Kindeyes

I am always so moved by parents who have addicted offspring. I'm using the term offspring because, in your case and my own, they are not children anymore. They are adults. That is an extremely important distinction.

Love can cause us to do some extraordinary things. It took me a while to determine that some of those things I did were actually having the exact opposite affect than what I wanted. I was desperately trying to impose MY will on my addicted son. I was desperately trying to force MY dreams for him down his throat. And I was doing everything I thought a "good" mother would do to get him to see what he was doing to himself. I was making myself crazy. My life (if you could call it that) was out of control. I didn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't BREATHE without being consumed by my fears for my son. Does any of this sound familiar?

Just like the addict, I had to reach a bottom. A point where I was so miserable that I could barely function.

God has always taken care of me.....even when I thought that God was a myth. My bottom happened while I was in the hospital. I was in for yet another intestinal infection. I had already lost 1/2 of my large intestine.....my worry was literally eating me up from the inside out. While lying in that hospital bed, I had a total meltdown. I was where I needed to be when it happened. I think God knew that if I had been anywhere else, I would have killed myself.

I knew I needed help......as much or more than my son needed help. He was numbed by drugs....while I was trying to cope with his addiction stone, cold sober. I had gone to meetings (Al-Anon) from time to time but didn't go regularly. Quite honestly.....I didn't "get it". After my meltdown, I decided that I was going to do what people had been telling me I needed to do all along...I was going to work the program that I wish my son would work. I was going to lead by example. I began going to Nar-Anon meetings regularly and joined a step study group. I eventually got a sponsor. I read and prayed daily. I did a gratitude exercise for two months daily. I really worked it.

It took a while....but I started to feel better. Better than I have ever felt in my life. I was discovering the serenity that people talked about.....and it felt good.

I watched as my son lost everything. EVERYTHING. His son. All of his possessions--he pawned, traded for drugs, or they were stolen. He was homeless and unemployed. And I did my fair share of rescuing as he made his descent. But as I learned more about detachment with love, taking care of myself first, and allowing my son to reach his bottom......I did better. I allowed my son the dignity to learn his own life lessons and it was HARD as hell to watch him lose everything. But I stuck to MY program of recovery to the best of my ability.

I made changes. Those changes were for me and for the other people in my life who loved me. There is no doubt that if I had stayed on my path of enabling my son, one of us (or both) would be dead. All of these things happened over the course of 15 years......starting when my son was in high school. He is now 31.

Currently.....my son is in recovery (this is a recent turn of events). I am able to live in today and thank God that he is sober today. Do I think I played a role in it? I don't know. Will he stay sober? I don't know. But what I do know is that I got my life back for ME.

We have choices.....just like the addict. We can wrestle with the devil or we can turn that fight over to a Higher Power.

For me.......working the program I wished my son would work....worked.

gentle hugs
ke