Where to begin on this topic? The man? Addiction and it's effect on an addict, his life, and his loved ones? The people who enable Charlie? Martin Sheen comparing his son's addiction to cancer? Tough love? This will more than likely be a very long blog post. Hopefully people will bear with me and read it all, if it is interesting enough, of course. Right now I want to go back to some of my FB postings and find some of what I think are my best points of the day. I'm going to try to resist that urge.
Let me go from the first topic I listed above and go from there. The man. Charlie Sheen. Boy, his life is out of control. Or at least it appears that way. He has been giving radio interviews since he finished his at-home rehab. Let me start there, who has rehab at home? Yes people can try to detox and begin recovery from home. But if you say you are going to rehab, in my opinion that should be an inpatient rehab. Not your home. If you want to do it at home, call it something else. An actual rehab needs some things. Like structure. Like 24 hour staff (and I don't mean housekeeping). Like a nurse to help with detox. Like group therapy. The residential living in a rehab is also very important. Being able to relate to other addicts going through the same things you are.
I actually feel for Charlie. He is an addict in the throes of addiction. I wish he would see his life for what it is, see what his addiction is doing to him. Last night on Twitter a soap actress said that due to her years of going to alanon and going on talk shows with her father who is a substance abuse counselor qualifies her to say that Charlie has either reached his bottom or is nearing reaching his bottom. First of all, she has no experience working with addicts. Second of all, no one can decide where a person's bottom is, except the addict in question. What exactly has Charlie Sheen lost to make it his bottom? He may be at his bottom, I don't know, because everyone's bottom is different. Everyone's bottom is different. That is why this actress cannot say that CS has reached his bottom. I know a lot of addicts. Some don't reach a bottom at all, they just realize their life is out of control. Some lose everyone they love. Some have gone to jail, some once or twice, some lots of times. Some overdose several times. Some become homeless. Only Charlie Sheen can decide when he is done and when he is ready to stop. We cannot make that decision for him.
Charlie's life. We already know this is affecting his life. At the very least he has been "laid off" from his job. IMO there is a good chance we will be hearing he has lost his job and either Two and a Half Men will be canceled or it will go on without it's star. Charlie has lost more then one marriage due to his addiction. He appears to be at least somewhat mentally unstable right now. Not uncommon. Co-occuring disorders are very common. Sometimes the mental illness comes first sometimes the mental illness comes as a result of the addiction. But whichever comes first, mental illness and substance abuse often go hand in hand. Not always, but a lot of times. I think anyone can look at Charlie's life, or what we know of his life, and know he is out of control and is going down an increasingly slippery path. Will he fall completely or will he realize he has a problem (really realize it, not come to an epiphany due to a media relations nightmare) and reach out to people who can help him and turn his life around? I'm hoping for him, his family, especially his children, that he finally comes to an actual realization that he has to make changes.
I want to now address Martin Sheen's statement comparing Charlie's addiction to cancer. I am going to get this from what I put on FB. The two are not the same, imo, at all. Addiction you can control and put a stop to. No it is not easy, it is one of the hardest things a person will ever do in their lives. But when someone has cancer, they don't have control over it. They have to hope that treatment will work, they cannot stop it. Charlie can stop his addiction. Again, not easily, but he can do it. He does not want to. Does Mr. Sheen think that people who have cancer don't want it to go away and would not do everything in their power to make it go away? That is why people put poison into the body to stop cancer, because they will do anything to stop it. And recovering addicts will do anything to make sure their disease stays arrested, but Charlie is not there yet. As someone who lost both her parents to cancer, I find Martin Sheen's comments insulting.
Martin Sheen needs to love his son, without a doubt. But at some point that love needs to turn to tough love. Which part of that is saying I won't sit around and watch you kill yourself any longer, so I am out of here until you get your act straightened out. One of the hardest things a parent has to do, but it is a very needed step when helping a child. I have talked to parents who had to make this decision and struggled with it, but at some point they finally said I'm done. I have seen parents with 18 years old daughter who told them that they could not go home to live after leaving treatment. They did it hoping that their child would go into further treatment, but in some cases they knew their child was going to end up on the street because they were not going into further treatment, but they stood their ground. We cannot enable addicts. It does not help them, it only hurts them. People need to start walking away from him until he makes the decision to get himself well. Which is something he can do, while it is something that someone with cancer cannot do.
Charlie has some difficult decisions to make. He has two roads he can follow. If he makes the decision to get clean, he has a long, hard road ahead of him. But that road will get easier. He will learn that life can be good without partying, without getting high or drunk. As hard as the road of recovery can be, if he chooses to stay on the path that he is on, it will be a much harder road. Not only will it be a much harder road, it is a road which will get harder as time goes on. Unlike what would happen if he choose recovery. If he chooses recovery it may not be easy in the beginning, but his life will improve, ten fold. The important thing to remember is only he can make that decision. Hopefully the media will decide to stay out of it, but as we all know as long as he is making them money that is not going to happen.
Janet Lee Smith
02/25/2011
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