A daughter of addicted parents wrote to me: I still struggle with the pain of what it’s like to live with and love addicts. I still struggle with issues of anger and despair over all of the ‘what if’s’ and ‘what could have been’s’ that circle around and around in my mind. But it is always cathartic to hear other people’s tales of their battles with this disease – whether they’re the addict or love someone who is. It reminds me that I’m not alone.
My reflection: There are millions of us affected by this disease, either directly as addicts or those of us who love them. That’s why groups like AA and Al-Anon work. There, I found friendship and a lifeline. In our stories, I found compassion and support. I found that I was not alone.
Today’s Promise to consider: It’s easy to isolate and sink into deep suffering when facing addiction. It took me years before I finally sought help in Al-Anon. My ego got in the way. I didn’t want people to know about my family’s problem, and I didn’t want to break my silence. Today, I will accept the help of others. In return, I will reach out my hand to help. No one has to be alone.
A mother wrote to me: I bailed him out and fixed it all. I finally went to Families Anonymous and Nar-Anon and realized I didn’t cause the addiction and I can’t change it – only my son can do that and, by enabling so much, I was doing him more harm than good. 
Our beloved Dr. MacAfee said: For the addict, an opening to recovery appears when the pain of maintaining the fiction becomes greater than the pleasure the drugs provide.
At a spiritual retreat, I heard this story: An old man told his grandson, “My son, there is an endless battle that goes on inside all of us. It is between two wolves. One wolf is bad – he is anger, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, resentment, lies, superiority and ego. The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
A friend and mom of adult children, who battle addiction, wrote to me: Today I stay out of my kids’ business. I work a wonderful 12-step program, have a sponsor, and am a sponsor. Today my God is first in my life and I start every morning by asking, “What is Your will for me today?” I can hear my God talk to me clearly because I kicked out the ladies in the attic.
Tara Brach, Buddhist teacher and clinical psychologist, explained the Buddhist saying No Mud, No Lotus: We wake up through the circumstances of our life, and the gift is that when it gets really hard you have to dig very, very deep into your being to find some sense of where love and peace and freedom are. Freedom is our capacity to be openhearted in the midst of whatever is unfolding.
A friend told me that her partner often said these words above. Even through his depression and addiction, he was well aware that people said things to him that were insincere. There were times when a family member said, “I love you. I’m here for you,” but they never contacted him again.
A mother wrote to me: My son is a recovering alcoholic, but he doesn’t know how to live in recovery. Sure, he knows that he can’t drink or hang out at parties, but it’s tough for him. He was used to having drinks with his brothers and friends. When they were young, my husband and I had parties where there was drinking. Now I wish I had never drunk in front of my kids. We are a big football family, so I don’t have to tell you what Sundays are like around this town. Very hard for a recovering addict.
My son recently told me, The biggest realization for me came about one year in when it suddenly struck me that my life was full to the brim in a way I didn’t think possible in the absence of drugs and alcohol. Before I got clean, I saw sobriety as the end of good times and of the refuge I’d come to depend on. Just the opposite was true.
A mother wrote to me: My son is 27, in a halfway house, and on the methadone program. I don’t know how it happened. He taught himself to program in Linux as an eighth-grade student, before Linux was available on the market. He read books with thousands of pages on Solaris and other programs. As a precocious young man, at 18 he worked as a programmer and systems administrator. His skill brought in huge paychecks, which quickly became paychecks to drug dealers.
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