Chino

I'm somewhere in the middle. I watched my dad keep my stepmother sober for 20 years. Now that he is gone she constantly fights for sobriety. She's come close to losing her life a few times in the last couple of years, but when he was alive? She was always sober. It was definitely controlling and co-dependent but it worked.

My daughter is a recovering addict and I finally stopped trying to control her a few months ago. I don't practice tough love with her, I practice it with myself. Everything I do now is based on what will work for me, what I can live with.

My mother is a substance abuse case manager at a homeless shelter. Almost all of her clients have dual diagnosis and been in and out of prison. She always says it keeps them alive but many of them come out worse than when they went in. Something might have been treatable before but not any longer. She told me it keeps society safer but not the inmate with severe mental illness.

Having seen a few different sides to the equation, I am in the middle somewhere. If it's my daughter I'm going to try and find a solution that causes the least amount of harm to her, myself, and society, if such a solution exists and I have a choice.