Dr. Sarah Wakeman
speaker
484 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Sarah Wakeman’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Yep.
Yeah, I think you feel powerless. You feel like you want to do something and you either don't know what to do or feel like everything you've tried hasn't worked. I think, again, because people have been exposed to this idea that it's an issue of willpower or choice, which really implies that if people wanted it bad enough, they could just stop.
And so if you're a family member, then that's easy to feel like, oh, they don't love me enough, you know, that they're not choosing me over this substance. And so I think often people feel deeply hurt and they've, you know, been through experiences that have created trauma for themselves. There's a lot of trauma within families who are experiencing this.
And then they're sometimes given really bad advice, you know, that you have to like kick someone out or this whole concept of kind of tough love and that people need to hit bottom, you And so sometimes people, you know, either do that and then wrestle with the guilt of was that the right thing or not, or they feel bad even like being kind or loving to their family member.
So I think there's a whole mix of feelings. And of course, if you lose someone, you always wonder what if, like, could I have done something differently? Could something else have changed? And I think people can feel angry and sad and guilty and be left with that.
I think they needed science-based treatment and compassion and empathy. And I think they needed a world where addiction was not seen as something to be ashamed of or something that we judge, but rather something that is a problem. You know, the shift from, like, you are the problem to, like, you have a problem and we can help you with this.
And I think too often we have approached it as if, like, you the person are the problem.
Absolutely. I mean, I think about that all the time. And I think of a friend, I lost overdose. I think of the family member, I lost alcohol.
And not only things that I could have done differently, but also those people, they saw their doctor, they were in the hospital, they had all these touch points, all of these reachable moments where someone could have engaged with them and offered them kindness and actual effective care that's backed by science, and they weren't. And
So there are all of these like missed moments and missed opportunities. But the other thing I think about is like how much time I lost with them because I think often in this model of like tough love and kicking people out or thinking like I'm not going to see you until you stop using or stop drinking because I think that's going to help make them make that change.
You lose out on like all of these moments of time with people that you love and you can't get those back. And so there is this problem sometimes.
I think in that binary model of like you're either like sober and in recovery or you're actively using and this is good and that is bad is that we lose the fact that like people who are struggling with addiction are amazing, funny, loving people who have a problem that they're dealing with. But if someone was dealing with cancer, you wouldn't like not want to spend time with them.
You know, you miss all of that time. And, you know, both cases that I'm thinking about, like I'll never get that back, you know.
I think that there are those times, for sure. It's not to discount that, and I hear those stories too. But I think there are, from evidence, what we know, there are probably more times where people just endure the pain again and again and again until they never change. And I think the part that we don't see are the folks who change happens when they're
They begin to get enough hope that things could be better for them, that someone loves them, someone cares enough that they're reaching out a hand in the darkness, that there actually is a path forward. I think people stay stuck when they feel hopeless, when they feel like nothing could ever – that they're never going to get this. They're never going to be able to change.
Their life would never get better. And so – You know, take the example, I'll often hear from family members when their loved one is in jail that they're like, thank heavens, you know, they're in a safe place at least. Like there's actually this sense of relief. There's even a term for it called a rescued that people feel. I think it just goes to the desperation that families are dealing with.
But this idea that like that's a safe intervention. And you hear these stories, right, of someone who they get locked up and like that's their eureka moment.
And yet, if imprisonment were an effective intervention for addiction, for example, we wouldn't see that actually the time after getting released from prison, there's 130 times increased risk of dying from a drug-related cause after people leave prison. And that your risk of dying ever from addiction is much, much higher if you've ever been imprisoned.
And so I think there are those stories, but we tend to elevate those like amazing narratives. And we miss the fact that so many other people are going to die in pain and alone and isolated because they have no hope. And so it's not to discount those moments. And some people are incredibly resilient and against all odds, even with the most trauma, they can, you know, make it through.
And that's incredible. But that doesn't mean that we should like create a system that makes it as hard as possible on people.
Showing 61–80 of 484 · page 4 of 25
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