Pubdate: Mon, 09 Jul 2012
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2012 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Erin Ellis

FAMILIES STRUGGLE TO DEAL WITH ADDICTIONS

Allowing Addicts to Continue Their Behaviour Does Not Help Them, 
Counsellor Says

Some parents buy drugs for their grown-up children. Others pay bills 
for a compulsive overspender. But the first thing families of addicts 
do is give up their self-respect.

So says Vancouver counsellor Candace Plattor, explaining why she came 
up with a workbook this year to accompany a self-help volume she 
published in 2010, Loving an Addict, Loving Yourself: The Top 10 
Survival Tips for Loving Someone with an Addiction.

"To put up with abusive behaviour from somebody is not self- 
respecting and it's not loving toward the other person," says Plattor.

Whether it's violence, financial irresponsibility or creating a 
chaotic family life, "it's not good for them to get away with doing 
that kind of behaviour," she says.

"I decided to write the workbook because there are so few treatment 
options for the loved ones ... I wrote the book with an eye on 
helping loved ones to go a little deeper and find out where their own 
codependent tendencies came from, where their enabling behaviours 
began in their own families - why they do this."

In 20 years of private practice as an addictions counsellor, Plattor 
says common themes arise. Children of alcoholics are quick to 
minimize problem drinking because they learned early on that 
placating a drunk keeps the household safe. And people generally want 
to avoid conflict, particularly the type that's bound to follow when 
families stop paying an addict's bill, refuse to let them live at 
home without contributing to the household or cut off their unlimited 
Internet access.

"All of a sudden, it's ' What do you mean, No? You can't do that to 
me. You're a lousy mother. If you really loved me ...' "

Families have to learn to handle the conflict and also tell the 
difference between helping an addict and enabling them, Plattor says.

"An enabling behaviour basically keeps the addiction going. A helpful 
behaviour helps it to stop.

"I look at enabling behaviours as addictive behaviours as well, 
because there's something underneath that for the loved ones. Why are 
they doing that? They know deep down, number 1, it's not working ... 
and number two, there are reasons for what they're doing," she says.

"The enablers are going to continue to enable until they understand 
what's in it for them."

Her clients are now split between people with addictions - to 
everything including drugs, alcohol, gambling, shopping, food, 
Internet porn, and online video games - and the family members who 
are affected by it.

Plattor devoted herself to the subject after developing an addiction 
to prescription drugs and then marijuana to deal with her chronic 
Crohn's Disease. She quit using both 25 years ago and later earned a 
master's degree in counselling psychology.

The biggest trend she's noticed in recent years is the growth in sex 
addiction, particularly linked to using Internet pornography through 
X- rated websites and chat rooms. It isolates people and creates a 
cycle of secrecy, shame, and more secrecy, she says.

The workbook is built around her survival tips - Number 1: come face 
to face with reality - and prompts readers to check off conditions 
that are bothering them and write down their feelings. That helps 
breakdown a common belief in families affected by addiction: This is 
a secret and no one else will understand.

An example from the workbook: "Have you experienced any of the 
following emotional or physical symptoms as the result of loving an addict?

Depression. Anxiety. Stress-related illness. Insomnia. Exhaustion. If 
so, how have you been dealing with them?" And "Has fear of your 
addicted loved one's anger ever kept you from speaking your truth?"

Few addicts are able to stop entirely on their own and sometimes 
their treatment can be sped along if families join in, she says.

"If you grew up in a family where, when the going gets tough, the 
tough go shopping ... or eat chocolate, then that's what you're going 
to learn. You might not choose shopping as your addiction, but you're 
going to learn how to squash your feelings down, you're going to 
learn how to not deal with what's real."

Her books are available through her website www.candaceplattor.com 
and, in Vancouver, at Odin Books and Banyen Books.
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