Guilt Manipulation
“You are responsible for the bad things that have happened and are happening to me”
For parents, this is the strongest
emotion that prevents an intervention. The sinking feeling that maybe
we didn’t do a good enough job when raising our child and if we had done
a better job, then our loved one wouldn’t be having his problems with
addictions. As the addiction progresses and worsens, many mothers are
haunted with this idea. As a result of guilt manipulation, parents are
unwilling to “punish” their loved ones for their behaviors. Unable to
kick them out of the house, parents often times also assume the negative
consequences of the substance abusers addiction because it “isn’t
really his fault”.
Could we have done anything differently?
Whether your child is a teenager or a
grown adult with children of their own, being a parent of someone who
has been abusing drugs or alcohol can be very emotionally devastating.
When Intervention Services arrives at the family home to deliver an
intervention, we usually ask the family to see a picture of the person
we are going to be performing an intervention on. Then the stories
begin. A family is sometimes embarrassed at first; afraid that we, as
professionals, are putting THEIR family under a microscope. For many
parents of alcoholics and addicts, there exists a strong fear that
almost prevented them from hiring professionals in the first place. The
fear that maybe if they had done things differently we wouldn’t be
here.
We would like to address a few of the
emotions that we see common to family members, especially parents, who
are going through the intervention process. Although sometimes the
roles are flipped, more often than not, this is what we see:
A Mother’s Guilt
Few can understand the bond that exists
between a mother and her child. Perhaps it is that extra nine months or
that physical and spiritual connection that begins early on. They are
born perfect and we dream of their future. Perhaps they will be smart
and become an attorney, or maybe strong and we have the next Michael
Jordan. But deep inside, we just want them to be happy, healthy and
safe.
“Maybe I didn’t hug him enough, or
maybe I smothered him with love. I just don’t know where it all went
wrong. I should have stayed with his father longer than I did, or maybe
we should have divorced earlier. I remember that there were signs
earlier. His grades were slipping. I could have hired a tutor to help
him. People tell me that I should throw him out, but I could never do that. He’s
my baby boy and he always will be. I’ll never throw him away. He
needs me. No one seems to understand. I’ll never give up on him. One
day he’ll turn it around.”
A mother of an alcoholic or an addict
often assumes the responsibility of the addiction themselves. The deep
secret sometimes felt is “if I had been a better parent then my child
wouldn’t be in this mess at all.” That guilt becomes so powerful that a
parent begins to not only assume the responsibility, but also the
punishment. A parent won’t throw their child out for something that
they believe was never really the child’s fault at all…it was theirs.
So we pay their debts and tolerate the negative consequences ourselves.
We begin to absorb the pain of the addiction instead of allowing the
addict to feel it. It destroys us in the end. This is what happens to a
parent consumed by guilt over their child’s addiction.
Many times a mother will not allow a
professional intervention to occur because of the fear that we are going
to “order her to throw her child out” (which is untrue), or that we
will discover that she was a bad parent and partially responsible for
the problems (which is also untrue). Part of our job is to help a
mother to understand the addiction as it is, so that she, and her child,
can begin to heal.
It is important that an interventionist
understand the complex family dynamics that occur when an addiction
springs up within a family. It is important that we take an sympathetic
approach to the difficulty faced when a mother decides to intervene on
her child.
A Father’s Pride
“There he is, that’s my boy.” To see a
father as he watches his son hit a baseball, ride a bike or swim for the
first time it is easy to see the pride swelling in his heart. We are
teaching our children to face the world, and nothing is so satisfactory
as seeing them overcome their obstacles, to become responsible…to slowly
become men, or women.
But what happens when problems arise?
What happens when that child, instead of facing problems, begins to
avoid them? What happens when everything we do is having an opposite
effect? Everything we hoped they would do and become is dissolving
before our very eyes.
Read also about: Hope manipulation!
“What the heck is wrong with that
kid? It seems like he just doesn’t care anymore. He’s so behind on his
bills. Doesn’t even bother opening them anymore. I’ve tried to
explain to him that unemployment is going to run out and then where will
he be? Needs to start looking now instead of spending all his time out
with his loser friends. His mother keeps saying he’s using drugs, but
what does she know? My son would never do drugs. Or if he is, I’m
sure it’s just a phase. Everyone goes through it. He’ll grow out of
this.”
Unlike a mother’s guilt, a father rarely
assumes the guilt of “raising an addict or alcoholic.” Rather, a
father operates in two stages:
- Refuses to accept that their son or daughter is using drugs or
could be a drug addict or alcoholic. Looks at the situation in
complete denial or minimizes it as a phase. - If a father accepts that their son or daughter is abusing drugs in a
chronic or abusive form then he will usually attempt to fix it himself
in order to redeem himself as a father.
Many times a father will refuse to allow
outside professionals to come in and fix a situation, because he
desperately needs to fix it himself. Or, he will simply refuse to
accept that their child is “bad enough” to warrant an intervention.
It is important that we, as
interventionists, help guide a father and provide him with the proper
tools so that he can be empowered and be more effective in helping his
child, without stepping on his toes as a parent. Working with, rather
than instead of, we can help a parent to face the truth of the
addiction…which is often the most difficult thing for a father to do.
Where does guilt come from?
Of course, every parent has a degree of
fear or guilt about how they raised their loved one, whether an addition
is present or not. Guilt comes from doubt and fear. Fear that we
missed something somehow, or indirectly or directly caused some of these
problems. However, what is important to understand is that a substance
abuser understands intuitively that you have guilt and is quit skilled
at hijacking your emotions and magnifying that seed of doubt…that guilt
that already exists. The most important thing is that the current
feelings of guilt that you may have are being planted and reinforced
over and over by the substance abuser.
The Four Emotions used by a Substance Abuser to Train Someone to Enable Them
Covered in more detail on the following pages, the actual four primary emotions used by a substance abuser to train people to enable are:

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