Here are a few short musings about our experience and learnings. No matter where you are in parenting or loving someone addicted to drugs these might be something to consider when you are alone.
When you were using the drugs it wasn't personal against us, it was the disease.
When you were mean to others it wasn't you, it was the disease.When you stole things from us and others it was a symptom of your disease.
When you lied to us it was a symptom of the disease.
When you would disappear for days it was to escape the pain, a symptom of the disease.
When we demanded you stop using by screaming and pleading it was us not understanding the disease.
When we kicked you out in the cold with just the clothes on your back it was us ignorant of the disease.
When we withheld our love because you hurt us, it was us not working to help you with your disease.
I don't write these as excuses. These are facts along with countless others not written here. From my point of view some of these build a foundation to consider the horror of current events or the shame of past events.
We can't just turn off the feelings and emotions experienced by the trauma of loving an addict. My method of dealing with the PTSD is working to continuously learn from my past experiences. For each us this may be different. However, healing doesn't just simply wash over you one day. Each of us must continuously work on our own healing as we see fit and need.
4 comments:
Hello,
I've been away from blogging for awhile. I was following your blog years ago and found it to be very relatable. Since that time I went back to school and studied Chemical Dependency and worked in the field as an RN for a few years then went on a mission to Africa for almost 2 years. I'm currently writing a memoir. My son has been sober almost 10 years, married a wonderful woman and they are expecting their first baby. I am surprised to see that so many people whose blogs I followed have stopped posting. There are still so many families suffering. Glad to see you are still around.
Melinda,
So happy for you and your son. We are the lucky ones.
I still try to post occasionally. There just is no longer the drama.
Ron
Hello, My son is an addict and we are in crisis right now-he is 29 and my husband is his enabler. We are in financial ruin bc my husband has provided thousands upon thousands of dollars to support our son’s habit-all the while thinking he was helping him “pay rent, pay the electric or water bills” and all along our son didn’t even live in an apartment anymore. My husband was giving his whole paycheck and more, plus our savings wiped out amd i kept telling him that our son was a drug addict-you don’t ask for that kind of money with “emergency things like a flat tire happening every few days! We were alerted by people that he was using and wandered off-spent hours looking for him and yet he walked to our house in middle of the night. Our family is in pieces because he has stolen from us over the years and from his brothers too and lied and manipulated us all! I want to take him to ER to be admitted for detox and then have him go into a residential treatment program due also to his mental illnesses and severe addiction. My husband says our son has to want to do it himself and i understand that but honestly, I think he will overdose before that happens. Is that just the way it is and i have to just accept that my son may already be dying and there is nothing i can do about it? He just doesn’t want to get better-everything is everyone else’s fault but his own-he accepts absolutely no consequences for his actions! This whole disease is horrible and it seems like there is nothing really we can do to stop it or no organization that wants to help bc the addict has to ‘want to do it themseves’! Well, what if they don’t want to do it themselves and want to just use my home as a ‘staging area’ for after using and eventually stealing from us again which laughingly he has stolen most everything now -leave only to find his next drug? And then not knowing where he is only to have him do stuff like this every few weeks, i can’t take it anymore! I just don’t understand anything. If you break a foot, do you not go get it treated? Shouldn’t addiction and mental illness be like that too? What if we saw someone with a horribly broke. Leg? Would we not get them to the ER bc they disn’t want to be treated? I don’t know, it freaking breaks my heart and rhis is the only thing my hisband and i have ever disagreed about and i feel like we are headed for divorce. I just needed to vent, bc there is nothing really i can do. Thanks.
Anonymous, if you need to vent email me with contact info and we can connect.
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