INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — It is often said that when someone becomes addicted to opioids, their whole family is addicted.
If you ask anyone who has had an addicted loved one, they will tell you that it's true. The scourge affects families in a big way — loved ones struggle to try to fix the problem. It can be frustrating, especially when friends and family members feel alone when trying to deal with it. But one group is trying to change that.
Parents of Addicted Loved Ones, or PAL, offers hope with the simple tag line" "you are not alone." They offer services in 25 states designed to support the parents of addicted loved ones.
Cindy Held felt alone five years ago when her all-American son got hooked on opioids. He was working his way through college when he got injured in a construction accident. He began an addiction that eventually led him to heroin. A judge sentenced him to prison after he pleaded guilty to trying to sell stolen jewelry to get enough money for his next fix.
Cindy wanted to fix the problem, and her search for support led her to the PAL chapter operating out of a small 160-year-old church in rural Hendricks County. "I thought I was going to walk in and they were going to give me this piece of paper with 13 answers on how to save my son," she said "And little did I know that it's a family disease, and I needed to be saved first."
She began making weekly trips to PAL meetings in Avon — driving nearly an hour from her home in Hamilton County. She explains it this way: "When you're willing to search and save your own child there isn't a place far enough that you won't go to."
While she didn't find easy answers in Avon, she did find support from others going through similar struggles. PAL was started by a drug counselor in Arizona, but two parishioners at White Lick Presbyterian Church brought the concept to Indiana. The Indiana location is the first PAL affiliate to operate outside of Arizona.
Diane's son got hooked on drugs after he got injured playing high school football. After years of trying to help, she turned to PAL, where she learned that her first responsibility is to take care of herself. She compared the experience to flying on an airplane as she quoted PAL founder Michael Speakman: "So you're on an airplane and when the stewardess talks about the oxygen mask ... who's the first person to put it on? You! Because without that air you can't help anyone around you."
It can be a hard concept for people in the midst of the addiction battle to grasp, but Indiana PAL affiliate co-founder Jeannette says no one can save an addict from themselves. That healing has to come from them. "We cannot help them," Jeannette said. "That is the hardest thing to understand. That we cannot fix the problem and, whether they never recover, or whether they recover the next day, it's not because of us fixing it."
So many people have been affected by addiction, that you might think the stigma of talking about it is over, but that is not necessarily true. Few people want to admit that they have loved ones struggling to overcome addictions. Some who come to PAL meetings don't use their real names as a way to protect their family's privacy.
At first, PAL meetings in Indiana were sparsely attended. Some Thursday nights, no one showed up. But five years in, that's not the case anymore. Meeting attendance usually ranges anywhere from 5 to 35 people and they always follow the same agenda. It starts with a education session, either from a speaker or consideration of one of the principles of living someone with an addiction. The second half of the meeting is the "check-in," where members can open up about their struggles. It is non-confrontational and nonjudgmental. Attendees get support rather than pity. The people here understand.
As the addiction crisis has grown in the US, so has attendance at PAL meetings. The group now operates at least 72 meeting sites in 25 states. More are on the way. And if you live in a place where you can't get to one, there's a weekly conference call. You can find out more about the organization and what kind of support it can offer you at www.palgropup.org.