By Dylan Reubenking
dylan@yelmonline.com
When Roy resident James Baumann’s son was attacked by a dog, he became addicted to OxyContin. That was when Baumann noticed a lack of resources for parents searching for help.
He started a support group called Christian Parent Partner Recovery, a group specifically designed to help parents with children of any age who were addicted to substances. Baumann passed along his knowledge from his work as a clergyman and a counselor, as well as his involvement in motorcycle and prison ministries.
After receiving positive feedback from parents in the group, he learned that there was a demand for books to help parents with addicted children. Baumann decided to write a three-book series called “Hope for Parents with Addicted Loved Ones,” and the first volume, subtitled “Discovery Through Immediate Response,” is available now on Barnes & Noble, Google, Kobo and Spark.
“Some of the people that had found it very helpful came up to me and said, ‘Don’t just let this sit. Expand the scope.’ They had a vision that I didn’t,” Baumann said of the support group.
The books are composed of notes from his small-group sessions and research from around the nation. The first book includes a message of hope rather than the typical negative aspects of addiction that Baumann called the “doom and gloom.”
“The main thing is it’s got a message of hope. Generally, everything we hear about with addiction is doom and gloom about how it’s a lifelong disease. The book tells parents that they’re not alone in this,” he said.
The focus of the first book, which was released on June 22, is how parents can help their addicted children themselves, as well as outside treatment options. Baumann said his goal was to help parents understand the impacts of addiction through biological, psychological, sociological, spiritual and holistic lenses.
“I’m a pastor and a chaplain. I’m not trying to become rich or famous or anything. My prayer is that this brings hope, peace and love to hurting parents around the world,” he said. “That’s my goal for this. It is so important to be able to stem some of that pain.”
While Baumann is a pastor and a chaplain, he noted that the objective of his books is to bring hope regardless of the reader’s faith. He added that Christianity informs his worldview, and he briefly explains how parents can turn to God for help and which Bible scriptures have helped parents with addicted loved ones.
“I know some people may think that, ‘Oh, this guy’s a pastor and a chaplain. He’s going to preach at me until my eyes roll into the back of my head, and then he’s going to beat me with the Bible until they roll forward again,’” Baumann said. “Out of the 26 chapters in volume one, I think there’s about four chapters that actually talked about God. People have questions like, ‘if there is a God, where is he in this and why can’t he just heal my child?’ If those are the main questions, I have to be able to speak about God in order to answer those questions.”
The second volume of the book series will pick up where the first volume leaves off and dive into how addiction affects the rest of the family. Baumann includes self-healing techniques. The third and final book looks into the future and assesses how the family can be restored once self-healing is done and boundaries are established.
The manuscript for volume two is complete and will likely be released in about a year, with the third book following the next year.
Baumann said he hopes that the books will act as a helpful resource for parents with addicted children and can help advance the way society views the parent’s role in their child’s addiction.
“In my experience back in the early 2000s, the parent was seen as the enemy and the cause of the addiction. I think there’s still a lot of that around,” he said. “The constant ‘blame the parents’ mantra has been so deeply ingrained within society that we’re not able to let go of that. But now, we’re beginning to see more of a shift within rehab medicine to parents as both allies and co-victims of addiction. Within addictions medicine, I think it’s beginning to change. But society is at least 20 or 30 years behind.”
To learn more about Baumann and “Hope for Parents with Addicted Loved Ones,” visit his website at https://jamesdbaumann.com/index.php.
