Siblinghood of Recovery
Siblinghood of Recovery
Episode 51 - What is Your Story? Navigating what part of Recovery as a Parent is yours to tell.
Shame-based emotional triggers, linked to substance use, can be detrimental especially if parents employ shame as a behavioral deterrent. Instead, our best offense is to heal ourselves.
Article cited, Published online 2022 Mar 18. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265480, PMCID: PMC8932605, The shame spiral of addiction: Negative self-conscious emotion and substance use.
Thank you for listening and please visit www.siblinghoodofrecovery.com for free resources, links to organizations, groups and individuals who can offer help in the Journey of Recovery towards healing from substance use disorders. If you like this Podcast, please leave a rating on wherever you're listening. It will help to get the word out.
If there is one message I can leave you with, the best you can offer your loved one battling addiction is love and a healthier you.
Walk gently, my friend.
My name is Angie Reno and I'm a mom on a recovery journey from family dysfunction, addiction and perhaps all that simply comes with the human condition. I'm not a licensed therapist, although I will always encourage seeking out professional help. I know therapy has changed my life for the better. There are many of us on this path towards recovery, so let's walk gently. Welcome to Siblinghood of Recovery. Hello recovery community, I hope you are doing well. I hope this podcast finds you in a state of learning and hope and looking to the future with a determination of growth.
Speaker 1:There's a lot when you're looking up podcasts based on substance use and I do put in there the words addiction. I think in the recovery community we are trying to shift towards the use of the word substance use disorder, but there's still a lot of us who say right up front I know what it's like to deal with addiction and it's okay. If somebody wants to use that word and they've clarified that with you, that's fine. But as we navigate our healing process through this, there's so much to take in all at once and I was thinking about the concept of story. Like we meet in meeting rooms, whether it's in person or on a zoom, and we introduce ourselves to so many people in the recovery community and we tell our story and my brain started going towards if that story is positive or if that story is negative, how does that impact our ability to heal? And I know personally I can, I can say for sure that my story over the last couple of years has changed drastically. When I first started on this journey, I'm sure people could hear the pain in my voice. I'm sure they could hear the hurt, as good as I am at trying to stay neutral when I describe a difficult situation. But I know now and even though I still try to stay neutral, you know, in tonality and, I guess, body language, even now, when I say yeah, I've just I've never been this happy, which is the truth People seem surprised because of what my story is.
Speaker 1:And then I started wondering about how my story, when it's told, impacts my loved ones and I started researching the concept of shame and substance use and, no big surprise, I found that it's directly correlated. I want to quote from a study that's available on the National Library of Medicine website, pubmed Central, and the article is entitled the Shame Spiral of Addiction Negative Self-Conscious Emotion and Substance Use. I'll put a link in the show notes. And the cool part is this one is free. But the researchers specifically spoke on bi-directional associations between negative self-conscious emotions, such as shame and guilt, and substance use. I found that incredibly interesting because I know in my personal journey that I was not good at limiting how I spoke to my son when I was freaking out and I was in the middle of chaos and it was the how could you, how could you, what the heck's going on? What are you doing to the family? I mean all kinds of stuff, cause I was just out of control too in my own self regulation, and the more that the recovery experts had me focus on my own behavior, the less accusatory my language became and the more positive my language became towards my loved one.
Speaker 1:This study actually supports that progress towards a healthy exchange, and how they did it was they used methods that had parallel processes of what they call latent growth curve modeling. What they did is, in a number of days, they equated the use of stimulants to the engagement of shame based emotional triggers or shame based emotional exchanges between loved ones as experienced by the user the substance user and their conclusions are shame and guilt or barriers to reducing stimulant use. That's pretty strong. If you dig into this, how you're speaking to your loved one as they are using is going to be incredibly important. I know it's difficult. Believe me. I know because a lot of times in the parent child relationship, the parent is seeking an encounter that equals to the one that they had when the child was healthy and younger and not as resistant. Basically, you're looking for the child that you love versus the person who is using substances, who's standing in front of you. This is actually termed in the recovery community the shame addiction cycle. It refers to a pattern of substance use that is used to escape the negative self conscious emotions that are held when the person is using substances. So you can imagine what a wicked spiral this is.
Speaker 1:In the craft based theory that I've talked about, there is an incredible focus on the support community understanding the power of the emotional exchange, the power of words. The deeper I go in learning about recovery, I know how vital that is, how vital that emotional exchange is and how important it is for us, as parents, to be keenly aware of the words that we are using with our children, whether a substance use is a challenge or whether or not we're simply engaging in a day to day exchange of life. There was an interesting part of this study and I'll read this scientific explanation. Notably pro-social aspects of negative self-conscious emotions have been conceptualized from an evolutionary perspective, including theorization that shame and guilt function to restrain human behavior or maintain cultural standards. Basically, shame was used as a methodology to curb bad behavior, and if anybody was raised Catholic, they know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:So that's another podcast and it could be one that's comedy-based or not, but yeah, so if you dig into this a parent who is just entering this whole process and who is an experienced and maybe not yet has a community that they can lean on they might use any tool that they can grab ahold of that they hope will restrict the substance use, and shame's an easy grab. How could you do this to yourself? It's a question that does go through your mind, but the power of that ask and how it lands and how it's digested is what has to be understood. The best way to do that is to work with and I'm going to say it again a licensed therapist who can dig in and help you, as a parent, understand the repercussions of implementing a shame-based technique to control your child. Quote, unquote control right and steer them away from using substances.
Speaker 1:Instead, there is a very strong push to understand the why of the substance use. And how do you do that? The key is to learn about your own self-regulation, to go to a licensed therapist to break down what's going on inside of you, break down all that comes with this your grief, your anger, your frustration and then move towards with professional help and ability to self-regulate as you approach your child and begin to understand the why's. Now, it's not simply saying why are you doing this. It is a process of understanding why they're drinking, why they're using. Slowly start to improve communication, slowly start to mitigate the chaos that is happening in the home.
Speaker 1:The hard part is that other family members will be present. Not all family members sometimes are on board in working towards a family plan. That's just how it is. If you can keep your eye on the ball, though, and you can begin to be a safe spot, a safer place for your child, time and time again, it will prove to be valuable to you in the long run, if not for the very aspect that you're going to get healthy emotionally. I've said it so many times and I'm going to say it so many times again community is incredibly important. Surrounding yourself with people who understand what you're going through, it is huge. It's going to be valuable.
Speaker 1:So the reason why I was thinking about stories is if we tell a story about our loved one using and how horrible that is for the family, and if that loved one hears that story, that loved one is going to be ashamed. And if that story profligates and becomes a quote, unquote part of the family story, that loved one is now in a role. Have you ever heard of this saying? Or have you ever heard somebody say, yeah, I'm the black sheep of the family? I used to laugh, but now when I hear it, there's like this sad tug in my stomach because I'm like, oh man, what comes along with that story? I have heard some of my friends say, thank God I am because my family's so dysfunctional. Okay, that's orange, I'm just going to leave that to the side.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to substance use, there is and needed awareness for parents to understand how they're telling the story, and especially if they're talking about their kids, when their kids are present. Because if you're talking about your kids saying, yeah, you know, this is just been A nightmare to deal with and the kid hears that there's just Nobody in the world that would want to participate in that story. I know I wouldn't. I feel horrible about myself Because to know that you're part of a major reason for family dysfunction or chaos it's a burden to bear.
Speaker 1:So the big ask I had of myself when I realized that the story defines who we are or where we are in our family condition, really, for me the big ask was like what do you want to tell and do you have to tell anything? Do you have to tell your family story or can you just tell your own and then your children tell their story? Because here's the funny part. Well, I don't know how humorous it is, but maybe ironic. I don't know the story that we're telling. Whatever role that we think we might be playing From another person's perspective, we could be a completely different person in that story. And with recovery here's the really cool part the story might change. So my big ask here is this is to myself for sure, but to a lot of people who are in recovery be open to that story changing. Be open to, as recovery happens, the roles to change, the outcome to change and, who knows, you might have a completely different ending a year from now than the story that you're telling today. And if you're in the midst of chaos, that would be pretty cool. All right, that's all I got for now.
Speaker 1:I hope that you are living a great story for the moment that you're listening to this podcast. If you're not, find a community around you. It's doable, it's possible. There's so many of us out here that know what you're going through. And, most of all, be good to yourself To connect with me. Visit siblinghood of recovery on Instagram or visit my website, www. Dot siblinghood of recovery dot com. Although I'm not overly active on social media, I'll get back with you as soon as I can. On my site, I'm committed to providing free resources. You'll find links to information that point towards 12 stop meetings, craft based therapy programs and much more, but please know you're not walking this journey alone simply from being human where a community that is growing each and every day. Be well, and I'll talk to you soon. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
