Those of you who've been around here for a while know my second oldest son is an addict. He's been in recovery now a couple years...the longest run of sobriety he's had in 15 years. I'm active in my local Nar-Anon group, and also belong to an online Nar-Anon forum and those groups saved my sanity when I was so emotionally sick from my son's addiction. I posted the following on my Nar-Anon forum, and will be sharing it tonight at my face to face meeting. I wanted to share it here too, because y'all have been so kind and thoughtful to let me talk here about my son and his addiction. :::::::::::::: A couple Christmases ago, I thought my son was dead. I had been preparing myself to receive news of his death since he disappeared several months prior and hit the streets as a homeless, unemployed, crazed man in full blown, heavy addiction. For years before that, he'd been circling the drain, and as his addiction got worse (and each time I didn't think it could get any worse, but it did) I watched helplessly as he lost job after job, becoming financially destitute and crazy, delusional, hallucinatory. He OD'd several times, had seizures in my home and I had to call 911 to have him transported. He was jailed numerous times, lost the right to see his children, had warrants and probation violations and charges stacking up, and was dodging the cops and his probation officer. He became ill, gaunt and sallow and so skinny his clothes just hung on him. He became someone I no longer knew and barely recognized physically, and didn't like at all. I loved my son but actively and vehemently hated the addict. I had lost hope of ever finding him again, and that's when I turned to Nar-Anon. I'd like to say it was an enlightened decision, but no, it was born out of a hopeless, helpless, desperate apathy. Hope is a powerful thing. It can carry us through the worst of times, and spur us on in the best of them. Hope isn't an expectation, which is more like an assumption. Hope is a wish, a desire. It's gentle, and spirit lifting, and doesn't assume anything. In this Season particularly, when loving our addicts sometimes seems a huge challenge and a very difficult thing to do, hope is balm to a troubled heart. My son and I were chatting back and forth yesterday. Yes, that same son who I thought was dead a while back. Nothing of consequence, just simple things about Christmas lists and schedules. At one point, he mentioned a shovel and that the day before, he'd wanted to send me a picture of one. I laughed, and asked him to explain. "Because Mom, I looked down in my hand and I had a shovel. It hit me hard. MY shovel (I was leveling out our gravel driveway), and it came out of MY garage. The garage attached to MY house , wherein my family sat, enjoying tv or tablets or food or whatever. I just looked around (I was standing in my shed/workshop/garage,) and was blown away by how far I've come, to simply be holding a yard tool in my hand and finally be able to pat myself on the back. It's stupid, I know. But in that moment, I just hoped you'd be proud of me. I give you hope. My son will always be an addict, I get that. But today he's sober, he's good, he's happy and healthy and a responsible, solid, loved and loving family man. And so just for today I'm celebrating, and holding that close to my heart, holding HIM close. And reveling in the joy and happiness his life brings me. Just for today I'm allowing myself to look into the future with hope in my heart, just for today I DO have expectations and dreams and goals for him that encompass the years ahead. Just for today I am opening my heart unconditionally to feeling the heady wonderment his sobriety brings. Tomorrow I'll reel it back in and return to my routine of having no expectations and remaining fully and completely in the moment, with the full knowledge that my son will always be an addict. I am strong enough in my program to know that will always be the case, that he is only ever one use, one choice away from going down that road again. But I am proud of my son beyond words, and so just for today I'm going to bask in his win, enjoy the light that his success brings to my life, and shift my focus to him. Just for today.
What a moving piece of writing Ronni. Have you let your son read it by any chance? I think he'd be as proud of his mum as you are of him. I wish you both a wonderful future together enjoying each other to the full without any worries about him sliding backwards.
So eloquent Ronni......your love for your son and his for you shines through. Thank you for being so honest on this forum. Seasons good wishes to you all.....
