Your feelings are signals!

Feelings are signals that tell us that something either is good, amazing, fantastic or that it needs to be noticed and taken care of!

As relatives we often live in an emotional roller coaster, and there's a risk that chaos arise if you act on every emotion you got!

That is why it's sometimes worth to just take a pause, a quiet moment where you don't act on, but instead listen to, your emotions, in order to understand them. Ask yourself some questions: What does the emotions want to tell you? What do you need to take care of? Which of these things are you able to change right away, and how can you do that?

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Thought traps

It is common that we as humans have different thought traps/faults that we can get stuck in. These thought traps sometimes make us feel worse than we need to, because they affect our interpretation of many situations. During some periods thought traps can be more dominant and during other they affect us less.

To not let yourself be affected by them as much, and not give the thought traps possibility to steer our interpretation, it is important to first be aware of them. Later, when we have negative thoughts we can ask ourselves: Is it just me getting stuck in a thought trap now? Is it really this way, or is it my interpretation?

Which thought traps do you recognice?

1. Disqualification of the positive
Positive things don't count or you come up with excuses for them. "There is something fishy about this..."

2. Minimizing
You see positive things as real but still insignificant.

3. Overgeneralization
A single event or situation are interpreted as being characteristic for your whole life.

4. Labeling
This is an extreme form of ovegeneralization. A person with foreign apearence takes a bike = all immigrants are thieves.

5. Black-white-thinking, all or nothing-thinking
There are only two alternatives, success or failure. "If I don't do it perfectly I'm nothing to have."

6. Selective abstraction, the binocular-trick
If you see a rose you only see the buds. You only focus on one aspect, often negative, among many other aspects.

7. Personalization
You take personal responsibility, even when other aspects have an impact. For example, you take it personally when critique is made about a group.

8. Emotional thinking
You assume that the feelings you have are the same thing as reality. "I feel that this is hopeless, so that is what it actually is."

9. Reading thoughts
You think that you know what others are thinking about you. "It's clear what they think by just looking at them."

10. The mistake of the seer
You live as if your negative expectations are fact. "That's just the way it is, it's not going to work."

11. Catastrophic thinking
Negative situations and smaller unexpected events are made into big catastrophies.

12. Must and should thinking
Is often used to strengthen motivation. It is connected to guilt and feelings of shame. "I shouldn't get upset with my mum. She wants the best for me and would get hurt..."

Children to addicts...

Children to addicts are a very exposed group of relatives; they are dependent on their parents for their wellbeing. That is why it is important to learn about the types of signlas that these children can show. The varning signlas can be divided into four categories:

1. Somatic: abnormal length- and weight development, headaches, stomache aches, tiredness, vomiting.

2. Psychiatric: anxiety, depression, insomnia, food problems.

3. Psychological/pedagogical: problems in the relationships to other children/grown ups, problems in school despite having normal intelligence and not because of difficulties with reading and writing.

4. Behavior: Impulsive, restless, aggressive, criminal behavior, alcohol/drug abuse.

The childhood in a family with substance abuse problems is often characterized by unpredictability, worry, insecurity, anxiety, disappointments, lies, fear, mistreatment and sexual abuse, but also by feelings such as sorrow and anger (an anger that is either turned inwards or that the child acts out).

To be a parent...

Having to experience the anxiety and fear of your child becoming a substance abuser is naturally horrible. And so is the powerlessness over the youth as they may make decisions that lead to terrible consequences. It's a feeling of not knowing what to do because even the young ones are good at outsmarting and protecting the drugs if they want to.

Here are some pieces of advice that might help:

1) First of all, try to learn as much as possible about different drugs and how they affect someones behavior.

2) Talk to your child, let them know that you know. Express your worry, care and love for the child.

3) Try to remain calm and avoid blaming. Try to find out what the child is feeling and experiencing, and how they see the situation.

4) Make it clear that you love her/him, but not the drug and what the drug does to your child.

5) Explain the consequences of alcohol/drug addiction.

6) Tell them that you are there to help and support them. Try to find out what the young one is thinking in terms of quitting and what he/she needs to help with that.

7) Set limits on what is OK and what isn't and make the consequences of crossig those limits clear.

8) Try to engage your child in other activities and create new relations that provide a lesser risk of exposing your child to peer pressure regarding alcohol and drugs.

9) Seek help from others that have experience, and that goes for the whole fmily. Is there any grown up that the child trusts and can confide in? Is professional help needed? Social services? Self-help groups?

10) Don't deny the problems. The longer you ignore them the longer the addiction can continue.

11) Encourage and reward positive behavior.

12) And last but not least, take care of yourself so that you can deal with what you need to deal with! Recovery and rest to get the energy you need to be the support you want ot be.

Quotes about Self-Help Manual For Relatives of Substance Abusers

I'm glad to see that the self-help manual may be useful and helpful to so many!

Below are some statements from readers who worked with Self-Help Manual For Relatives of Substance Abusers

"I have gotten a better understanding of myself and my relatives. That I'm not alone with having these feelings and that it is normal to feel the way I do."

"I have made a huge progress. My distress over my mothers substance abuse is all in all gone."

"It has helped me to dare to let go of control and made me treat my relative like an adult that has to take responsibility for their own actions."

"Great content, it concerns the things you feel it needs to."

"I've gotten a completely new attitude to the whole problem with the drug."

"I can't influence the choice to do the drug, only the addict can decide that."

"I let go of control to make myself happier."

"I feel better than I have in many years, I feel calm and in harmony, happy and satisfied."

"I'm not sinking as low as I used to do when my son is using."

"I'm not dwelling on things that have been as much anymore, the things I did wrong, what I could have done differently and so on."

"I'll start prioritize myself as well as trusting myself. I'm not alone and speaking up about my feelings will make me feel better."

"I learnt to realize that it isn't my fault that my relative is an addict."

"The choices the addict makes are his own, I can't affect them or take responsibility for them."

"I feel much stronger, happier and focus much more on myself."

"All the different mindsets have helped me incredibly much also in situations outside of my parents addiction. Good material that you can go back to and read again."

Would you also like reading self-help manual? 

Click on the link on the right, or on this link: 

http://www.amazon.com/Self-Help-Relatives-Substance-Abusers-ebook/dp/B00AC7RQEE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353828131&sr=8-2&keywords=Carina+Bang

Please send me a message and and tell med how it was helpful to you!