Substance abuse is defined as “A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant impairment or distress, as manifested by one (or more) of the following, occurring within a 12-month period:

1. Recurrent substance use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home…” *1

It can be a horrible thing that can tear apart families, friendships, and destroy years of hard work. Even impacting your performance at work.

My friend, “Dee” is not yet ready to say, “My name is Dee and I’m a ‘substance abuser.’” She’s not even sure what the problem is exactly or if she has a problem at all. She’s being pushed and pulled by the substances, adding more and more to her life to compensate for her feelings of inadequacy, inferiority, and need for aggrandizement. Unfortunately, the feelings of inadequacy feed her need for aggrandizement. It’s a vicious cycle.

It first became a problem when Dee was in her formative years. There were many around her that were supposed to be guiding her and growing her, but she struggled with their leadership. Dee was left alone often…. The people in her life were busy doing things that seemed very important so Dee never spoke up. Instead she quietly endured the feelings of neglect and loneliness that she felt. She felt unworthy and unwanted by those that mattered most.

Once deeply rooted, those feelings of inadequacy grew inside of Dee. 

Dee kept watching those leaders in her life and trying desperately to get noticed by them. Occasionally one of them would include her in their busy agendas but when she tried to participate, she was often hushed and quieted and left to passively take it all in. Not valued enough to participate, only to be a spectator.

Without really knowing, the adults in her life had started to teach Dee. She had watched them abusing substances for many years. All different kinds in fact. So when Dee was old enough to be on her own she began to do the same. What happened next locked Dee into a cycle of substance abuse: as she began to dabble in it, those closest to her accepted her more. The more she used, the more she felt accepted, so she used more. Eventually, Dee was no longer functioning at work or at home.

Instead, she had begun to be a drain on all those around her. Seeking substance to abuse. She began to create random programs with little substance at all, and abusing the programs by adding more and more. Her self-esteem seemed to grow as her need for aggrandizement began to be filled. Soon, she was acting like those others around her, always busy and never seeming to accomplish much—abusing substance….

Dee is in desperate need of recovery. She needs to have an intervention by those around her to help her break the cycle of abusing substance. 

Your voice against substance abuse needs to be heard everywhere across America. Will you stand against substance abuse?

*Whoops. Thanks for catching the typo Katie.

*1 source: http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=24405

I’m feeling itchy. like I have a subtle and continuously growing rash. The kind that says “Hey scratch me already. Stop ignoring me.” It’s not the kind of itch that needs some ointment or some lotion so let’s just stop that train…

Unfortunately, this is not a new thing for me. It happens regularly. Like the recurrence of the kind of itch that needs an ointment….  Sometimes for good purpose and great results but other times it’s just an itch. The hard part is knowing which one it is…

It would be simpler for me if I could even identify where that itch was coming from but sometimes it feels like it’s in one spot and it’s really in another… and it’s not until after I scratch at it, that I figure out that I wasn’t in the right spot. Other times, even after I scratch the damn thing persists, never quite getting relieved and not really identifying itself either. It can be a little frustrating. Still other times your whole body seems to itch and no matter what you do you can’t get it to quit.

As far as my current, not an STD kind of itch, I’d have to say it’s the kind of itch that seems to come from an unidentifiable spot. Sometimes it seems it’s here, sometimes it seems it’s there, and so on. Or maybe it’s moving… Okay that’s weirding me out.

Anyway, the only thing I can really do is keep scratching, chasing it around, and hoping I can figure it out. At times it feels like it might be the fact that I feel stranded in Florida…sometimes it feels like it might be that I feel stranded in my career…sometimes it feels like it might be that I feel overwhelmed as a parent…sometimes it feels like I’m stranded by being over-committed…sometimes I feel abandoned in my beliefs…sometimes it seems like it’s debt…sometimes it seems like it’s just me spinning around and around and not getting where I want to go…as though I know where that is…sometimes it seems like just a batch of unfulfilled desires I have for my life.

Like I said…if only I could identify it then I could scratch it, buy the ointment, get it treated, or whatever is needed. For the time being all I can do is scratch some here and there and see what gives it relief.

So the past few weeks have been ridiculous. Crazy busy at work but not so much in an interesting or fun way….just busy. Then a friend dies. Then my mom, who’s Schizophrenic, flees and stops taking her meds.

It just hasn’t been cool by any stretch of the imagination…survivable sure, but not cool.

As a result, my mind has been processing and protecting itself like crazy, which has made me tired, and distracted, and generally frustrated, but more than that it’s got me thinking about life, friends, family, and the crap that is my life currently. Maybe that’s good—I don’t know.

Thankfully nobody has whipped out too many cliches on me. I don’t think I would have responded well to them.

In any case, it’s been hard not to think about unrelated things and lump them in to the struggles of the past few weeks and make more of them. Even things like people moving on to new jobs has me bummed as I think of losing friends to space and time.

Sure they’ll be around but I know what it means…I’ve seen it over and over and over. People move on and then eventually you lose contact or the contact fades. That sucks. I’m tired of losing friends this way, and as a result, not really having any deep or meaningful friendships.

It’s too much and there is no good reason that I know of unless I need to shower…??? Sometimes makes you wonder what you have to do to find that kind of relationship? I haven’t found it in the church or small groups. I haven’t found it in martial arts. I haven’t found it at work. Hell…I haven’t even found it in family—but perhaps you shouldn’t?

I remember my parents growing up and having people over regularly to play cards and party, and those people are still friends. I want that in my life but it seems like everyone is so busy and self-absorbed, myself included, that we just don’t do that any more and that’s unfortunate because I think it’s a lost art (or becoming a lost art) of our culture.

The idea of having friends that you can count on to share your life with, good and bad, seems gone. I want it. Instead there is Facebook and Twitter—the land of hundreds of acquaintances, tricking you into thinking you have “friends.”

Don’t be tricked. Real, lasting relationships are good and necessary.