JUNE 28, 2008/RADIO SHOW

CHARACTERISTICS OF THOSE SUFFERING FROM DRUG AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION

Brian: Good Afternoon Atlanta and welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, my name is Brian Fujii and my co-host Jill Mattingly,

Jill: It is so gorgeous out there today, I even tried to have a garage sale this morning but no one showed up because it looks like rain

Brian: On the weather channel I could not believe all the red marks on the screen,

Jill: Well we are sitting in Buckhead on this rainy weekend, it is good to be back and hope everyone is having a good day. I will start with our phone number and an interesting subject subject and we want people to call us today so get involved ….

Brian: Oh yes, we are talking about the characteristics of those that are having trouble with alcohol and drugs from the characteristic side, what kind of personality do they develop?

Jill: Loved ones out there will recognize the characteristics very easily so, 770-226-0920 once again, 770-226-7920.

Brian: the loved ones could do this show(laughter)

Jill: Call and get in on this conversation talk to us about your loved one or yourself, I thought we would start off Brian with a news article I was reading at my empty garage sale. Huge headline in a large font and it says “A Worrisome Week”

I have been thinking about this, and that is how are the media, the television, newspaper and internet influencing people with fear of the future. Economic turn down, recession and they have not defined it yet as a recession and it has not met the criteria for recession and if you say it enough you will begin to believe it, all of this fear mongering and this headline, “A Worrisome Week” all of these go into starting a stress response. A stress response and the release of your adrenaline and the fight or flight feeling and you can’t pinpoint what you are afraid of but you know that you are anxious and afraid and that is low level stress. What do you do when you are anxious or stressful? You like to do something about it. Some may sit down in an easy chair and watch tv, some may exercise but many out there will do something to alter the stress response such as alcohol and it can be an efficient stress reliever or other types of medications or drugs.

Brian: It is interesting you say that because in our studies we have found that one of the key motivators for pain killers …..do you know what that is?

Jill: STRESS

Brian: Good! You get an “A”! (laughter) But it is amazing, we have a lot of folks out there and we have seen this in the news how prescription meds are being more addictiond than anything else recently. And so obviously we have looked at things like those pain killers and we know they are being addictiond a lot and we know that stress is one of the biggest keys. The gas prices, the economy for business owners, you can imagine how that stress is tempting them to use.

Jill: If you have the AJC you recognize the headline and right below that is “bad news” and I mean all of these words have marks in our brains, and they produce a response and the people that write the news know this and they know how to trigger in us the release of neurotransmitters in our brains that help us go along with what they want us to feel. Not like “Big Brother” but it does make a big difference on how we are being told how things are going around us and for some people that produces a fear or anxiety response. Then they are more apt to use, I bring that up because when you use more you move into addiction and then we know ultimately dependency. If this rings true with you, call in and give us your story or weigh in on this issue, call us at 770-226-0920 that is 770-226-0920, we are a call in show and you can come in, no don’t come in but call in anytime you want and talk about this issue.

Having a fear and anxiety response to what you see going on around you in your job or your family and try to self medicate with drugs or alcohol can lead to dependency and then we have learned the last few weeks what that can lead to. Obviously it can lead to socio economic drift where we have discussed the last weeks and losing things and our own …..

Brian: Our own relationships and we see this and that drift can also lead to for many people especially those in recovery the what we call the behavioral drift. What is that? Many people staying in recover and the pressure gets too great without coping skills they can drift down that road and that is a real danger and that is what we are talking about today.

Jill: When the drift happens and the consequences become legal or job loss, we see more fear and anxiety, and my point is that if you are sitting there with a drink in your hand and you are thinking about dependency on a substance and you think you might have that problem going on but you still are working and you don’t have any legal problems and you have good insurance, well, now is the time to look into programs out there including ours that can help you overcome this before it becomes a problem where you start to lose things. Trust me, when you lose your job and insurance and help that means you have very little choices in order to go out and get addiction treatment. Few choices that may not make you feel like that is what you want to do.

Brian: When you limit your choices you increase your stress. It is a cycle and then increases the desire to self-medicate even more.

Jill: Absolutely.

Brian: We see a degrading pattern. Today what we will look at is trying to help our clients, well clients too but our listening audience look at characteristics that may begin manifesting as a result of this stress that you are talking about Jill. So, what are some of those specific characteristics as a result of not being able to cope. So I am looking forward to this time and we ask the question and I would like to take a look at this so the question of the hour is, “Why do addicts violate their most important core values?” Why is that and we will ask and some will say, “Well what is my core value?”

Jill: Well isn’t that what we are taught in kindergarten or childhood, our core value.

Brian: Apple pie and the flag (laughter) no, honesty and openness and willingness to change and truth and ability to communicate.

Jill: Kindness

Brian: Why is it that those particular values degenerate when someone uses more and more alcohol. That is what we want to talk about today this causes so many relationships to dissolve and as a result because of that strain and stress, families fall apart because of no support.

Brian: During our free consultations we hear from the family members things like honesty and hope are all gone and the family is at a loss. So we ask the question, “What is it about addiction that causes people to abandon core values?” Because the brain has changed, people ask how is that? The idea is that when people continue to use alcohol and other drugs there becomes an unbalance with the neurotransmitters in the brain. Not just the balance but guess what? Even their personality takes on a different characteristic, if they were open and loving and kind they become isolated where they are in the room but aren’t present.

Jill: Or distracted, people that use things like stimulants, seem distracted like another two or three chess moves that they are thinking through while you are talking to them. I have seen that behavior quite a bit,

Brian: This is why we say to parents, you know if they have children or adolescents, if they begin seeing significant behavior changes, such as non communicative and angry,

Jill: Wait a minute Brian, that is puberty isn’t it?

Brian: (laughter) Ok, well we see this with parents calling asking how a straight A student can become a failing teen in trouble. Or their friends begin to change and they are surrounding themselves with different people. As people continue to use alcohol and drugs the brain begins to go through a change and as that brain changes they become more and more withdrawn and they become more and more isolated and as a result of that behavior they begin compromising their core values. If the communication was there, they become withdrawn. We will find people of courage and integrity can become fearful and procrastinating and sometimes these changes come about slowly gradually and that is the bigger problem.

Jill: You are trying to say that by using the drugs and alcohol for whatever reason that they are using it can start to see characteristics of their personality and behavior that will change visibly.

Brian: Very visibly, not only by what they do but by what they say, their thinking processes, they can become fragmented and this is where we see the isolation beginning to occur. We know that young adolescents don’t always want to be around their parents and become sometimes combative or isolate with …

Jill: Isolate away from the non users in their life so they can hang with the users.

Brian: Some of the feelings that they begin, I want our audience to hear this, sometimes they think it is “against” them. It is not always the case. If this is grabbing your interest call us at 770-226-0920. I know that there are people out there that have someone that is having some of these changes and I don’t know what is going on. Give us a call. Another piece is that what we find is that behaviors change and not just to them and others but they begin feeling shame, guilt, fear and even this kind of self directed anger.

Now, instead of having that communication they are more withdrawn and argumentative and you feel guilt.

Jill: Well I just had a vision of there is say a woman, by the way this isn’t an evangelistic show, I could see a woman out there and she hits the steering wheel and says to herself, “That is what happens!” They say to me, “Well he is still drinking after the divorce and won’t see the kids, etc.,” they don’t realize that this slippery slope is happening. They were headed into a place of behavior change and that is what caused the marriage to start to go south. If they lose their core values such as honesty and integrity and loving kindness, all of the things that have been covered by the dependency on the alcohol and drugs, then of course you have relationship problems and of course many times that dissolves relationships. I can just see people out there saying “That is what happened, it wasn’t because of the money, or me,……” It was the dependency and that became the slippery slope.

Brian: We always take the externals. That is where we get a lot of confusion so they try to fix these things and when they try to fix them the problem doesn’t go away because the fact is it is internal. Looking at the willingness to do things initially and now you are complacent you will see things happening where the environment begins to degenerate also.

Jill: Absolutely, I am going to give out that number since I mentioned that woman in the car, she might want to whip out the cell phone and call us, 770-226-0920, this is nuts and bolts about how alcohol and drug dependency can dissolve that quickly. When we come back we will talk about how the addicted person acts toward people once they begin to feel the shame and guilt you were talking about Brian. 770-226-0920.

Commercial Break

Jill: And maybe in a passive aggressive way.

Brian: Oh, well said, that is exactly correct and all that has come out is like throwing something against the wall, it will be a cutting statement and something that they withdraw or withhold emotions or angry enraged response.

Jill: Interesting, I am sure people are turning up the radio for their spouse right now (laughter)

Brian: Also, as an individual is struggling they are trying to figure out why they feel this way and when the loved ones see this they feel that this is something determined. What we find out in addiction treatment is that the individual doesn’t even know why they are angry. Some people as you know have different characteristics, so they can drive it inward with silence and get more depressed and start feeling even more withdrawn and they don’t know how to deal with that and that is why at Breakthrough we try to help our clients learn how to manage these emotions of anger depression and frustration. If they don’t manage these in a healthy way, they will drive them into themselves and get sicker. Do you remember that some can have what they call false charm?

Jill: False charm, interesting.

Brian: An example, notice some of these individuals that come into our program, a magnetic attractive charming exterior, we wonder why they are here, they appear so cool. But when you peel the onion back layer by layer, what you find is a scared child. I do not mean to be derogatory but you have to see that many times we find addicts doing this, they cover up that scare with a lot of shimmering glittering things shiny cars, big homes large bank accounts, trips abroad and as a result that covers up what they are really dealing with on the inside. Have you ever seen that? When we do free consultations we see it and it is amazing, also, not only do they come across that way but I have noticed too that many are very strong pleasure seekers. Ok, if you would like to enter this conversation we want you to call, 770-226-0920 and if you are outside the Atlanta area it is 1-888-920-2665. Give us a call and we want to hear what your experiences have been.

Commercial Break

Jill: 770-226-0920 that number again, get your cell phone and dial 770-226-0920 we are coming into the last segments of our show so please call and get in on the conversation and ask a question or if you feel like you need to talk just call us. 770-226-0920. So Brian here is my big question, what happened to these people, we just gave all of these characteristics, so what happened.

Brian: Part of the big word is immaturity.

Jill: That’s too easy (laughter)

Brian: Easy word to say but a very difficult characteristic to self ascribe. What do I mean by that? What we find in our addiction treatment what we find the characteristics among many of our clients is that they have failed to grow emotionally and we find that as people mature and they first grow they are self centered, demanding and they cry and get fed. They throw a tantrum and something positive happens for them, that’s great when you are 2 or 3 years old, but imagine if you are like that when you are 25 years old or

Jill: 35

Brian: Or 55. Many don’t think they act this way but many times those with addiction that come to our program started drinking around 10 – 12 years old.

Jill: Exactly

Brian: We know the brain matures from back to front. What is on the front is the pre frontal cortex, that is responsible for good thought processes. When we find people that have arrested that they start to have the immature characteristics. What I said earlier, many times there is a scared lonely or shamed boy or girl within many of our clients who come in because they are feeling that they are not worthwhile and therefore they cover up with the external things. I talk about the internal and there are a lot of pleasure seeking going on even power seeking ok? And if there is power seeking guess what? Attention seeking goes along with that

Jill: Absolutely

Brian: If they can’t get the attention by human relationships they will look for power and attention somewhere else and behind that is a scared child. That is not derogatory, we all have had our issues and so many many of thsese who have had these problems have possibly come from abusive environments

Jill: Or neglected

Brian: Or possibly on the other side they have been given too much

Jill: Too much too fast

Brian: Right and thinking things will make them emotionally secure and then they find out that is not what they needed they needed positive relations. So, what got them here? Because they really believe in their immaturity that they are the center of their universe and the whole world revolves around them. It is scary to realize even subconsciously that it doesn’t

Jill: So everyone is supposed to be in orbit around them.

Brian: Can you imagine if they are not? You want to grab them and bring them in and make sure they stay within your sphere

Jill: You will display any type of personality to keep them there.

Brian: And that is manipulation. In fact when we do our addiction treatment we have a terminology in our program. It is called king or queen baby.

Jill: laughter, ok what are the facial reactions when you say that in class?

Brian: Angry, how dare you call me a baby. And I understand that but what we have to understand is the words. King, baby, Queen, baby. King or Queen have what? Control and power and the baby part is that it is immaturity and so it is almost like the idea of having a child king. Trying to rule the roost. That is what we see and that is where the conflict comes up, they want to control and so many times the own emotional immaturity is there so they are unable and therefore constantly grabbing for power and have difficulty to bring their lives in control. In fact, some of these characteristics, if we take a look at this idea of the king baby for example, one of those characteristics is feelings of omnipotence and if you are the center of the universe you would think you have all of the power and how is that typically expressed? Control over other people. It is funny, those that have the power rarely try to express it but the ones that don’t are the ones that are always trying to prove it and that is what we see so many times so if you have a loved one out there and you see this characteristic manifested in your home and it is driving you crazy and causing chaos, that is another thing as a result with that going on it is no wonder that the family is also asking themselves how they can manage this and asking themselves what they can do. A big characteristic among co-addicteds is they try to fix it and make it work. They also have an inability to accept frustration and so if you begin looking at your loved one and every time you try to reason with them or try to bring understanding to try and bring limits to the situation what are you going to have?

Jill: Frustration and

Brian: Arguments, all of the time. A constant battle and maybe you are wondering why your household is in constant chaos and you don’t see effective communication. Maybe you need to address an addiction issue, call us, 770-226-0920 and outside Atlanta 1-888-920-2665. We would love to hear from you and our break is coming up, 770-226-0920.

Commercial Break

Jill: We have Amy in Atlanta, Hey Amy we have about two minutes, let’s see if we can help you out

Amy: I was calling because of my family member and she doesn’t have an outright addiction to alcohol or drugs but she is a manipulating and controlling personality and our family is struggling in our relationship with her and what steps can we take would you recommend therapy, or dealing with our relationship with her going forward.

Brian: We offer a free consultation and I would recommend that if there is a concern and they are willing to come in and talk about what we can do to help her it would be great and you can go to our website and set up an appointment and we would be happy to sit down with her. First of all try to address your concerns about how her behavior is impacting you personally and that might help them get to understand that their behavior is unacceptable and they need to change, not placing blame but saying how you are being affected and then again they see themselves as the center of the universe.

Amy: Well she definitely does and it is a constant battle because she doesn’t understand and doesn’t see anything but herself being affected.

Jill: A lot of that loses power when you begin to understand where she is coming from and we do talk to family members as well as the loved one with the problem, but it is important for you to understand what is going on and why is this behavior coming out of her. That will help disarm this in the household.

Amy: I just don’t understand her, it is an on going problem and she has refused therapy and that sort of thing

Brian: That is normal

Amy: It is hard to acknowledge the issue,

Brian: Go to the website and we would love a free sit down with you and help you with alternatives and we would love to have a chance to process that with you.

Amy: What is the website again?

Brian: Breakthroughaddictionrecovery.com

Jill: Thank you Amy, we have one more caller, Gene, can you do it in a minute?

Gene: I have six brothers and sisters and they are all alcohol and drugs and I didn’t do it but it is driving me crazy because you can’t talk to any of them, they jump on you, hang up the phone, violent and chaos and I call Alanon one time but it is like what he was talking about the baby, they are all the center of attention and they don’t think anything is wrong, they don’t want to hear it and it is at the point where I am walking even if not in the same town I am walking on eggshells.

Jill: Chaos with a capital C that is your life because of alcohol and drugs and the behavior, here it is Gene, like we were talking about with Amy, you can understand the disease and the characteristics coming out of them and that will give you power.

Brian: I appreciate that, Gene, we have a Family Education Program and I would highly recommend that you call our office and go to the website or call 770-734-8091 and we can get you the help that you need with your family issues. I would like to talk to you about the Family Education so you will get the help you need to stay sane amongst the chaos.

Gene: Number again

Brian: 770-734-8091, we have to run, our time is gone

Gene: Thank you so much

Jill: Gene thank you, and we may continue this next wee, King Baby Queen Baby, you want to hear more, tune in next week at 3PM on Saturday, and have a wonderful rainy afternoon, thanks Atlanta.