Posted by Ginger (199.227.117.69) on March 30, 2000 at 19:28:48:
In Reply to: Re: Things I learned about safe-recovery after posted by Alba on March 30, 2000 at 16:27:31:
: SAFE - SUBSTANCE ABUSE FAMILY ELIMINATION
I was raised from about the age of 6 as a sibling in The Seed program down here in Broward. I attended just about every open meeting with my mother, even after my siblings had graduated, from the age of 6 till about 13 or so. (there was no such thing as 7th Step Society or after care whatever they're calling it now) In addition, I attended Sunday School and church services with my mother and did volunteer work making lunches for the group twice a week.
Anything but the most casual interaction with people outside the cult, especially people my own age, was treated with a subtle but unmistakeable suspicion. My mother made me dress funny, very little girlish, in order to make sure I was never cool and, therefore, never tempted to associate with druggies or potential druggies.
I was groomed as a pariah by the doctrine of special knowledge (i.e. "we have awareness and all the rest are druggies or potential druggies").
As oppressive as that lifestyle may seem, it's alright when you're 8. Even by the time I was 12, I thought I'd been blessed with a crash course in life. Forget about advanced courses in school, I fully believed I'd been promoted right past puberty and was just killin' time till I was alowed to drive.
I was such an insufferably arrogant and paranoid little girl that, by age 15, every day of school was an acid bath.
By this time, all my siblings had moved out of the house and most of them out of state. I'm pretty sure that when I started smoking pot and drinking beer after school, usually all by myself, I was concious on some level that one day I'd be part of the Group. Either that or I'd fall through the cracks and become a skidrow junkie, but either way it _had_ to be better than _this!
After the program, the only people I'd known in my life who would not shun me were my Dad, one out of 5 siblings and my best old friend's mother. My friend, however, wasn't real pleased with me since I'd been the one to narc him out and cause his mother to put him in the program. He had been a Seed sibling too.
My 4 other siblings, all my old teachers and everyone else I'd known regarded me as a druggiescrewup. They had been questioned and warned by Mom. There was no overt threat to them, just that anything I said or any problem I had (and you can imagine I had many at that time!) was viewed through that filter. They've gone so far as to visit friends and relatives for days in the same town where I've lived and never bother to pick up the phone while it was a local call.
I never really persued much attention from my family because it was stilted and condescending at best and downright humiliating at times. But I did have the support of my Dad. He was one heluva guy. I'm pretty sure I got the better end of the bargain there. And my big brother, even when he was drinking (he was not a practicing alcoholic but a true virtuoso!), has been a better friend to me than anyone but maybe my husband.
My life has been interesting for sure and sometimes hard and painful, but not ruined. Bloom where you are planted, my Grandma used to say.
Ginger