Family Dynamics of Addiction and Recovery - What to Do When Your Child Relapses Just After Treatment

When your young adult or adolescent offspring is exhibiting all the symptoms of using again after just leaving the treatment center, there are some things you can do. If in your child's discharge planning, s/he was planning to return to the family home, you, the addict, and the treatment team, probably developed a formal relapse contract before discharge. This contract spells out parental expectations in regard to continuing recovery behavior in exchange for being allowed to live in the family home (and any other benefits identified). If you didn't do that before s/he left treatment, you can still do that. A behavioral relapse contract and its contents is not about punishment. It is about setting and maintaining appropriate structure and boundaries that can assist the newly recovering person to stay on the path to recovery, and once off that path, to return to recovery quickly.

Parents who believe that their child is once again using should consider drug testing him or her to remove all doubt and to cut down on the denial and protestations of innocence. A home test kit for a wide range of drugs can be purchased at your local drug store. Or the parent can send him/her to the local hospital or health department for a urine drug screen. When you confront her/him about using, chances are very good that s/he will deny it. If you have results from a urine screen, it is more difficult for the addict to argue you out of the truth.

If your child is living in the family home, you are probably allowing him/her the use of your house, your car(s), your television, your cell phone, etc., any of which, may have motivational meaning to him/her. If that is the case, with your positive UA, you can construct a behavioral contract that spells out concretely the consequences of future relapse.

Family Dynamics of Addiction and Recovery - What to Do When Your Child Relapses Just After Treatment

A relapse contract should have the following elements:

1. That in exchange for living in the family home, along with room, board, (whatever else is involved), the alcoholic/addict agrees to maintain abstinence from any and all mood altering drugs, including alcohol (with possible exception for psychiatric medications prescribed by a psychiatrist).

2. That if a relapse does occur, the addict agrees to go back to inpatient treatment, a half-way house, or some other therapeutic facility, that you have pre-agreed to.

3. That as a consequence to the present relapse, that s/he will lose privileges to the car, television, cell phone, etc. (whatever you think is appropriate and whatever has meaning to him/her) for a specific amount of time, or until parents have seen a change in behavior and attitude indicating that s/he is once again on a recovery path. (The criteria should be observable behavioral change).

4. That additional structure will be implemented to assist the newly recovering person to regain abstinence and maintain it. Such additional structure could be a specific number of 12 step meetings a week, random urine analyses, a curfew, day treatment, outpatient counseling (whatever you think is appropriate at this time).

5. That should relapse re-occur that the patient may lose his/her privilege to live in the family home.

The parents get to decide what they are willing to live with and what they are not willing to live with. If you have a "bottom line" that says that you will not tolerate an addict in active addiction living in your home, you can put that in your contract. If you cannot uphold this bottom line if and when relapse occurs, it is not a "bottom line", and merely a threat. Threats are not useful and in fact, make matters worse. If you have a bottom line, name it. If not, don't say it. The contract should be written out, signed and dated by all parties. If your "child" is an adolescent, you cannot "abandon" him/her. So, if your child forfeits living in the family home by continuing to drink/use, you must find him/her an alternative place to live. A more structured therapeutic environment, including long term inpatient treatment, halfway house, or other youth facility. If you do not have the financial means for such a facility, a local community mental health or chemical dependency treatment center will have the names and phone numbers of programs that have state contracts and a sliding scale.

Parents can and should begin to go to Al-Anon on a regular basis, and find a sponsor that has dealt with chemical dependency of a child (or adult child). Look for a local "Parents Helping Parents" support group. Look in your local Sunday Paper under clubs, organizations, or meetings. If your local newspaper does not have such a section, call a local chemical dependency treatment center and ask them when and where the meetings are. Or you can always do an internet search and find an Al-Anon meeting that way.

Learn everything that you can about addiction and remember that it is not your fault. All parents feel guilty, regardless of whether they have a chemically dependent child. Remember that you did not cause it, that you cannot control it, and that you cannot fix it. It is up to him or her. Remember too, that alcoholism and other drug addiction is an illness. It is not something that they are deliberately trying to do to destroy themselves and the family.

Learn about family dynamics of addiction and recovery and learn what you can do to stop enabling and allow the addict to suffer the natural, negative consequences of his/her addiction, so that s/he will become motivated to change. You can provide resources that assist him/her in changing (i.e., treatment, ride to meetings, reading materials, etc.), but you cannot make them change. You could also provide them the resources to continue to drink and use, and to continue their downward spiral in addiction (i.e., bailing them out financially, legally, socially, etc.). Although it is harder for family members to stop enabling, it is better for the recovering person's recovery.

Family Dynamics of Addiction and Recovery - What to Do When Your Child Relapses Just After Treatment
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There are many things about addiction and recovery that are counterintuitive. The best thing that family members can do to assist their loved ones in their recovery efforts is to gain as much information and knowledge about addiction as possible. There is a great deal of information about individual and family dynamics of addiction and recovery on my website, along with helpful links to other websites and information sources, a recommended readings page, and an "Ask Peggy" column. Click here to purchase my ebook, Understanding Cross Addiction to Prevent Relapse * http://www.peggyferguson.com/ServicesProvided.en.html"

Check out my website or sign up for my newsletter here * http://www.peggyferguson.com

Peggy L. Ferguson, Ph.D., LADC, LMFT, Licensed Alcohol/Drug Counselor, Licensed Marriage/Family Therapist, Author, Trainer, Consultant.

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Ringworm Treatment - Fascinating (and Effective?) Home Remedies

Ringworm treatment home remedies, will you use these? If you are one of the estimated twenty percent of our population who is infected with ringworm, chances are you have, at some point, considered using home remedies to treat ringworm.

In my search to find the most effective ringworm treatment that's available out there, I recently posted a question in Yahoo Answers about home remedies "that actually work," to find out from real people, like you and me, what cure they would actually recommend. The question drew quite a few answers and these only prompted me to dig deeper into this topic.

After some more research in the internet and asking friends for their ringworm treatment "family secret recipe," I got a better insight into what folks would consider as fast and effective remedies. Prepare to be fascinated and surprised. All of the ingredients mentioned are ordinary household items some of us would never remotely equate with anti fungal medication.

Ringworm Treatment - Fascinating (and Effective?) Home Remedies

Oh, yes, before I show you the list, a quick reminder. Ringworm, despite it's name, is not caused by worms. It is an infection caused by mold-like fungi known as dermatophytes. It is contagious and can be spread through direct skin contact with an infected person, an infected pet, or an infected object or surface. So, if you have an itsy-bitsy spot of ringworm, refrain from scratching it. The fungi will cling to your hands and you're liable to spread the infection to other parts of your body or worse, to other family members. And about contaminated objects - never share personal items with anyone. Clothes, caps, shoes, brushes, anything can be a carrier of infection. A friend of mine who has a three year old cute little daughter named Tracy, once brought home a bunch of second-hand toys from some garage sale. She thought she made a juicy bargain - the toys were still intact and the battery-operated talking doll actually still talked. To her chagrin, little Tracy had a rash outbreak the very next day, which her pediatrician later diagnosed to be ringworm. Lesson is you can't see fungi (well except under black light or Wood's lamp - they glow), so be careful in handling unfamiliar objects.

But enough of this. On to the list. If you want to read more thoroughly about ringworm and ringworm treatment, just got to my site. Please click the link at the bottom of this page.

First home-spun ringworm treatment - use of ordinary kitchen vinegar and a penny. Soak the penny in the vinegar and rub on the affected area. Some even recommend taping the penny to the ringworm spot. Others use vinegar without the penny. The reasoning of those who use the penny-vinegar combo is that the vinegar reacting with the copper actually serves as an effective fungi-killer.

The next home remedy, and this was suggested by a girl named "loveme..." in Yahoo Answers, was to use diluted bleach. Using q tips, you apply the bleach solution to the affected area until it dries out. Some suggested the ratio of one part bleach to six part water as the ideal concoction err...solution. Other people rashly recommend pure bleach for the treatment but a lot of people correctly pointed out that unadulterated bleach from the bottle is a very powerful agent and may contain lye (sodium hydroxide) that can cause severe chemical burns and scarring. Just swim and soak in a chlorinated swimming pool, if you want to get the benefit of bleach in treating skin infections.

Another fascinating folk remedy is the "paper method." People who use this, burn a crumpled sheet of notebook paper in a porcelain plate, and use the ashes or residue as salve for ringworm treatment. Imagine that.

Still another bizarre home cure is the use of colorless nail polish. Directions: apply a thin layer of nail polish on the affected area. Allow to dry and peel off with tweezers or wash with soap. Those who practice this method believe it "suffocates" the fungi and attest that their infection dried up the next day. Others suggest colored nail polish work just as well as the colorless type.

A guy from Canada vouched for sea salt as the ultimate ringworm treatment. Evidently, this gent worked in an airport and caught the infection from the counter surface he usually leans on at work. The ringworm spread throughout his body, including his face, and the poor bloke suffered for one whole year with it. After repeated (and costly) visits to his doctor, the recommended antifungal creams finally managed to clear out the ringworm in his body but not the lesions in his face. That's when he discovered the remedy of using sea salt. He rubbed a handful of watery salt into the affected areas in his moistened face for thirty minutes and repeated the process several times. The guy swears his ringworm dried up the very next morning. Sea salt or sea water, that's the ticket, he said.

Other items mentioned as effective medication are tobacco and Vicks Vapor Rub (suggested by "Rosie" in Yahoo Answers). Of course, a lot of medicinal herbs and plants were cited as effective cure too, but I will discuss these in another essay. Black walnut, grape fruit seed extract, fig leaf juice, and tea tree oil are a few of these natural remedies mentioned.

Would I recommend any of these home-grown ringworm remedies? Not today. It's the human body we're talking about here, after all. Caution should be the rule of thumb. There's no denying that many of these simple home cures actually work - for some people. But each of us has our own peculiar set of physiological traits and allergies, quite different from the next John or Jane Doe. Our bodies, or to be more specific, our skins react differently to different substances. What I'm saying is that the home-spun ringworm treatment that worked for your neighbor might not actually work for you.

If there's anything that I'd use myself, apart from the usual over-the-counter anti fungal medications, it's the natural ringworm treatment method. Using plant extracts. Green all the way. One hundred percent natural, one hundred percent organic. Tea tree oil, in particular. Numerous scientific studies have already established the efficacy of tea tree oil in treating ringworm. Powerful antiseptic, peerless anti fungal agent. And because it's natural - lesser chance of adverse allergic reactions for you. For a discussion about a company that produces natural ringworm treatment products in a modern world-class facility, please visit my site, link shown below.

Or you can always take a one-week vacation and hit the nearest ocean resort (sea salt or sea water, remember?) and have a week of fun, relaxation, and ringworm treatment.

Ringworm Treatment - Fascinating (and Effective?) Home Remedies
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