Drug Addiction and Grandparents: The Unfortunate Link

Drug addiction requires two things: Drugs and a User. 

To sustain a drug addiction requires three things: Drugs, a User, and an Enabler.  

Anybody can be an enabler. 

Your grandfather could be an enabler. Your grandmother could be an enabler. Your father could be an enabler. Or your mother. Or your mother to her grandchild. And in fact, a grandparent is often the most likely person to become the enabler.  

Grandparents are likely to become enablers because they may be raising the child of their son or daughter (often because their son or daughter is a drug addict). Grandparents may be lonely and seek the companionship of their grandchild. Grandparents have accumulated financial resources that the grandchild learns how to access.

Dr. Allan Schwartz writes (bold added): "It is a well know fact among drug and alcohol counselors that the worst enemy of the abuser is money. The reason for this is that money becomes the means the addict makes purchases of more drugs to feed the addiction. Because the addict is a person who has learned the fine art of manipulation to get what he wants, he knows how to convince loved ones to provide the money he needs to make more drug purchased. If it means telling lies the addict has no compunctions about doing so. Enabling occurs because loved ones generously provide money to the addict in the naive hope that no lies are being told and in the hope that it will help him recover. It is amazing how family and spouses blind themselves to the facts about what is really happening."

I have lived with this situation for many more years than I can count. It gets me dizzy thinking about how long. I could see the beginnings of the codependency long before the drug use began.

Many of us of the "sandwich" generation are experiencing the pain of watching our parents age, lose their health, their memories, and so on. A subgroup of this generation is also experiencing the pain of watching our parents simultaneously go broke, all due to their role as co-dependents to somebody with a drug addiction.

Treatment centers focus on the addict, on the actual drug addiction. They ask family members to participate in counseling, but it's completely voluntary on the part of the family members, the enabler(s). If the addict can go back to the codependent relationship, and continues to engage in the same behavior as before, denial, help with financial resources, lying, etc., the addiction goes on and on, and the grandparents resources will quickly run dry. 

When you are a family member and you see this happening before your very eyes, what can you do?  Anything?   

What is to guide us through these rip currents and perilous channels?

Wrote the wise King Solomon:

A time for tearing down and a time for building up;
A time for weeping and a time for laughing.
A time for wailing and a time for dancing...
A time for seeking and a time for losing.
A time for keeping and a time for discarding...
A time for silence and a time for speaking;
A time for loving and a time for hating;

Caregiver? STRESS ALERT: Take care of your own health.

"One sixty nine over eighty," the nurse at the CVS Minute Clinic said as she unwrapped and removed the inflatable cuff from my arm. "That's high. Do you always have high blood pressure?"

Always? I never had high blood pressure. I'm the one who everybody points to as living a healthy lifestyle and getting plenty of exercise.I'm the one who does yoga. Back home, I put the numbers into the search bar on the internet. 169 over 80. Hypertension. I don't know what those numbers really measure, but I know it's not good.

My annual medical exam was scheduled for the following week. I would get my blood pressure remeasured by my primary care physician, and we would discuss this.

One week later, it was slightly lower but basically the same thing. It was as high as that of some long-time heavy smokers I know. 

THIS is stress. Stress caused by a full year of managing, or dealing with, my elderly mother's issues. Trying to save her from financial devastation and medical destruction. All the while I was trying to write, publish, and promote my book, and other creative and professional endeavors (not to mention time and energy for my husband). I knew that I wasn't getting much exercise, I wasn't sleeping well at night, I knew that my routine was so centered around her, but I never gave a moment's thought to that this might be affecting my own health in some major way. I knew I didn't have as much time for my work and writing and my book as I would have liked, and that created internal - I would call them philosophical but they play out in the real world and in real lives - debates about taking care of others vs taking care of self. I knew I was stressed but you should see the looks on people's faces when I tell them I have hypertension.

"You?"

At my annual medical exam, my doctor asked the usual questions: "Are you getting exercise?" My response was limp. Sometimes riding my bike, but no long distances any more. Sometimes but rarely getting to yoga. Sometimes but rarely running. Playing tennis with my husband, but only on Sundays in the spring and summer.  And my doctor told me to get more exercise and come back in three months and get retested.

This in combination with also being told I was borderline diabetic created some serious talks and evaluations regarding how I manage my own health, diet, life, and also my mother's.

This is what I learned:

• Walgreens is amazing for anybody with high or low blood pressure. They will take your blood pressure for free. When you go, write down the result, and date it. I keep mine on my "notes" on my iPhone. I went monthly. With Walgreen's, there is no excuse for not getting your BP checked. No Walgreens? There is surely some pharmacy nearby. Senior centers often have regular and free BP screening.


• The gym was amazing, especially given this awful winter. Even without the winter, it gave me a routine that I could stick with. I usually went late afternoon or early evening. I made sure I listened to music on my iPod that was relaxing, but kept me moving. For me this meant Neil Young, especially "Harvest Moon." I had a full workout, including 20 minutes running on the indoor track. Once a month I would use the steps machine, which would measure my average and high heart rate. THIS TOO I would write down and keep a record of. Because I don't have enough time to go to the gym and do yoga, I incorporate my yoga breathing and 'asanas' and relaxation techniques into my gym workout.


• Vulnerability. We know we are stressed but it's more difficult to acknowledge how that stress is affecting us physically, and the degree to which it is affecting us physically. While some physical conditions are beyond our control, high blood pressure is often well within our control.  As we age, we become more and more vulnerable to stresses on our system. We are faced with conflict - ourselves vs those we love. And some of us are in the "sandwich generation." There are things I couldn't not do: Help my mother with her divorce, help her move from her home to her apartment, help her move from her apartment to the senior community, and so on. But many things, such as maintaining her car and making sure those bills were paid monthly, were unnecessary and only added stress to my life and my body. oing off for the day or weekend or week with my husband became an big deal, because nobody else in my family was willing to share responsibility for our mother with me. Dealing with the continued blood-letting of my mother's finances in her codependent relationship was another that I ultimately had to take by the horns, be strong, and weather the harsh disapproval that I knew I'd be up against.


• Don't miss your annual medical exam. Schedule it. Put it in the system. Then make it to your appointment. If you're afraid of what the results will say, then face that and ask yourself honestly what you can do differently to make sure that your health is not irreparably damaged and that you haven't given yourself reason to avoid going to the doctor's. Have this discussion with your spouse or significant other, if one is in the picture. My doctor warned me, and I gave myself a goal of three months to get my emotional and physical house in order. Me, the healthy one.


• Do what you need to do to lighten your burden around your elderly parent. That will pit you against your parent but for your life you need to. For me, it meant selling her car, and other difficult actions I write about. We fought. Often the fights were about her desire to have her car, versus my need to reduce my stress level, which was, literally, killing me. The fights were horrible because they pit me and my needs, physical and emotional, against my mother, who couldn't "hear" me, and what she wanted to do. The fights brought up other feelings and long-term issues. But being dead is no picnic, either.

The next time I got my BP taken, just one month ago, it was 142/74. Lower but still hypertension. 

Today was my last visit before my three-month visit to my doctor for a retest. 

This morning I went before I had my morning cup of coffee. The pharmacist came out and took the reading. My BP was 120/79. I phoned my husband and reported the good news, as if I were 14 and had gotten straight A's on my report card. Then I came home, had my coffee, and made an appointment for my 3-month checkup.

And wrote this blog post.

When Your Parents Lie to You

I know that much of what she tells me is a lie.

I didn't always know that. I knew in my gut something wasn't right. But I didn't KNOW it was a lie. And I didn't know why it was a lie or why she lied. I still don't know but such is the nature of a person's psyche. 

If your parents are lying to you, it's okay to know it. It's better to know and accept it than to not acknowledge it and try to convince yourself that what is a lie is actually true. Then you get really screwed up for life.

For a few days now her memory has been awful. Just awful. She also doesn't want to wake up and blames it on her cold. But people who have colds can get up and function. I know there's something else going on.

"Is it (this)?" 

"No."

"Are you depressed?"

"No. I'm just tired. Can't I be tired?"

"Did Unidentified Male Relative telephone you?"
 
"Maybe."

"What did he say?"

I don't remember.

If you're like me, you've learned to trust your gut. In my case, I have to wonder: A) She doesn't remember the telephone call because she doesn't want to remember; B) She remembers the call and its contents but she doesn't want to tell you/me. C) She doesn't remember the telephone call because she has some condition independent of all other emotional issues. After all, how am I ever going to prove that she remembers?  Or doesn't remember? The memory loss serves a practical and convenient function.

I have to harken back to just a few weeks ago, when Unidentified Male Relative showed up unexpectedly (on my end), and I discovered that he and she had gone to the bank together and had wiped out her savings account. At that time, she said nothing to me afterward, as it it hadn't happened at all. It was an awkward silence, me wondering if she'd say anything, giving her the opportunity to bring it up on her own, and she being quiet out of - fear? Of me? Of what I might say? Of having to deal with what she had just partnered in? But yesterday when the topic of finances and the savings account came up, she was quick to offer: "I did it because I wanted to." Memory loss? Or convenient 'memory loss'?

Sure enough, I find out late afternoon from Other Person that Unidentified Male Relative is there in her apartment. Other Person doesn't want me to call her and get elderly mom upset. I, however, need to call.  We have to do a reality check here.

"Was he there when you and I were talking a little while ago, and doing your meds?"

"Yes. I told you."

"No you didn't. You said you were getting ready to take a nap. That was all." I calmly informed my elderly mom that there is no money in the checking account, there is no money in the savings account, and all the credit cards have been shut down.  She argues that she's financially responsible. I say "No, you're not financially responsible." She says UMR has not asked for money. I say "Not yet." She's playing a game with me. But it's a fool's game.

What does it take to be a good liar? A persistent liar? All it takes is for the other person to be a fool, or to want to be fooled, to want to cling to a relationship or a dream more than you want to cling to reality and yourself. 

She says, "I don't lie to you."

At any age, it's hard to tell your parents that you've caught them in a lie. Let alone repeated lies. I think that what she's really saying is that she doesn't want to lie to me. For most of my life my parents presented things in one way but the truth was quite different. But time is running out and I have to just be blunt and honest about this - because we have to exist in a place of honesty. How much more time do we have to get to this place?

I say, "Yes you do, you lie all the time."  It hurts her to hear this, it hurts me say this. To KNOW this. Relationships cannot thrive in an atmosphere of falsifications. I can't imagine how much it destroys a person to be a liar. I take that back. I can imagine it. I see it all the time, every day. I can't imagine how destroyed a person must be to lie. A person's humanity. It's an awful way to live.

This time UMR can't get any money. My mom's finances are, for now, as they were. They are safe. I won't have to do any clean up of the mess tomorrow. She may not be very happy about it but I'm relieved. I've protected her finances, I've protected myself from the angst and stress of cleaning up the mess each time, which gets harder and harder each time, and I've eliminated one tool that fuels the codependency. I'm sad, but I'm relieved for the moment.

And for the moment, there is honesty.

The Saddest Moment of Accepting Your Parent's Mental Illness

We get to act normal for a while and then every now and then the disease manifests itself. 

I've had a lot of time to think about this. I've had a lot of time to accept that things are going to seem normal for a while - and then they're not.

I've had a lot of time to accept that there's nothing that I can do to avert this, or to avert that sooner or later I'm going to be the bad guy. The one who always rescues my mother, the one who made sure she was out of her home and safely in a new apartment before she was financially destitute, the one who made her divorce happen because she couldn't function enough to do anything let alone appear in court to face her (soon to be ex-) husband... eventually I would be the bad guy.

I've had a lot of time to accept that it's an emotional state that she enters, and that there is nothing that I can say that will release her from that, or cause her to see anything, rationally, any differently.

So when this afternoon, I said "So what about the credit card and the taxi ride?" I knew that sooner or later warm air and and cool air were going to meet and produce the thunder and lightening. I was at a shopping center, in a big soft easy chair that they had for patrons to relax.

"He said that the card was turned off."

"Yes, Mom. I closed the card."

"YOU CAN'T DO THAT."

But of course I could, and I did. And a person who is being abused, or who is part of an abusive relationship, or a co-dependent relationship, will never, or rarely, acknowledge it.

"I had to, Mom. You're going to be destitute again and I can't allow that to happen."

What was different about this time is that I saw her illness roll in like a dark cloud. The issue was her and her Unidentified Male Relative. There would be no talking to her.

"But I'll have bad credit."

"Mom, you'll have bad credit if I don't do that. There's too much money going out to UMR"

She screamed "YOU CAN'T DO THAT." and screamed "YOU DON'T HAVE THE POWER TO DO THAT.", she was going to "get a lawyer and that will cost even more money" while I waited quietly. The voice in my head said, "There's nothing you can say." I felt like the center of the hurricane. All was quiet. Maybe it was one of the saddest moments of my life. But I had reality on my side, and that's nothing to sneer at. There was one thing I could say:

"Mom, I'm going to get off the phone now. I'll talk to you later."

What you don't have control over

Somebody recently hearing my lament said "You have to accept what you don't have control over." Ha. Sounds like a good soundbite - but it's very cheap advice. I hate cheap advice. 

I check all my power of attorneys. This account checks out. The next account checks out. But one account I've never filed my power of attorney with them. For sure I was too overwhelmed - busy with some critical "other". I won't say it was a mistake. I'll have rachmanus on myself. but it definitely adds new stress.

THIS BANK I have to overnight it in....  And I quickly check all the rates - FedEx, US Priority Overnight... And the US Priority overnight wins. I can save a few dollars by doing it online and printout out my mailing label. It won't accept the address. I'm frantic. Aha - I've misspelled the street.  Now everything is ready. I've printed out the PoA. Added my cover letter. Everything is in the packet, sealed, ready to go. Next a trip to the post office. I didn't plan this for today. Like I have nothing else to do today.

It's been well over one week. They're saying it's not processed - it's 7-10 BUSINESS days, which can be over two weeks. I call on a Saturday night - They can't even tell me IF it's been received. And THAT office is closed weekends.

I'm freaked because HE - Unidentified Male Relative - is on his way to my mother's. That can mean only one thing. 

"You have to accept what you don't have control over." Easy for you to say.

After a while, I hear he has called her again and said he has turned around due to delays on route. 


I'm off the hook for another day or two... Maybe the bank will process this PoA by the next move....

It's Not So Easy. Social Security, Power of Attorney, and Representative Payee

Everybody says "You have power of attorney...just (this) just (that)." 

Not so easy. For every hole I try to stop up, she can make the same telephone call and do the opposite.

Believe me. I know they mean to be helpful but it takes too much of my time trying to explain why it's not so easy.

But I think I have an idea.

I did a test and so far it has worked with small amounts of money. Will it work fully, when I try it next week, for real?

Do you have power of attorney for an elderly parent? Great. But unless you have guardianship, your elderly parents can, if he or she is clever enough, pick up the phone and undo what you've done to protect him or her. Even if you have PoA, you can't have the social security check auto deposits deposited in a safe bank unless your elderly parent makes the call and that defeats the entire purpose. The SSA doesn't accept PoA: You have to literally have your parent declared incompetent by a physician, file that with Social Security and get a designation which will give you total control... And what if you don't want total control? Or what if you don't want your parent legally declared incompetent? Like I don't. Then you have to figure out how to get the social security money into an account so that your elderly parents won't, under pressure, be able to write out checks and give the money away to some young and healthy person who would rather get fresh green money from his/her grandmother.

And my mother will do anything to do what this person wants, to do what she thinks she needs to do to earn his love, to keep him close to her. Even if it bankrupts her.

Reminds me of a drug addiction. You'll do anything for that drug. Anything.

When Your Elderly Mom Is Part of a Chronically Co-dependent Relationship

It was bad enough the $150.

The next day I got a bad feeling. Usually when I have a bad feeling there's something to back it up. Is this because I'm so smart? Or because God sends me little messages? Is this because I'm learning from experience?

My bad feeling led me to look online at her credit card charges. THERE IT WAS. $850 cash advance on one of the charges. Plus a $55 service fee, Not to mention the high interest rate on cash withdrawals.

Can you guess who this money went to? 

It was difficult to remain calm on what was supposed to be my Sunday afternoon and evening, my return to sanity, my return to looking after my own health, keeping my stress to a minimum, getting regular exercise and lowering my blood pressure and blood sugar level. I'd been warned, after all. I could feel my heart racing.

with the bank on the telephone, we conference in my mother. She immediately said she couldn't talk because she was tired. We kept her on the phone. She admitted it, the thousand dollars. I told her what I needed to do. She was argumentative and feisty.

After a few moments, I asked her to hang up. She refused. "You can't tell me what to do." Eventually she hung up.

Sadly, of all the credit cards she had, this is the only one for whom I had not yet sent in my PoA forms. But one thing I learned: If the next payment was made, then the credit card company would automatically block the card.   Good news, but two weeks away until the next payment due date.

That night I wrote a letter to an attorney asking how to initiate a Guardianship. I didn't want to do it. But as long as she had legal access to credit cards and her checking account, she would find a way to undue all the good things I had done to put her life in financial shape and all the good things I had done to rescue her from bankruptcy and homelessness herself.

How can you feel when you're doing this? I knew it would destroy my relationship with my mother forever, maybe even destroy her. And maybe not. It was, after all, her own behavior that was destroying her and undoing her life.

And she was 87 and doing it once again.