A young woman wrote to me: Libby, something important struck me when I read this line you wrote  – ‘My child’s addiction is not against me. He is trapped in the disease and, although it doesn’t always look like it, he loathes the life he is living.’ If I replace child with father, this is one of the most impactful and life-altering realizations that helped me heal my relationship with my dad. I saw that he was trapped in a disease rather than deliberately choosing drugs over family.

My reflection: Addiction’s tentacles strangle all of us: children, brothers, sisters, parents, and loved ones. We, as a recovering community, have an obligation to reach out our hands to all those impacted from the effects of this disease.

Today’s Promise: Children of addicted parents, siblings of addicted children, and all those in pain need our support. Our loved ones are alive, under the drugs. My son once told me, “Society loathes addicts, and addicts loathe themselves.” Today, let us not take addiction personally. Let us face it with compassion and take it out of the shadows and into the light where it can be healed.