The ripples of an addiction can capsize the addictís family. One mother, a
resident of Valparaiso who wishes to remain anonymous, on keeping her head
How do you weigh feelings of anguish when you tried to do everything right
but things went so wrong? . . .
Of course there is guilt. Did we do something wrong? Did we not do enough?
We thought we knew all the warning signs. We thought we would know beyond a
shadow of a doubt if our children used drugs, but we never really thought
they would. After all, we raised them better than that. But this has to be
somebodyís fault, so it must be ours. . . .
Holidays, birthdays, weddings, graduations, and everything in between are
not the same anymore, because either the addict child is away in treatment
or possibly incarcerated or the addict child hasnít been home in the past
few days. Itís not only their presence that is missed, itís the thought that
the child would be graduating from college right now or this would possibly
be their wedding to plan if it hadnít been for the drugs. . . .
Whatever the cycle of addiction, your family is in turmoil. Life has
revolved around the addict child. Other childrenís needs havenít always been
met because of the crisis of the moment. Mothers and fathers deal with the
situation sometimes separately and all relationships within the family
suffer. Parents tend to be very suspicious of their other children and their
friends now. The other children resent the implication. They are not only
embarrassed by the behaviors of their addict sibling, but are very angry for
what they see their parents are going through because so-and-so was so
stupid to even use drugs and life as this family knew it was sucked from
everyone. . . .
You awake every morning and then reality hits. You try to fall asleep at
night with a heavy heart. But you do give thanks for the many blessings you
have and hold tight to your partner, because you are trying to weather the
storm together and you still have hope because your child is alive and this
gives you strength to ride the rollercoaster of emotions again tomorrow.