“Addiction is like a chain reaction. It is a disease which affects the addict as well as the family members, friends and co-workers. We try to control, cover up, and take on the responsibilities of the addict. The sickness spreads to those of us who care the most. Eventually, we begin to feel used and unhappy. We worry, lose trust and become angry. The addict blames us and we feel guilty. If only something or someone would change!
When we discover Nar-Anon, we find others with the same feelings and problems. We learn we cannot control the addict or change him. We have become so addicted to the addict that it is difficult to shift the focus back to ourselves. We find that we must let go and turn to faith in a Higher Power. By working the steps, following the traditions and using the tools of the program, we begin, with the love and help of our Higher Power and others, to change ourselves.
As we reach out for help, we become ready to reach out a helping hand and heart to those in need of Nar-Anon. We understand. We do recover. Slowly, new persons emerge. Change is taking place.”
Though I have changed and grown through my work in the program, I. of course, still love my daughter and am available to help her if she reaches out to me for help. The difference is that I’m a healthier person now and am able to make the tough choices I couldn’t make years ago. I pray she finds the strength to come back to her family. We can’t get back the lost years, but I still have hope, like the warm sun shining on my face, and keeping my love strong.
“Praise and an attitude of gratitude are unbeatable stimulators…we increase whatever we extol.” ~Sylvia Stitt Edwards
Our attitude in regard to any situation attracting our attention influences the outcome. Sometimes to our favor, often to our disfavor if our attitude is negative.
Thankfulness toward life guarantees the rewards we desire, the rewards we seek too often from an ungrateful stance. The feeling of gratitude is foreign to many of us. We came to this program feeling worthless, sometimes rejected, frequently depressed. It seemed life had heaped problems in our laps, and so it had. The more we lamented what life “gave us,” the more reasons we were given to lament. We got just what we expected. We still get just what we expect. The difference is that the program has offered us the key to higher expectations. Gratitude for the good in our lives increases the good…”
It’s hard for me to improve upon these words. Except to say that my daughter is still lost to me after 22 years in the world of drugs and all that it accompanies. As she has gone deeper into the weeds of that life, my grief over losing her has transformed itself into a better place, a place that works for me. (read a great Al-Anon book, Opening Our Hearts, Transforming Our Losses, for sale on Amazon).
When my nightmare began all those years ago, I was incredulous that this was happening to my daughter, as though she were any different from all the vulnerable young people out there. She wasn’t and still isn’t. The more I fought to save her, the more my own health and well-being deteriorated. After several years of doing everything I could think of (much of it misguided help), I finally got the message that I was powerless over her disease. And that’s when I started to turn toward the light.
The miracle of all the 12-step programs is assuring us that we have the power to change. I’m only as miserable as I make up my mind to be. In the beginning, I blamed all that misery on my daughter’s poor choices, of course, feeling more victimized than ever. But when I gave up that martyred attitude, and took back my own power, my life started to work better for me. I never stopped loving her and praying for her. But I have two other children, grandchildren, a loving partner… and the list goes on.
Every morning when I wake up, where should I put my focus? Should I fall back into bed and immerse myself in a mother’s endless grief? God knows I’ve wanted to often enough. Or should I focus on those kids and grandkids who need me now?
I think we, who are willing to be in this room and undergo personal change, are brave souls.
When I joined Al-Anon, I was in my Fifties, and anxious to save another person I loved. But oh what a joy it’s been to let go of that obsession, which was becoming so shrill and counterproductive.
I was relieved to turn the focus back on myself and learn that my faulty attitudes were the source of my pain, not the people around me.
Regarding the amends steps, it’s possible to overuse them, just as we might exaggerate our negative defects in the 4th step. I’ve done both! That’s why it’s so important to understand the purpose of amends: reaching personal freedom.
These are intended to be hopeful steps, not self-flagellation. Making this list and then acting on it is just another way to weed our garden. My husband’s always reminding me to weed close to what we’re growing, so that nothing interferes with the growth of the plant.
Making amends is not always pretty, and rather than freedom I sometimes look for forgiveness and closure. With my daughter, Annie, she threw them right back in my face. So I knew I was on the wrong track to expect absolution from her, and my sponsor helped me appreciate my efforts and then let them go.
My real reward has been surviving that loss without the need to punish myself for it. Truth is, I’m really not that important! Things happen in life, and it’s not always my fault.
Ironic, isn’t it, that you have become my teacher and not the other way around—teacher of life, teacher of love, and beacon of surrender.
I’m so grateful that you were born, even though at times I’ve felt otherwise. God works in mysterious ways, doesn’t he? Though you haven’t been in my life long, and not always happily, it’s been your very existence that has propelled me into a serenely spiritual life, even happiness. I never would have done the work necessary to reach this place without your inspiration.
You are my child, my teacher. As I’ve stumbled on this rocky path, my thoughts of you have guided me; they guide me still.
All that I’ve become are gifts from you, my daughter: life lessons, trial by fire. How do I honor you?
“Regardless of cause, history, or contributing factors, feeling guilty about your past role in the development of a teenager’s problem behavior will risk sabotaging your parenting goals. For a more focused relationship with your teenager,
Recognize guilt as negative self-talk that is normal, but that can be managed and stopped.
Acknowledge that a desire for relief from guilt places you at risk for changing the rules, boundaries, and standards that you want followed.
Seek professional counseling or other support to help you act more consistently and proactively, feel better about tough choices, and be less encumbered by what happened in the past.”
Feeling better about tough choices was always my Waterloo. But now I say over and over again that I did the best I could with what I knew. Now that I know better, I can do better. Repeat this mantra over and over again until you believe it.
“My daughter had been hijacked by a devastating disease, and it was stealing my daughter away from herself. We couldn’t help but be swept up in the tumultuous sea of change in my beautiful daughter. She was morphing into a drug-addled stranger.
A new anxiety was building up in me and I developed insomnia. My doctor prescribed a mild sedative, Ambien, to help me get to sleep at night, but it wasn’t always effective as I tossed and turned in bed. If Gene was with me, he didn’t get enough rest either. We were both red-eyed and fatigued on many mornings, but we went to work anyway. My work ethic rubbed off on my partner.
Somehow Annie managed to graduate from George Mason University in 2004 in spite of the methamphetamine and cocaine abuse. She crashed on the sofa in my basement, on and off, oblivious to my attempts to help and support her. She was perilously hooked on those two drugs.
“Annie, what is this white stuff in a bowl on the dryer?” I asked, suspecting the worst, and furious.
“Oh, fuck off, Mom. And don’t you ever dare to touch my stuff again!” she responded with fire in her eyes. That’s right, offense is the best defense.
Was I just a nuisance to her, or was I now the villain in her eyes? I told her to sleep elsewhere and then started going to recovery meetings for families of substance users. But it was difficult for me to grasp most of the concepts in the program. I was, at that point in my life, incapable of admitting that I was powerless over Annie’s disease. Facing that reality was counterintuitive for me. It seemed like I’d be abandoning any attempts to save my own child. After all, had I not been a poor model for her with my own deceptions regarding substance use disorder? With so much self-blame, how could I decide I was powerless now to help her?
There was much for me to learn about substance use disorder: how to properly treat it; how to survive it.
And in trying to survive one of a parent’s worst nightmares, my gratitude to Gene for dedicating every day to helping me get through it…what can I say?
“Enough is enough when the hurt inflicted is greater than the lesson learned.”
I felt that, because I was the mother of an addicted child, I just had to put up with things. But underneath that martyred attitude was a shaky self-esteem that whispered to me, “This is what you deserve. It’s your fault.”
When I recognized the truth of that, I became willing to take up the yoke and start working on myself. After many years of working the steps and arriving at a place of self-love, I no longer hear those voices. I’ve gotten my life back, and concentrate on what I can control in my life.
I give thanks, multitudes of thanks, for what I’ve been given. I’m finally able to celebrate myself. And I’m grateful to my daughter for getting me into recovery.
God Bless Us, Mamas. We do the best we can! Everyone reading this: buy yourself a rose today!
“I’m so grateful I found a way out of sadness, a way to take care of myself each day, and a relationship with the God of my understanding, who will never abandon me. The pain I’ve felt in the past is equal to the measure of joy I feel now.”
That’s quite a mouthful. Whoever wrote those words in “The Forum” is saying that somewhere between despair and happiness she or he did some work, found some answers. For me, anyway, I entered into a state of grace. I quite deliberately let go of my pain, which served no further purpose in my life. The lessons it taught me have been learned. I’ve put my sadness in a back drawer—and replaced it with positive thoughts that keep me motivated to reclaim my life, my remaining loved ones, and keep my heart ticking.
“Oh I hate to write, Marilea. It’s like pulling teeth. And I’m afraid of what I might find.”
“Bingo, girlfriend, that’s the whole point. Discovery. I’ve been writing my heart out for more than a decade, and what I’ve learned about myself in the process could fill a book. In fact, it did. It filled three books and countless essays.”
“Yeah, but you’re a good writer and I’m just a hack.”
“Whoa! There’s all that judgment we keep heaping on ourselves. It doesn’t matter if you write well or not. The work is putting your words on paper. How they are received is also not important. What you do with those words is not important. Just get them out of you and examine what’s on the page. Maybe you will learn something new.”
So my friend and I went back and forth about the value of writing. She said she’d get back to me.
But I learned many things about myself from reading my early writing. I learned that I was extremely angry and judgmental toward my daughter. How could she be behaving so badly? And then I wrote about my own youth and realized that we were mirror images of each other.
Discovery.
I learned that I needed to be in the rooms as much as my daughter, if not more, because there were two of us who were sick. And that was the beginning of my healing. My words on the page stood out like red flags everywhere. That’s when I stopped being so angry or judgmental. If I could forgive myself for my sick soul and the behavior it reflected, I could certainly forgive my daughter. And that smoothed the way for her to come back to her family when she was ready.
Our lives rarely enjoy Hollywood endings. My story has not ended well for my daughter. But my writing has helped me cope with that too. The two of us might have fallen down the rabbit hole and never returned. But the catharsis I experienced from being honest on the page has freed me to look beyond my daughter and see my life in perspective. I have a wonderful life, surrounded by people I love. And though I miss my daughter and feel the loss of her every day, I can transform my grief into something positive: joy and gratitude for all that’s left in my life. This book, Opening Our Hearts, Transforming our Losses, is a great resource for those who don’t know what to do with their grief. Take a look.
“All my children had finished college and had spread their wings. Caroline lived in San Francisco, and Carter was about to leave for Austin to get his master’s. But Annie was still living in the area, utterly transformed by the disease of substance use disorder. I bore witness, close-up, to unbelievable changes in her character, shocking new behaviors, as I experienced a mother’s bewildering sadness and grief. I felt sometimes, like going to bed and staying there.
Exploding into my living room a year later with a pit bull and an overflowing suitcase, her eyes were blood red as she pleaded with me.
‘Mom, help me. I can’t do this anymore!’
Of course I’ll help you, my darling girl. We’ll arrange for another rehab, and I know it will work this time.
‘Annalise,’ I told her without giving her a choice, ‘I’m taking you to Arlington Hospital. They can help you there. Where is your car? How did you get here?’
‘My car was stolen. I got a ride here,’ she said, looking toward the door, wild-eyed. ‘Please get me out of here. I need help.’
‘Honey, it’ll be okay,’ I offered. ‘I’m sure they’ll give you something to calm you in the hospital.’
Thank God Gene was living with me then and happened to be home.
‘Gene,” I was trembling, ‘you need to take Dante to the animal shelter in Alexandria. I’m sure they’ll find a home for him.’ I wasn’t sure of that at all, but it helped Annie say goodbye to her dog.
I got in the car with her and drove the short distance away, illegally parking right at the entrance. The staff checked her in to the psych ward. As I turned to leave, Annie suddenly approached me, panicked. Of course she was afraid. She was putting herself in a situation where she would have to stop abusing drugs as long as she was there.
‘Annie,’ warmly offering her a hug, ‘Gene and I will visit you every day. And Dad and Paula will come over from Georgetown, too. Just try to get better. We all love and miss you so much.’
She turned away from me and followed the nurse. The door to the psych ward slammed behind her. It only opened in one direction. She was locked in.
And I was locked out. I still couldn’t accept the fact that Annie was a runaway train—and I couldn’t stop the wreckage. It was October, 2007, my favorite time of year. But I was blind to the autumn beauty all around me. The world appeared bleak and colorless.
After I got home, I repeated Psalm 23 over and over again: ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…’
I was praying as hard as I could. But not hard enough.
Total Wine wasn’t far from my condo. I popped in there for an economy-size bottle of Chardonnay, not even waiting for the change. The twist-off cap let me start right there in the parking lot. Once again I felt rattled and sick with worry. Alcohol was how I was finding my courage more and more in those days. The courage to watch my daughter fall into the rabbit hole of substance use disorder and be helpless to stop her.
Mirror, mirror…I was following her down that hole.
By the time Gene returned from taking Annie’s dog to the shelter, I’d finished about half of the bottle, was terribly drunk, dizzy, and sprawled on the sofa, wailing out loud.
‘I’ll never do this again, make me promise! This is the last time!’
