Dear Daughter

Dear Daughter,

How is your weekend going?  Mine was really nice.

We took your daughter out last night to a Halloween event and she had so much fun!  So hard to believe she is a teenager now. 

As we walked around in the dark at the event with the ghoulish atmosphere of Halloween all around us, I imagined you with us sharing in such a fun time.  How great it would have been to see you walking with us and having her cling to you when she got scared, as she did me. 

When took lots of photos as we always do to save them as a memory.

That night we stopped for burgers and as we ate I opened my phone and brought up the pictures we took.  Your daughter looks so much like you.  Smiling over the pictures and seeing her stare at them, I wonder if she images too how great it would have been if her Mommy was in those photos with us.  Remembering your smile and laugh and wishing so that you could be.

How did you spend your night last night?  Did you light up your meth pipe and deeply inhale and get high?  Did you pour yourself glass after glass of liquor so you can feel good all over?

When I stop to think of you now and what you might be doing, those are the images that come into my mind.  Making all your problems go away so that you don’t have to remember that your new family is a white rock that you crush up and smoke and a bottle called whatever.

Well, we are living our lives and enjoying each day.  Wish you could tell your new family they suck and goodbye and come join us.  We are praying each day to God that one day that will happen.

Love you today and always my daughter.  Miss you!

Mom

DO YOU HEAR THAT? IT'S LIFE AND IT'S CALLING YOU BACK!

TIME TO GET WITH THE PROGRAM!

Helpful tips to help you stop enabling:

1. Stop feeling like the victim and feeling sorry for yourself. Get off the pity pot and change your way of thinking. If you are in a constant state of misery and it is leading you to feel more and more depressed each day, then take care of yourself and go seek professional help. YOU are important too. No one is going to get yourself out of the rut you are in but YOU. Your loved one’s abusing drugs or alcohol may have taken you down that road of feeling miserable, but remember…there is a way out. You need to make the choice of heading in the healthy direction OUT, or staying where you are now. 

2. STOP providing the cushioned life …let your loved one experience their own consequences for their behavior.
By stepping back and letting them face it alone, it doesn’t mean you have stopped loving them. You are loving them the most because it may be just what they need to experience to realize that they DO have a problem and need to get help.



3. Make time for YOU! At least once a day, do something special for YOU.

If you love to read, sew, listen to music, bake, walk/jog, dance….whatever…set your mind to doing it. If you haven’t laughed in a long time…you could start there. Find a funny movie and go see it.

Call a friend that just can make you laugh so hard and go have lunch together. If you are sitting around waiting for someone to make it all about you…you might just be waiting a LONG LONG time.


4. GET out of the house!

You might be working three jobs and find solace in coming home to relax, but getting away from the familiar addictive surroundings is one way to modify your lifestyle to promote a healthier well being. Surround yourself with people that are positive….where nothing negative is the topic of the day! Join a group! Go to a craft store if you are creative and sign up for a class or two. There are walking groups, book clubs, dining out clubs…they aren’t going to come to you either, so give it a try. 

ISOLATION...the only thing that is good for is letting life just pass you by each day! 

Start living again!


5. You are not alone you know. You can ask for help. There are people all over the world that know exactly how you are feeling. Some of them have found a way to cope and have their lives back. People are there to provide you with just the support you need. All you have to do is ask for help.




Al-anon groups can provide you with that help. You can also seek support from your clergy as well as family counseling that specializes in addiction.
You don’t have to choose to be alone.

Only YOU can change YOU!

YOU just have to find the courage.

Once you do, you are on your way to experiencing Serenity.



Life can be enjoyed again. It was meant to be!

Do this for YOU!



IT STINKS AND SO FRUSTRATING!

You know what really stinks?

My daughter is an adult in her thirties and has a beautiful thirteen year old daughter that is a gift from God, and her life is so messed up from addiction, mental instabilities, and bad relationships that it has clouded her vision so badly she is unable to see that life is passing her by along with sharing in all the blessings of watching this beautiful young lady grow up.

SO FRUSTRATING, but more so sad than anything.  

As a Mom you never stop loving, you never stop dreaming that a day will come when they have had enough and decide to get help and turn their life around.

Addiction is such a powerful disease.  It masks who they are to us as well as to themselves.  The addict is in constant incognito until finally they have are mentally convinced that they do not have a problem...YOU do.

Families are torn apart and years past with a great emptiness.  If we do too much to help them; we are wrong.  If we don't do enough to help them; we are not only wrong but find it difficult to deal each day with that huge serving of guilt that we have failed as parents.

Then, you are sitting alone one day with exhausted from worry and heartbreak staring out onto the beautiful day outside and you realize that addiction is not only robbing your loved one of the full wonderful life they should be enjoying, it has also robbed you of good days that should be filled with joy and happiness.

I had enough.  I did not stop loving and will never stop caring.  I just want to live again. 

Addiction will not beat me down anymore.  Each breath that I take is a blessing and I will live to enjoy each day.  I will cherish every moment with this beautiful gift of a child and watch her grow.  I will be the parent that she needs so badly in her life.

My daughter may die from this disease.  That will be her choice.  She has a good brain and free will and many offers have been handed to her to get help.  She knows where I am if she wantst to get help.  She once had the tools in her toolbox from going to treatment before and living in sober living to know what needs to be done. 

I am at peace knowing that it is okay to let go.  I trust in my God and have put her life in His hands.  My worries I have given to Him.  My prayers of hope will never cease.  My faith keeps that hope present.

SUGGESTIONS TO PARENTS OF ADULT CHILDREN THAT ARE ADDICTS OR ALCOHOLICS ON HOW TO MOVE ON WITH YOUR LIVES

As the mother of an active addict/alcoholic, I am sharing some suggestions on moving YOURSELF forward when your ADULT child is an addict or alcoholic that is actively using.  Why?  Well, I have found a way out of the insanity of being controlled by my daughter's addiction, and if you are going through anything that I went through, then I would like to share the knowledge that I have obtained with you because I believe every family member should be educated in knowing that YOUR life does not need to cease to exist because your loved one's addiction is destroying THEIR life and it doesn't have to destroy yours.

1.      Get support for YOU by attending Al-anon Meetings. 

2.      Don’t give up after going to your 1^st Al-anon meeting.  Try a few and give it a month.

3.      Stop enabling

a.  Stop making excuses for their behavior.

b.  Let them clean up their own messes (that includes getting bailed out of jail due to being under the influence)

c.  If they are back living in your home due to finances, give them a timeline and follow through with it.

                   i.    Get a job

                   ii.   Seek out the help of a professional and get counseling

                   iii.  You’re the “land-lord” of your home to them, which should not include doing their laundry, washing their dishes, making their bed, and fixing them their meals.

   d.  Have them SIGN an agreement to live in your home listing the rules to follow.  Include in the rules that if they want to live in your home, they need to attend meetings with an AA /NA Group, Outpatient Treatment for their addiction including follow-up, and/or seeking the help of a therapist that specializes in addiction that can provide professional counseling for their addiction as well as other mental disorders that need to be addressed.  Have a bottom line.  If they do not follow through to get help for their addiction and their addictive behavior continues to stay active, let them know they have a limited time period to find alternative living arrangements and stick to it.

4.  If they are attending meetings and living a sober life-style and you are also getting the support you need through Al-anon or a family counselor, then you should not be taking their inventory.  If you are…STOP.

a.  Don’t ask them if they are going to meetings.

b.  Don’t ask them when they are going to quit smoking.  They gave up drinking or drugs….one thing at a time.

c.  Don’t advise them on what they should be doing in their recovery program.  It’s THEIR program….just focus on yours.

5. If they refuse to get help and continue to choose to live a destructive lifestyle using drugs or alcohol then you need to give them bottom lines. Some examples include:

a. “If you do not get help for your addiction, you must leave this home and find somewhere else to live.”

b. “If you do not get help for your addiction, the car that I am making payments for that you drive will no longer be accessible to you.”

c.  “If you do not get help for your addiction, the cell phone that I am paying for will be shut off.”

d.  “If you do not get help for your addiction, you will no longer be welcome in our home.”

e.  “If you do not get help for your addiction, when you call me I will not speak to you unless you want to talk about getting help.”

6.  Once a loved one agrees to get help, your support can kick in 100%.  Don’t support the addiction, only the recovery.  Until we get support and help in seeing that our own enabling and co-dependent behavior needs to also change, we are unable to see that full blown enabling is not helping them; it is a way in which we love them to death.  You can’t love them back to sobriety.  You can’t fix this.  You can’t control it.  Addiction is a disease.  When someone is an addict, deep down inside they know they need help but the addiction is so strong it craves that fix; that drink, that food, that ultimate HIGH of whatever it is that will provide them with euphoria.  The addict is slick, it can let you see your loved one as that loving beautiful vulnerable child that needs your love and will beg for you to give them one more chance promising they will change.  You let them stay, or you allow them back in.  Nothing changes.  No meetings, no counseling, same old lifestyle.  You fell for it.  The cycle continues.  This is what is known as loving them to death.  You refuse to label your loved one with the disease of addiction.  In your mind you believe you can fix them by just LOVING them.  That’s all they need right?  WRONG.  The addict knows your weakness and you will fall prey to them over and over again.  How’s that working for you?



Get this image out of your head!  While they are partying
 up a storm somehow someone orders some pizza,
 they crash and everyone wakes up the next day
and it starts all over until the money runs out. 
Then they call you because they know
 you are going to fall for their bullshit story.



   7. Don’t live in fear of Letting them Go.  So many parents feel that by giving their “ADULT” child that is an alcoholic or addict the bottom lines when they do not get help for their addiction that it will kill them.  How will they survive?  Where will they live?  What will they eat?  How will they get money?  Are you kidding me?  If they need a drink or fix bad enough, believe me they get it.  If they are slick enough to get their “high”, why do you not think it possible for them to survive?  Crashing on couches on crack houses, or on the floor passed out in some strangers’ apartment after drinking all night, sleeping in their car because that is all they have are some possibilities.  Horrifying right?  What would you choose for them?  A comfy room and freedom to come and go through your front door anytime they feel like just so you have them in your life!  Pretty selfish of you, isn’t it.  They need consequences not comfortability.  Again…your choosing to love them to death is something you need to clearly accept as an attribute of strengthening their addiction.

OKAY, so I am wrong about all of this right?  Your way is the right way.  They just need love.  They have mental issues and dual disorders that led them to become addicts or alcoholics and they need love and acceptance.  They will get help when they are ready.  You can’t force someone to get help, they have to want it.  “I am not going to turn my back on my own child and throw them out when they are at their lowest!”  “I will love them so they do not feel abandoned!”  “They will do this when they are ready!”  “Twelve step programs are too organized and bogus, and their structure is intimidating!  I will just pray the addiction away my way!”

Addiction has been around forever.  Today there are professionals around the world that have done all the studies and agree on what works.  I compare this to all the diets out there.  You can try any one of them, but if you are not committed to changing your lifestyle of eating and exercising to live a healthier life then of course you are not going to lose weight.  You can’t sit on the sofa all day with a bag of “low fat” potato chips and a diet soda and watch an exercise video and expect to lose weight.  If you are not making a life changing commitment each day of your life to stay healthy, then it will fail.  You could be all gung ho for three or four months and loose ten or twenty pounds, but if you wake up one morning and feel really lazy and say “Oh hell, I am so hungry for a big stack of pancakes with lots of butter and syrup today.  Can’t hurt to cheat a little!”  You make your big stack and smear them will butter and syrup to the point where you are drooling it looks so good.  You sit and place that first big forkful of that hot, buttery and sweet delight in your mouth and savor the deliciousness as you chew, not realizing your eyes are rolling into the back of your head.  Within minutes you are strapping the butter and syrup left on your plate with your finger and then sticking that finger into your mouth so you complete the memory of that meal with the smile of…euphoria.  What is a proven fact is that to lose weight and to keep it off, it requires more than watching what you eat.  You need to stay active as well as finding out what may be the underlying reason you are overeating.  Seeking the help from a professional that can help you determine that, can assist a person in achieving success in overcoming the barrier that was preventing them from living a the healthiest life they were meant to be living.  Why the cravings are there and how to deal with them.

Nothing really can be successful
unless hard work is the driver behind it.

Cravings are always there for the addict.  Not changing their lifestyle and staying committed to a sober lifestyle is short-lived and doomed for relapse.  NO matter how one chooses to obtain sobriety, if they do not have a commitment to staying sober EACH and EVERY day, relapse is inevitable.  Support is key.  AA/NA meetings, having a sponsor, and knowing what to do and where to go when they are weakened by cravings.

Some people can just quit cold turkey.  DONE!  “I said no more drinking and that was fifteen years ago.  I did it without AA!  My family supported, prayed and loved me and never abandoned me.  I did it!”



Without tools on how to cope,
 is this really possible?



Congratulations for you!  Do me a favor though, process what you want to convey first before you type your mantra for the World Wide Web to read?  How are you really staying sober?  Did you pray the addiction away?  Did your family love it away?  Or, are you making a commitment each day to yourself?  What else is involved?  Have YOU changed your lifestyle?  Are you comfortable sitting in a nightclub watching a crowd of people drink?  Does being there smelling the alcohol not make you uncomfortable?  OR…do you no longer frequent bars and clubs because you made that commitment to yourself?  Do you still hang out with the same friends that you got high with?  Are you comfortable being with them as they sit around and get high?  OR, have you moved on and made new friends?  Your loved ones praying for you or continuing to love you are all wonderful and encouraged, but what is really responsible for the addict/alcoholic STAYING sober?

Some people are able to do it without treatment or help.  That is great.  It still takes a personal commitment on their part to stay sober each day. 

No you can’t force anyone to go to treatment.  Yes, they do have to want it for them for it to work.  BUT…don’t shoot down advice on this process unless you have a clinical license or credentials after your name on which you can prove that intervening on an individual and getting them into treatment may not be a lifesaving experience.  Should this not be the case, treatment centers would not exist.  Treatment centers would not support the thousands of dedicated interventionists that devote their lives to helping families get their loved one help for their life destroying addiction.  When a family is broken down and doesn’t have any idea on how to help their loved one get sober, they seek help because they realize what they have been doing is not working.  Getting the help from a professional to assist families to move in a healthy direction for themselves and also to get their loved one help is the most loving act a family can do. 

The loved one might not go.  They may not be ready to go.  They may refuse to get help.  What does happen though is the right professional will have educated the family on how to move forward with the process that will not continue to weaken them, and if they follow the advice that is provided, results will occur.  If they do not and retreat back to letting the addict or alcoholic run the show, that power is in control and the addiction remains active and continues to destroy not only the addict, but the family.

Everyone that struggles or whose life is impacted by addiction should seek help.  Al-anon, AA, NA and/or family counseling that specializing in addiction are avenues that can provide that support to move YOU out of an unhealthy lifestyle and back to enjoying the life you are meant to be living.

I am NOT a professional.  I do NOT have clinical credentials after my name.  My daughter IS an active drug user and alcoholic and has been for almost twelve years.  What I do know is that before seeking the help of Al-anon, I was loving my daughter to death by enabling her.  She knows I love her, but more importantly she knows I do NOT support her addiction. 

I have also seen my daughter when she was sober and working the 12 step program and she knows too what works to achieve sobriety.  We discuss this and at times she reflects back to when she was healthy and how she wishes she could get that back again, but want is holding her back is the knowing that achieving that will take hard work on her part and that is what is holding her back now.  She is living in a warm home with her boyfriend and getting all her needs met.  Sleeping all day, using all night and no worries.  This lifestyle feeds the addiction and allows it to stay in control.  What weakens the addiction?  When she calls me and tells me how much she misses her family.  When she calls and asks for money and I say I do not have any.  When she calls and says she is lonely and I talk to her and give her resources of getting help and that I am there if she wants to get it.  Yes, it is sad and breaks my heart that she is not accepting help for her addiction, but I will not let her back into our lives as an active drug addict.  Allowing her to be hear her young daughter knowing she used.  Some may say that all she may need is to feel loved again and just need the support of her family around to change.  If that worked, wouldn’t that be the way to go people?  Wouldn’t that be publicized as the cure?  Why isn’t it then?  It isn’t because it has been proven not to work and last.  Short lived.  Addiction is a disease and you can’t love it away.

They say that Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.  I describe insanity as when you do the same thing over and over again and it prevents you from living YOUR full life the way it is meant to be lived.

I am not a professional.  I am not criticizing to be hurtful to anyone that may have obtained success in another way.   I am only offering guidance to move someone from an unhealthy place in their life to a healthier place that can provide tools to allow that healthy lifestyle to endure and continue each day.  I was working harder than my daughter was on her addiction.  She had to do this for her.  I have to do what I need to do for me.

http://lovefirst.net/wpt/12-step-resources/

http://www.promises.com/articles/addiction-recovery/addiction-recovery-the-negative-effects-of-not-letting-go/

"OH BOTHER" said Pooh

I type.

I backspace and remove

I type again

I backspace and remove again.

All the words that I want to say have to disappear because if I truly say what is in my heart, I will be criticized and criticism is so very painful to hear when your intentions were only for the good.  It leaves one to think, "Why even bother to share my thoughts on anything.  I have to watch and be careful so I don't offend someone that may be offended by something that they find offensive that really wasn't meant to be offensive at all!"

Oh bother! said Pooh; as I recall he always said that best.

You can know how to do something so well and your feelings of wanting to share that with the rest of the world just sends surges of happiness and ambition through your veins.  Then you compose it all and hit the "send" "publish" "post" or whatever button that will sent all those well thought out typed words you so carefully chose to express a humbling and loving antidote for anyone out there interested that like you experienced the same phenomenon in this life, and in a blink of an eye that paragraph or for that matter two or three, materialize like magic having traveled through the megabyte galaxy of the Internet into the formats of reception created in multitudes upon multitudes around the globe as published text on some social media parking place that you are a signed in member of.

Seconds past and there is a feeling I believe that all of us experience after clicking on that button of wonder that sends our typed message out, where we are fascinated that we actually achieved the courage to click it and make it happen followed by, too late now what's done is done.

The stare comes next.  Reading it over.  Sounds good and even thought spell check didn't catch a few grammar errors that now seem to be magnifying themselves right before your eyes, you do hope that all the replies comes back as positive. 

Well, if there were billions of people in this world that thought exactly like you did, the chances of that happening would be 100%, but part of you does begin to prepare yourself for the replies that will come back that may not seem as favorable as you would hope.

Then there are those that did not use keyboards to type their words.  They used little knives that were sharpened by years and years of resentment that are etched so deeply with harsh criticism that as you read that heartless reply, you clutch your throat and with index and thumb you draw any clothing in that area close together to hind your jugular so not to expose it for chance that the author may jump out through your built in camera in one animated swoop closely related to a scene out of Roger Rabbit and gnaw at you like the doe like prey that you are.

For all the hundreds of compassionate replies that praise you for your guided and loving words accompanied by encouragement that had your emotional spirit soaring in the stratosphere of highest regard and appreciation filling you with sustenance to believe you actually have the ability to help others, that marshmallow world of sweet wonder is torched in seconds by the fiery arrow lit and fueled by the author of the cynical resentful reply. 

PLOP.  Downward you land and the fall bruises your ego to the point that you retreat and again comes that blank stare at the screen.  Type words.  Backspace...remove words.  Thinking....signing off.  Shut down.

Pooh Bear...Oh bother!

Searching for sweet satisfying honey is all worth it.  You betcha Pooh.

Getting off the Pity Pot and Back to Living Life

Why does God bless some people with more than others? How come some people never have any crisis in their lives? When is all of this suffering going to end? Haven’t I been through enough? I used to speak aloud those questions all the time.

My favorites used to be:

“God, enough already okay? I can’t take much more of this! Please enough!” Followed by, “Why are you doing this to me God?”

Then I stopped questioning because I started listening. When I slowed down to listen I heard the answers. When I stopped focusing just on me and my problems, I was able to find hope all around me.

What is she talking about you might ask? No, I am not a religious fanatic, and that may be okay for some people. I do not hear voices or see visions. I just have surrendered and said, “Enough. I can’t do this by myself anymore. I need you God. I will do anything. Please help me.”

I let it go. I gave all my power over to God because I can’t fix this. I can’t cure it and I can’t control it.

The affluent are blessed with more, but does that make them content and happy? Who am I to think that their lives have more blessings that mine? Now I can wake up each day feeling like the wealthiest person on earth because of all the blessings in my life. I just wasn’t aware of them before.

Everyone has crisis in their lives not just me and my crisis is not the worse or the biggest. I just thought that way because I was carrying it all on my own shoulders and never asked for help.

Suffering is all over and felt by everyone in different measures. We are human. We are not invincible. Although, now I realize that when I was doing all that “suffering”, I don’t recall being hooked up to life support or unable to eat without a feeding tube. I was not lying in any hospital bed with no hair going through chemo treatments. Opening up my heart to those around me allowed me to feel the pain far greater than I could ever imagine and upon doing so, I am now able to put others before me when I pray.

Enough. Yes, I had enough of the old me. The old me that refused to do anything different; a woman that was not willing to change.

Then I Let go Let God. Took things One day at a time. Took a new approach to life by Taking baby steps each day. Decided to stop making things so complicated and instead changed to Keeping it simple. Turning my will over to God each day. I accepted that there are things I just cannot change, and found the Courage to change the things I can and to pray for the wisdom to know the difference.

Today I am grateful because I feel just as blessed each day no matter if miracles are pouring down all around me or when the darkest days and nights hover over me casting shadows of nothing more than gloom. Gratitude for having another day and not wasting it on anything negative.

Life is a beautiful gift and I want to live it every day!

Morning and End of Day

MORNING AND END OF DAY

There are two times of the day that complex me.  Morning when I am first beginning my day, and just when I am ready to retire.

When I wake, I am grateful for another day and then one of first thoughts is for my daughter.  She has relapsed again and has been living in a basement with her boyfriend.  He self-medicates himself for his turrets with God knows what.  My daughter confessed to me about a year ago that she was using meth.  

I lie there with my eyes closed at first thinking about her and in my mind I am thinking..."maybe today will be the day she accepts help."  My heart weighs heavy on me as I go about my morning routine which includes getting my grand-daughter up and ready for school.  My daughter abandoned her daughter about four years ago for drugs and alcohol and has been living in  my home with my husband and I.  As I watch this beautiful child get ready she fills my day with joy and it is from that joy that lightens my heart.  For that I am grateful.

Then there is the end of my day.  I have worked all day, driven in rush hour traffic both ways to work, come home and prepare dinner, run to bring my grand-daughter to gymnastics on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and watch a little TV with my husband and her before it is time to drag myself to bed.  

Again I lie there with my eyes closed and thoughts of the day swirl through my mind.  In the other room I can hear my grand-daughter singing in the shower and then on her way to her room she passes my door and tells me goodnight and that she loves me.  After telling her good-night back, I smile and think of how blessed my life is.  Then I think of my daughter.  I wonder what she did today.  Is she using right now?  Thinking what she had for dinner.  Is she lying in her bed depressed and lonely like she tells me she does most days and nights.  I picture her lying there with that ridiculous boyfriend hovering over her in their basement and my smile fades.  

This is the hardest time of my day.  Then I pray.  As I pray to God for the blessing of the day and my family, I ask God to bless and watch over my daughter and to come into her heart and mind and fill her with the strength and passion to get help so she can enjoy life again with her daughter.  My prayers clear my mind and after my Amen, I am able to fall into slumber and rest.

Another day filled with hope.  Another night blessed with peace.

I am not forcing my loved one to get help.  Tried that and it failed.  I am there for my daughter and reach out to her with love to get help.  What that help may be has yet to be determined.  I am just praying that one day, my prayer will be answered and she reaches for my outstretched hand and accepts and wants it for "her".