Rumour Fear & Madness In Families

Substance Disorder Creates Madness In Families

Written by and for people with Lived Experience - Port Alberni Community Action Team - Families Helping Families.

Today’s Learning Moment – 10 05 21 Issue  Rumour Fear & Madness In Families - Substance Disorder Creates all of it. A Personal Story

We’ve all heard that addiction not only affects the person burdened with the disorder but also affects the family as well.

Years ago, I read a book in one of my psychology courses at UBC entitled “Rumour, Fear and the Madness of Crowds”. In one experiment, the person stood on the corner of the street, raising his head to stare at the sky for several moments. Others coming along the street would also look up at the same area of sky and soon people began to stop, gathering in groups, all looking up to see what had drawn so much attention. Some queried and others pointed to something only they could see, trying to appear informed. The original person had walked on but observed that many people continued to repeat the process for several minutes.

Sounds a bit like posts and follow up comments on social media, right? It could even be family interactions as a result of assumptions without all the facts. It’s one thing to believe something because of preconceived misinformation driven by decades of the War on Drugs. It’s another thing to make decisions or choices only when you have all the facts from everyone’s perspective.

Let's see how assumptions lead to the disintegration of common sense into family drama and outright madness. We don’t mean madness in the sense of crazy. We’re talking about polarized, entrenched positions that defy any of the parties from meeting on common ground. Positions becoming so divided and diverging that it literally tears the family apart.

In this particular case, we’ll explore, a senior mom living with her adult son in a residential block of a city. He has struggled with opioid use and addiction for decades. Her other children are grown, single and live in other distant cities. Often, the other siblings had forcefully counselled mom to dump her son with a substance disorder. They were all for cutting him off, using terms like “he should be dead to us.”

As far as she knew, her son was recovery from opioid addiction. Like many parents, she cared about all of her offspring and didn’t want to abandon the son who was trying to travel on the healing journey.

After several months, it became clear that the son, who was receiving witnessed doses of medically prescribed Suboxone, was also using other drugs in the downstairs portion of their home. He wasn’t using opioids anymore. He had switched to alternative drugs including forms of meth. His behaviour and actions became so problematic, the mother had to make him move out.

Enter the rest of the family- none of who have any of their own children. However, that didn’t stop them from having strong parenting opinions. They would jump on unsubstantiated views of favoured friends and acquaintances. Taking biased and unsubstantiated bits of advice, and for various reasons would elevate their demands to the extreme. The mother, concerned, agreed to have the basement area cleared out by a couple of people her family members hired.

They found some drugs, some hypodermic needles and other bits and pieces of drug paraphernalia, which in their minds proved drugs were being regularly used. The son was also addicted to hoarding. Huge amounts of metal, wood and other scrap items had also been accumulating. In addition, he had an electric kettle and a hot plate he used to heat coffee and food. Assumptions were made that it was also used to cook meth.

All of that was alarming enough, but other members of the family escalated the evidence into something much more sinister and insisted to mom that a meth lab was in full operation to produce and sell drugs. They panicked and insisted mom must have been inhaling toxic fumes and must now be mentally incapacitated. In their mind that was the only explanation of why she was not aware of this lab and the influx of her son’s so-called friends. The story blew out of proportion into a continuous stream of unsavoury people visiting the son in the basement every night. The tale now included that the son and his friends were indulging in all manners of drugs and sex. In the eyes of the family, the basement had become a den of iniquity filled with evil, driven by its leader, her son with a substance disorder.

Years earlier mom had an excellent security alarm system installed which was fully operational. A door alert would sound anytime a door or window would open or close. The son did not have a way of dismantling the alarm and the basement door was directly beneath mom’s bedroom. She was also a light sleeper. Security cameras never showed people coming and going. This information was completely discounted, almost like any of the info from the security system evidence was fake facts!

One family member even went so far as to decide that mom should lose her house. After all, it’s a Meth lab and would need to be condemned. Their perspective was that the entire neighbourhood would have been endangered by this huge meth lab, supposedly operating under mom’s nose.

Because mom had not seen or heard evidence of these activities, family convinced her she must be mentally ill and upset her to the point she became physically ill. She contacted her doctor who did cognitive assessments and determined that mom was in no way mentally incompetent. She became very reclusive and withdrawn from family, friends and neighbours. Despite her depression and withdrawal, she still was able to reach out to some neighbours she trusted who verified that they had never seen parties, steady foot traffic or other nefarious activities. Mom had now been seriously traumatized by all the rumours and fear.

Our mom, however, is resilient and did her own research. She learned the police had not received ANY complaints from any neighbours. In additional discussions with the police, they told her that building a meth lab is very involved and requires specific equipment and skills. None of which her son is capable of. She also examined the evidence the family had found. Almost all of the items were from harm reduction kits both mom and son distributed in her community to those needing these items. She even visited the Harm Reduction site and with a staff member’s permission photographed items found in their kits, including hygiene products and condoms.

From time to time, mom and son had let someone warm up in the basement area where they could have a hot drink, sleep and relax for a while before having to go back out onto the streets. Perhaps those visitors left the few bits of tin foil and crumbs of drugs. Who knows?

In addition, many items belonging to the mom and her son were removed by the two hired workers. She even found personal gifts to her — important paperwork and photos in the garbage.

The son became so distraught over this and the threats of murder by one of the men who were cleaning up that he didn’t sleep for days. That resulted in what the hospital diagnosed as sleep deprivation psychosis. As a result, he actually ended up ingested bleach, had to be rushed to hospital and incubated. He is home, recuperating, but the one family member who is working on having the house taken away from mom has now escalated to cutting off services, etc. Both mom and son are trying to find supportive healthcare as they work through multiply challenges dropped on them by the family who supposedly cares for them, nevertheless have demonstrated anything but.

Admittedly this story is told from the perspective of the mom. Others in the family have obvious different perspectives. The power in this story isn’t about who is right or who might be wrong. It demonstrates the destructive nature of substance disorder not only for the person suffering from it but for immediate, extended family, friends and even neighbours. It also highlights how entrenched people can become in their beliefs. Facts, science, and professional health care advice play almost no part in people’s perceptions and behaviours around substance disorders. Neither is there a willingness to sit down and rationally explore the perspectives of all of the family, including the person with a substance disorder. 

This family is completely broken, possibly forever - due to rumours, fear, unwillingness to understand and family madness.

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Author: Anonymous — A mother living her worst nightmare.

Families Helping Families is an initiative of the Port Alberni Community Action Team. We send out “Learning Moment” articles regularly to help folks understand substance illness. Knowledge is vital in understanding the illness of our family members. You may copy, distribute or share our articles as long as you retain the attribution. You can be added to our distribution list by dropping us a note at - albernihelp@gmail.com