Jerry Moe worries about full-grown alcoholics and addicts, but he worries more about their children. He’s been dedicated for 36 years to mitigating the damage to boys and girls 7-12 years old. He leads a model Children’s Program at the Betty Ford Center, to help kids understand the past and present chaos in their lives. Jerry shared his story with The Recovery Book.
I’m focused on the one disease that tries to convince you that you don’t have it, thereby preventing you from reaching out for help until it’s close to destroying you and all you love. But children who’ve lived in fear and confusion can’t wait. They need help as soon as possible: explanations of “Why do my Mom and Dad fight and scream at each other all the time and do those wild weird things?” And they desperately need assurances that it won’t happen again next week, or after their parents are in recovery.
Clean and sober parents and grandparents need help, too. They wonder how to explain addictive behaviors in ways their kids can understand.
I had two parents at one of our programs last month who’ve been in recovery for their daughter’s entire life. What they wanted was help explaining their mystifying recovery life style–leaving her with sitters so very often while they go to meetings. They understood her puzzlement. They endured it themselves when they were kids.
Years ago, counselors like me would see kids once a week for an hour. That just wasn’t enough time to develop a relationship. The Betty Ford approach has evolved over time into speeding up the healing process by seeing children from Thursday through Sunday for six hours a day. The last two days, we bring in parents and grandparents.
Our program’s not just for Betty Ford patients. We get referrals from doctors in private practice, school counselors, even Children’s Protective Services. Because many come from afar, we have an arrangement with a local hotel. And Betty herself, who loved the program, made sure that we run our children’s program on a sliding scale–up to $400, but with no child ever turned away for lack of funds. And there’s no waiting list. We do programs almost every week.
We don’t start with didactic teaching. We start with things that allow them to be children, feel safe, and experience the predictability and consistency they don’t get in a family with the disease. Playing with a koosh ball on a string. Colorfully decorating a folder. Putting a pin in a map of the U.S. so they can see how far their companions have traveled. Being playful before we get into the serious stuff. We sit on children’s chairs.
Everyone in our circle, we explain, has this in common: We all love and care about someone. We’ve all been hurt by that person’s drinking and drug use. And we’re all going to spend the next few days learning why.
The first day we explain about alcoholism and addiction. We separate the person they love from the disease that consumes them, helping them understand that people with addiction are not bad people. It’s just that once they’re trapped by addiction they may do bad things even to those they love. We ask what bad things they’ve experienced. Broken promises. Fighting. (“Yes, sweetie, I’ve been drinking and I’m sorry. But I’m going to stop. And on Saturday we’re going to the park and we’ll spend the whole day having fun.” Or, “I promise I’ll never fight with your daddy again.”) Followed by disappointment. Upset. Chaos. Parents not coming home. Drinking and driving – often carelessly and with them in the car. All frightening things, but now with a certain comfort in knowing that other kids live with this, too.
We use metaphors that kids can understand–that people get hooked like a fish and can’t get away. Or it’s like gum getting stuck in your hair and they need help to get it out. It’s important to get them talking about what it’s been like and not to hold it inside. It’s done in an experiential way. We’ve got a backpack filled with 41 pounds of small rocks. They get to lift it and walk around to show how heavy it is and how it can interfere with daily life. A scary feeling or problem is painted on each rock: Hurt. Guilt. Shame. Fighting. Abuse. We tell them their moms and dads have been carrying around a bag inside them where you can’t see it. We add that some grownups start drinking and using drugs because they don’t know how to get rid of it. At first alcohol puts the bag to sleep, but when that or drugs wear off, the grownup has to pick up the bag again. Only now it weighs more. We say that some people reach the point that no matter how much they drink, the bag is so heavy they can’t make it sleep any more. But that’s good. That’s when they go to get help. It all connects and makes sense, even to younger kids.
Then we turn to them. We explain that, “Because of the chaos and uncertainty you’ve been living through, you’ve got your own bag of rocks.” In the circle, we ask them to let the rocks out of their bag, releasing their sadness, their anger and fear–their secret feelings. We warn older kids–10 or 11–that addiction runs in families and that the only way we know that they won’t get trapped is for them never to smoke, drink, or use drugs.
Today we know that addiction is a brain disease–that it creates havoc at any age, but mostly on brains not yet fully developed. When I visit a treatment center and ask, “How old were you when you first drank or used?” I hear 10, 11, 12. At Betty Ford, we’re grateful to have a teachable four-day moment that will permit a teenager to politely but firmly “just say no.” There’s a lot more to it than that, of course, and when Nancy Reagan popularized that phrase in the early ’80s some sneered at it as simplistic. But a dozen or so years later good news of our alumni comes often.
Yesterday I received a long thank you letter from an appreciative mom about her daughter. “She’s a junior in college now,” the mother wrote, “and she still hasn’t had a drink or a drug.”
We don’t get the chance to win them all. Parents call and want to register a child for the program. We have three or four conversations to develop a relationship with them and reassure them that they don’t have to worry. It’s going to be okay. They register, but, usually out of guilt or shame, on the appointed day they fail to show up. That can be a huge challenge for us.
But the news has gotten around that our children’s program works. We’ve done TV specials like “Under the Influence” for Nickelodeon News, looking at early teens growing up in a family damaged by alcohol. That one featured five of our kids, focused on solutions, and won an Emmy.
Everyone won’t make it to Betty Ford, but these days there are many other fine children’s programs. To my mind, the best gift parents can give their kids is to stay clean and sober. The second best gift is to take their kids to a place where they, too, can heal. There, in a circle of kids their ages, they can better understand and normalize their own situations and suddenly realize, “Gee, I’m not the only one!”
