Do this” or “Do that.” There’s too much of that out there already, and you and I both know it doesn’t work. Instead I’ll work to try to help you to be a wiser mom or dad.

I hope that most days you’ll spend about five minutes with me, then think about what you’ve read in those few spare moments you have.

A few years ago a client told me about a sermon her pastor had given in which he said to welcome the red lights you wait for in traffic because it is the only time in your day when you really can’t do anything but wait, so you might as well treasure the time, use it to think, to reconsider, to muse. I hope you’ll have and enjoy one red light today.

The So What Question

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Today’s Answer to the “So What?” Question: Gladness and Gratitude

I didn’t see it happen. I only saw what happened afterwards.

The morning was Hawaii paradise picture perfect (and if you’ve ever been here, you know what that means). I was overtly gladdened by the clarity of the blue sky, the low tide, the soft breeze, the warming sun. I start to say I was ‘grateful’ for the day, but that isn’t accurate because there is no one to whom to be grateful. It just is. Glad not grateful. Clarity is vital.

I don’t know if he had noticed the morning, but I suppose he did because he was at the beach, surfing I suppose, but do not know. I don’t know where he came from or his name or anything about him except that he was tall and thin. I shan’t forget him. He does not know I was there—it’s not important.

I didn’t see the accident happen. I saw the rescue. It was beautiful.

Two lifeguards making a chair with their arms and a third holding the man’s head gently—ever so gently—and firmly. Stepping through the shallow water in perfect unison towards the shore, reaching the shore, up onto the beach. The two who had made the chair for him set him down, calmly, gently.

One of them went just behind him and dug a small hole so that he could lie comfortably in the sand. They laid him back, stretched out his legs for him.

Never yet did the third lifeguard cease holding the man’s head.

They moved quickly but it didn’t seem so, for they were calm and competent. They were so quiet I was the only one on the beach who watched. No one else noticed.

Once he was safely laid in the sand, head still held firmly and gently by the third lifeguard, they began to place him on a stretcher. Red. Honolulu Ocean Safety it read.

Carefully they rolled him onto his right side, slipped the stretcher next to him, rolled him softly onto the stretcher. One other person noticed. A woman stopped to look, ask me what happened, moved on before I could answer that I did not know. Scores of kids, parents, lovers, seniors, honeymooners frolicked on the beach, began or finished sand castles, dozed, dreamed in the early morning sunshine.

Still the third lifeguard did not relax his hold on the man’s head.

As they settled him onto the stretcher, one of the lifeguards brushed some sand off the stretcher. It was one of the finest gestures I have ever seen.

Three gorgeous, tanned, fit young men, trained, competent, apparently caring, ever so gentle—if you just saw them on the beach you’d think, “Wow! What a hunk!” Unlikely you would think “He’s kind and gentle.” Ah! preconceptions, prejudices! How they can trip you up.

Pet Peeves

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

One of the really fun parts of writing a blog is that you get to rail on about your pet peeves and then find out if anyone else agrees. So, here goes!

How people say what they want to say—or don’t really say—is an underappreciated issue, I think. Do you notice how seldom people speak clearly? I do. Frankly it annoys me. How often do you hear (especially from your teen), ‘ya know what I mean?’? It is an interesting concept, really: Instead of the teen being responsible for saying what she/he means, I am supposed to understand and/or interpret. That also implies that I will do the thinking, the focusing, the clarifying of the thought, question, feeling. Further (and very manipulatively), the teen gets to hear what I think and can then react, change, agree, disagree, argue, etc.—all without ever having to state clearly and concisely what he/she means. An interesting lack of responsibility and accountability. And, if my guess of what he/she means is wrong, well, then, I don’t understand and the blame can go to me. Convenient. Icky. Non-productive.

Even more annoying, however, is the terrible word like which has come to pervade our language. No one ‘says’ or ‘said’ or ‘thought’ or ‘wondering’ or ‘surmised’ etc., rather one was just ‘like’—not actually was this or that, just ‘like’ it. I was just standing waiting to board the plane from which I am writing this. Two 20-ish employees were discussing their lives (because one discusses one’s life all the time, everywhere, with one’s job being the secondary function of being at work). Every other word was ‘like’.

“So, like, ya know what I mean?” “Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah.” That’s a direct quote. Really. And somehow that passes for communication.

Then there is my ultimate favorite. “So, I’m like…” followed by a grunt or a facial expression. A variation on that theme is, “So, I’m like ohmygod” which is also supposed to communicate something. The beauty of all these statements is that they can be interpreted to mean or imply almost anything. Again, the responsibility for saying what one means is eliminated.

My grandson used to do the “I’m like” thing at me. I told him to use his words, to say something with some meaning. He argued with me, telling me that kids always communicate that way. I stood my ground.

He was in the midst of reading Harry Potter, so I suggested to him that J.K. Rawlings should probably have written the book in this fashion: “So, like, Harry, was like…” never bothering to describe, explain, narrate. Just say that one thing was ‘like’ and another character said, ‘like, like…’ Truly, that was the end of the “So I’m like” statements from my grandson. He had seen the value of words.

If we don’t require kids to speak clearly, succinctly, concisely, thoughtfully, then how can we expect them to learn to do so—and to take responsibility for communication with content? If we as adults (and therapists, in their effort to demonstrate empathy, are so guilty of not holding this line with clear communication) do not hold kids to higher standards of self-expression, how can we expect them to learn to know what they mean, to communicate with meaning, and to become accountable and responsible for their words, thoughts, feelings, and actions?

Whaaat?

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

I just watched the local news. I had not expected to blog about it. However, nothing on the news was nearly as amazing, provocative, and in need of commentary as the “public service” advertisement suggesting that “one in four people has a mental health issue.” Okay, think about that. Stand in a public place and count: one, two, three, mental health issue, five, six, seven, another one. Go to a restaurant tonight and wonder which of your fellow diners (or maybe your waitperson, even worse the chef or sous chef!) has mental health issues. Look around your office, the grocery store. Imagine one in four drivers with mental health issues there in the traffic jam with you. Standing in a security line at the airport? One, two, three, mental health issue, five, six, seven, yet another one.

About twenty years ago, the American Psychiatric Association estimated that one in five Americans had mental health issues. (Interesting side note: Also according to the American Psychiatric Association, only 17% of the prison population had mental health issues.) About twenty years ago the brilliant psychologist, James Hillman published a book he called We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy, and the World Is Getting Worse. It appears he was really on to something.

So, as more and more people take psychotropic medications and go to therapy, it appears that the US population has more mental health issues??? Whaaat? Doesn’t seem like the treatment is working…or???

Now let’s look at this with a bit of distance and logic. Firstly the dramatic ad provides no criteria for the term ‘mental health issues’—just one in four of us has them. So, noticing that the percentage of Americans with mental health issues has increased by 25%, either we’re all a lot nuttier than I think, our culture is completely in the gutter, therapy and medication don’t work very well, or someone is trying to sell something.

If one quarter of the US population really and truly had actual mental health issues, what would that mean for the country at large? It would imply to me that a rather frightening number of your child’s teachers have mental health issues. And what about Congress? Shall we assume that more than 100 members of Congress have mental health issues (well, you might think that anyway!)?

Why am I making such a point of this obviously fallacious, frankly silly claim? Firstly, we’ve kind of been trained to believe information if it has numbers attached, never mind from whence the numbers are derived (or made up??). Secondly, the belief that so many people have mental health issues feeds the mill of psychotropic medication prescriptions and may help to provide work for the burgeoning population of undereducated therapists. Thirdly, what does it say about us as a society if we are, or believe we are, one quarter nuts.

As a professional and as a person with many decades of life experience, let me just weigh in to remind you that true mental illness is, in fact, extremely rare. Kids and adults have varying degrees of difficulty managing their world—that is a long way from having mental health issues.

I’ll be posting on this topic more and more in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Heroin

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

Heroin Addiction Isn’t Anything New or Cool—no matter who is the addict

I am sorry about the death of actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman.

I am sorry he didn’t manage to kick his heroin addiction. I am more sorry for all the other people who died yesterday and today and will die tomorrow because of heroin addiction. One article I read also talked about another actor, Cory Monteith, who died of an accidental overdose of heroin and alcohol. I am sorry for the media treating this as somehow different from another death of another addict. I am sorry for the families of the addicts who do not choose treatment and recovery instead of addiction.

Whether the individual be famous or rich or connected or “just” someone’s son or wife or sister or friend, addiction is ugly. Addiction is death at some point. Death from addiction is not changed because someone was famous. I rather think Hoffman, in a lucid moment, probably would have agreed. Let us be clear, death from overdose is death from overdose. Let us not choose to be seduced into thinking there is anything romantic or more tragic because the dead addict was a famous actor. Please let us not do that!

Addiction is mainly accidental. Can’t think of anyone who sets out to get addicted.

Addiction happens, mainly when the person is sure he/she can’t/won’t get addicted. It’s the arrogance of addiction, the grandiosity of addiction, the lies of addiction. Addiction is always tragic. Always. Addiction is never pretty or cool. Never.

Let us mourn for Hoffman. Let us mourn for all those whose addictions got started on prescription pain killers. Prescription pain killers that were prescribed when Tylenol would have sufficed, that were prescribed in quantity instead of in twos or fours, prescriptions that were refilled when they should not have been, for the callousness of those who choose to profit from getting people addicted because they will make money.

I remember going to the ER with a friend a few years ago. She was very sick, but NOT in pain. And yet, the first thing she was asked when she arrived was if she was in pain and if she wanted pain medication. Painkillers, narcotic, addictive painkillers were really pushed on her. You know, it’s easier to get addictive prescription pain killers than it is to get antibiotics (because we have lots of people addicted to Z-paks?).

Let us take this death to think about all the hundreds and thousands of deaths from addiction. Let us not romanticize this death. There is nothing romantic about heroin addiction or death from “bad” heroin or an overdose. It’s not a pretty way to die. It leaves so many people grieving, wondering if they could have done something.

Can you do something when you know someone is addicted—whether to heroin, prescription medications, cocaine, alcohol, prescription stimulants or other forms of methamphetamines? Yes. Yes. Yes. Confront. Get help. Do an intervention. Intervene. Don’t give up on the addict who has given up on himself/herself.

Bloviating---I think I'm not

By: Carol Maxym, Ph.D.

http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/philip-seymour-hoffman-cast-as-a-victim-of-disease/

Although I know you’ve already seen two blogs here about the subject, I simply can’t let the media hype about Phillip Seymour Hoffman continue without another few words.

As you know, drugs are a big problem in the US and Canada…well and everywhere else. Talking about drugs and treatment and relapse generally degenerates into bloviating. I really don’t want to do that.

Let’s start by trying agreeing that just about everyone agrees that drugs are bad and that addiction is really bad. Life destroying. Hurtful to all those who care about the addict. Sometimes drugs seem cool or fun for a while. Later, not so much.

Think about this: What if the US had taken every single dollar spent on the failed war on drugs and put it into education? How different might things be! Ah, well.

Think about this: Trying to stop the supply of drugs cannot be accomplished. If anything has been proved, that’s has been proved. Sadly, supply and demand take over, so drugs become increasingly expensive. Not helpful because it doesn’t make people stop using. I’ve never known an addict who decided to get clean because he or she got priced out of the market..

Think about this: “Educating” kids about drugs has had about zero positive effect; in some cases it appears to have had a negative effect. Sorry. It isn’t about substance abuse education. It might have been about education, but I fear that train may have left the station.

So to return to the issue of Hoffman what, then, is the net effect of the media hype about an actor who overdosed? What then is the value of turning an addict into a victim? How was this addict different from all the other addicts who overdosed on the same day Hoffman overdosed?

I might have hoped that Hoffman’s sorry death would have persuaded the media to talk about addiction and how many addicts—someone’s ather/mother/sister/brother/husband /father/son/daughter died that day and every day. I would have hoped the media would have used the opportunity to lead a profound discussion about addiction. About heroin, prescription meds.

Addiction isn’t a new phenomenon in the US. I mean why did the Women’s Temperance League gain the power it did? Obviously alcohol had become such a problem in the country, that families were being impoverished, destroyed because of alcohol. Women had had enough. Mothers and wives had had enough.

I am neither supporting legalizing all drugs or reverting to a failed experiment such as Prohibition. Addition is a problem that can be solved, just not in the haphazard way we’ve tried.

So what about the disease model? The disease model asserts that alcoholism and addiction are diseases. I have never seen convincing evidence of this assertion, but I know that it helps some addicts and alcoholics get into and maintain Recovery. Okay. If it works, that’s cool. If the disease model provides excuses for NOT getting into Recovery, then it isn’t helpful.

Do you know why drug rehab is 28-days? Because during the Vietnam War, as more and more soldiers began abusing drugs, the military had some regulations about being able to be in rehab for 28 days and it not coming onto your record. Hence the model. Hardly anyone gets into Recovery in 28 (or fewer) days.

Recovery is hard. Okay. So are a lot of things. Well, most things in life. There are no shortcuts and no easy ways. Whatever you may have read about easier ways, Recovery is hard. Staying in Recovery requires a decision every day…some days that decisions needs to be made many, many times. Relapse is easy. It isn’t a part of Recovery; it is the antithesis of Recovery.

For those of you who are not alcoholics or addicts: Please realize that you will never, never, never think like an alcoholic or addict. That’s one of the reasons the “educating” kids piece doesn’t work. It was thought up and propagated by people who aren’t alcoholics or addicts. It makes rational sense…to someone who isn’t an alcoholic or an addict.

Hardly anyone, when thinking about using, says to himself, “H’mmm. I remember what I learned in DARE. I think I’ll make a different decision.”

It really is time to get real about drugs, addiction, treatment. Yes, it’s a huge source of revenue to a lot of people and institutions. Including prisons.