Dave: It’s no rock bottom for the family members, it’s a constant rollercoaster ride. And one incident comes after the other. And just when you’ve got over that incident, another one arrives, so we are constantly running on adrenaline.

Voiceover: This is Rethinking Rock Bottom, a podcast that explores a complicated experience of loving someone struggling with substance use. Hosted by Reverend Jan Brown and Dr. Carrie Wilkins.

Carrie: When Dave and Tina tried to get help for their son, Craig, they found themselves in a catch 22.

Jan: The substance use treatment center told them that Craig needed mental health support. The mental health program said he needed to treat his substance use issues first.

Carrie: Most of the time, mental health issues and substance use problems are co-occurring, yet treatment tends to fall into one camp or the other. This reality leaves families like Dave and Tina’s searching for treatment options that just don’t exist.

Jan: The stigma these families face is compounded, since they’re often blamed by treatment providers and by society for having caused the problem or faulted for not being able to fix the problem. This can be especially painful for parents, who already feel isolated in their suffering.

Carrie: Dave, a now retired broadcast engineer, was frustrated. He felt it was his job as a father to fix the problem, but he had no idea how to do it. And Tina, even though she worked with special needs children, felt overwhelmed by Craig’s substance use and out of control behaviors.

Jan: As Dave and Tina tried to help Craig, their journey led them to learn new skills and gain self-awareness. They also found and fostered support for themselves and for Craig. They now run online family support groups from their living room in Birmingham, England, where they help parents like themselves.

Carrie: Recently, we had a chance to sit down and talk with Dave and Tina who were as usual side by side.

Tina: Yeah, we’ve been together a very, very long time. It’s 43 years this year. We met when we were 18, just 18. Before that I mean Dave will fill you in on his history. I mean, I– I lived in the middle of the countryside and everything and quite a shy little thing, quite naive and everything.

So we met when we were 18, fell in madly in love. Knew the first week we’d be together. The year after we met, uh, Dave unfortunately had cancer and that was a real steep learning curve for us, ’cause, you know, it– it cemented our relationship. Uh, did you want to talk about your childhood Dave, as well at that point?

Dave: Yeah, I was, uh– yeah, as a– as a– as we said, we– we met when we were 18. Prior to that, I mean, I come from a children’s home, so I was adopted by my new parents. Um, my dad died when I was 15, which, uh, it was a real shame, you know, ’cause uh, they were a wonderful family. And then obviously I spend some time, you know, trying to keep the families together with my mom, mourning and, uh, my little brother.

Which I wasn’t really equipped with being a, you know, a 15-year-old. So I think we– we, both of us– we both have got that compassionate side that we’ve struggled in our own childhoods. After a few years, we decided to have children. So we got married and after, I don’t know, seven years was it, of infertility treatment I says, “well, you know, we’ve had enough of this.” You know, Tina was really struggling. It was really affecting me. I didn’t wanna see her suffer anymore. And I says, “you know, it’s a no brainer for me. Let’s– let’s just adopt– adopt a couple of kids. So we went through the adoption process and ended up with two boys first. The first one was Craig he was two– two years old, when we adopted him. And the second one was Sean, who was about nine months. Was he, when we adopted him?

Tina: Seven.

Dave: Seven months, yeah.

Jan: So you were aware early on that– that Craig was– was a little different than– than some other children. And were there specific things that you saw and how was that to have to respond to?

Tina: I was sort of equipped I’d– I’d worked in pediatrics for quite a while, so I’d seen lots of sort of developmental delays in other little kiddies and everything. And we were pre-warned. We were told he couldn’t speak, he couldn’t– he could walk, but he’d never experienced walking on grass. And the first time I saw a temper tantrum, oh my goodness, he used to have white blonde hair and his red crimson face, contrasting. That was at the beginning of, I think what was gonna be a slightly difficult time.

Don’t get me wrong, he had the happiest giggling laugh when he– he sounded like Bart Simpson when he laughed, and so he was a pleasure to have around. But when he went to nursery, he struggled with communication with the other children. So we had a few challenges there, you know, the odd bite and things to express his, um, frustration and things.

Carrie: It was clear that Craig had different challenges than other kids. He was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, which helped, but it didn’t totally account for the complexity of his struggles. They did not understand that he had autism until much later in their journey.

Tina: When he went to school, we could see he was struggling and we really supported him. I worked hours and hours and hours at home with him. So I found that it was– it was tough, and I’m saying it was tough for me because Dave was at work. And Dave was a lovely, a hundred percent supportive dad and husband. You know, he was there when he could be. But it was always me, that was “Mrs. James, we need a word with you.” And he really– he was really inattentive, he wasn’t hyperactive, but they used to just put him on the landing and ignore him. So, imagine the self-esteem and the self-confidence, it was bashed out of him. So by the time he was eight, they acknowledged that yes, there was a problem. I mean, we were dismissed by saying– they said, “oh, we can’t use adoption for an excuse,” which we’d never done.

And so they diagnosed him with ADHD. So it was– it was a relief that somebody was listening. He was started on methylphenidate reluctantly, but it did really, really help him. In the meantime, he still showed the odd, challenging behavior. It was almost like he was a pressure cooker waiting to go off, and until that steam had gone, he just couldn’t cope with his frustration and anger. So, he settled down. We got loads of strategies. He calmed down. He went to secondary school, and the consultant decided, “oh, Craig, you’re doing really, really well. Let’s take you off the medication.” Now our naivety at the time was “okay, that’s really good, isn’t it?”

Dave: Yeah, I mean it sort of snowballed from there. He was at mainstream school, which he didn’t feel he fitted in, you know, because people on the autism spectrum are quite good at putting on a mask and trying to blend in with other people. But you know, in their hearts, they’re really really struggling. And, we didn’t sort of get wind it was a problem, because he was quite good at hiding his true feelings, until his girlfriend at the time came to us and she said, “you know, I’m really worried about Craig. I think he’s sniffing salt and he’s–” We did the usual thing that family and friends do is we, you know, just Googled everything in sight, found the local services, and like we dragged him by his ear to the local services and they took him off into a room, sat us in the waiting room. And he came out, said, “yeah, yeah, fine, fine.” And we honestly thought, “oh, they’ve had a word with him. They’ve sorted it. It’s not gonna be a problem. Job done, proper mom and dad,” you know? I think they gave us acupuncture, didn’t they? In– in our ears. That was our support. You know, we– we’ll take– we’ll take mom and dad and de-stress on with some acupuncture. But it turned out that we probably needed a lot more than that as time panned out.

Jan: Families often don’t realize just how much support they’re going to need as they cope with complex co-occurring issues. They also don’t realize that every member of the family will likely be impacted in some way. Tina told us how Craig’s brother Sean lost his first best friend over the course of Craig’s struggles.

Tina: What we haven’t mentioned really is our second son who’s three years younger, and this was having an impact on him, because Sean was a very easy little boy, very articulate. He could go to school and he could sneeze and an A would drop out, you know he was– you know, so– but we were obviously caring and loving and everything to him, but a lot of our focus sometimes went on our other son, on Craig.

Jan: Mm-Hmm.

Tina: And that’s something, if I could regret anything, knowing what I know now, I wish I hadn’t have done that. But it’s having two kids, it’s not like just having two children. It’s like being the diplomatic service. It’s a bit really– So– so yes, sometimes it was hard work and parenting is hard work, isn’t it?

Carrie: Yes, it is.

And I think you guys have articulated a couple of things that a lot of parents talk about, which is having the children who are not struggling, feeling like you’re not able to give them the attention that you would because your attention is kind of on the problem or the thing that feels like, “oh, this is the heartache in the family.”

And then you mentioned some ambivalence about the medication. You know, that you said there was some hesitancy to put him on medication and then relief that he was able to get off the medication. And I think that’s just another thing that is such a tough decision for parents is when to use medications and just all the feelings that come along with that. It’s– those are hard decisions.

Tina: He was hard, Carrie, because at school, he was struggling and they were calling us in and he– he was a lovely little boy. Don’t get me wrong. He wasn’t, I– I don’t like using the word naughty at all, but he wasn’t, you know, a disruption to anybody. It was more himself that was suffering. And when we went into them and we said, “you know, he’s got ADHD and we’re gonna start him on this medication,” they said, “oh, well we don’t use the R word here.” And it was almost that stigma of the school was just so frustrating to us, and I thought actually we’re his parents and we know he’s struggling and we felt his pain and we are gonna help him here. As you’ll hear later, it’s just another fight that we had struggle with. And you know, we– we– we are articulate, we are resourceful. But when you know you’re doing the right thing and people put seed of doubt in your mind, you think, “am I doing the right thing?”

Jan: The shame people feel for having these sorts of problems can be profound, and it can make it difficult to ask for help. Additionally, each member of the family has their own temperaments, emotional reactions, and ways of approaching a problem.

Dave: Tina was in the action stage and I was still in the pre-contemplation stage for quite a while, and things really started to improve when we were both in the action stage. And it took me a while to catch up. And that’s common with lots of men as well. It can be the other way around as well. But you know, with men, we sort of let it go a little bit longer and just see what happens.

Tina: It was difficult for Dave because he– he was quite angry. I mean, we– neither us are angry shouty parents at all, but you were really angry and frustrated about the situation, weren’t you. And– and you know, as many parents, you take it personally, you think they’re just playing you up just to spite you as a teenager or– or they’re sort of flexing their muscles and independence as a teenager. But I was getting extremely anxious, extremely tearful that it was really, really affecting both of our sleep, wasn’t it? And I think the reason Dave was angry is because he was really worried about me. He was worried about Craig.

Carrie: Mm-Hmm.

Tina: But he was worried about the effects he was having on me too. But what he didn’t realize is I was worried about the effects it was on having on him as well.

Carrie: When Dave talks about the stages of change, he’s talking about the five step model, pre-contemplation, where I’m not even thinking about making changes, contemplation, where I’m starting to think I might need to make a change, preparation, where I’m starting to plan for the steps I need to take to make those changes, and the action stage, where I’m taking specific steps toward those changes. And this is all followed by the maintenance stage, where I’m doing what I need to do to maintain the changes I’ve made.

Jan: When Dave did spring into action, he admits he thought it would be a quick fix, but he underestimated the reality that Craig would be going through his own stages of change, and it would take a while longer for him to move into the action stage.

Tina: When Craig started to– taking his substances, dave thought, “oh great, I’ll fix him. I’m gonna drag him to an NA group. I’m gonna take him to that NA group, and he will get fixed.” And so it was almost, “uh, you go to this NA group or else,” and we all know that, you know, ultimatums and things like that don’t work at all. And how did it go, Dave?

Dave: I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. To me, the only thing I knew about people that use drugs was the stuff on the media, which wasn’t good. So I was really nervous about going to this group in the winter, in the dark. I was very nervous and when they started to share and speak, I thought, “oh my God, they’re such lovely, lovely people and this is such a great group and they’re supporting each other,” and I learned a lot from it.

You know, at the end of the group, I said to Craig, “oh, what do you think to that one? You’re brilliant.” He goes, “what did you send me there for? With all those addicts?” And he– he was at the wrong stage of recovery. You know, that– that was something that wasn’t gonna work at that stage of his recovery. Furthermore, I put him off groups because I had taken him, forced him to a group at the wrong time, not because there was anything wrong with NA or any of the other groups. So yeah, you learn these mistakes, don’t you?

Jan: When did things start changing again?

Tina: Well, Jan, they got worse before they got better.

Craig was at this point when he was 19, still living at home with us, actually, just before his 19th birthday, he was exhibiting quite severe mental health problems. He was having suicidal ideation. At one point, we actually had to go in his bedroom and– and he was trying to hang himself, so that was a horrible thing because younger son had to witness that as well.And then Craig became quite aggressive verbally. He didn’t actually hurt us, but he was very threatening, wasn’t he? And he went into mental health crisis quite a few times. We were always either having the police car outside the house, which they were very good because they were always used to contact the ambulances.

Dave: I mean, at no point did we stop loving our son, but we could recognize that it was the substance use, that was causing the problems with our son. And that little boy that we adopted and brought up, it was no different to– to our other son. You know, they both had the same schooling. They both had the same parents. Went on the same holidays, but the behavior was out of control and it became quite threatening.

We had failed to get suitable support from the recovery services. We tried just about everything. ‘Cause most people say, “I’ve tried everything, y’know?” And it was probably four years in before we actually went to an Al-Anon group. It’s never really a rock bottom. At that point, I was on my knees and I wanted to talk to some strangers about it. And the first thing I did when I walked in, I says, “I’m really sorry. This Al-Anon group, do you do drugs?” And because all I knew is that they did alcohol, you know? Yeah.

Jan: For sure.

Dave: And– and the lady, there was, well, it was two, there’s a couple there, they’re absolutely wonderful. And they said, come in here, come on in. You want tea or coffee? And we sat there and we listened to the shares. And I realized that it didn’t actually matter what the drug of choice was, alcohol, gambling, heroin, the families got through exactly the same. So we did feel quite at home there, and it was the first group of people that actually sat and listened to us.

Jan: Hmm.

Dave: And understood what we were going through, so that was a huge step for us.

Jan: Groups are a big part of the story for both Dave and Tina, but in particular for Dave, who eventually found himself left in charge of many of the groups that he regularly attended. As Craig’s drug use intensified, these open non-judgmental spaces were an antidote to the isolation Dave was experiencing at work, as the stigma around drug use led him to suffer in silence. For Tina, who was on the frontline daily with Craig’s emergencies, there was no escape, particularly since she worked at the same secondary school that Craig attended. Eventually, Tina reached a breaking point and they moved Craig to a hostel, hoping that some space and independence might help, but the difficulties only increased.

Tina: Craig, by this time was a polydrug user. He was trying things like mcat, cocaine, the mamba, the psychoactive substance. And so he was in a really bad way, a really, really bad way. And I think that the turning point for me perhaps was somebody had kindly given him a bot methadone, and he drank the lot. He drank the lot, and the hostel he was living in, they rang me and they said, “Craig’s not responding to us.” And I said, “for goodness sake, please call an ambulance.” So we called the ambulance, and we sat next to him. It must have taken an hour before anybody put a Naloxone dose in and then they put another one. And we were watching his respiratory rate drop. And I think Dave and I, ’cause we were so, so close, we were looking at each other thinking, “if you’re going to go now, you know, go now.” Because it was just so painful for him and so painful for us to watch, and the next day I went off sick. I thought, I can’t work with children. I can’t support other people while I need to support myself.

Dave: I genuinely left the hospital at 3:00 AM in the morning with Tina. Having seen him flatline and having known he was in hospital, my shift at work was at eight o’clock the next morning. And I didn’t think because of the stigma of drug use, that I could go to work and tell my boss that, you know, what had gone on. So I just sat there like a zombie. I think they called it presenteeism, don’t they? Where you’re not in a fit mental health stage, you’re exhausted, but you still turn up at work. And this is part of the stigma in isolation with fearless family members is, you know, that Al-anon group are the only people we could talk to. Nobody at work understood.

The fact that other people at work might have even been going through it as well, but you wouldn’t know because it’s not the sort of thing that men talk about. Because really it’s– you know, everybody on Facebook’s got wonderful families, haven’t they? And they– they eat at fine restaurants and go on great holidays and, you know, it’s not something you– you can broadcast the world that you know, your son is really, really struggling. And even though it’s not your fault, it’s very, very difficult. Eventually I did give in and I did tell my manager what was going on and he was actually really, really supportive, ’cause he had two children of his own. So he– he– and he knew me, so he knew it wasn’t, you know, because I’m a bad person. There’s just the two of us that knew.

So from then onwards, he said, “look, Dave, if it’s any emergencies, you know, just let me know. Just give me the nod and you can go and sort ’em out.”

Tina: And following on from that, you know, I was at home, I was off sick and– and I went on Dr. Google. And I was Googling and Googling, when I was meant to be resting with this stress and everything. And I’ve been going to the doctors and I– I found SMART and I found, you know, I– I discovered CRAFT and I said this– this sounds like it would really fit. And at the same time, Craig, uh, had actually been admitted to hospital, because he was psychotic with his drugs. And so he spent 12 weeks in hospital. During which he was diagnosed, I think we mentioned earlier, with autism. So not only did he have ADHD, but he also had autism, which actually explained an awful lot, and all the jigsaw pieces were coming into place.

Carrie: With the autism diagnosis, Craig’s behaviors started to make sense. In fact, it had been Craig who wanted to understand it, since he recognized some of his own behavioral patterns in friends who identified with being on the autism spectrum. Following this round of treatment, Craig’s drug use stabilized a bit and his emergencies became more infrequent. At the same time, Dave and Tina were trying to prioritize their relationship as a couple and with their son Sean, whose needs often got overlooked as they focused on Craig. All of which fled to a turning point on Sean’s birthday, when Craig called Tina in a panic after taking drugs.

Tina: And so he rang me in the morning and you are ambivalent. You wanna go there and help him, but you know you wanna be with your other son whose birthday it is.. And so he rang me and he said, “mom, I’ve done something really daft.” He said, “I’ve taken something.” And I said, “what have you taken?” And he said, such and such. And he said, “my heart’s beating very fast, but I’ve called an ambulance.” I said, “that’s absolutely fantastic, Craig. Called an ambulance. They’re on their way. They’ll look after you.” And I said, “and if they need us to come to the hospital, we’ll come.” Because what we’d done before is always drop everything for Craig. And then later on he rang us. He said, “I’m getting really lonely here.”

And I said, “right, okay. We’ve got a choice here, Craig.” I said, “we’ve got a choice in that it’s your brother’s birthday and we don’t spend much time with him, or we come to the hospital after you’ve decided to do this today.” And he said, “I see what you mean, Mom. Stop at home with Sean.” 

We’ve got a hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital around here, and it employs lots of people from the military. And he saw a military doctor. Well, he immediately had this respect for this lady doctor who’s dressed in full camo and everything. And she said, “if I ever see you step in this hospital again, having taken that stuff, you are going to be in such big trouble.” And to that day, he hasn’t touched that stuff. Which is amazing, isn’t it, that something is what I would say as small as that, after we’d been pleading and begging all those years, made him change.

Dave: I’d also add to that, that that lady wouldn’t have gave him a dressing down if Mom and Dad had been in the room.

Jan: Oh, that’s interesting. Sure.

Dave: Yeah. Sometimes you– some of those natural consequences really do work and you don’t really– really know which one’s going to work. You just have to try things. Some do, some don’t.

Jan: It’s interesting. That was a part of my story as well, as– as a person in recovery, when I kind of got out of my parents’ reach and had started having some of those natural consequences, you know, that’s when I was able to begin to make some changes as well. So that’s a really powerful point that you made. Thank you.

Carrie: The skills Dave and Tina used in this moment speak to all the work they had done leading up to it. They were able to use self-awareness to stay calm and communication skills that were kind and supportive. They also very skillfully linked his choice of using drugs to being in the hospital and explained to him that they also had a choice to make and they were choosing to stay with Sean on his birthday.

Tina: It is clunky when you start using these skills, but the more you do practice and– and people say, “how do you use it? What do you say?” I don’t even think about it anymore. It has to flow within a conversation. I don’t go out and out and say, “right, today I’m gonna use my motivational interviewing on my son,” or “today I am going to, you know, be very specific about what I want.” It just happens as it evolves.

Dave: The listening is the most important bit. So we don’t have to have the answers, you know, and our answers aren’t actually important. It’s their answers that are important, and that motivational interviewing is a way of getting them to communicate their– their answers, which you can then reinforce and go, “do you know, that’s a really good idea, Craig.” You know, “which we could do that, couldn’t we? Is there anything we can do to help you along with that?” It’s more in tune with my values as a dad. I wanna be a proper dad. You know, I’ve adopted a boy, I was adopted. That’s me. I– I’m gonna be the best dad I can possibly be for him, and if I have to learn some tools about it to get there, then I will learn those tools.

Jan: Family members are usually quite desperate to help their loved one, yet they often don’t have the skills they need to be effective. They’re frequently told they should not enable. And that they should address their codependency and detach themselves. This creates distance and disempowers families when in fact they can be enormously helpful in supporting their loved one to make positive changes. Thankfully there are evidence-based approaches like CRAFT and the Invitation To Change that can teach communication skills and positive reinforcement strategies that help everyone stay connected and make change possible. Not only do these strategies lead to better outcomes for the person using, they just feel better for families.

Dave: Particularly me as an engineer because my world fits into two very neat categories, things I can fix and things I haven’t learned how to fix yet. You know, I don’t want anybody telling me I can’t help me son. You know? I want them to tell me, “okay, it’s gonna be difficult, Dave,” which I accept. “It may not have a hundred percent success record, but this is what you can do to improve things.” It’s no rock bottom for the family members, it’s a constant rollercoaster ride. And one incident comes after the other. And just when you’ve got over that incident, another one arrives, so we are constantly running on adrenaline. Dad’s, uh, fight or flight reflex is never– it’s never off, you know, and it does take its toll and I was really struggling at work.

I wasn’t able to concentrate. I was probably a bit short tempered and people going, “okay, he’s a miserable person today. What’s wrong with him?” You know, again, they didn’t know what I was going through. And I found uh, you know, peer support groups and just– we used to go to a meditation, a Buddhist meditation group, and just learning something new and sitting there and doing 90 minutes, two hours, just doing something that’s completely away from the problem that we were having. And a lot of that was really helpful to us as well. It taught me to, press me pause button. Meditation doesn’t have to be a 20 minute session. You can take three breaths and reset yourself and go, “right, I’m not gonna react that way. I’m gonna have a think. Maybe I won’t react. Maybe I’ll respond in this way instead, ’cause that– that previous response wouldn’t’ve worked”

Tina: I love my son dearly. I love to talk to him. I love to see him, but also engaging with him when it’s the right time because he gets very triggered, you know, he gets very angry, very frustrated, easily. And that is a certain trigger to me. It certainly sensed my heart beating fast again, and it got to a point that I was struggling with anxiety and so was Craig. And so because we were having a good conversation now– one morning and I thought, “I can’t do this today,” and I said, “Craig,” I said. “You struggle with anxiety.” And I said, “you know, it’s– it’s really difficult, isn’t it?”

And I said, “I’d just really love to know, have you got any hints that you know you could give me?” So I was giving him a little bit of confidence to help me for change without saying to him, “I’m anxious because of what you’ve just put me through.” I was actually turned it round and that really, really helped and from then on, it was, “oh, I’m being a bit anxious today, Craig.” And he said, mom, “I’m not gonna bother you.” And not that I ever said he did, “I’m not gonna bother you unless I really need to.” So, yeah, and– and we– we just try day by day, don’t we?

Carrie: As Tina learned to press the pause button, she interrupted the reactive patterns that tended to escalate things with Craig. By opening up to Craig, rather than reacting to his behavior, she gave him a chance to respond in a new way. Also, when Dave and Tina gave Craig the space to problem solve on his own, they saw how their hard work and modeling was having a positive influence on him.

Tina: Craig’s doing okay. I can’t say he is off all substances. He’s using cannabis, but he’s reduced that massively and he intends to stop. But there’s– there is– you can see when he gets very stressed and very anxious, you can see that is his go-to, you know, so that all that makes sense to us as well. But he is– he’s absolutely amazing how he– how he’s progressed and he’s– he’s got a very dear friend called Andrew. And Andrew had been in recovery for three years. He lives in the same supported house as Craig. And the other week I came home, I’d been to my support group and they said, “Andrew’s been drinking after three years. Craig’s really distressed about it.” So, I rang Craig, “you’re really talk well with him, haven’t you?”

Craig said “I’m taking the dog for a walk. I’ve got to stop and I’ve got to think about, what I’m thinking and what I’m going to do.” He’s learned to press the pause button. He went away. He said, “I’m really frightened because I’m worried he’s gonna be aggressive or something,” because he’d never seen him drunk, ever. So he was really worried about this and he started talking about all sorts of things, about what he was gonna do when he got back home. He was gonna make sure Andrew was safe. He was gonna wait till tomorrow to talk to him and all of the things that– y’know. And– and he even understood why he’d been drinking. He said, “do you know, Mom?” He said, “he’s had so much stress this week and he’s had so much stress over the years. You know, I’m not surprised. And it was on the cards, and I knew it was gonna happen,” and it was really strange.

And I said, “Craig, I am so proud of you.” I said, “you’ve not lost your temper. You’ve not shouted at him. You’re doing all the things to keep him safe, and you’re showing kindness and compassion to him.” And I said, “I’m so proud of you.” I said, “have you been quietly coming to our groups?” I said, “because it feels like that you know, you’ve learned all the things that we’ve been practicing on you, you know?” And I said, “we really do understand what you’re going through.” And I wasn’t aiming it at Craig, but we did understand what he was going through. And bless him, he turned round and he said, “I know Mom, I’m sorry.” And I’ve never wanted him to say sorry. I mean, I’ve always wanted to see him get better and get healthy and everything, but it’s almost like he recognized that that really hurt him and he must have done the same to us as well. And I said, “you don’t have to say sorry, Craig.” I said, “you know, we are just with you. We are here all night. I’ll leave my phone on, just ring.” the other thing he said is– he said, “and he’s got some more vodka in the room.” And Dave said to him– he said, “just– just leave it there, you know?” And yeah, Craig said, “what I’m gonna do, Mom,” he said, “I want him to make that decision to throw that away himself. I’m not gonna do it, because that’s not gonna solve anything.” So it was absolutely amazing.

Jan: Well, that’s amazing that he responded very much using ITC and might not have had the language, but certainly had had that modeled to him by the two of you. So that’s really powerful.

Tina: And that’s important, isn’t it? That– that modeling, you know, in– in– in keeping our calm and not entering into those arguments. And, you know, it used to be like a tennis match between myself and Craig on the phone. And he’d say something and I would defend it and, you know, then he’d get more angry and rather than deescalating it, obviously I’m– I’m very aware in the early days, I was escalating it.

Dave: One of the things that comes up a lot in the groups is trust. And I think when we behave in a way that we’re doing that Sherlock Holmes or the Lieutenant Columbo interrogation, every time they come in the door, “who you’ve been with,” “how much money have you spent,” all that controlling behavior, it has an effect on their trust of us. You know, if every time they walk through the door we’re gonna start lecturing them about drug use, that has an effect on their trust as well. And we often say in the family groups, what we hear in the family groups is that, “oh, I don’t trust them anymore.” And they do it as a sort of one-way thing. And in SMART recovery they talk about the trust bank, where they compare it with a bank account. You know, if you trust in your loved one is depleted, yes you can get that trust back, but it’s gonna take a while in the same way as it takes a while to pay off an overdraft. So what we did, we switched it round and we says, “yeah, but what about their trust of us?” What we’ve done is matched his recovery. So as he’s started to recover and his behavior’s changed, we have started to trust him as well.

Jan: Trust can be a minute by minute calculation and a moment to moment decision. Dave and Tina made the decision to trust Craig in spite of all the reasons they had not to. It sent Craig the message that they knew he could change. As Dave and Tina admit, they’ve all changed a lot since this journey began, and that includes their son, Sean.

Tina: Sean is amazing. Well, Craig’s amazing too, but Sean is amazing and when they were growing up, they were the best brothers. And Craig to this day will say, “I’d put my life down for Sean.” Craig really cares about Sean. Sean has found it very challenging, ’cause he’s seen all of the stuff right at the beginning, which was probably the hardest because we didn’t know how to cope. Craig didn’t know how to cope, so he saw all of the– the yucky stuff I’d call it.

You know, he was studying A levels and he wanted to be a doctor, but he just completely– it just freaked him out and he missed a whole year of his A levels and had to re-sit another year. So little by little ’cause we learnt the skill to support him. And I thought, “no, there’s four people in this family, you know, we’ve all got to be looked after” and he’s now a radiotherapist. So he is treating cancer. He’s, um, he’s got a beautiful girlfriend. Really, really happy. He still sees his brother, but I know sometimes there’s still that sort of hurt there, because siblings is such a massive thing, isn’t it? Because they lose their first best friend, don’t they? They lose their– their– their big brother. We tried to fix it in the early days, we tried to sort of fix it, but we realized really they had to make their own way together.

Dave: I can relate to Sean in a way, because I think when my dad died when I was 15 I didn’t have the tools, ’cause I wasn’t old enough to deal with that. And I think Sean had a similar trauma seeing– seeing his brother behaving the way he– he was– he was behaving and that– and that trauma’s carried along. And there’s also the stigma for him as well.

Tina: And I have to say, the people that we were in 2008, which I believe we were good people and very enthusiastic people, and the people that you see in front of you now we’re different people, it’s– it’s made us better people. I think we’ve– I think we’ve got some wisdom. We’ve never been argumentative, but I think, you know, nowadays we’re just so calm and peaceful together. We just– it’s just a pleasure to be together and you know, and if one of us is, uh, is having an off day, if something’s triggered us, I’ll say “oh Dave, if– you know, you can wake up and you feel quite tearful over nothing.” And I’ll say, “you know, I’m feeling really rubbish today.” And Dave said, “can I help? Is there anything I can do?” And I’ll say, “no, I just need to go and sleep for two hours.” “Yeah, go ahead.” Or Dave will need your own space. And I think it’s important of being together, supporting each other. As well as giving each other a little bit of space as well and encouraging to do things for– for yourselves as well. What do you think, Dave?

Dave: Yeah, I think definitely with me is I’ve learned how to listen. Yeah. Which is, you know, for– for fellows and dads, you know, say or otherwise, that they will say, “men don’t listen– listen properly.” And that’s been a huge thing for me. So I’m not fixing everything and reacting. I’m stopping and I’m listening, and I’m letting Tina say what she has to say, and I’m letting sons, both of me sons say what they have to say and not feeling like I need to give them an answer.

Carrie: Is that a relief for you not to have to have the answers all the time?

Dave: Absolutely. And it’s a– it’s also part of us running a group as well, you know, ’cause just to go in there and go, you know, I’ve got no idea who’s gonna arrive at this group, or what stories they’re gonna arrive with. And some of them are pretty, pretty, you know, worrying and I don’t need to know the answer to these– these problems. And it’s really, really helpful.

Carrie: Hmm.

Tina: And I– I think if you do– do you mind me saying, I– I think you definitely have learned the listening skills. You’ve always listened, but not necessarily heard. And I think, you know, when I say to Dave, “I think we need to go and see Craig, ’cause I’m worried about him,” I think in the past you might say, “no, no, no, we’re not going. We’re not going.” And nowadays he understands why I might need to do that. You know, to– to help me cope with it.

Carrie: Mm-Hmm.

Tina: And vice versa.

Jan: So, my final question for you all is what is your hope for our listeners?

Tina: My hope for your listeners, if they’re in the position that we’ve been in or are in, is don’t be worried about asking for help. Don’t feel that you’re gonna join any groups like this and be judged. You know, we’ve all been there. I think it’s really sad when people don’t reach out for help. I mean, we have a lovely little group, but we know we– we want to reach out more and more and more to people. So yeah, just– we know how much a big step it is to join a group or get help, but the first step is the biggest, and once you’ve done it, we can move forward.

Dave: I think my– my message would be for the recovery services really, because I don’t think they understand the importance of families in training and family support and, uh, the role that families can make in the recovery of their loved ones. And I’ve certainly n– I’ve noticed in recovery groups that, you know, people can go through detox and go through recovery, and when they leave that protective environment, the– the establishment they’re in, the world hasn’t changed. So I think really, yeah, there– there needs to be more family support so that when people leave recovery, their families are on their side, understand more about addictive behavior. And we need to get away the– from the message that families empower us over addiction. Fair enough? We can’t climb outside their heads and take over the controls and steer ’em away from their drugs, but we can be the reason they choose recovery, you know. We can be really, really nice parents.

And you know, I’ve heard this over and over in– in the groups as well, is in recovery groups, if you ask them who’s your support network. There’s a day in light– day and night difference between the people with supportive families and the– the unfortunate people that don’t have support from their families and they remember that. They may not at the time say to their own families, but they do remember it and it does have a lasting impression on them that their stuck with them through thick and thin.

Tina: And I would say also in addition that don’t give up hope. You know, if we can use these strategies and, you know, share our experiences and learn from other people, you will see that there is hope. So we never thought the worst did we, we felt hopeless and helpless, but as you can see, we are feeling so much better now.

Carrie: Thank you.

Jan: Thank you so much.

Carrie: It’s heartwarming to hear that Craig’s behavior continues to stabilize and that Dave and Tina have found such peace following years of turmoil.

Jan: For Dave, groups are a huge source of enthusiasm and a productive focus for his energy. For Tina, she needed to learn how to step back at times and how to practice self-compassion, especially in moments of crisis. Ultimately by pressing the pause button, she gave both herself and Craig the space to heal.

Carrie: Craig’s even attending his own support group, something Dave didn’t think he’d ever do. Craig’s group is full of men, paramedics, cops, and ex-military. It’s not explicitly about substance use, even if they cover that sometimes too. It’s a bit crass and it’s very real. It wouldn’t work for everyone, but it’s working for Craig.

Jan: Since the pandemic, Dave and Tina give back by leading mutual support groups for other families like themselves. By sharing everything they’ve learned with warmth, honesty, and generosity as they have today, Dave and Tina overcome the stigma that many face in both the Substance Use Disorder and mental health space. We thank them for sharing their story with us. When people experience community, it’s powerful and gives them a sense of belonging and hope.

Carrie: Together we heal.

Jan: Our hearts are with you.

Voiceover: Rethinking Rock Bottom is a production of CMC: Foundation for Change. If you’re looking for more support, visit cmcffc.org