Lisa Find Love

I once read that the national cost of addiction and all of its related effects is second only to the money we spend on national defense. With this in mind, Christian Thurstone and Christine Tatum’s new book, Clearing the Haze: Helping Families Face Teen Addiction, is both timely and relevant.

The book zooms in on the many dynamics that can either contribute to a teen’s substance abuse problem or help them recover from it. And as a psychotherapist who has spent years working in the field of addiction, I found it to be a refreshing read. Packed with interviews from those who have recovered from teen addiction as well as from treatment providers who specialize in it, the book addresses both the larger, more troubling questions about addiction — such as how to know if your child is using — as well as the often vague and equivocal subject of just what to say to your teen about drugs.

Beginning with a look at why teen substance abuse is such a big deal, Thurstone and Tatum draw on biological science to help us understand how the premature reward circuit in a teen’s brain, coupled with the delayed development of the prefrontal cortex, sets up an adolescent to respond favorably to the impulse gratification drugs offer.

The authors point to recent data, writing that “the lifetime odds of alcohol dependence decrease by 14 percent for each year the onset of alcohol use is delayed.” Likewise, when people start to have a dependence in their younger years, it’s serious.

Thurstone and Tatum then further explore the effects of a variety of drugs on adolescents. Among these effects, they suggest, are academic problems, such as the fact that youth who use marijuana by the age of fifteen are four times less likely to complete high school.

Once we understand the enormity of the problem, Thurstone and Tatum then present the tools parents need to go about addressing it. Among them: the appropriate amount of vigilance.

Here, the authors encourage parents to be aware of a teen’s access to substances, the social acceptance that they themselves as parents have of substance use, and the perceived risk of harm they associate with using drugs. Parents should “be inquisitive and not accusatory,” Thurstone and Tatum write. They should also act proactively with their teen to discuss difficult situations ahead of time. And when it comes to the dicey subject of whether or not to drug test your own kids, the authors give us pros and cons, ultimately reminding parents that they “will need to decide what works best for their family.”

Should a drug test come back positive, Thurstone and Tatum address how a parent should handle it. Attacking the common errors parents make in communicating, such as lecturing, storytelling, and placating, the authors present us with the three C’s of effective communication about drug use. That is, you didn’t cause it, you can’t control it, and you can’t cure it. With that in mind, Thurstone and Tatum explain the nuts and bolts of “Attachment Communication Training,” which includes first establishing ground rules for communication, understanding the difference between effective and destructive communication, practicing listening skills, and removing the common blocks to communication.

When it comes to treatment, the authors offer sound advice about what to look for in treatment providers, what to expect during treatment, and how to handle family sessions. And they walk parents through the spectrum of mild to much larger problems with drug use, as well as how to differentiate between them. The book draws on the National Institutes of Drug Abuse guidelines to help parents understand the five key questions to ask a treatment provider. For instance, is the duration of treatment sufficient?

Most addicted people, Thurstone and Tatum write, “need at least three months in treatment to really reduce or stop their drug use.” And, they write, longer treatment times are associated with better outcomes. Therefore, one of the more important skills a parent can have is patience.

Still, according to the authors, a parent should also adopt an authoritative stance, though avoid “falling into the traps of being too authoritarian, passive or neglectful.” Parents should be realistic, too. They should, according to the authors, seek to maintain “behavioral control, and not psychological control,” set realistic goals for treatment, be healthy role models, communicate clear expectations about substance use, and maintain appropriate self-care and boundaries.

Substance abuse is a chronic condition, Thurstone and Tatum remind us: one for which parents should have a “recovery protection plan,” and one that requires that parents have appropriate self-care themselves.

Clearing the Haze: Helping Families Face Teen Addiction
Rowman & Littlefield, July 2015
Hardcover, 182 pages
$36

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1. Buy same-color socks in bulk. If the dryer “eats” one, you have an automatic match in your dresser drawer—and you probably won’t need to buy a new pair of socks. And you’ll pay less buying packs of socks instead of individual pairs.

2. Freeze your pantyhose. Yes, we’re serious. Fill a plastic bag with water, drop in your new stockings, zip up the top, and toss the bag in the freezer overnight. Thaw the concoction at room temperature. You’ll strengthen the fibers in the stockings, cut down on runs, and save the cost of additional pairs of hose. You can continue protecting your stockings by freezing them once a month, without water, for one night.

3. Hang on to cool buttons. Keep nice, fancy, or unusual buttons when you recycle or toss worn-out clothing. You can use them to change the look of a garment that’s starting to bore you or enliven a plain shirt that needs a little pizzazz.

4. Buy next year’s attire now. Go shopping toward the end of the selling season. (Buy spring and summer clothes in July or August rather than March, when prices are highest). This will mean some planning and forethought—you’re going to get most of the wear out of the clothes next summer. But the payoff is enormous.

5. Be a savvy consignment shopper. Don’t patronize just any. Find one close to a wealthy neighborhood, where you may be surprised to find stacks of hardly or never-worn clothes, many from top designers—and some items with the tags still on! You’ll get amazing bargains on extraordinary clothes you won’t find anywhere else.

6. Avoid “one size fits all” clothing. Most manufacturers who label their clothing this way are pulling the wool over your eyes. You will usually find this designation on lower-priced clothing, mostly on tops for teenagers. It’s easier—and cheaper—to mass-produce and inventory a garment when it’s all in one size. But the only garments that are truly “one size fits all” are some socks, which are made of fabric that’s stretchy enough to adapt to a broad range of foot sizes. Otherwise, when you see “one size fits all” on a garment, keep shopping.

7. Keep the receipt. If you pay full price for a new blouse, hold on to the receipt in an envelope in your car. Two weeks later, drop into the store with your receipt. If the garment has gone on sale in the meantime, go to the register and ask for credit.

8. Use the store credit card—strategically. If you’re making a big purchase at a department store, go ahead and get the extra discount they offer for accepting a store credit card. But be sure to pay off the balance immediately so you don’t have to pay finance charges; store credit cards often have exorbitant interest rates.

9. Wash jeans inside out: And use cold water on the gentle cycle. If some of the dye escapes from the fabric during the wash, it has a better chance of being reabsorbed into the legs, making the jeans look newer, longer.

10. Fix, don’t toss, costume jewelry: Use nail polish to reset loose stones in costume jewelry easily and inexpensively. Simply use clear nail polish as the glue; it’s a quick fix no one will detect.

11. Let your boots breathe. Don’t store any shoes or boots in the attic or basement during the off-season. The shifts in temperature will prematurely age them. Place them in a closet that allows air to circulate and they’ll last longer.

12. Don’t clean your clothes out of habit. Many people believe you should wash a garment every time you wear it. But that’s a waste of detergent and effort. When you get home from work, change into your T-shirt and jeans, then evaluate your work duds before you throw them into the hamper. If your clothing passes this five-point check, put it on a hanger, air it out for two hours, then return it to your closet.

• Does it need repair? Any rips, missing buttons, falling hems, or broken zippers?
• Does it need a dry cleaner’s care? Tough stains, particularly oily ones, should be taken to the dry cleaner within a day. If you wait weeks, the odds of getting the stain out are dramatically reduced.
• Does it need to be laundered? Does it have any smudges or dirt?
• Does it pass the sniff test? Steel yourself and get a whiff of the armpit.
• Does your body need to be washed? If the answer is yes, then chances are the clothes that were hanging on that body need to be cleaned too.

13. Save a broken zipper. Don’t automatically throw away a garment if the zipper stops working. Try surrounding it with Velcro; you’ll avoid the work of ripping out the zipper and the cost of replacing the item.

Get the new book Reader’s Digest Quintessential Guide to Saving Money for ingenious tricks to stretch your dollars. You’ll get insider advice to cut household bills, spend less on groceries, find unexpected sales and freebies, and more. Learn more and buy the book here.

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Get your BS in BS by learning these marketing euphemisms from the new book Spinglish by Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf:

Acquired taste.

A food writer described this as “something people only ever say about foods that are horrible.”

Ahead of its time.

A book-publishing euphemism for “It bombed.”

Bad citation.

Plagiarism.

Courtesy call.

An unsolicited phone call from a telemarketer.

Fixer-upper.

A real estate term for a property that might more accurately be described as a “tearer-downer.”

Friendly reminder.

Urgent warning.

Learning opportunity.

A mistake.

Maturity tracks.

Wrinkles.

Robust exchange of views.

A shouting match.

Semi-boneless.

Contains bones.

Utensil-maintenance professional.

Dishwasher.

Zero-tasking.

An impressive-sounding business term to use instead of admitting that you’re doing absolutely nothing.

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Blue comes in many shades, just like sadness and depression. There is the muddled color known as queen blue that casts a disorienting fog over life. This hue can slip dangerously into shadow blue, a color that swallows you into the murk. Then, there is Yankees blue, made famous by the baseball team. Sure, the name sounds patriotic, even possibly celebratory. But this is one of the darkest shades of blue, a blue that borders on black. Here is where the precipice lies: Do you fall over and succumb to the black, or hang on to the shred of blue that perhaps supplies some level of hope?

These hues are described in Shades of Blue: Writers on Depression, Suicide, and Feeling Blue, a collection of essays edited by Amy Ferris. Ferris is an author, screenwriter, editor, and playwright who, in her introduction, recounts her own battle with depression. The essays she has gathered are a way of saying “I know how you feel” and “You’re not alone” to readers who suffer from depression or suicidal thoughts. And, they provide insight for those who don’t have a firsthand understanding of this level of despair and loneliness.

The contributors artfully elaborate on hidden details. One writer unfolds the movement of pulling a trigger to reveal the excruciating moments just before, the sobs that tore through the night, the despair that left someone paralyzed in their bed. Another unpacks the treasured moment of holding a child to show the blinding heartache of being unable to hold that child as a baby while trying to recover from a near-death delivery. These stories provide the voice, the cry, and sometimes, the scream that is within many individuals.

Not every essay talks about a desperate person’s suicide attempt, though some stories do look at suicide from the perspective of the person desiring it or the viewpoint of those whose lives are indirectly affected by it. Some of the writers tackle AIDS, cancer, and grief. There are happy endings, and there are not-so-happy endings. Each writer provides an empathetic voice to those who have been in the pit without a ladder, and each paints with words a picture that holds the depth and richness of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.”

Some of the lines I read spoke directly to thoughts I have had, while others were just such beautifully coined phrases that I wanted to underline and remember. I could not help but think of the ones I have lost to suicide — people who maybe, just maybe, would have found some comfort in the pages of this book (though perhaps that is just a bit of survivor’s guilt talking). The essays are raw, realistic.

“What is wrong with me is not a bump in the road,” one contributor writes, “or a case of the blues, and it is not something that can be addressed by the right herbal tea. It is not a pot hole, it is a fucking canyon — one I can only navigate with help.”

This quote stayed with me as well: “Pain isn’t a constant. There’s an ebb and flow. Looking out a train window there can be a gorgeous view you want to hold onto but darn, you whiz past it. Then there’s an ugly sight out the window you don’t want to see. The train whizzes past that too.”

Books, though, however wonderful and honest, are not always enough. If you are having suicidal thoughts or think you might need help, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Shades of Blue: Writers on Depression, Suicide, and Feeling Blue
Seal Press, September 2015
Paperback, 256 pages
$16

“Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”

–Sandra Day O’Connor

“So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great good fortune.”

–Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone … and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one’s life and all the weavings of individual threads from one to another that creates something.”

“I do know one thing about me: I don’t measure myself by others’ expectations or let others define my worth.”

–Sonia Sotomayor

 

“I don’t know that there are any short cuts to doing a good job.”

–Sandra Day O’Connor

“You can’t have it all at once. Who—man or woman—has it all, all at once? In my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough.”

–Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady, and the other was to be independent.”

–Ruth Bader Ginsburg

“You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will—undoubtedly—fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I’m just not going to let this get me down.”

–Sonia Sotomayor

“It was a very cool thing to be a smart girl, as opposed to some other, different kind. And I think that made a great deal of difference to me growing up and in my life afterward.”

–Elena Kagan

“I think it’s important to move people beyond just dreaming into doing. They have to be able to see that you are just like them, and you made it.”

“I have no regrets. I don’t believe in looking back. What I am proudest of? Working really hard … and achieving as much as I could.”

–Elena Kagan

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On Sunday, May 8, 2005, my reality changed. That was when I discovered a handprint on the bathroom mirror in my home.

The day it appeared was the first anniversary of the death of my husband, Max Besler. We had been married for four years when he was found, at the age of 56, to have esophageal cancer. Six months later, he was gone, devastating me and my 14-year-old son, Tanner.

In his final two months, Max spent a lot of time during the day with our friend and housekeeper, Helen. He insisted that I continue working—I was the publisher of the Sacramento Bee—so I went to the office and drove home at lunch for visits.

One day, Helen and Max were in the kitchen. The sun was shining outside—until it suddenly poured. “We both just stopped and looked,” Helen recalled. “I told him, ‘I know you don’t believe in God, but this is something God created for us today. After you’re gone, if you can find a way, let us know that there’s something out there, that it just doesn’t end.’”

Max agreed he’d try. “But it will be up to you two to see it,” he said.

The Hand Appears

A  year after Max’s death, Tanner and I were still working through our grief. On this Sunday afternoon, he and I were sitting at a table in our yard in Sacramento, California. I was comforted to have him there, and I smiled as I noted his habit of moving his lips while he read. I was catching up on reading from work. 
After a while, I got up to go inside and bring us a snack.

Our home was U-shaped, and on the right side of the U were our kitchen, a guest bedroom suite, a laundry room, and the exit to the garage. Max had spent the last month of his life in the guest room because he was more comfortable in a bed by himself, as he was in grave pain.

Before entering the kitchen, I stopped in the bathroom in the guest suite. That was when I saw the handprint. It hadn’t been there when I’d gone in an hour earlier. I froze. Had someone played a trick? That was doubtful—Tanner and I would have seen or heard anyone.

I shouted, “Tanner, come here. Hurry!”

“Mom, what’s wrong? Are you OK?” he asked, running over.

“Look,” I cried. “You didn’t do this, did you?”

As I spoke, I knew that Tanner couldn’t have made it, because he’d been next to me the entire time. Still, I asked him to hold his hand up next to it. It was much larger than his and shaped differently. It was no ordinary handprint. Seemingly made of a soft, white, powdery substance, it showed the entire bone structure, as if it were an X-ray. Like most wives, I could recall precisely what my husband’s hands looked like. The wide palm with the long, narrow fingers was reminiscent of the shape of Max’s hands.

We stared at the print, speechless and awestruck. We knew we were witnessing something astounding.

“Mom, I don’t get it. What is that?” Tanner asked.

“I’m not sure what it is, Tanner.” Then I asked him, “Do you think there’s any relationship to Max, since it’s the first anniversary of his death?”

“Maybe, but how weird is that? And how could he make it happen if he’s gone, Mom?” Tanner asked.

I had no answer, only a sense that I needed to remain calm and inquisitive. “I guess for now we don’t know. Why don’t you go out to the driveway and shoot some baskets?”

I hugged him and said I’d join him in a few minutes. I grabbed my camera and took several photographs. I should have done more, like taken a sample of the powdery substance for analysis or asked a forensics specialist to examine the fingerprints. But I was so stunned that it didn’t occur to me.

Was Max visiting to let me know there was more? I’ve always been open in life, and I wanted to be open now. But I was scared too. Entering the unknown was intimidating.

Time Stands Still

This wasn’t the first unusual occurrence. Max died in our living room at 12:44 p.m. on a Saturday in May 2004, surrounded by family and friends. In the backyard beneath the overhang of the roof just outside the door were two heavy wind chimes that he and I had hung. Both were sizable—one produced a deep musical sound, while the other one reminded me of the gong of a buoy at sea. I thought it was fitting that they both rang the instant that Max died, filling the house with rich, melodious 
tones. As a group, we stopped to 
listen. And as we turned our heads 
to watch the chimes, we noticed something peculiar: There was no wind.

Then, one week later, I took Casey, our yellow Lab, for a walk. It was Saturday around 7 a.m., and Tanner was asleep. I returned an hour later, and as I was unhooking Casey’s leash, I glanced up at the large, round clock over the fireplace in the living room. The clock had stopped at 12:44, the exact time of Max’s death. At first, I didn’t process it. I thought, Time to get Tanner up for breakfast. Then it sank in. How could the clock show the time of Max’s death instead of eight o’clock, the proper time?

I walked to Tanner’s room. “Wake up. Wake up. You’re not going to believe what I just saw,” I told him. He stumbled sleepily down the hallway with me to the living room. I was half hoping that when we got there, the clock would be correct.

“Look, Tanner,” I said, pointing at the clock. His eyes became big, and he muttered two words: “No way.” Tanner knew what that particular time meant as well as I did.

The night before, the clock had been normal, and no one had been in the house. Besides, it was too heavy and awkward to lift it and change the time; neither Tanner nor I could manage it.

“Mom, maybe it needs a new battery. We can’t change it, but we can get some help to pull it down,” Tanner offered. “And it’s probably just a 
coincidence that it stopped at 12:44.”

“Yes, that’s probably it,” I said, uncertain but unwilling to consider the idea that it might be more. I wanted a neat answer. The shock of Max’s diagnosis, his battle with cancer, and his sudden death had taken a toll on me.

The clock stayed at 12:44 until Wednesday, when Helen, our housekeeper, arrived. After I came home that evening, I found a note from her. She said when she was there, the lights had flickered and the clock had restarted. “I think Max may have paid us a visit,” Helen wrote.

Yet Another Message

The handprint unmoored me in ways that the clock hadn’t. Not only was I sure I hadn’t imagined it—Tanner had also seen it—but it was too shocking to ignore.

Shortly after we saw the print, something else strange happened. Max, Tanner, and I had been planning a trip to Italy before Max’s diagnosis. He had been excited because he was knowledgeable about Italy’s artists, poets, and musicians. I told Tanner we’d go in Max’s honor. I thought of it as a way to spend time with my son and consider what was happening.

We toured Rome and Florence, and I tried to relax. But there were painful moments when I craved Max’s presence. Yet as we toured the cities, I began to unwind. Curiosity was 
replacing fear.

Tanner and I went next to the Italian Riviera. One day before sunset, we were strolling in Portofino and the afternoon sun was casting a magical glow. I handed my camera to a passerby, who snapped the two of us.

After we got home, I had the film developed—this was pre-digital cameras. I went through the photographs until I came to the one with Tanner and me at the harbor.

Behind us in the photo was the stern of a boat anchored 30 yards away. Its name was lined up between my shoulder and Tanner’s, where Max would have stood if he were there. I squinted to read the name on the boat and saw three letters: MAX.

The odds of this occurring seemed astronomically low.

A Final Acceptance

From that point on, I decided to learn as much as I could about these incidents by talking with experts and reading. My journey would span eight years and take me across the United States to speak to different scientists, professors, and spiritual practitioners.

One of them was Dean Radin, PhD, chief scientist at the Institute of 
Noetic Sciences, which is devoted to the study of consciousness and phenomena that don’t fit the prevailing scientific models. In 2010, I sat in his office and showed him my photos of the handprints—a powdery print appeared again on that very same bathroom mirror on the anniversary of Max’s death in 2006 and in 2007.

Now it was time for me to ask my question: Had he seen anything like this before? He told me he couldn’t think of anything exactly like my experiences, but he and his colleagues regularly came across similar things in their research—thousands of similar occurrences, in fact. The clock stopping at 12:44? He said he could have written an entire book about clocks stopping for inexplicable reasons 
associated with emotional events.

After I left Radin’s office, I wondered what all of this meant and how it would affect me going forward. And then it hit me. Since Max died, I had lived with a subtle but nagging fear that my exposure to these stunning occurrences meant that I wasn’t normal. Now, for the first time, I had confirmation I wasn’t that unusual.

I remembered something I had read in Radin’s book The Conscious Universe. He cited Andrew Greeley, a Catholic priest and a sociologist, who found that 67 percent of American adults had reported having psychic experiences. Greeley also said that many widows who reported contact by their dead husbands had not previously believed in life after death.

According to Greeley, “People who’ve tasted the paranormal, whether they accept it intellectually or not, are anything but religious nuts or psychiatric cases. They are, for the most part, ordinary Americans, somewhat above the norm in 
education and intelligence and somewhat less than average in religious involvement.”

This was a pivotal moment in my personal journey. I went from believing my story was extraordinary to learning that these types of events are happening to many people. In other words, what was in fact extraordinary was the very ordinariness of it.

I realized that it was time for me to start talking openly, without shame or embarrassment. From this point forward, I vowed to myself, I would open up not only to those I was interviewing but to my family and friends. And if I could comfort anyone, what a privilege that would be.

It was a breakthrough. I felt free.

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