Addiction, Family, and Hawaiian Culture

Addiction not only effects the individual who is active in his or her disease, but also places a great deal of stress on the individuals family and friends. Hawaiian culture places a great deal of emphasis on the family or "Ohana". According to Hawaiian culture "Ohana" is the idea that family and friends are bound together and must cooperate and remember one other. Addiction of any type puts strains on these important bonds that the family needs in order to function properly. The movie Lilo and Stitch also suggests that "Ohana" means family and family means no one gets left behind. Often times in addiction individuals, family,and friends get left behind. If you or someone you know is feeling left behind please feel free to give Paradise Recovery a call today!

The Importance of Place: Choosing the right Rehab

It's been quite a ride! Dealing with the personal, interpersonal, emotional and spiritual fall out of alcohol and/or drug addiction. There's been a lot of judgment, blaming, attacks, and loss!

Now, you need a place that provides you with both the right healing environment and treatment philosophy that fits your goals and provides you with the education and tools to move forward in your life without altering your mood with alcohol and drugs. When choosing a rehab you need to remember a few things.

1) Location. Not all rehabs have taken the time, effort and resources to make sure that your rehab experience is linked with locations in the world that are rejuvenating! Some feel that all rehabs should be on Skid Row. That addicts should suffer! Well, to be honest. There's been enough suffering had by the addict and their loved ones. Now it's time for healing, big time!

2) Positive Psychology. Make sure when you are shopping around for rehabs that you ask the admissions personnel about their treatment philosophy. This is critical. Their staff have been trained by people who have a certain bias, or philosophy. The program that focuses on resiliency, protective traits and development of character (Positive Psychology) seems to be best practice in private run rehabs. However, watch out for, what I call, "the Penitential Model" programs. The philosophy of these programs is to make you feel terrible before you feel better. It is kind of like the old Quaker tradition of incarceration...we called them Penitentiaries.

3) Holistic Approach. Alcohol and drugs attacks the whole person. As an addict, you have been totally focused on your addiction. Now, in rehab you need to totally focus on recovery and health! It is important that the rehab you choose offers a multi-disciplinary, traditional and non-traditional forms of healing. For example, in a holistic rehab your day may include: morning meditation, acupuncture, massage, group therapy, individual therapy, personal fitness session, nutritional meals and community AA/NA 12-Step meetings.

4)Aftercare and follow-up. It is critical that you continue your goals and life-changing strategies after you leave rehab. Choose a rehab that provides at least a comprehensive aftercare program and follow-up with your primary therapist from the rehab. Accountability and dedication to your recovery plan will ensure greater success and sustained recovery!

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions, please call our 24-Hour HelpLine at (866) 478-9898 and speak with one of our recovery counselors today!


Recuperatio Primoris,
Dr. Bill

"Sorrow looks down, Worry looks around, Faith looks up." Anonymous

What is Codependency? Addicted to the Addict!

Have you ever had a need to be needed? Barbara Streisand said it, "People who need people...are the luckiest people in the world!" Well, sometimes.

Codependency is a dysfunction where you become enmeshed, entangled, obsessed and in fact, addicted to the person who is struggling with alcohol, drug, sex or gambling addiction. You lose yourself in the other! The codependent will rescue, protect, defend the addict, even when their own physical, emotional, or spiritual well-being is compromised. Many people feel codependency is a passive dynamic, au contrare, the codependent often will gain power by controlling the addict and manipulating them by using "get backs", empty threats, or become "the victim".

Just as alcoholism and drug addiction is a condition that requires treatment, so is codependency. Drug rehabs across the country treat people with codependency. Sometimes an alcoholic or addict will also struggle with codependency, since they may have been raised in an addicted family system.

If you feel that "helping" your loved one who may be an alcoholic or an addict, appears to be defining WHO you are, then you should be seeking help. Look at your own resistance to seek treatment...that may be a sign that you are a codependent. Your intentions are honorable, you probably even earned a purple heart in the battles you've engaged in over the addiction, but it should end. Your battling with your loved one over their addiction is not helping, not helpful!

If you are a codependent you are not helping your loved one. Let me repeat...if you are a codependent you are not helping your loved one! Run, don't walk to a CODA (Codependent Anonymous) or an Alanon meeting immediately. You need direction to find yourself, define your boundaries and figure out how to attract and maintain ADULT, MUTUAL relationships with others.

If you have any further questions, please call our 24-Hour HelpLine at (866) 478-9898.

Recuperatio Primoris! (Recovery above all else!)

Hawaiian Addiction Treatment and the Family: Ho'oponopono

Addiction hurts many people. Not just the addicted person themselves, but also their family, friends, and loved ones. When beginning treatment for addiction, one has many aspects that need healing. There is a type of Hawaiian therapy which is called Ho'oponopono. This powerful word literally means "to make things right". The Hawaiians believe that it is important to make things right, not only with those whom you have current relationships (family, friends and loved ones), but also with your ancestors. Ho'oponopono is a process by which the family is brought together and the things that are not "right" are worked through in a highly experiential session. It is a powerful and moving experience. It is also the beginning of healing for the addicted person and their family.

The only drug rehab in the world with an offering of this ancient Hawaiian therapy is Paradise Recovery, located on the island of Oahu. It's time for all of us to make things right.

Addiction is Killing Your Loved One. What do you do?

For some reason, addiction is a very cruel disease. It is a disease that often breeds denial with the addict and a refusal to get treatment.

Imagine if your loved one had cancer but it was still treatable. Yet, they denied they had cancer and refused to get treatment. Each day brought them closer to death, yet they continued to deny their illness. In fact, they would get angry at any mention of getting help. The slow descent to death would be so heartbreaking to watch.

This is exactly what thousands of families are experiencing right now. Not with cancer but with another deadly disease: addiction. There is help available. And hope. Paradise Recovery has a HelpLine that is toll-free: 1-866-478-9898. Sometimes
something called an intervention is needed. An intervention is a method in which a professional person, the interventionist, uses special techniques to work with the family and the addicted person to convince them to come into drug rehab or alcohol rehab. They have very high success rates with the most difficult of cases. The HelpLine can refer you to an excellent interventionist. Help is just a phone call away.

Daddy's an alcoholic: The lasting effects of alcoholism in the family

When we think of alcoholism, we sometimes fail to think about how the disease and the behavioral dysfunctions associated with the condition, affects the children of the alcoholic. As a therapist, I have treated hundreds of individuals who struggle with self-esteem issues, post traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide or homicide all as a result of living in a chaotic family environment.

Children need safe, loving, predictable home lives that reassure them that they, and the family are okay in the world. Well, the home with an alcoholic parent cannot provide that type of home environment. Often, the child takes on adult roles and fills the void to care for the sick parent. At times, the child is molested, abused and/or neglected as well. There are no benefits of having an active alcoholic as a parent! We have also seen that the children of alcoholics have a greater risk of becoming an alcoholic themselves...ugh, what a family legacy!

If you, or a loved one, is an alcoholic, or a child of an alcoholic, then encourage them to seek help for this immediately. There are resources for both the alcoholic (rehab, outpatient treatment, hospitalization) and the child (Ala-Teen, ACOA meetings, individual or group therapy).

Please keep in mind, that saving your life from addiction may also be saving your children from a life of psychological pain and suffering.

Recuperatio Primoris!

The Family and Alcohol or Drug Treatment

Getting a loved one into alcohol and drug rehabilitation can be the most difficult gesture of caring a loved one can do. In their addiction, the alcoholic/addict my be fully blind to the destruction their addictive behavior is wreaking on those around them. Family members often find that direct reasoning is insufficient if not entirely futile. Denial runs deep with he active drinker or drug user; and when approached they may very well turn on the messenger often with counter accusations and open hostility.

As a result, many wives and husbands, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers will look the other way and ignore the problem. They will allow the use to continue, joining with the addict in minimizing the reality they face. Many families work hard to adapt to the alcoholic, creating a family structure that looks as if it supports the drinking. Family members begin to adopt specified strategies that allow them to adapt to the admittedly crazy behavior of the alcoholic/addict. Family members can often begin to look crazy themselves.

For the alcoholic/addict to heal, the family must also heal with them. Beginning with the simple step of getting their loved one into a detoxification and alcohol rehabilitation center, family members can start to address those behaviors they have developed over the years of substance use. They can begin to mend the tattered relationships, heal past wounds, and reestablish the family on the sounder footing of sobriety and recover together.

Paradise Recovery, like other substance abuse rehabilitation centers, focuses a great deal time and attention on the family as a whole. Family therapy, family week, and directed visitation all serve to keep the family unit together as the healing continues. The adage indicates that it takes a village to raise a child. And sometimes it takes a family to heal an alcoholic/addict.