A dad told me, While visiting my son in a halfway house, I was impressed with the community of support around him. “If you feel yourself slipping or getting into the danger zone,” I asked my son, “what should I say to you to help?” He answered, “Nothing. If I need help, I need to reach out to these people around me, who know my walk.” I felt relieved when he said this to me because I just want to be his dad.
My reflection, This dad was grateful when he realized his son was taking responsibility for his recovery by reaching out to his AA or NA community for help. As parents, we put huge pressure on ourselves to solve our children’s problems and lift them from the chaos the drugs create – when in reality, we’re not best suited for the job.
Today’s Promise to consider, For as much as I want to offer my son support and words of wisdom, I admit that the programs of AA and NA are far more helpful in providing access to people who are also on the path of sobriety. I’m just his mom, the person who will always love him.
This is exactly what I am struggling with now……another re-hab, and what should my participation level be right now? My son, who is now 38, has been there 2 weeks…….I really want to just let him know thatI am thinking and praying, and HERE if he needs me…..yet I have not done that. I,m torn…….
As a loving parent I was not equipped to STOP making decision for my addicted child. My life center around always being available to provide yet another path (of my design) to get him back to being the son I expected. This obsession cost me dearly, my business suffered greatly, my marriage was in near collapsed and many family and friends “defriended” me. However, the greatest cost was this, I was inadvertently causing my son to remain in his addiction. I truly believe that. He is likely to have found recovery many years earlier if I had got out of his way and allowed the natural consequence of his actions to define his life. I needed recovery as much as my son. There is a huge recovery community in this country and all I did was reach out and say, “I need help.” A new world opened up to me and I rebuilt my life. My son would one day follow me into recovery and as we both focused on our separate recovery journeys our relationship grew and was strengthened. We became a family again. One void of anger, fear and resentments which were replaced by forgiveness, love and respect. Turn to God and with a pure heart and soul simply say, “I need your help. I am ready, your will, not mine.”
I so appreciate reading these…I am among the thousands of Moms struggling with the feeling of NEEDING to help my son! After the past year and a half of rehab after rehab (7 in all) providing the emotional and financial support, finding the resources of making calls and getting him to rehabs…only to watch him leave to relapse over and over again…I am exhausted emotionally and physically. We got him into yet another rehab with hope 2 weeks ago and only 2 weeks in…he got caught using in the facility. He begged for another chance and was discharged. Now he is 2 hours away in another mission house and begging for money to return to another town where he’s got no one and nowhere to live only to wait for a girl who is in rehab for another 2-4 months. He thinks I abandoned him because I won’t give him money told him to go to meetings, get a job and work a program….he claims he does not need rehab and they are a joke. He feels he can do it on his own….but yet keeps calling to see if we’ll cave into helping with money…..So frustrating and yet I don’t want him to feel abandoned…I tell him I love him and am here to reach out to but our help hasn’t been the answer…..what to do?????Feeling very guilty and pained….I am in therapy which helps…but doesn’t take away the pain of waiting and watching his demise. He is not ready to surrender and I don’t know what else I can do.