How Multi-Generational Stress is Passed On

Besides alcohol is legal and readily available.

 

My father, brother, and stepfather were all alcoholics. I learned from that not to become one,
so I always have been a very moderate drinker. I don't believe alcoholism is inherited. I think it is choice.

I think a lot of young people start drinking because their friends think it's cool. It isn't cool. It's stupid.
Same with young people who take drugs. They're hanging around with the wrong friends who are not
really friends, they're enemies.

 

Monkey see, monkey do.

 

Right, Bruce. A friend's high school age son got in with a bunch of guys at school who introduced
him to pot and that led to heavier stuff. It developed into about two years of bad habits but he
finally left the group and got well and now is married, teaching in a college, and soon will be a father.
But it took changing the crowd he was in.

And the school was the best in the area, with kids from wealthy families.
They must not have gotten love.

 

The gateway drug to heroin and cocaine use is not cannabis, but rather nicotine. The first mind altering drug young people encounter in junior high and high school is tobacco. Almost all heroin addicts are hooked on cigarettes because nicotine is one of the most addictive drugs, even more addictive than heroine. But to become addicted to cigarettes one must first have an addictive personality type, which is largely determined by early childhood trauma and ADHA ( attention deficit hyper-activity) disorder, which can manifest as all kinds of obsessive personality disorders: problem drinking, problem gambling, compulsive video gaming, kleptomania, workoholism, and consumerism. Then, of course, there is the problem of a whole society addicted to the consumption of fossil fuels, which is ultimately self-destructive on a massive scale. I have at least $100 grand worth of good booze downstairs in my late father's bar. 6 months ago I went down and had a snifter of 100 year old Napoleon brandy with my GF. Haven't touched it since and don't feel inclined to. Didn't much like watching my father and his crony's get shi_t faced. That's what they call negative reinforcement. But I don't have ADHA, at least not directed in the direction of alcohol consumption and I'm not surrounded by a drinking culture that glorified drinking as a masculine virtue. Of course, I don't really need to make a choice against alcohol because I don't like the way it makes me feel anyway. I guess that's not a real moral choice because I don't feel tempted.

 

Both my parents smoked and neither were heroin addicts. They lived relatively long lives and had no lung problems, my Mom didn't drink heavily but did have an affinity for Vicks Formula 44, but we all have our vices. Smoking cigs doesn't impair your thinking processes anywhere near as much as pot or cause psychotic reactions like cosmic paranoia that may last for days or weeks. I believe pot IS the entry drug to stronger drugs and NOT nicotine. I've known many upstanding productive citizens who smoked cigarettes, including my parents, I can't say the same for pot-heads, and I inhaled and I also foolishly dabbled in sales in my stupid experimental college years, but stopped when I saw what it lead to with my peers.

 

Yes, a bunch of idiots who do nothing but buy, sell and consume cannabis products all day and all night every day gets to be a pretty boring scene after a while. You realize they're stuck in a self-perpetuating palimpsest loop leading nowhere in particular. It's like a strategy for remaining an adolescent forever. However, I find being around people who smoke cigarettes even more repulsive. I can hang out for an afternoon with pot heads, but if I catch one whiff of tobacco smoke I move a thousand miles away instantly. I feel I'm in the company of real low-lifes if they use tobacco products. Of course, my parents quit smoking at the time of the surgeon general's report in 1964, so I wasn't forced to put up with it in the home. I've never known anyone addicted to cigarettes who didn't have some form of ADHA-based behavior, so there has to be some mind altering characteristics associated with nicotine. I didn't say that everyone who smokes cigarettes becomes addicted to heroin, rather nearly all heroin addicts are compulsively addicted to nicotine.

 

I had an issue with alcohol from 15 till 23. I just was a young rebel and drinking was what was cool with all my friends. I do often wonder why I went on that slippery slope. My mom never touched a drop of alcohol although she did smoke and my Dad never drank. My uncle was the only person I ever saw drink when I was a kid and I thought it was cool. I don't really know why I thought it was cool but I did. I can't stomach a drink now and I still wish I never would have drink then because I think of the years I wasted although I studied hard and worked harder through all those years.

I know family's that always have the kid that goes on and doesn't mimic the other members but most of the families do seem to take after each other in lots of ways from mannerisms to finance problems. I see it all through my family of 5 sisters and two brothers. It is a fascinating article but I think a good percentage just fall victim to society and influence if they do break free.

 

When you're 15 to 23 you're going through late adolescence and that's when a lot of family dislocations occur as you try to define a new identity apart from your old dependent childhood role. That's when a lot of peer parenting occurs in late adolescent boys gangs the members of which are all very confused about their own roles and identities. They're constantly tearing into each other and stinging each other to the core. Not the best roles models to base your life choices on for sure. That's when I did some binge drinking, not surprisingly when I got away from home and my parents' influence for the first time. But the hangovers taught me that that wasn't a life path I wanted to follow. Sometimes even idiot kids learn from their mistakes if it doesn't kill them in the process. Besides I understood my parents had set some very high standards and goals for me. I think that it's when parents give up on parenting though that their kids lapse into really bad habits learned through bad companions.

 

Bruce, you're spot on about ADHD and addictive behaviors. My oldest has ADHD and I've spoken in depth with him about the addictive tendencies which come with that deal.

I speak and write on ADHD so I've met lots of parents dealing with this and yeah….I see this first hand more than I care to count. My brother self medicated his ADHD with pot starting in middle school. His was a sad and short life due to his addictions.

I'm beyond grateful that my oldest isn't the least bit interested in smoking or drinking. He has thrown him self into a very conservative religion so even though I'm not fond of religious environments per se, I'm glad he's in with a good group of people who value sobriety and a good work ethic.

 

I rented an apartment to two college guys and they said they wanted me to smoke marijuana with them.
I reluctantly agreed to take two puffs, not inhaling. It did nothing at all for or to me, and I never tried it again.

I probably didn't smoke it long enough but had no interest in it. I never smoked cigarettes much
because I had hay fever and that aggravated it. Then I lost interest in cigarettes and haven't smoked anything.

I'm pretty boring, aren't I!

 

Just goes to show how all addictive behaviors are in fact learned and conditioned behaviors (much like TMS in fact).

 

Thanks BruceMC. You have a very good thought line on all your studies. I appreciate your answer.
Your are a great person to get good information from. You do your work. Thanks again pal.
Awesome --

 

Walt your just a good person that didn't find interest in those things. Really smart way to do things.

 

Odd, isn't how compulsive pot smoking and conservative religion/politics are two sides of the same ADHA coin, two responses to the same set of psychological conditions, North Star? Makes me think about that NYT article on how multi-generational trauma is perhaps "softwired" onto the DNA of mothers who've undergone stress in their early childhoods. And haven't all mothers in the 20th century been subjected to inordinate amounts of stress since WWI, WWII, and the Cold War?

One thing I have noticed about adolescents who get absorbed into compulsive pot culture is that they all have tendencies toward ADHA: compulsive video gaming, compulsive viewing of pornography, compulsive problem gambling, compulsive web surfing, compulsive junk food consumption, compulsive viewing of sporting events, compulsive ho'ing, indeed, compulsive everything! And once they get older, have children, and assume more adult responsibilities, they turn to conservative politics and ultra conservative religious beliefs and so-called pro-family groups. Do I detect a pattern here? It's as if both lifestyles are two ways of dealing with the same underlying problem.

I just think that American consumer culture is bent on destroying any sense of history in the consuming public. A knowledge of what's gone on in the 19th and 20th century would give the American public a little more perspective on their situations so they wouldn't fall into such extremes. Yes, kiddies, sometimes you really do have to think and behave like adults!

It does seem today that among the Millennial Generation - now that cannabis is essentially legal where I live - that the kids have learned something from what went on earlier in the 60s and 70s. They don't seem to indulge compulsively the way the previous generation did. Today, I think they realize they better crack the books and go to college if they want to live adult lives in the modern world where if you don't have an BSEE, an MD, a Law Degree, a CPA, an MBA or a degree in bioscience, you're not going to live a middle class life style. Today you have to get serious or wind up living at the bottom with the growing masses of the terminally poor. I think they know in their bones that with a shrinking middle class mommy and daddy are not going to take care of them forever so they better get serious about the business of life.

 

Bruce, you're writing about my older brother. haha.
He was a teenage rebel, skipped high school many days, went to movies instead,
and ran away from home several times. He joined the navy at age 16 after my folks
reluctantly gave him their permission, since he said he'd just run away again.

Four years in the navy (he volunteered while WW2 was still going on), and
became in charge of a small ship's laundry, serving in the Pacific.

He came back so changed and grown up, he married right away and soon became
father of four children and held a steady job as an accountant.

Our father had drunk a lot, and so did my brother, and my brother also inherited
my father's love of gambling. My brother also smoked cigarettes a lot.

I think one side of my brother remained a rebel but he repressed it
and it gave him TMS. He died four years ago with one lung and his doctor
said the remaining one was the worst he had ever seen.

Shortly before he died, my brother told me, "It was fun while it lasted."

I loved him but was seldom sure if he even liked me, except when he beat me at golf,
which was always.

 

I just think society today is a lot less forgiving of people who adopt alcoholic near-do-well life styles than it was to a white WWII combat vet. Another example, Walt! My uncle who married my mother's sister right after WWII was a sailor who'd had a couple of torpedoes hurled at him by the Japanese out in the Pacific. He was lazy, an alcoholic and a womanizer, but he did have the GI Bill so he could easily buy a house essentially for free (no money down, 6-months to the first payment, 0% interest). He worked in a little print shop and came home every evening and went blotto on wine. On the weekends, he'd get drunk and watch the boxing matches and scream and yell at the black & white TV. He never could finish anything. He'd try to rebuild an engine, work on it feverishly for a few weeks, then go back to the bottle and watching boxing matches (he'd been a fighter in the US Navy). The engine would sit in the front yard rusting away along with a slew of other abandoned projects. Well, back then, thanks to his WWII combat status, that sort of behavior was tolerated and he could keep a job and prosper even in a dilapidated sort of way.

Try living that way today. You'd get fired in a hot 15 minutes for not keeping up with the competition when you came in every morning with a hangover. Of course, my late cousin imitated his father and wound up dying of malnutrition due to alcoholism when my aunt died and my cousin no longer had anyone to hand him money and make one good meal a day. My cousin didn't need bad companions to imitate when he already had my uncle as a role model. And, not surprisingly, his drug of choice was the same as my uncle's - cheap wine. That's not to say he wouldn't take anything that was around in his immediate bar fly, truck driver environment, but what killed him was booze. My point is that neither my uncle nor my cousin could survive today in a modern company where you're supposed to be cranking on your PC (and producing something that makes money) 10 hours a day. If they had been wired to a hello phone and asked to work at home all hours, there's no way they'd make the grade. The Millennial Kids I run into today at the climbing gym are all workers who don't really like what they call "down time". They all seem to be taking classes in engineering or biochemistry at Cal Poly or UC Davis. I think in a declining economy with a shrinking middle class they know in their bones they can't go the way of the flower power people and party all the time and "chill out". They know about pot and may even use it occasionally, but not with the same obsessive-compulsive frenzy as the 60s-70s generation. One thing I notice is that you don't see groups of down-and-out teenagers clustered in front of liquor stores and super markets asking you to go in and buy beer or liquor for them. That's refreshing!

Perhaps, some multi-generational learning has taken place? Let's hope so.

 

Yep…all or nothing for much of today's kids. Interesting perspective on kids. I would imagine those kids at the climbing wall are pretty motivated. Here in rural Montana, not so much. (Montana has the dubious distinction of being #1 for drunk driving and and near, if not at the top for teen suicides.)

I think culturally things are changing a lot for kids and they're caught in the cross fire as we shift from an industrial based economy (stable factory type jobs) to a connection economy. The college degree doesn't open the doors it once did and now these kids are graduating with six figure student loan debt. Yowsers! (We've experienced this first hand as my CPA husband got downsized out of three "stable" jobs in a period of 1 1/2 years. We're building our own practice now…and are going to start raising some game birds, too. )

From pontificating flower children to driven workaholism…the pendulum swings back and forth.

And hopefully, we as a nation, will learn to listen to the cautionary type tales you gentlemen have written.

 

I hated working for a big corporation 40 years ago and quit to become a freelance writer and am still at it.
I love being a freelance writer of magazine articles and many books. I don't make big money
but I'm 84 and happy and healthy.

If I had teenagers today (I never married nor had children), I'd encourage them to learn a trade...
electronics, plumbing, etc. and go into business for themselves. If they're creative, they can be creative
evenings and weekends to keep their spirits up. But they can make a decent living and raise a family
by being a self-employed tradesperson.

 

A computer science degree from Stanford U. retails for between $190-210 thousand per annum today. The Lord only knows what a PhD in biochemical engineering will get you. However, everyone I know with a CS degree winds up burning out after five years and refuses to go back. They mostly get into sailing or cross-country running. Working in bioscience at the high end has more staying power. But doing underseas salvage and demolition work sounds like a lot more fun and potentially much more lucrative for a single guy roaming around the world. Trust your intuition. Every time I've worked in-house for a big corporation, it's been too high of a price to pay in stress and aggravation. No wonder there's so much TMS!