My biggest dream it to make it stop here and now! I don't dare think about years from now and still acting the way I do now... I don't ever want' to be with another addict again!!! I have lived this way for too long!
The good news is that we CAN stop the cycle of Codependency. It begins with us understanding how we became this way and learning a new way of thinking, behaving and learning to take very good care of ourselves.
I grew up in a home where there were no drugs or alcohol. Substance abuse had no part or influence in my life. But as loving as my home was, emotions were not expressed, nobody talked about their feelings or problems. My father died when I was 6, my mother was almost murdered a year later (freak thing, crazy person got in our house), and I was sexually abused by a babysitter around the same time. My mother, doing the best she knew how, felt that if we didn't talk about the sadness, the fear and the abuse that it would be forgotten. It was never forgotten by me, just internalized and stuffed very deep and only through recovery was I able to bring these issues out and deal with them in a healthy manner.
We can't change the past, but we can examine it and learn from it and recognize the profound affect it had on us. Through recovery we can look at th pain and walk through it and then leave it in a safe place where we don't have to revisit it again.
We can't predict the future, it's just not ours to know.
We can live in today, wiser because of the lessons of the past and protect ourselves with coping tools to handle whatever the future brings.
Good for you for seeing this and making a decision that it will stop today, that the cycle will end with you. It will take work but the person you become through recovery will be a shining example for your children and all who know you. I hope your mother reads that book. Maybe invite her to a meeting so she can see that she is not alone and that she too can learn to deal with what life has brought her. That choice will be hers, but I believe that you have shown her a window through which she can see more clearly.
Prayers for all of you. It isn't pretty what codependency can do, but there is hope for a brighter day today and for healing and lessons that will help you forever.
Hugs