heroin babies

“Heroin babies” is a term I heard often when I was working in residential treatment. The younger adults, generally in their early twenties who would come in as heroin addicts.
There were some things that I noticed among this group of addicts that I hadn’t noticed in other young addicts, who used other types of drugs or alcohol – I have no idea why or what it means about these young “heroin babies”, these are simply things that stuck out in my mind.
There was almost always a real need/desire/want of these addicts for a closeness to mom, and once in a while it was a grandmother. It appeared to me as an immature relationship with mom. Both male and female addicts displayed this immaturity in the relationships they held with their moms. Not the type of adult relationship that I would expect from a twenty year old with their parents. I noticed often times these “heroin babies” would refer to their mothers as “mommy”, it was quite unsettling to me in the begining.
Another common thing among the “heroin babies”, was an uncanny intelligence in many areas, such as history, language, arts, etc… Intelligence high enough that it is easily noticeable and stood out from the IQ levels of other addict groups.
Yet an emotional immaturity that stood out as well. When a stressful event happens, there is much difficulty for the “heroin babies” in handling such events in a mature and positive manner that would promote forward growth. “Heroin babies” from what I witnessed tended to run away, and personalize outside events.
Extremes are always seen in the world of addiction. We always see addicts who have been so low, they could care less if their teeth were brushed in the past week or not, and the flip side where they need to brush their teeth six times a day. They have been notorious in surviving on no income, yet they desire and have the ability to earn very good incomes, often above average incomes.
This may be a little more noticable in the “heroin baby” category. When you stop to realize many have an addiction that costs them 200.00 to 400.00 dollars a day! Yeah a lot of creative resourcefulness goes into in funding a “heroin babies” addiction.
I personally did not notice a common thread with father involvement among the group of “heroin babies” being anything different from any other gorup of addicts. Some have their fathers involvement some did not. Some had fathers who were overly involved, some had fathers who were not known. Some had fathers step into a mothering role, once the mothers had become so distraught, they were no longer available emotionally for their children.
What can be useful in treatment for our “heroin babies” is really the thought I have in writing this post. From what I witnessed, what can I draw in and offer that can be useful and promote a positive life experience for the group of addicts who fit into the “heroin babies” category?
Traditional treatment for the most part sort of begins as a dumbed down series of simplistic thought, whereas our “heroin babies” might do much better with more intellectual groups where they are challenged and become curious enough to engage in treatment. Stimulate the IQ these “heroin babies” are gifted with.
The second part of treatment would in my humble opinion be worthy of working on emotional intelligence, and inner concepts of self. I believe our “heroin addicts” would achieve greater positive results in their lives by growing up emotionally and learning better ways of dealing with life stresses, events and situations.