- Throwing the baby out with the bathwater — Holistic Recovery — I actually noticed this New York Times article Accepting that Good Parents Can Plant Bad Seeds but avoided posting it because it was problematic in my mind and not something I was currently able to take on with commentary. I’m very glad that Rossa has done such a suberb job here tackling it’s problems in her post. Understanding human and in particular family dynamics and then taking responsibility for ones own part, I remind all, is not about blaming anyone. “An recent New York Times article is generating a bit of interest in the mental health blogosphere. Accepting that Good Parents Can Plant Bad Seeds has a huge flaw in its reasoning, that faithful reader Marian pointed out in her comment on my recent post on the same article. The author of the NY Times article, Richard A. Friedman, M.D., has grasped the obvious fact that no two siblings are alike, and they will be treated differently by their parents, but then goes on to say that some children are just plain not nice and that parents have a limited role in this outcome. All this would be fine except that clearly the parents in this article are grieving for a relationship that they do not have with their children. Something is bothering them, too.”
- Does Teen Drug Rehab Cure Addiction or Create It? — Time Magazine — I can absolutely see how this must happen all the time. Most teenagers experiment with drugs and alcohol. Most of them do not become addicts. Just think of your highschool class. What happens when parents and others in authority over-react and imagine their child has a serious problem when in fact they are just being typical kids? This is, of course, also what happens to many kids (and adults) who are told they are mentally ill. We start filling the role of our label. — “Rather than encouraging sobriety, Thomas says, his seven-week stint at Parkview West helped trigger a decades-long descent into severe addiction — from regular marijuana user to daily drinker to cocaine and methamphetamine addict. “It was [in rehab] that they told me that I was a drug addict and an alcoholic,” says Thomas. “There was no turning back. The whole event solidified and created this notion in my own mind and in my social status. Who I was, was an alcoholic and drug addict.”