A letter to the family

One needs to consider that there are five key areas for the family members in the Substance Use Disorders journey  to embrace as being manageable (under your control). The First Area: is the ability to communicate. This is first because it is the most critical aspect to the family’s survival through this long journey. The Second Area: is learning what the disease is and how it will progress. The Third Area: is each family member must take a role to play and have ownership of that roles responsibility. The Fourth Area: using a standard model in making decisions, over the next few years the family will make many decisions. The Fifth Area: The family’s willingness to share in the spirit of God.

The Substance Use Disorders creates a special kind of spiritual journey for the individual, the primary caregiver and the other family members. If I had it my way, you would move the fifth area to the first place and the first area to the second place. The family would trust in the Lord in all matters of this journey. They would communicate their faith with each other in their “trust and belief”. They would learn more about their faith as it applies to this journey and make decisions from the understanding that God is in charge, that He loves us all, and that He will not harm us. The Lords hand is gentle, and it is He who has the final word.

I say this now, because in the end, each family member will look back and see this journey as their own spiritual development. You will grow in both spirit and soul. This is what happens when you give all of yourself to someone else in their suffering. That in fact, your loved one with a Substance Use Disorder is playing out their act of self to you in the sharing of their spirit and soul through their decline in this disease. They reach for the help which they do not understand. They do this in such a way so you can help them and learn with them. The caregiver thereby becomes a “Carepartner” in that they are both one, together in this journey. This is a time of a great honor and privilege, to experience the closeness of God in one that you both love and treasure. It is from within our struggle when God’s face shines the greatest for us to experience in His forgiveness and love. This is the forgiveness’ and love that we share with each other, first given to us free of judgement and condemnation.

The family spirit as a whole can evolve during this experience. As a family their focus is on the spirit and soul of their loved one with this brain disease. In providing care and working with each other, it can draw everyone into a united bond with the one they love and care for as they journey through the substance use disorder. In this journey, God’s hand is on all members of the family.

It is in part that because this disease shrinks the brains ability to think, we are frightened and pull away. And although it takes away their ability to communicate and process thoughts, their soul and spirit are still there. The brain is what we use to identify ourselves as a person. Therefore, it is the ability to express their personhood (their ego and awareness of self) that is being distorted, not the personhood itself. This leaves only their spirit and soul with some ability of capacity to change. Because we share in this Substance Use Disorders journey with our loved one, all that we can experience is what their spirit and soul provides us. The behavior belongs to the disease not the family and not their loved one. As we become one with them as their carepartner, (looking past the addiction behavior) we also share with them our soul and spirit. Therefore, I say that Substance Use Disorders is a journey across Spiritual Pathways, a journey of Mind, Body and Soul, for each member in the family to experience and grow.

My prayers are with you all. You’re Brother in Christ, Roy P. Poillon