How do we handle the “F” Word-Fear
I’m currently working on my second book, which focuses on the principles I use when working with people who have loved ones with SUD (Substance Use Disorder).
It will also dig into all the messy stuff that happens in our thinking—what drives us, things like fear and hope, the mindsets that hold us back, and the manipulation tactics our loved ones may use to pull on our heartstrings, and much more.
I want to start sharing some of these chapters with you for a few reasons:
I’m excited about the book and don’t want to keep it to myself.
It keeps me motivated to keep writing.
I want your thoughts, stories, and opinions.
One of my goals is to do extensive research and gather insights from people working in the field, as well as from people who have direct experience with loving someone with SUD. In other words, I want to hear from you.
The first chapter I’m sharing is about fear. It’s really just a section opener. The book will be broken down into four sections:
Fear
Manipulation
Mindset
The Five Principles
Each section will have several chapters on that topic. What I’m sharing with you now is just the introduction. There will be many more chapters about fear that follow this one.
If you have any fears you want to be sure are addressed in the upcoming chapters, please let me know. You can email me but even more importantly, if you really want to dive in and have a deep conversation, reach out and let’s hop on a zoom call! I would love to interview you!
The “F” Word
We have to talk about the “F” word.
The word that can send you into a panic.
The word that keeps you up at night.
The word that seems to paralyze you when it’s time to make a decision.
Fear.
When you love someone with SUD, fear is constant. It feels engraved into every aspect of your life. It’s there in the conversations you have, the decisions you make. Every night before bed, you wonder what’s going to happen.
Do you remember the first time fear crept in, when you felt like something was off? Maybe money went missing. Maybe you caught them in a lie—a different kind of lie than what you remember from when they were kids. This felt more off, more intentional, more sinister.
But you don’t know why, or what’s wrong, and you start thinking that maybe you’re overreacting. Maybe this is just how a teenager behaves. Just normal teenage angst. Something keeps nagging at you, but you have your own life to live, so you ignore it—not even knowing what it is you’re ignoring.
Their behaviors start becoming a little more than what you would classify as teenage angst. Maybe they seem distant or angry. Maybe they come home and giggle just a little too hard at nothing, and you think they’re just being weird.
They start asking for money—and then more money—and you start losing track of where the money you thought they had is going. Where is their money going? Again, you shrug it off, not knowing what to do. When you ask questions about what’s going on with them, they get defensive and seem to push you away. So you stop asking because you don’t want to upset them over nothing.
Maybe, down the line, you discover there are drugs involved. But all you know is that they’ve smoked a little weed and maybe drunk some alcohol—normal teenage stuff. The things we all did as kids, experimenting.
It starts to seem like maybe the experimenting has gotten a little more intense than what you remember from when you were younger. But it’s a different time. Maybe this is the new normal.
Still, things don’t feel normal. And one day, it all comes crashing down, and you discover how bad things really are. This is where you may start feeling stuck between two fears:
1. The fear of knowing the truth.
2. The fear of not knowing the truth.
Have you noticed how often I’ve used the word *maybe*? It’s because we often brush off red flags, hoping we won’t really have to face the truth—yet at the same time, we find ourselves hungry for it. It’s a deeply conflicting and emotionally expensive place to be.
There are many reasons we avoid facing the truth that’s right in front of us. I’ve grouped them into ten areas. I’ll summarize them briefly here; each one deserves a deeper dive, which we’ll take throughout the book.
1. Using denial as self‑protection
If we admit there is a problem, things are going to change, and we don’t know what that will look like or how to handle what the future holds. You might feel as if facing the possibility that something bad could happen to your child is just too much. So you think, *Let’s not think about that.*
2. Fear of what comes next
If we face our fear, we feel we now have to do something about it—and what does that look like? We may have to confront them, and that won’t be pretty. We’ll have to start doing things differently, set boundaries, maybe even “cut our kid off.”
*What if I make the wrong decision and something bad happens and I can’t live with myself? What if I make the right decision and something bad still happens?*
3. Normalizing and minimizing
We love to compare—ourselves and others. We tell ourselves, *Well, it’s not THAT bad.* We picture someone with a drug or alcohol problem as the homeless person we saw on the street, and think, *That’s not what’s happening here.* Or we get so used to poor behavior that it becomes the new norm.
4. Hope that it will fix itself
Hope is powerful. It can keep us sane, and it can drive us insane. Often, parents think, *If we can just get them through this one thing, they’ll be okay.* Or something happens that shakes everyone up and parents think, *That’s it! That’s the thing that will make them snap out of it. That should be enough to wake them up.* And it is—for a while…until it isn’t anymore.
5. Shame and stigma
I haven’t met a parent who doesn’t feel some sense of shame about having a child with SUD. The reasons vary, but shame often stems from the belief that it’s somehow their fault. Then there’s the stigma surrounding SUD. Let’s be clear: some people do judge parents who have a child with SUD—family members, church members, coworkers, school staff, and others.
6. Confusion and lack of knowledge
It’s not always clear where the line is between SUD and other mental health issues. It can be confusing. Especially when they’re younger, it’s hard to know what’s experimentation and what’s escalation. *Will this resolve on its own as they get older? Or is this something bigger?*
7. Attachment and love
It’s hard to believe that someone you love so deeply can do such terrible things. It’s painful to attach words like “addiction,” “lying,” and “stealing” to a person you don’t see that way. You tell yourself, *They just wouldn’t do that.* There’s a tendency to blame others around them for the behaviors you’re seeing because it’s too hard to accept that this might be the same person you raised.
8. Gradual change (the “boiling frog” effect)
The change is often so gradual you barely notice how bad things have gotten. Maybe it started with a little lying, a little stealing—nothing too major—and it just slowly got worse. Then something big happens, and you look back and finally see all the shifts along the way.
9. Conflict avoidance
You start to feel like you’re walking on eggshells because every time you bring something up, it turns into a fight that goes nowhere. So you begin to avoid anything you know will lead to another argument.
10. Feeling powerless
Maybe you are clear about what’s happening, but you don’t know what to do to change it. Maybe you’ve tried everything you can think of and have no other ideas. It starts to feel like, *This is it. This is how it’s going to be, and it will stay like this until one of us dies.*
You may have experienced all ten of these, but which one resonates the most with you? Is there one that stands out as something you feel all the time?
When we love someone with SUD, it can be incredibly hard to face the “fear” word. In my work, the people who do the best are the ones who reach the point where they’re ready to talk about the hard things. The next few chapters will focus on facing these fears. We want to name them. If we can’t name the fear, we can’t talk about it—and we just end up living inside it.
So let’s talk about them. The next few chapters will be about some of the most common fears you might be facing. It won’t be every fear, but it will be a lot of them. This will help you begin to be able to recognize the different kinds of fears you are facing. If we can categorize them, talk about them, and face them, it can help alleviate some of the burden.
