I realize how lucky I have been...
 

Reading MrsDragon's posts, gave me a trip down memory lane.

I struggled on my own with my son's addiction for 10 hard years.

During that time, I was a typical enabler. I made excuses, blamed myself, tried to get my son to stop with threats and bribes. I tried to find reasons for his addiction. I tried to give him a life by employing him in my business, putting up with an increasingly unmotivated son. I always thought if I could just find the right words I would get through to him. For a long time I believed all my son needed was to receive unconditional love from me.

Nothing worked. It was 10 years of hell.

I guess if I found this forum after a year or two, very little you said would have gotten through to me. I was still at a stage where I believed my son wasn't so bad, he was a good person (which he is) and we would get through it within the next month or two. How innocent I was!

Fast forward 10 years later and I had an epiphany. It finally dawned on me how not a single act of mine for the last 10 years made my son any better. Not a single act. I remember saying to my son that I couldn't be his safety net any more, I just didn't have the energy.

I remember one final desperate act where I went on my knees before him, sobbing, begging him to go for treatment. I remember saying to him that I was willing to lose my house to pay for his treatment if that would mean he would get healthy. I remember watching him leave home with my heart shattered into many pieces.

Underneath all of this, my new found understanding of how big my part was in my son's downward spiral was getting clearer and clearer. Even though I didn't know the term enabling, its meaning made itself understood. This was the exact time when I found this forum. When people told me I didn't cause it, couldn't cure it, they were echoing my own hard-earned enligtenment.

I have been through the denial, anger and whatever other stages this horrible disease makes us go through and I was ripe for acceptance. I have come to accept just how bad my son's addiction was and that my denial wasn't doing him any favours.

Part of me do wander how different my life would have been if I found the forum earlier and I paid attention to what the people who hace been through this shared with me. I may not have been able to save my AS, but I would have had a better life, as would have my younger son. Even though I am a stubborn person, I do think it would have made the light-bulb moment come a lot faster.

Thanks to every single person on this forum who took the time to support me. I needed to hear it all, the kind and the harsh words. Thanks to you I have peace.

hindsight is a wonderful thing. i think as parents we all want to think we can fix whatever booboo our child has made with a hug, kiss, and our unconditional love.