Filtering Life through Substance Abuse

We love, we laugh we sleep
We work, we cry, we eat,
Life is challenging enough just to get through the “everyday” routine and “rhythm” of living with joy and gratitude without filtering life through the use of alcohol and drugs.

Drugs and alcohol seem to cloud and confuse issues and magnifies things to extreme proportions to the point of spiraling out of control. When children are in the picture this makes it even more difficult to put things in perspective.

The recent interview with Whitney Houston on the Oprah Winfrey show revealed some interesting aspects to me about being rich and famous.  I have often wondered how people who have fame and fortune cope with life when they have all the resources available to them.

If they seem depressed, they can get help; If they use drugs or alcohol, they can get help; If they do anything in excess, they can get help…they have resources. Now the privacy thing is another problem because they cannot do anything without it being leaked by some money grubbing nobody in their camp or an aggressive journalist stalking them.

Resources, meaning money and access to whatever they desire to do or see on any given day. When you have “money” the illusion is that all of your problems are solved and life is great.

Recently we have witnessed that even very wealthy people use “pedestrian” methods to cope. Life id challenging no matter how much money you have and how you deal with life on life’s terms determines the outcome.

The number of deaths caused by drug overdose and/or a combination of prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs is over whelming.  The illusion is that they can afford the best medical care and could be really healthy if they chose to be.

Drugs and alcohol seem to be the coping mechanism for a large majority of people in spite of access to the best care. The antics of Kanye West was, in my opinion fueled by alcohol and probably a few blunts in the limo as a prop to party or to cope with anxiety and depression.  Personally I believe that Kanye is still grieving the loss of his mother and will be grieving for some time. How he grieves is what we witnessed when he jumped up on stage recently after swigging Henny straight from the bottle.

Whitney and Bobby as a couple became a “train wreck” fueled by drugs and alcohol; Michael Jackson’s life was it seems held together with the use of prescription pain medication and drugs that were too powerful for everyday use; Gerald Levert and his brother both used a combination over-the-counter drugs and prescription drugs.

So how does an “ordinary person”  cope with life’s challenges? What is the glue that holds our lives together? What do you do to get through the day or a challenging week? A challenging day? A challenging moment?

When you stay up too late watching cable; eat the wrong foods; try to get the kids off to school; get the laundry done; cook dinner; pack lunches; pay bills with no job; cope with losing your home and your job; fight with your spouse/partner; wonder where you teenagers are after midnight; not want to hear your neighbors fight; have no food in your house; no transportation; not feel like catching the bus or walking; get tired of the media picking apart the President; want your grown ass children to get together; put your husband/man/woman out; stop getting your ass kicked by an abusive partner; get the homework done for yourself and your kids; stop listening to gossip; deal the illness of a parent/spouse/sibling/child; etc, etc etc.

How do you cope: take the poll…

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What children leave behind in a divorce

Annually over 1 million American children suffer the divorce of their parents. Over one million is a huge number of children being put into situations that affect their self esteem and well being. That means that at least half of the children born this year to married couples will see their parents divorce before they reach the age of 18.

That is an alarming revelation about marriage and how it affects the lives of children creating devastating physical and emotional damage that will last well into adulthood and affect future generations.

Children whose parents have divorced are increasingly the victims of abuse in the home and as adults. I am an adult survivor of divorce and as I look back on my relationships, I perpetuated the cycle by not getting married. None of my children are married at the present time, even though they want to get married.

I have not seen a large number of long term successful marriages because the individuals I know personally who are married wish they were not. This is changing among my friends and extended family members, because they believe in the sacred sanctity of marriage.

As an adult survivor of divorce I have witnessed equal health, behavioral, and emotional problems in children of divorced parents as children who were in families where the parents stayed together no longer experience a “happily ever after” relationship. The adults are not always award of how children are affected by the distance between their parents and seem to be more likely to gravitate to crime and drug abuse.

When my parents separated, I was too young to understand what was really going on. I missed our house and my father. Children were not permitted to ask too many questions in the 1960’s, well at least not in my family. The memory of that time is overshadowed by having to leave my Watermelon Patch.

I love watermelon and summer and remember eating watermelon on the back porch with my siblings and other neighborhood children. My father would break the watermelon open with his bare hands or with a gentle bounce on the porch surface or the ground. My face could not wait to be up to my ears in that watermelon!

The Watermelon Man would go up and down the street, his truck overflowing with big what looked like giant melons singing “whaaataaamelllooonn” “fresh melons”. We would get so excited that we would run up and down the street informing our parents that the Watermelon Man was in the neighborhood.

I saved my seeds and planted them in the backyard around the base of the clothesline pole in a circle. They had grown to the size of my dad’s fist when we found out that my mother was taking us and moving out of our house.

That is all I remember because all I cried for a long time about those Watermelons and also about not seeing my father everyday.

Now looking back as a grandmother, having survived the break up and the separation of my own children from their father, I wonder how much anyone really looks at life from a child’s point of view.

If we are to save our communities we must save our families whether they are two-parent households or single parent households. What are the answers and how would it be implemented? How can we coach children before they become old enough to get married the core principles of marriage as the best environment to raise healthy, happy children to be equipped to reach their highest potential in society?

Children of divorced parents perform more poorly in reading, spelling, and math and have trouble hiding their embarrassment of being in a single parent home. Although is more prevalent today that children come from single parent homes divorce tears apart the primary building block of American society.

Some advocates say the government should commitment resources to the development of pro-marriage programs with restoration of marriage one of their most important tasks. I am not sure how the government can advocate marriage with all of the issues we face today.

Since the family is the building block of society, then marriage is the foundation of the family. Fewer and fewer adults are getting married and even more adults are getting divorces, the growing trend is single parenthood or living together without getting married.

Historically role of the family has been the basic unit of every civil society, my goal is to advocate for the health and well being of the family, whether that is defined as a couple or a single parent family. There is something we all can do to support the individuals in our family who raising children by spending time assisting them with their responsibilities instead of criticizing and avoiding.

Be the auntie, uncle, grandparent that assists with homework, bathing, combing hair, giving haircuts, taking the children shopping, watching the children so the parent or parents can have a break. When the goal of raising children is everyone’s goal, it is less overwhelming.

Perhaps this may avoid the slippery slope to separation and divorce. I know it not that simple, but it is a place to start.

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